New Diet

I've started a new diet. It's the HCG diet. I started today.


I will be blogging each day (hopefully) about my journey via this blog, in case you are interested in following me on my journey.

Dollhouse

Okay, so do you all remember the movie Babe? Yes, it's the one with the talking pig. It's really cute. Remember how Babe's owner makes dollhouses? You don't? Oh. well, I do.

I know it's a weird thing to remember, but I've kind of always wanted to make my own dollhouse. When I was little, and still played with Barbies, I figured out a way to make a paper house for the dolls. It wasn't spectacular, but it worked.

Well this is one dollhouse that I would LOVE to make....assumming I had that much cash just laying around waiting to be spent! I don't even have a little girl to play with it. I WOULD PLAY WITH IT! :) Seriousy. How fun would it be to make that beast of a dollhouse? SO COOL.

Alas, I can think of many more important things to spend $824 on.... like bills.... or saving up for a trip to Disneyland in three years.... or maybe even a piano that actually has all 88 keys! (That would just be awesome!) haha :)

Another January OPAM finish!

I feel like I have been on a roll this month! Woo Hoo! I have gotten so much done, it's so great! I just hope I can keep it up throughout the year.

So this is "LOVE." I finally finished binding it tonight while I watched American Idol on my Tivo. :) I'm really excited to use this in my living room now. It certainly will brighten things up :)

A view of the back and the front. I love that the neon red thread looks like it's hot pink. :)

Random Question

How old is old enough to go to Disneyland for the first time?


I was 8 my first time. My brother was 5. He loved the characters still. Me, not so much.


It's just, Marshy loves the Disney characters so much right now, but I think 3 is maybe a little too young? I just don't want us to wait until he doesn't want to meet Mickey and Goofy and Donald. you know?


Anyway, just wondering what ya'all think about it. It's really expensive, anyway. I priced it out and for the 3 of us staying in an economy class hotel, it was still $1000 not including food!

HOCKSTOCK!!!

Marshy has been playing hockstock (hopscotch) in our kitchen. Today he asked me to make him a hockstock so he could play in his room. This is what I came up with:
Yes, I know it's kinda girly, but that's all my stash has left at the moment.

Playing hockstock in the living room. Yes, please ignore the mess. I am in the middle of a big fat project, which of course took backseat to Marshy's request for a hockstock. haha

Jumping on the hockstock. He so doesn't follow the hopscotch rules, but he is only 3.

Unofficial OPAM Finishes

So, part of the rules for OPAM 2010 is that BOMs have to be completely finished: pieced, quilted bound, in order to count. However, this BOM has been one that I've been working on for a while, and I feel like it at least deserves some showing off. :) I love the little lamb holding the "4th" sign for July!

My second unofficial OPAM finish is Mike's denim rag quilt. Yes, I technically finished it in December, but it hasn't been washed until today, so technically it wasn't completely finished, right?

That's what I thought! It ragged up so nicely. I went up to the laundromat to wash it, and boy am I glad I didn't use my own machine! Cleaning out that washer was TOUGH! There were bits of denim and flannel all over the inside of the washer. It took probably 10 minutes to get all of it out.

Anyway, so now that it's officially finished, it's an unofficial OPAM finish! :)

Teeth

If you look really closely, you can see just how bad Marshy's teeth were. You may have to click on the photo and enlarge it to see.

He had some bottle rot across the top of his front 4 top teeth.

Today we went to the dentist in WVC bright and early (7:50 AM appointment) to have his teeth capped. His pediodontist uses IV sedation. It is the best ever! Marsh didn't fight, except for the first second after the nurse stabbed him with a shot. An hour later, he had 4 brand new caps (that look FABULOUS!) and a filling. The dentist even used the porcelain colored filling, so he looks TOTALLY normal. :)

His caps look really good, too. Marsh was a little out of sorts all day. He had two boo-boo's, (one from the shot, one from the IV), one on each arm, which kept hurting him all day. He was really grumpy, too, so I wasn't able to get any good photos of his new teeth. Hopefully he'll be feeling better tomorrow. I will post pictures of his new teeth when I get them.

eww.nasty.gross.

I'm at the laundromat. I'm only here because Mike won't let me wash his rag quilt for the first time in our washing machine.


It really stinks like wet, sour clothes, nasty mildew, and like maybe there is something rotting in one of the trash cans.

I want to barf. and then bleach my nose so I don't have to smell it ever again.

I really hope I don't have to come back here again. ever.

Some Funny Moments

Marshy has started to dance. He does this funky thing with his arms. I wish you could see it, because it is AWESOME! He locks his fingers together and then rocks his arms up and down, back and forth in front of him while shaking awkwardly to the music. It's just further proof that he is, in fact, a white boy with no rythm whatsoever! :D
He likes to make Keisha, his cousin, dance with him. She turns the radio on at work and he loves to dance to it. So cute to watch!

As you can see, Christmas is down, and he has decided that he likes to be spun. Not just spun around in a circle, but gripped by the wrists and full on "flying" through the air in a circle. He doesn't even get dizzy!! NOT FAIR! Keisha and I took turns the other day, and we both about ran into things we were so dizzy!

This one is a little blurry....my camera wouldn't cooperate. (Ms. Kodak...if you're listening... I'm going to have to start taking Mr. Nikon to work with me instead of you if you can't behave!) P.S. - That's a roll of batting behind him, with my machine to the left of him.

Anyway, I was taking a few pictures of the Gracie Lou's monthly table runner, and Marsh came up and practically stood in front of the camera until I took a picture of him. He loves to have his picture taken, which is good, because I'm going to have to take him to get his pictures done soon.

It's only been since November 2007 since we had them done. 2 years, no big deal....except he didn't have hair then. And he couldn't walk away yet... although he was quite the crawler. :)

Don't worry, I won't be booking with Kiddie Kandids (scroll down and read the letter to employees. Can you believe companies can get away with that kind of stuff: "there is no money for payroll, past or future" SO GLAD I don't work for them, but my heart goes out to all of those employees who haven't been paid and now won't be. Really sucky way to start the new year).... I think I'll stick with good ole JC Penney Portrait Studio. They are just as good, and were half the price as KK (no wonder they went out of business!)

OPAM 2010 - January Finishes

I joined OPAM, One Project a Month 2010 (I participated in the 2009 version of OPAM), and am already proud to report some finishes! :)

First, is Penelope Ruffles, by Izzy & Ivy. Lola, my SIL (and the designer behind Miss Penelope Ruffles) made one that looked like this for our New Moon fundraiser. She used black and white, and red fabrics to creat this dazzling purse, and I knew I HAD to make me one just like it if I didn't win it at the raffle (I didn't win). It took me a while, because I am not used to following anything but "sew with 1/4 in seam allowance on the right side" type of instructions. I am a quilter, not so much a sew-er (as opposed to sewer, which is stinky).


There weren't directions for making the key fob, so I made up my own pattern based off of the sample on the pattern envelope photo.

I am not sure if these next two count, but I'm going to count them anyway. :)

The day after Christmas, all of the Christmas crafts at Joann's went on sale an additional 60% off. These two kits were originally $16, but I got them for less than $4 each.

I just love the Santa, and so does Marshy. When I started it, all I had done were the boots, but he knew INSTANTLY who it was supposed to be.

My fourth finish is my NQT NYD MQ 2010.

What in the world does NQT NYD MQ 2010 mean? Well, it means "Not Quite Traditional" New Year's Day Mystery Quilt 2010. It's a class I took from Longarm University. It was all online. It was really a lot of fun. Here is my finished product:
We did not quite traditional cross hatching and Baptist fans. It was fun.

There was a ton of quilting involved!

Surprisingly, I got it quilted and bound in just 2 days! I guess I was feeling motivated by OPAM to finish so I could report it. :D

Below is the back. I based the fabrics I chose off of fabrics I had in my stash. I really wanted to use the lime green/turquoise (backing fabric) and the lime green (binding fabric) from my stash. Unfortunately, I didn't really have enough of anything that matched, so I had to buy the rest of the fabrics used in the top. It wasn't that much, though, so I'm happy :) Funny story, the fabric for the back is actually fabric from a Halloween line that I bought on clearance at Gracie Lou's. It doesn't look like Halloween fabric to me, though, which is a good thing.

Cindy, our instructor, recommended we use contrasting thread. I thought when I ordered my thread that it would be enough of a contrast. Turns out it blended in really well. Now that it's all quilted, I'm glad that the thread isn't too contrasting, because the texture from the quilting is so nice. I used Kate Green on the turquoise bits for the Baptist Fans, Ferrari for the lime green background quilting, and Gerbera Daisy in the hot pink fabrics. They are all by So Fine! threads.

I am having so much fun doing OPAM already. I just hope that I can continue getting things finished. Here's to 12 months of finished projects! :)

Makes me laugh

A lady on one of my online quilting groups posted the link to this video. It makes me laugh. :)

The Wedding

I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but I agreed to do the flowers for my cousin's wedding on December 19th, right in the middle of my busiest month of the year. Yeah, I know...I had a crazy moment, but everything turned out fine. I didn't get to go to the wedding or the dinner because I had to work those nights after doing the flowers (because I took 2 days off of work to do the flowers). But, everything looked great. Here are some pictures.
One of the photo tables (photo borrowed from her album on FB)

The cake (photo borrowed from her album on FB)

Close up of the bouquet.

The bride's bouquet had roses (Red France), spray roses, hypericum berry, salal, Italian ruscus, rununculus, and red tulips.

The bridesmaid's bouquet. It had white roses, spray roses, salal, and Italian ruscus. My MIL made this for me.

More of the bride's bouquet. Angel, my SIL, made it for me. She is so awesome!

The wristlet for my cousin's little sister.

The groom's bout (my cousin).

The bouts for the dads, grandpas, and best men/brothers all looked like this one.

The corsage for the mothers.

The corsage for the grandmas. My MIL helped me with the bouts/corsages and the wristlet.

The table settings. I did 12 square vase centerpiece arrangements, and then sprinkled some rose petals randomly around it.

One of the photo tables.

The book table. The large photo on the right had everyone's seating assignment on it.

I finished the flowers just as people started to arrive. Everything turned out really nicely.

LOVE

I rang in the new year by making this fabulous quilt! I used the Turning Twenty pattern by Tricia Cribbs and used Love by Amy Butler. I just love Love! It's so beautiful! I picked 6 of my favorite fabrics for the blocks and another fabric for the border.

Isn't it so beautiful?! I just love it!!

Here is the finished set: backing (blue), the quilt top, and the binding.

I'm going to quilt it tomorrow/today and hopefully have it bound by the end of the weekend. :) I bought Star Trek on blu-ray the other day, so I'll have 2 hours of fabulous movie to keep me from getting bored of binding! :)

P.S. - Mike came down as I was ironing the last piece of border and asked me how come I get a huge quilt (I think it's twin sized) and he only got a throw sized quilt for his birthday. I had to explain that you can only use so much of the denim from his holey jeans. Then I promised to make him a bigger quilt soon. Pattern ideas? I'm thinking maybe the Super Simple quilt or just squaring up some fat quarters and sewing them together. What do you think?