A busy, busy Christmas

So the Christmas quilt for Colton didn't get done on time, it got very, very close before realizing that I had made some MAJOR puckers & gave up on Christmas Eve Day and allowed myself to let it go & focus on the kids, the house and the cookies ... oh yummy, yummy cookies.The story itself of how it got so prolonged is very long & detailed, full of lost pins, not enough quilting pins & a knight in shining armor going to Wal-Mart at 6 am to buy EVEN more quilting pins on the 23rd & surprising his oh so happy wife with them when she woke up (because let's be honest ... 4 kids, the 23rd of December & Wal-Mart??? Yeah, I'd rather poke my eyes out then go there) ... and in the 11th hour of her attempt, she was too tired, sewed the backing together (in TWO different spots!!!) and left a 3 inch pucker that could NOT be ignored ... tragedy that amounts to a winter blockbuster I'm sure. ;)(The kids left celery sticks for Santa, because they were SURE that he would have a tummy ache with all the cookies the other kids leave him ... lol.)

So, I've spent the last few days slowly un-picking the back, playing on the new Wii with the kids (that Grandma & Grandpa sent ... yeah!) and slowly cleaning up the BOMB that seems to have exploded in our house as a result of it all. And despite my Christmas quilt failure ... wouldn't you know ... Christmas was still a hit. :)
(Colton loving the spiderman costume & other dress up clothes from his Great-Grandparents)

So here's the 25% of the way quilted blanket (sorry for the HORRIBLE lighting ... we are having major snow/cloud storms here today) ... I'm not sure I love it still, but I have never, never, never spent so much time working on a quilt before & that makes it special. Colton keeps telling me it's broken (because of the quilting pins & the fact that the stuffing is falling out on the sides). But I'm going to work on the quilting more today & tomorrow and let him keep it on his bed until someone MAKES me put it away ... because I can. :)

Happy New Years everybody! My goals are to start less projects, finish more unfinished projects (which my husband would love) and to enjoy my family time more.

Can't Talk ... Must Sew

So with all my free time this last week (which is a complete oxymoron ... as any Mom can relate) ... I have been sewing stars ... lots and lots of stars ... and trying desperately to finish the next Christmas Nativity Quilt ... before Christmas!
My goal is almost within reach ... another hour or so should finish the quilt top ... and then I plan on quilting all day Sunday ... hopefully ... since my hubby will be home after church to watch the kids ...
So ... wish me luck! I hope to have a finished or practically finished quilt by Monday! :)
Have a great weekend! :)

Thrifty Thursday -New Pillowforms-

I definitely got a lot of odd looks from the gal checking me out at Goodwill. But where else can you get six nice pillowforms for $11.57??? Once they're washed in REALLY hot water I have some fabric that has been taking up room in my fabric room/storage of everything/guest bedroom. Can't wait to show you the finished products! :)

The Fort

So, it's DEFINITELY winter here ... and the snow can last for another 5-6 months (Cheyenne doesn't DO spring we've learned), so the kids are all loving and re-discovering their toys, and inventing things and being artsy and stuff. And they're building forts ... lots of HUGE forts in the front room, which their lovely 19 month old baby brother thinks is fun to immediately knock down.

Not to even mention the mess ... that they never put back away ... from the upstairs front room (since the downstairs is NEVER warm during winter time) ... it was driving us all crazy. So, I took some uber cute fabric that I had picked up to make myself a purse & had just enough to make them a fort ... the dark blue w/ polka dots fits perfectly with their decor, and it was another free & fast/easy project for the boys!

I didn't want it to create a fully darkened/covered fort/cave, but enough that they had a large fort-type area to play in and then we tied it onto the top bunk and there you go! :) Since their room can already get so dark during the winter, the slits of light let in enough light to let them all have fun, without being scared. And I LOVE that all of them can fit inside it now. Project #4 complete ... and didn't cost anything out of pocket again! :)

The kids saw me taking photos, and couldn't wait to get in on the action, it's getting a LOT of play time ... which is what I've noticed is the most ironic thing about toys & kids, the cheap, easy, basic things always get loved the most, I'm so glad they like it. :) **Please excuse the red-eyes ... my computer w/ photoshop will NOT turn on the past few days ... I think it's dead for good this time, ugh.**

BTW - I am in LOVE with the photos I've been able to take the past two days! My parents sent us a camera for Christmas (and told us not to open it until Christmas Eve ... but I couldn't wait any longer!!!) ... oh my goodness, I can't believe the difference between our last camera (which had been slowly dying for the past year or so) and this .... yeah! :)

Annoying weather!

So, the shelves are still sitting there un-finished. It was so windy on Friday (and I didn't want to spray in the garage ... the fumes spread thru the whole drafty house then), and then it started snowing on Friday night (which was NOT on the forecast on Friday morning) ... sigh ... maybe this week?

So Saturday, I did crafty wood projects with the kids at Lowe's, played the piano at a Nativity/Christmas performance for our local church stake (sooooooo glad that's over!) and did a bit of sewing the past few days. Mainly these ...

my third child still doesn't have his nativity blanket. And he's noticed & mentioned it LOTS over the last few weeks ... so it was high time I get this in gear! Since the other two have such amazing quilting, I wanted his to still feel special too and so I did a scrappy set of squares. I'm not sure I love it yet, but maybe once it's all together it'll look better? Here's the tutorial on how to make the blocks ... today's goal is to finish another four blocks (I need a total of 16 ... and each one is taking me an hour) ... that with homeschooling the kids (and I guess feeding them occassionally) should pretty much fill up the entire day ... and probably most of tomorrow too.

This Weekend's Plans

Hope you all have a nice weekend! It's supposed to be almost 50 (!!!) degrees here today, so I'm finishing up this WIP that has been sitting in the garage for the last few weeks. Time to pull out that black spray paint & start putting the finishing touches on the sanding! :)

Thrifty Thursday -Magnetic Calendar-

We are homeschooling this year ... not sure how long that will last, but for this year it's a good fit with everything going on. That's what made this find so exciting! It was an UNOPENED Melissa & Doug magnetic calendar for only $2.99!!!Savannah is in kindergarten and has LOVED putting it together over & over & over again (so has Hunter). But with all those tiny little pieces we are still on the search for a functional but safe places for almost a hundred little, tiny pieces.But it is definitely a HUGE hit already ... :)

Boys Room Shelving

Thanks for the love on the Noel sign, I've loved it! :) Project #3 for the boys room came out to cost about $20 in wood (and was bought MUCH earlier in the year & has been sitting in the garage taking up space ever since), but the paint I already had from painting their dresser. We found this awesome tutorial on Knock-Off Wood for collector's bookshelves just like pbkids ... and my poor husband somehow got roped into doing it for me. :) **Although I would like to add that he really enjoyed working on a wood project and is now committed to several more ... poor boy is getting pretty overwhelmed at just the thought of it all!**

Hunter is always reading late into the night and the books late, late, late at night and then the books fall down the back of the bunkbed and are lost forever in the abyss of junk that I can't reach and can't move the beds to get either. This totally solves that problem now! :) After the toddler bed is ready for Jaxson we'll make him a smaller version for his bed, I'm just not sure how "big" I want it to be yet.