Category: craft

Nov 20

The quilt that almost wasn’t.


In my family, it’s a tradition that each new baby that comes along receives a handmade quilt. Between my mom, my great-aunt, my SIL and I, we have always gotten it done. When my niece, Ela, was born in July, we hadn’t even STARTED a quilt for her! Since then, my mom and I have pulled it together and taken turns to finally finish her blanket. We’ve had several mishaps along the way, but alas, it is DONE! Just in time for winter!

The quilt pattern is called Argyle Dreams (by Jackie Clark). This is the third time I have made this pattern and I still adore it! I absolutely love the frayed, unfinished edges and big diamond argyle pattern.

Ela Sue is nearly four months old now and getting sweeter by the minute. She loves to smile, but, despite all our silly attempts, is really stingy with her giggles. She is the youngest of three and gets LOTS of attention from her older brother and sister.

This morning, I had the pleasure of babysitting them while their dad worked and their mom ran in the Turkey Trot run. (Way to go, Jenny!) While I was there, I snapped a few pictures of them. I can’t help myself – they have the most beautiful eyes!

Jak changed clothes about six times while I was there. In this photo, he is a cowboy getting ready to go to the farm.

My kids and their dad are out of town this weekend and I am in full-on nesting mode here. I have been cleaning, organizing and sorting since they left yesterday. Which means that this baby can come ANYTIME!

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Oct 26

A new hope chest.


My mother’s side of the family has been working to sort thru some of my grandma’s belongings, as she is living in an assisted living home and my uncle and his wife are moving into her old house. Lucky me, I got dibs on an old chest that she had. It is a beautiful piece and still has the 1941 paperwork stapled to the inside of the lid.
As a child, I remember pulling old mementos out of it, such as her 1947 wedding dress, and straining to imagine that era. My mother always had a memory chest too, a “hope chest” as we called it. And as we grew, it was filled with little pieces of our past. Like our first pair of shoes, our baby blankets or my girl scout sash with all my hard-earned badges.

I had already started small “hope chests” for my children. So when I got my grandma’s chest, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. But it didn’t take long to decide that it would be the perfect home for all our photo albums, which were currently stashed here and there. This inspired me to develop some sort of system for organizing all these photo albums.

One night, with the hubby out of town, I went through each book and jotted down what was inside. I used the digital files on my computer to determine the date range of each album. Once I had a rough chronological order of them, I numbered them.

I used metal-rimmed tags and a circle punch to make the number labels. And I stuck them on with hot glue. Here’s to hoping they stay on!

Taking, sorting, printing and organizing pictures is a huge task! Often, I only print photos once or twice a year. Many times I have questioned why I go thru all the trouble of printing and storing them at all.

My mom always kept photo albums and I LOVED looking thru them. Especially as I got older. I can’t imagine not having those albums to share with my husband when we met. Pictures can really share so much about your past and I am hoping my children appreciate it as much as I do. We’ll see if I can maintain my system and not get too far behind with all the pictures we take…

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Posted in craft, family, photography

Aug 16

Old.

This summer, my husband, my brother and his wife are all celebrating their thirtieth birthdays. (Thirty?? What? My husband is turning thirty?!?!? When did we get this old?) Of course, I am happy to celebrate with them as I have two more years before I hit that milestone.

Together, we all threw a party to help the three of them through this. Of course, good times were had by all. But I have to tell you the story of the cakes.

The damn cakes.

First of all, let me tell you that I was determined to buy the cakes, not to make them. For two reasons. One: I know very little about decorating cakes and have been “winging it” through each of my kids birthday so far. Two: I didn’t need that added stress in my life. However, when it turned out that my kids were going to their grandparents for a few days and I saw what the bakery wanted for three separate birthday cakes, I changed my mind. I thought, I’ve got plenty of time. I’ll just use a box mix and do something simple. No problem.

Right.

I made these cakes the night before. Mistake number one, perhaps? And, I used frosting from a can. Mistake number two? We’ll just say that Martha would not be proud of my cake decorating skills. Oh well. At least they tasted good. Didn’t stop me from eating two pieces today. (Hey, I’m eating for two, remember??)

But I do have to tell you that I did learn one thing in the process. I always get really frustrated when baking the layers of a cake because they always bake with a raised dome in the middle. Which I then have to chop off and discard (read: eat while waiting for cake to cool). But I feel like this wastes cake and my layers aren’t as tall as I want them after I level off the lump.

So, I googled it. And it turns out that I wasn’t the only one who was devastated by the dome. All it takes is some old wet towels wrapped around your cake pan as it bakes. Who knew?? I guess the moisture keeps the outside cool so it doesn’t cook as fast as it normally would. Follow these directions and you’ll get a perfectly level cake. Worked for me six times.

At least something worked.

Anyways, clearly the party was still a blast without beautiful cakes. Life is not about perfect cakes. Life is about good friends and good memories. Here’s to thirty more years of that with three of my favorite people in the world. Happy Birthday to Trever, Jenny and Brady! Love you guys!

Oh, and to explain the “23″ atop Jenny’s cake:
What woman wants to openly admit their true age, right? For this reason, I taught my daughter to say that her mommy and Aunt Jenny are “twenty-twee” whenever prompted. In fact, according to her, I turned 23 on my last two birthdays!! Love you, Lilah!

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Aug 08

Babies on the brain.


Our world has been revolving around babies lately. With the arrival of our niece, Ela Sue, a couple weeks ago and with the beginning phases of preparation for our newest (due in December). Phase I = name research, moving Lilah to a room downstairs, mental preparation for being outnumbered by children.

Also, I have been making baby gifts out the wazoo lately. Nothing new and different – just more baby books, burp clothes, blankets, etc. But I thought I’d share a couple of my favorites. Both of these were made custom for the colors that the baby’s rooms were going to be decorated in.

The first was for Brady’s cousin’s daughter. Her name is going to be Sylvie (cute, right?) Her room is going to be decorated in turquoise with accents of hot pink. It is actually a vintage bird theme, but I never could find any bird fabric with those colors. :(

The second was for an old friend from high school is adopting a baby boy. His room is getting decorated in blues and grays. How cute is that? I LOVED the gray with the blue. Made it so much more modern.

Makes me wanna get to work on our baby’s book. First step – convince Brady to learn the gender at next week’s sono. I won’t hold my breath.

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Jul 06

The Fourth, firecrackers and floods.

Happy 4th to everybody! If you live anywhere near me, you probably had the same Forth of July experience that we did: WET. A couple months ago, we had booked three nights in cabins at Cheney Lake for this holiday weekend and were very much looking forward to it. Might as well have stayed at home because we didn’t even ONCE get in the water. It rained and rained and rained!! The rain wasn’t too big of deal for the first day or so – we made the best of it by playing cards and games of washers and french darts in between the rain showers. But by the third day, Sunday, we were tired of it. So when the water started flooding the campground we were in, we bolted. Sad, but much better to be back on dry ground. So we celebrated my baby brother’s 16th birthday (16!?!?! What?!?!) at my folks’ house.

We still had a great time + we got to light fireworks, which were prohibited at the state park. We even painted faces and got some decent pictures of the little kiddos. They were all kinds of cheesy, which was a nice change!

Next up, a week of birthdays (Brady’s, mine, and hopefully a new Krehbiel baby!) and four whole days with no kids! Brady’s kind parents are keeping them for us…Yay!!!!!

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Posted in craft, family

Jun 16

Wichita Quilt Show

Prairie Quilt Guild Quilt Show

Every other year, our local quilt guild holds a quilt show. Two years ago was my first one ever and I thought it was really cool! If you are even a little interested in sewing, you will appreciate this event – I promise! I have been looking forward to it for quite some time – the quilts on display there are so beautiful and the talent involved is so apparent. I just wanted to pull them down from the display and snuggle up! There are also dozens of classes, tons of shopping and a raffle for an amazing quilt valued at over $3,600!!

**If you go – Be warned, do NOT touch the quilts! I didn’t know last time! However, there are gloves provided – of course, that kind of takes the fun out of touching.

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Jun 04

Three.


A few weeks ago, my baby turned three. Not so much of a baby anymore. Although you wouldn’t know it by the incessant amount of hardcore whining, fit-throwing, diaper-wearing, milk-drinking that still goes on around here. But she does do her fair amount of “big girl” things as well. Like wearing big girl pants all day. Or sleeping in her big girl bed.

For her birthday, she wanted a little mermaid party. Easy enough. I put on my party-planning shoes and whipped up some super simple invites. They were supposed to look like a mermaid tail, but I’m not so sure that’s obvious.

For the party, we planned a swim at the YMCA, dinner, cake and digging for seashells in the new sandbox she got for her birthday.

And the kids got beta fish as party favors. She named hers Flounder and surprisingly, she is still alive. Even though Lilah wants to feed it about a dozen times a day.

The cake was fairly simple to make. Turned out kinda sloppy, but Lilah never noticed. I bought the topper and the little sugar flowers at Cake Stuff and had no major problems, aside from the incident where Lilah stuck her little fingers into it the first time she saw it.

Her birthday party landed on Mother’s Day, so we were also celebrating that. My SIL, Jenny, and I decided it would be a great idea to have a portrait taken of the four grandchildren and give it to my mom. We took the kids to Portrait Innovations and it was NIGHTMARE. That’s all I will say about that. Any more details, and I’d need to start another post. However, the photo turned out great and Mom loved it – so mostly worth it.

Happy Birthday, Lilah! Here’s to many, many more years of giggles! Love you!

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Posted in craft, family

Apr 28

Who knew?

I’ve never considered myself much of a seamstress. Sure, I can sew a straight line. But other than that, I get real intimidated behind the wheel of my sewing machine.

One thing that I have always wanted to do, but always was too scared, is to sew clothes for my kids. I’m not sure what it is that makes me nervous – maybe just the really small pattern pieces and curved seams. Just seemed like a project that would keep me and my seam ripper busy for days.

Anyways, I finally got up the courage to try it. I used a new pattern by Jackie Clark and it was super easy. Took me less than an hour and I didn’t even have to use my seam ripper once!

I went digging for fabric and ran across an old hand-embroidered/crocheted linen that I picked up at a yard sale long ago. Pre-embellished and perfect! This happened to be a table runner, but you could also use a table cloth or pillowcase. Seems like I run across lots of those at sales and thrift stores, but always walk away not knowing what to do with them!

This little top is a gift for our neice, Chloe, who is being baptized this weekend. I sure hope it fits!

My favorite part is the crochet edging around the bottom. I am dying to learn how to do this. Hoping to take a class on it or find a tutor someday. Anybody?

Pretty, right? Now, this makes me what to go to yard sales to round up some more vintage linens!

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Apr 10

Handmade gifts.

For me, there is nothing better than a handmade gift. Whenever birthdays or holidays roll around, I always consider, “what can I make that this person would like?”. Last year, for Christmas, it was my goal to give every person a little something handmade. And, I succeeded. The person I had the hardest time with was our brother-in-law, Jeff. When I couldn’t think of anything to sew or craft for him, I remembered how much he loves my no-bake cookies – so he got a box of cookies (along with some gadget that Brady picked out.)

But anyways, my point is that you can come up with something to make for almost anybody. Little kids are the easiest, for sure.

You may or may not remember a little felt book that I made for my nephew over a year ago for Christmas. Well, at that time, I also started one for his sister, but ran out of time/ambition/energy before the holiday. Swore I’d get it done my her birthday that March. Well, of course, procrastination kicked in and I still hadn’t completed by the following holiday season.

But, alas, I got it done.

These little books were quite a bit of work, I will say. But, I thought that they turned out pretty darn cute! Thank goodness that these kids have short names!! (Each page is a letter of their name.)

I got the idea from a seller on Etsy.

Also for Christmas, I embroidered each kids’ initial onto some travel bags for them. As you can probably guess, this is MUCH easier to do than the books.

Proof that handmade gifts don’t have to be difficult. And that you can do it!

Now that I’ve written this, I am inspired to be crafty! Brady and Lilah are out of town for the weekend, so maybe Graham will take a good nap and I can get something accomplished!

FYI, Brady and I are headed out on a vacation to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico next week! I will return to scheduled programming when we return!

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Mar 25

Birthdays and chocolate and cake, oh my.

Over a month ago (seriously, it’s been that long?!?!), my little guy turned one. As if that wasn’t a big enough milestone, we decided to baptize him then as well. Oh, and it was also Valentine’s Day.
Is that enough reasons to party? I think so.

Since it was Valentine’s, the theme for the party was pretty obvious. I called it the “Kind of our Hearts” party. Feeling inspired by some of the amazing desert tables going around the internet, I decided to go “all out”. (I may have also been high the day that decision was made ;)

Six glue sticks, five cake mixes, three jars of frosting and one crazy mama later:

Seriously, this was a lot of work. How do all these people pull it off? Maybe all those other mom’s out there aren’t doing it alone? I was exhausted after baking and decorating all day! Don’t get me wrong, it was fun and I loved planning and carrying out all the details, but it was a TON of work.

Like, if I still worked full time, this would have never happened.

Hell, if I still worked full time, I probably would have picked up cupcakes at Dillons and called Pizza Hut. (We also served lunch – pulled pork sandwiches, chicken salad sandwiches, fruits and veggies).

But anyways, enough about the work.

It all started with the invitations. These were pretty simple to make, and I had almost everything on hand already. I used an old deck of cards for them.




And more details from the party:

One of the reasons that this was time consuming was these little guys. I have a mini-bundt pan that cooks six of these at a time. I think I made like eight batches or something crazy like that – that is a lot of in-and-out of the oven, watching the timer, greasing the pan, etc, etc. BUT, aren’t they cute?!?!?

The cake stand was actually very simple (and cheap!!) and inspired by this easy tutorial.

The crown on top was originally going to be made from fondant. But, having never worked with it, I got intimidated at the last minute. This one is made from foam paper and served the purpose just as well.

For the wall art, I just used some leftover wrapping paper and taped it over the art. Be warned, this took a lot of tape and trial and error. Lots of error. (That damned thing would NOT stay up!)

Chocolate dipped pretzels. The strawberries were supposed to be dipped as well, but I ran out of energy. And chocolate.

And the birthday boy. Who loved his party, but mostly loved his cake. Which is a reminder of why, in the future, I need to just keep it simple.

Happy Birthday, Grahamsey.

All hail King G. (Which is what Brady and Lilah have nicknamed him.)

And I conclude this with a vow. A vow to never go overboard again.
At least until May. (Lilah’s birthday ;)

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