Wow it's been busy around here, and this blog has taken a back seat to other more important issues....but I still plan to be back on a more regular basis soon! 

Happy Holidays from our home to yours!

 

Quiet

Are you enjoying the quiet of this holiday season?  Or are you overwhelmed by the noise? 

I am taking time away from the "have-to's" of the season and just enjoying the "want-to's" and spending quality time where it counts. 

With family.

With whatever feels fun.

With the things that do absolutely need to be done (we all need clean underwear)

With taking an early pickup from school today to travel to see Ghee-ghee (what my son calls my mom)

With not being stressed that my effort to make him a pair of pajama pants failed, but being happy that he will instead have a new fun pillowcase for his bed

That the decorations that didn't make it down from the attic will also not need to be put back up in the attic, and yet we still have the fun of the season in our hearts

That we can still get down and play Twister, although it is harder to get up

Quiet.

We have all had terribly tragic and sad reminders of how fragile life is. 

Take time for what's important.  Don't have the perfect gift? Give them a coupon for your time. 

If you don't hear from me for a bit, I'm in the floor playing Twister.  It's the most important thing I just have to do right now.

Seasons greetings, blessings, prayers and hugs.

Yup, I think I'm losing it....

First, my prayers are with the children and families connected to the school in Connecticut where the shooting has occurred.  This is unbelievable, and those families need our thoughts and prayers today and in the weeks and months to come.  Everything else is just, well, stuff. 


I used to be a big planner.  Then I met my husband, and he brought me from way-planner to more in the middle: go with the flow.  Yeah, I have a looonggg way to go, but I'm a lot better than I used to be!

I haven't planned a lot for this holiday season, but have made progress in a few areas: the quilt is done (with the exception of one correction I may make if I have time), cookie supplies are bought if not made, school volunteer activities and visits to family are on the calendar.  That's all good.

 Then I decided to make my mom a scarf for Christmas. I had a three hour volunteer stint at church last night while we keep the building open for students to study. I almost completed it!  So I got home at 11:30, watched the meteor shower for a bit, and then started on the second (both above). 

 I have one of three pairs of new pajama pants made...isn't this fabric cute?  For a few dollars (literally, $2-3 per pair) I can pick the fabric and make the pants for Carter....and the first pair only took me about 30 minutes.  I used an old pair and cut them up for the pattern, and used a current pair to make sure they fit him.  One down....two to go!

 

 

 And then, since the scarf making went so quickly last night, I made this mistake:

Don't ask...I'm not sure how many scarves are in the making in this pile!  I just keep thinking of one more person that would love a scarf, so hopefully the momentum will keep up. 

Yes, this is my desk.  I've had quite a few jewelry orders to get out this week (and a few more to go), and this is just a hint of how the rest of my house is faring in this last minute "oh-that's-a-great-idea" push before the holidays. 

So, what's on your list?

Quilt update: more Orioles magic

If you're new here, you might be wondering if we live in Baltimore for all the Orioles talk. No, we lived in Virginia, but the Baltimore/Maryland roots go deep on both my and my husband's sides of the family.  So of our son's three favorite teams, one is local (Go 'Hoos!), and the other two reside in Baltimore.

I asked him awhile back, if he were to ever have a quilt of one of his favorite teams, which would he want?  I'm glad I asked, because I would have been wrong!  Now I just hope he forgot that conversation, and I'm bubbling over with excitement to give him this gift.   It's getting there.  At one point I thought I might be up to the wee hours of Christmas morning finishing up, but I'm doing a lot better than that. 

 

That's a long way from here, right? 

And yes, puppy Nichole was asleep on it again today as I hand stitched the binding.  Only two more sides to go, and this puppy can be wrapped.  Well, the quilt. Not the puppy.  Although we have talked about a Christmas gift that was equipped with breathing holes in it, I don't think that will happen.  We do think the kitties would overthrow the current household if puppy #2 were to happen.

I am so happy I settled on the baseball trim for the binding...I wasn't sure when I bought it, but I love it!

Orioles-after-tastic!

Wow...life has been moving fast, and I just realized I was featured by Lindsay on Better After!  I just love her blog: every day is new motivation to create something new out of something old....and make it so much better!

Speaking of which, I am really behind in sharing this free-redo.  I stopped by our church one day, and this table needed a new home.  I loved it!  But it needed some love, and it was a great new addition to our basement "fan cave" type man cave. 

Sherwin Williams was a huge help, yet again, on helping me pick out a paint color.  This time I asked for "Orioles Orange", and the salesman and I picked out a few colors, but couldn't agree on one.  So he did the next best thing: he called the Baltimore SW store, and asked them what they sold for the Orioles orange...and voila!  It's perfect! 





 

Here we were after the first few coats (can you can see my first attempts at the "O" underneath which I then hid)

 

Then I laid out cardstock, and hand drew the "O" the size I wanted.   As is normal for the method to my madness, I was winging it at this point, and didn't have a great overall plan.  The great thing with paint is that it can be repainted and restarted at any point, so I just jumped in!  I cut out the inside part, and started filling that in with painter's tape.  My goal was to fill it in completely, so the O would stay orange, and I could paint around it with color #2.

 



the "O" cut out.....

filled in with painters tape

 

The I painted over the entire table top again.  This is a great tip for painting any time you use tape and want a perfect crisp edge: by painting over the tape, you seal the edges with the base color.  Any color that goes on top of this will not seep through the edge.  I know I know, good painter's tape shouldn't run, but I like to make extra sure.

 

The next color had to be black, both for the Orioles color and for Car's favorite all time favorite color.   I thought all black would be too much, so I settled for trying stripes.

 

When it was all striped with tape, I started in with the black paint.  At this point it was ....disheartening.

 

And then it got worse.

I let it sit for a while, and then started peeling off the tape to see the magic below.....

 

Here it comes!

.....keep watching....

Once all the stripes were removed, I started peeling back the original taped out "O's"

And Voila....A one of a kind fit-for-a-fancave O's table!

Christmas Ornaments Crafts

I love seeing people's Christmas trees that are decorated in themes, especially those in certain colors, my favorites being blue and silver. 

But that will never be our Tree!

We have too many sentimental and handmade ornaments, and I like to add to those each year.  One tradition we started for Carter was an ornament for each year that symbolized something from that year: a frog (preschool mascot one year), a baseball (first year of sports), a guitar (his latest passion) and so on.  We also have the normal "baby's first Christmas" and "our new house" ornaments.  I can't imagine having a tree without all of these memories!

I'm headed to the craft store to finally get some ideas going for some new ones this year, and also plan a craft for the MOPS meeting this week.  This is the idea I want to do, if I can find the spheres:

7layersstudio.typepad.com




....or this from leftover buttons....




And I know I have plenty of scrap beads and ribbon for these! 

Now off for shopping!

Me, quilting.

There are some things I'm good at. Quilting is not one of them.

I made a quilt once, before boy was born, and I swore (I really did at the time) that I would never do that again.  Nothing was straight, nothing lined up, and it wasn't all that enjoyable to me. 

Yet here I am, making a quilt again.  And again, it's for the boy.  And I can't wait for him to see it.  I can usually buy presents and hold them and not have an issue, but this one is going to be hard to keep to myself.  Well, it does need to be made first, but I'm still so excited!


The first hardest part was finding the tshirts. I started stalking consignment shops, and would have had luck if I was making one for the local university, but not so much for the O's. And yes, if you haven't figured it out, this will be an Orioles quilt. Surprise! I did ask him a while back if he had a quilt, what would he pick, and he picked the O's. So that decision was easy to make. When I couldn't find the shirts locally, I started buying them on Ebay, and had good luck there.  

The next hardest part was cutting the shirts up!  I cut the fronts from the back, and with some shirts, I used both parts as it had a number or name on the back.  I also kept the plain parts to use as extra fabric as some shirts are smaller than the 17" size the pieces will start as. 

Here is the initial layout of the shirts, but I'm sure that will change many times before they are joined.

And yes, I had a lot of help.  I'm sure this won't be the last time she sleeps here!

 

 

Honestly?

I'll be honest: some days, some weeks, I just don't feel like blogging.  And I don't feel like doing anything creative around the house, because life seems, well, bigger than that.  Like a new set of curtains or a new color of paint on the wall just doesn't matter today, and honestly, it really doesn't, does it? 

 

Well, today, and this past week, has just felt like that.  Like it's more than I would get pleasure from.  I've spent a lot of time out of town with my mom, more time on the road and just less being "productive" in the usual sense of the word. 

 

Today we (Carter and I) visited a family here in town to deliver a Thanksgiving meal to them.  I don't share this to brag about delivery of a few groceries.  I share it to remind everyone that people are without this holiday season, and they live right around the corner. Literally.  We made new friends, and plan to keep in touch.  This is a woman who is working for her family, but still can't quite make ends meet all the time.  Comparatively, we live in the lap of luxury and have more wants than needs.  Mostly, she asked us to pray for her to get through this rough time.  She believes in prayer, and we do also, so that is what we'll do.

 

The only project I am active with right now is filling some jewelry orders for Christmas presents.  More pictures will come as they are finished, but in the meantime, here are some for your viewing pleasure:

 

 I would love to see this on the wrist of a flower girl sometime soon!

 

A sweet Audrey necklace, and hopefully soon one to go with it.

This piece went to a teenager who was just diagnosed with cancer....she had a courageous attitude, and the request was just as it states: "I AM Fearless". 

And the newest design, a request from a friend: "God gave me you" with separate tags with dates. This one is mine :)

 

So today my heart is heavy a bit: The morning started with news of an unexpected loss of a friend's father who was very close to our family.  Then we visited with our new friends, shared some food, and learned how difficult life is just around the corner, for people working and trying to do the right thing and be independent.  And it's such a struggle.

And more results from cancer tests, which will mean more treatment over the next few months.

 

So at the end of the night, we share our favorite parts of the day.  Tonight, I will share my blessings:

1. I have, and can share with those that have much less
2. Thanks to Facebook, I'm even aware of my friend's loss, and can say so thousands of miles away.
3. I can keep in touch with those that mean the world to me.
4. I have discovered this gift of jewelry making, which not only feeds my soul, but connects me to people and their issues, joys and fears in their lives.
5. That my extended family will be together on Thursday and celebrate all that we do have to be thankful for.
6. For personal health, joy in my life, a room over my head and dinner on the table at night.

For all of this, I give Thanks.

 

 

thankful.....Friday!

I know....30 days posting straight went by the wayside this week, but for a good reason.  Thankful that this part of November is behind us, and better things are ahead.  I was with a family member having surgery for cancer this week, and the initial reports are good, and we pray that the final reports continue to be so.  Thankful that I could be there, and not being here was no big deal.  (Unless you missed me!).

So what's the plan today?  Hosting a (scheduled much earlier) chili dinner for 50 at our house tonight....our 5th annual!   I'm also thankful for great friends who have stepped up and helped out with most all of the food prep and planning.  All I had to do was 1) get home, 2) vacuum, and 3) heat up some chili made by others this year. 

Life is good.  Have a great weekend!

Thankful Tuesday

I've noticed on Facebook that there is a lot of "thankful" posts every day.  So at the end of a long day, I don't feel like blogging, but I can always find peace in reminding myself of my blessings.

Especially today.

Today: I am thankful for amazing doctors and nurses for taking care of my mom all day.  I am thank ful for a system of hospitals, tests, radiologists nurses, orderlies, custodians and more that make for a place where she is safe and cared for and healed. 

I am thankful for cafeteria workers that fed us, and nurses who scrounged for a granola bar to keep our stomachs at bay until we were able to get a late lunch. 

I am thankful for family.

I am thankful for cell phones that allowed us to keep in touch all day.

I am thankful for a awesome babysitter that is more like a member of the family that is waiting for my precious boy each day at the bus stop, and a husband who is doing more than his share.

We are blessed. We are lucky. We are rich.

Peaceful Tuesday,

Giveaway!

The winner (announced over at Migonishome.com is....Anne Stacy! Anne...I look forward to working with you!)

I have two treats for you today.

First, a giveaway:  you can win this design (or add the children's names of your choice) from my shop lauraGdesigns!

Second: to do so, visit www.migonishome.com ... and that is your second treat!  I read a lot of blogs, and some I like and some I love.  Jen's is one I quickly fell in love with!  You will love her beautiful home, her family, and her style.  Treat yourself and give her blog a visit!

So enter on her blog by leaving a comment, and she will tell you other ways you can add another entry.

Quick...go!  Have a great week!