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Sunday, February 17, 2013

Waiting for March…

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For the past month my little holiday decoration dedicated location (say that 5 times fast!) has been decked out for Valentines day.

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My mom has made us all (6 kids!) a transitional seasonal wall hanging. She’s making us a new ‘month’ every year for Christmas. This was last years, cute eh? But as of yesterday (Feb. 16th) I am over Valentines… time to move on!

Up next? St. Paddy’s day! Unfortunately, I really don’t have any decorations for this holiday.. so I thought I’d whip something up! I found this DARLING shamrock block at this site & thought I’d give it a try!

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I decided to play with my scraps & throw one together to see how it came out & to practice the block before making the final product. The result? YUCK! Totally not digging it. So I dug out some Celtic Fabric I’ve been hoarding for about 5 years now and…

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Oh yeah… much better!

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Very much loving this one!

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And see all the pretty stitching my sewing machine has? Totally brought the table runner together, giving it a nice finished look!

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Since the runner really is the only ‘St. Patrick’s’ Day decoration I have, I grabbed some random décor/green things from around the house. The white lotus bowl on the left is filled with dried peas (green right?), and the green lotus bowl on the right is filled with wine bottle corks! Add some random bottles (at least one of them is green!) cute tin basket, Dude’s cool driftwood angel, a small vase and a smelly melter & there you have it!

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Let’s not forget this years Christmas present from my mom! Not really St. Paddy’s, but nice and spring feeling & the right color!

 

So “Luck o’ the Irish” to you all, and have a happy St. Patrick’s day!

Monday, January 21, 2013

Fuzzy Baby Blankie!

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I was wandering through Walmart the other day & came across these 50” x 60” fleece blankets for $2.88! I immediately thought of baby blankets… these would be a great backing! So I picked a couple up to make blankies for the pregnant women I know.

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This morning I had the urge for a quilting fix, so I hauled out some random fabrics that matched the polka dot colors of the fleece blanket. I went with plain squares because I wanted a quick easy project I could finish in one day. I also scaled it down to 40” x 40” size.

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The colors seem to go well together! I didn’t use any batting in the quilt, just pieced the top & quilted it directly onto the fleece blanket. This makes it a lighter weight, but still warm blanket. Both pregnant women I know are having spring/summer babies, so these will be the perfect weight!

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I’m happy with the result, and my need for a quilting fix has been fulfilled!

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As a final touch I used the binding from the original blanket to tie it up with… cute!

 

The second baby is going to be a boy… the fleece I bought is sports themed… stay tuned for that one!

Monday, January 14, 2013

I CREATED AN OWL!

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What with the holidays and my new job I haven’t had much time to be crafty lately! Today, I “gave in” to my NEED to create/craft something!

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Meet my felted owl! I need to come up with a name for him… any suggestions? He was inspired by THIS flicker photo…

He’s made out of an old wool sweater, fabric, and wool felt. Cutie!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Quilt Along Star Two

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I am SOOOOOO far behind on the quilt along with my sister over at SewStormy. She’s on Block 8! Ack! I actually finished this block (2) a couple of weeks ago, but life has been very hectic lately & I’m just getting it posted. Once again, I’m using the line ‘Modern Meadow’ by Joel Dewberry. Hopefully I can kick a few more blocks out soon!

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Block 1 (in case you missed it). Go check out SewStormy’s site, the last couple of blocks I’ve never seen before and are very awesome!

Saturday, September 1, 2012

End of Summer Update

Drew found a Dragon in our back yard last week!

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Luckily he and Douglas were able to kill it with their trusty PVC bows and Dowell arrows before it ate us! (Bows and arrows made by our neighbor Richard.. very cool..)

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And then all of a sudden…School Started! Douglas is in 3rd Grade this year! Oh my…

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Camera phone pictures.. not the best quality, but at least I got them! Douglas’ teacher this year is very fun. It’s going to be a good year for him!

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And tonight we had one powerful rain/thunder/lightning storm come through… it was awesome! And the aftermath looked so clean and pretty, I thought I’d get some updated yard pictures taken!

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Front of the house looking West (betcha couldn’t have figured that one out on your own).

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Pretty pink cotton candy in the sky!

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On the left…after storm rainbow through sunflowers! On the right, my new multi-colored rose bush planted earlier this summer. In bloom!

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Now the remaining shots all look like it’s nighttime, but really, they were taken seconds after the cotton candy shot! Just dusk, not night. This is my new flower bed in the front of the yard. Almost all flowers in it were donated by neighbors (except for the rose bush I scored on clearance!). They’re starting to fill out, this is going to be really pretty next year!

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The little Iron Trellis Dude made me.. it has a pink honeysuckle growing on it. He made the trellis out of an old porch support that was ripped down before we bought the house. But the remains were left behind! Good thing for us scavengers!

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Black-eyed Susans!

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Dark Purple Butterfly Bush…

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Lavender Butterfly Bush (this bloom is about 3 times as big as the dark purple)

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Our yearly volunteer Moonflowers. The bees LOVE these. The bloom on the right that is wound up is tomorrows bloom (they only open for one night then drop off), it unwinds slowly around dusk. The bees fight their way into the blooms and get stuck until they unwind. So what do I do almost every night? I walk around the yard pulling the blooms open and releasing trapped bees… entertaining…

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The Moonflowers are almost like Kudzu.. this one is swallowing a bike and a scooter..with a second bike looking good for dessert.

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And yet more volunteer Moonflowers growing out of our driveway cracks! Prettier than our old driveway, and out of the way, so I let them go. Lots of bee traps there…

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And this years Tomato crop. Remember how I decided to do the square foot gardening thing and plant 1 tomato plant per square foot? I created a monster! The trellis is barely holding them up, so the plants decided to cascade out of the hot tub. It’s a jungle. There are tons of red tomatoes in the interior of the jungle, so I make the kids go on a ‘treasure hunt’ and find them for me! Next year I’m planting about 1/2 as many in this space.

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So I’m educating myself with a few ‘let’s not do this again’ ideas this year. The one in this shot is the dark green Pole Beans growing up the right side of the trellis. Yes, they’re doing well! However, I didn’t think of them grabbing onto the Wisteria (lighter green leaves) and continuing to climb. These didn’t produce until late September last year, so no beans from them yet, but it sure is going to be fun finding them 1/2 way up the house!

The bed itself now has Cucumbers, Kohlrabi, Carrots, Bush Beans, Brussels Sprouts, and the odd volunteer Tomato plant from last year!

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On the left, my new fence post garden bed! FULL of Yellow Crookneck Squash and Cabbage. This is my first year trying Cabbage, I only have one successful head.. the other four fell to aphids. But the aphids haven’t found my Brussels Sprouts yet!

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Drew’s only Snake Gourd. We planted about 20 seeds, got about 4 plants, and only 1 gourd. And it’s not ‘snaking’ because gravity is pulling it straight. Next year no trellis!

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One of our MANY Acorn Squash’s!

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The Gazebo is full of Acorn Squash.. last time I counted we were at 14, but I’m sure I’ve missed a few!

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And our BASKETBALL crop! Isn’t that what they look like? We’ve got at least10 pumpkins growing along the back fence, all nice and healthy! There are also bell peppers and raspberries growing in this back bed. I pulled all the onions up earlier this week (20+ onions) to let them begin to ‘cure’. I found a blog that said you need to leave them in the sun for about 3 weeks to form the outer papery skin before storing them. I had to haul them under the carport to avoid rainstorms during the past few days, but once they’re clear, the onions will go back out into the sun again. I’ll post results when done!

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Happy little pumpkin…

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Our Basil well! The old wishing well lost it’s roof this year and became an herb garden! There’s actually 4 Thyme bushes and 2 types of Basil in here, but the most common Basil is taking over! The Thyme will survive the winter and come back yearly, so I’m going to re-locate the Basil bed next year. We had a fresh homemade pesto pizza this week for dinner… soooo good!

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Volunteer Sunflowers and Moonflowers. Way back in the corner are 2 Zucchini plants. I have to fight my way back to them every couple of days to harvest..

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The back of the house.. and Shadow’s nose.

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Dude’s hanging Pepper planter. Not hanging at the moment because the wind was knocking it around, but it is doing very well! We’ve had TONS of banana peppers off of it this year! I’ll be drying a bunch of them, we can’t eat them quick enough!

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And lastly… the aforementioned curing Onions! Not the biggest, I also heard (too late) that if you push them back into the ground just as they start to grow above it, they will get bigger and fatter. Next year!

So that’s it for today’s updates! Stay tuned….

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Baby Shower Gifts!

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Two of my friends have recently given birth to their 4th and 3rd children respectively…

As I pondered what to make/give them in congratulation, I came across a reversible tote tutorial and thought, what a great idea! These moms already have TONS of kid stuff, both of their babies are girls, and both have big sisters and tons of hand me downs.

How about I make a gift for MOM to help with BABY stuff?

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So thanks again to Dana at Danamadeit.com (I love her blog…she is so creative and has TONS of great ideas!) I whipped out 2 canvas reversible totes!

Both mom’s loved them, and one of them confided after opening it, that she was dreading all the ‘pink’ gifts, because she really doesn’t like pink. She received the tree/yellow stripes tote and was in love with it!

What a fun easy project! Of course I SHOULD make a couple for myself one of these days…

Sunday, August 19, 2012

CRAB SPIDER!

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Lookee what I found in our back yard last night!

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Some kind of crab spider is my guess… not the smallest spider I’ve ever seen…

Nice and fuzzy.

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My kids are in ‘bug heaven’ of course..

In my 10 years of living in this house, and gardening in this yard, I have never come across anything like this. Neither have any of my avid gardening neighbors.

Very interesting….