How to Quilt

I hope you aren't really here to learn how to quilt, because of the talents I have, quilting is not going to be one.

But...and this is a huge one....my mom is going to love it.  That's all that matters.

 

She will know that it is full of love. 

A special word about the holidays

(As we get ready for the joy and excitement of Christmas, I just want to share these thoughts. The holidays are hard for so many people.) I'm a member of a club, one that I didn't join, didn't fill out the forms, didn't pay the membership dues and honestly, didn't want to be a member.

I'm a part of the "infertiles", those that have and still suffer from the pain and struggle of the inability to either conceive or carry a child to term. As a Christian and a lifelong church attender, infertility kicked my faith to the curb for a long time. It was challenged, tested and confused. Holidays were hard for obvious reasons, as children are the focus of so many activities. Church services were no exception.

As I sat in the pew at Christmas, it hit me: A VIRGIN had a child, but not me. I prayed, I tried, I had the best medical help around. I had given up, taken holidays, cool baths and room temperature drinks, no carrots, taken temperatures at the crack of dawn (apologies to my sister, she hates that phrase!) and so many odd little tricks you learn over the years. And yet there I sat, year after year, childless, broken, in pain. And I listened to the miracle of a Virgin birth.

 It should have been calming, knowing that God can do anything, he can perform miracles, that I should trust without question and He would take care of me, just one person in a huge world that He loves as much as every flower in the field. I knew that in my head. But my heart hurt.

A virgin...birth...child...miracle. It is the Christmas story we celebrate as Christians. It is a thing of beauty, hope and grace. But not for me, not those years. I was just mad. It was like a punch in the face; haha, she carried a child, you didn't. You lose. You are a failure, empty, barren and in pain. I don't share this as my story for any other reason than this:

As you sit in your pews this holiday season, look around you. Someone in your pew may be me: a person that is in pain, lost empty and feeling alone. Feeling like everyone around them is happy and celebrating, and they are the only one in this club. They want their membership revoked, and now.

They are counting they days in 14 day increments, just hoping for their miracle, only to be turned down, their membership renewed on a rotating 28 day cycle. And it hurts to be reminded of it in the one place that should be comforting. The reality is that church isn't always that comforting place when you are in pain.

So, look down your pew this Sunday. Who is there? Really look: has someone suffered a loss this year? Is someone sitting alone? Is there a couple that just seems....off, detached, sad?

 Reach out. Say hi. "I'm sorry for your loss" is the best comment you can give (and then be quiet and listen). To the childless couple, just ask what their plans are for the holiday...is family coming in? Are they travelling? Just start the conversation and then really listen to the conversation. If they are fine, you'll know. If they aren't, you might open the door to something deeper. That has happened to me a lot over the past years: a simple hi, how are you, paying attention, and I know. I've met friends this way, friends going through infertile times that hasn't talked to anyone, but by opening the door, we've both been blessed by the relationship.

So this holiday season, Celebrate! Be amazed by the miracle of birth and renewal and the grace that is offered. I know I am. But also slow down. Pay attention. Look. Listen. Be aware that not all are feeling the joy of the season. Some have been given membership in a group of which they never wanted to be a part of.

 

Changing rooms: Living room to dining room

Today I made huge strides towards making the "living room" into the "dining room-library".  Yes, I'm still not really sure what to call it.  I do know that we have all used this space so much more since moving the table in there, so it has been a great change. 

It was this......

...and is now this:

...a

And today, in between working my day job and taking care of a sick child (and doing the things you do when you are home), I also could not  take a single straight picture!

I needed to get this part of the rooms done now since this is where the Christmas tree goes!  Let the decorating being!

Whew! Catching up with my feet up today....

I'm using today as the literal "resting on the 7th day" version and keeping my feet up since we got home from church.  Whew, I'm tired!

Yesterday I did my first ever craft show.  I wanted to see what it was like and just have the experience.  

There were definite pros and definite cons. 

Cons?   
I'm grateful that this is not a main source of income for me.  It really is a hobby that I enjoy and if I can offset some of the costs, it's good.  These craft shows are hard work!  We have gone to many as a purchaser, and I never really thought about what goes into them.  The obvious is the time and cost invested into making the items for sale.  What is not as obvious is the time and energy that it takes to actually set up your booth and BE at the craft show.  People...this is hard work!  Of course this is the week that my husband's back goes out and he is fairly incapacitated, so he wasn't able to help with the heavy lifting.  I carried in three tables and four bags of items (including a hammer and steel block which are very heavy) and six hours later carried them all back out, home, and put it all away.  This is exhausting and pure physical labor.  

Pros: 

1. My son helped me and hung out with me almost the entire time (including some setup time the night before.  We had a number of hours of really good quality bonding time.  He has asked if we can do this again next year.  My 10 year old son wants to hang out with me at a craft fair? Win.  
2. The entrance fee for the show helps the band from the local high school with their trip to the Big Apple next year.  The kids were there to help yesterday, and are fired up for this chance.  
3. Did I mention quality time with the boy?  I also snuck in a few teaching moments about running a business (on a small side), sales, sales tax, order taking, pricing and customer service.  
4. I met a bunch of nice people, including the other vendors and people wandering by.  

So there you have it: the pro's outweigh the con's.  

The next time you wander through an arts or crafts fair, think of the time and energy (and back strain!) that went into getting to that point.   I'm not advocating buying stuff for the sake of buying stuff you don't need, whatever the source.  I just know I will appreciate the effort and compliment the vendor on their hard work and effort just to show up!  

I know I'll look at it differently from now on.  Back to being an accountant....

We have a winner!!

Thank you all so much for helping me reach my 30,000 page view goal! I am there and over, and I thank you all for helping me get there! We had 11 commenters, and I used random.org to pick a number between 1 and 11.

And the winner is....

 

Number ONE!

 

The first commenter was Laura McGowan....a fellow Laura!  Congrats Laura, and contact me at lauragdesigns@comcast.net and let me know what you'd like to receive.  I can't wait to make it for you!

 

 

How to make a Photo Quilt, Part 1

If you are a crafter or like to make hand-made gifts for the holidays, you know that you need to start early and know what you game plan is. I have done neither with this gift. I hope I have not pulled out all my hair before I get this photo quilt done for my mom.

I got the idea to do this for her from a flyer that came in the mail just recently. Like so many things I can make myself, I saw the price and said "I can do this better and vastly cheaper". This photo quilt will definitely be cheaper than the one I saw priced, but I'm not sure just how much easier. I finally had luck transferring my first photo today, and after many pitfalls and stops and starts, I'm now printing. I thought I'd share the journey like I did with the Orioles t-shirt quilt I made around this time last year. 

Here is what I know so far in the "how to make a photo quilt" process:

• Use Avery Photo Transfer paper.  I first tried a cheaper brand with poor results.
• Print your photos to plain paper before printing to the transfer sheets: they are not cheap, so test a lot before printing to the transfer paper.
• Make sure your printer is in good working order: plenty of ink, printer heads cleaned, aligned and whatever else you can find on the "tools" option on your printer.
• Use photos straight from a camera: You can't copy from facebook or other online sites, and pictures from phones are not clear enough.  I had family members email me photos
• Here is how I edited my photos to get ready for transfer:
1. Save from email as a JPEG file (I named it person.photo)
2. Open the picture into Pixlr and add text; resave to your hard drive
3. Open that picture using Paint, and rotate the picture horizontally, so that the words are mirror images; resave to hard drive
4. Print a test copy to plain paper and see how it looks.
5. If the colors looks too intense, open into software such as Picasa and lower the saturation
6. Print to your transfer paper
7. Trim, and round your corners for longer wear (suggested by Avery)
• Use white cotton fabric for your photos; I first tried an off-white, and didn't like the appearance.  The photo looks much better on white.
• Iron on following the instructions provided by Avery.  I found they worked perfectly!

I will be glad when this part is over and I get to start sewing.  Gathering the photos, cropping, editing and adding text has been time consuming, but as I learn more, it's getting easier. 

If I do this again, it would be easier to take the photos I want as I see people, taking away trying to get people to dig up a good photo, emailing it and having to edit as I go.

In other words, I should have started in June!

Thirty K and a give-a-way!

I rhymed! I'm no poet for sure, but I do have some sweet words for you today:

Free Jewelry!

 

 I am close to hitting 30,000 page views for my blog.  That's not a huge number if you know blogs, as many bogs hit that number monthly, weekly and daily.  But for me, it's a milestone! 

 

So I want to thank you, all of you, for joining me on this ride for the day, month, or years (2 on this site) I've been at this.

 

With your choice of one free piece of sterling silver jewelry of your choice!   

 

All you have to do to celebrate with me is 1) comment here, and 2) oh wait, that's it.  No gimmicks or "like my page or 20 other peoples' pages" type of thing.  Just comment. Just say "hi" and if you'd like, share where you're visiting from in general....your state, country, or general place in the world.  Don't want to do that? Just say hi.  

 

Today I'm at 29,841 pageviews, and I'll keep you posted as we get nearer.  I estimate that we'll hit the mark in roughly 5 to 6 days.  Then I'll let the random number generator pick a number, count down the comments, and pick the lucky winner of the

30K Givea-WAY!

 

Website: lauragdesigns.com

Facebook page

 

 

Easy DIY Baseball ball holder

Talk to a parent, and there is a challenge with containing some type of toy or favorite objects.  Some talk of trying to contain doll clothes and shoes (which are ouch on the feet I hear!); for us it's Legos mostly.

Another challenge is trying to contain and display baseballs.  The boy has a few collectible ones, and a few special ones like this one.    His coaches a few seasons back made a habit of naming a "Player of the Game" each week, and over the season, each child had his moment.  They took a game ball, and wrote messages, stats, and the score of the game on the ball. 

But the combination of a ball and a flat surface just does not work for obvious reasons.  This special ball and others end up on the floor, rolling around and being hidden somewhere under something.  That's not very special, is it?

 And now it's contained.

 I took a long piece of 1X4 lumber left over from another project and simply drilled a hole in it.

  I bought a 1 1/4" drill bit and holding one end of the long piece, drilled this about 1.5 inches from the end.  Drilling the hole (partial hole) before cutting made it a lot easy to handle. 

 A bit of his favorite baseball-sports-color-orange spray paint, and we had an easy DIY baseball holder.

Next, I want to make a 2 ball and 3 ball length, and add to the fun!

Basement shelves

I finally got on the basement shelves that have been on my to-do list for a while. I started here:

 

 

 

 

and ended here:

 

I used 3/4 inch mdf, but didn't want to deal with finishing the edges.  I trolled the molding department at Lowes, and found a simple molding that covered the edge nicely.  We went from this:

 

 

 

To This:

 

 

 

It's a happy addition to the basement "Fan Cave" and you can see it's already being filled with treasures and memories.

 

If you follow me on Pinterest, you will see some really cool and detailed basement shelf ideas; Yes, I never got around to those, and decided having the shelves in place for the boy to enjoy was more important than them being fancy.  I was right.

 

And the unpainted spots?  I decided that, instead of filling as I went, I'm saving these little "treasures" of my own around the house for one big little patching day.  There's no need to haul out the spackle (although this one has been done), the sanding, the priming and the painting for each set of holes; I'm collecting them for a hole fillin' day.  My collection will be quite impressive!

 

Best tip I've found in a long time: Instead of trying to dig these old drywall hangers out of the wall, you just need to hammer them in.  They are ready to spackle and much easier to finish this way.

 

And tip #2: I usually use two drills when I install drywall hangers: the battery operated for the hole making and the electric for the screwing.  This way I don't have to alternate between the drill bit and the screw bit, and it saves a lot of time and hassle.  This day I had let my battery for the one drill die out, and didn't have it.  I found that simply twisting an appropriate size screwdriver into the spot made a perfect hole for the drywall anchor, saving time and hassle!

(and the password is:......)

Did you grow up watching Password?  I did, and the goal was to get your teammate to say the secret word with only one word clues.  And they whispered the Password to the TV audience, so it made it that much more exciting to watch at home.  When you heard the whispered "the password is....", you were glued to your seat.  Well, I was!

I kept thinking about that old show as I was baking the other day.  My son loves pumpkin bread, but mine was always dry.  So I googled "moist pumpkin bread" , and found out the secret ingredient was (picture me whispering here).... coconut milk.  And it works. 

The password is...coconut milk.

Carter verified with a huge grin and a mouthful of "ummmgghm" that it was good. 

The recipe is here at my favorite to go place online:  allrecipes.com

I tried something completely new this year, and baked my own pumpkins. It was SO easy!

 I got these pumpkins for $1 each, so it was a bargain! 

 

 I cut the pumpkins in half, and removed the stems.  Bake at 350 degrees for an hour and 20 minutes. 

They came out of the over nice and brown.  I let them cool for a while, and then wondered how I would get the pumpkin out.  When I picked up the pumpkin, it was so cooked that the pumpkin just fell out of the outside ,which was nice and crispy.  Two pumpkins shown here yielded 2 cups of mashed pumpkin, which is what the recipe called for.  I made one loaf of bread and 12 muffins. 

 They really taste yummy!

 Now it's time to put away the Halloween decorations, and get ready for the next round of holidays. 

Halloween mail: Our newest family member

Look what came in the mail today**! 

 

 Meet Chocky (nee Chocolate), nickname Choco-lishish and Choco-locka at times, depending on the day and my particular mood.

 

 

Hmmmm....I think someone was wishing for doggie bones in the package, but she honestly loves Chocky.  Chocky wishes she didn't love her quite so much. 

She's been with us since August, but we're especially enjoying having a spooky black kitty around for Halloween this year!



**No, she really did not come in the mail.  No animals were harmed in this post.

I've got the googly eyes for you

I just love googly eyes.  I see them, I want to buy them. I keep them.  They are just fun, aren't they?

Today was one of those days, and I had a fun, quick and easy project with them.

Take one black pumpkin.... 

....lots of googly eyes....

....glue on....keep going....

....until you are out of googly eyes. Then you are done.