Wall Art

I saw this piece of art at Target last year and really liked it but didn't like the $80.00 price tag. I took a picture with my cell and thought I would try to make my own. Here is the finished art work hanging in my family room. 

          

I bought a 3 foot long, 12 inch wide piece of pine at Home Depot. My husband cut it into three pieces and that was all I did until this week!

 I painted the sides a green similar to what I have on the wall in my family room. I choose three different colors of scrapbook paper that I thought would work and modge podged them to each piece of wood.

 I printed out a copy of the picture from Target and used my handy dandy Tracer projector to trace the tree on each piece of wood.

I used black acrylic paint to hand paint the tree. When the paint was dry I used a clear acrylic spray to seal them.  

 Here they are together before I hung them up.

My wall had been naked for over a year.  I am happy with the result and it probably cost me $10.00!

Blessings,

The Bloggers Quilt Festival

I just realized I never posted about this baby quilt I made.  I am taking an English class and a History of the United States class this semester and I am doing so much writing in those classes that unfortunately blogging hasn't been high on my priority list.  Today I found out about the Bloggers Quilt Festival that Amy's Creative Side is hosting so I thought I would enter this little quilt.   My mom asked me to make a quilt for her close friend Lena's daughter who had a very premature little girl.  Little Ella was 1 pound 15 ounces at birth.  I actually babysat for Lena's children a long time ago when I was a teenager. My mother asked her prayer group ladies to come over and they all prayed over the quilt before my mom sent it off. I am happy to say that Stephanie loved it.  I got the sweetest thank you from her that just made me cry. 

 The front

 The back

One of the fabrics I bought had a flower pattern large enough that I was able to use them for appliques in the center of each block. Each block is the same I just rotated them in each row.

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures : 44″x 58″

Special techniques used : applique

Quilted by : Kathleen Weber

Best Category : Baby Quilt

Blessings!

A Wonky Log Cabin

This is the first queen size I've ever made.   Twenty-five 14" blocks.  My quilt group the Wild Threads had a block swap and this is the pattern and fabric I chose.  The group made 9 of the blocks and I made the rest.  One of my quilting friends, Shirley, has a long arm so I had her quilt it for me.  This was a belated graduation gift for my daughter Jocelyn.

 Close up of quilting pattern.

 The front of the quilt.

The back.  

I decided to use the left over fabric and just make one HUGE wonky block.  Finished size is 86" by 93".  I hope it keeps her comfy and warm for many, many years.  I am so happy with it and my daughter loves it too!  What have you been up to?

Blessings, 


PS.  I am going to enter this quilt into the Bloggers Quilt Festival.  Check it out!

Blogger’s Quilt Festival Stats

Finished quilt measures : 86″x 93″

Quilted by : Shirley Rouse

Best Category : Professionally Quilted, Favorite Bed Quilt, Favorite Bee Quilt

A Public Service Announcement

I've spent the last two days weeding my yard I thought I would share a tip.  If you don't want your garden to look like this -

You need to use this - 

I don't know why I can't remember that I need to cook my bird seed in the oven to de-germinate it before I put it in the bird feeder.   Here is said bird feeder.

Here is a close up.  See that?  Yes, that is grass growing right in the bird feeder.  

Never mind that it doesn't grow in the lawn where we purposefully put grass seed.

 

And this is my small vegetable garden - around the corner from the bird feeder.  Usually it holds 5 or 6 tomato plants.  This year I never got them planted - I cleaned it out and got it ready but that was it.  My daughter commented the other day that my 'tomato' plants were looking great.  Then my husband added, yeah, it's a good thing you have those tomato cages in there to hold the weeds up. :)

Any one else have days like this - or I should say seasons like this?  I hope this helps you to remember to cook that bird seed first.  Two hours in a low oven does the trick.  It is a pain but I will keep this picture in my mind for next summer.

Blessings,

Happy Spring!

The weather here in Maryland has been unusually warm. Daffodils are blooming, Forsythias, Pear trees...  It's crazy. Of course the weeds in my beds are blooming right along with them! Here are a few of the blocks I've made for the Wild Threads block swap.

 January blocks.  Chris' above and Diane's below.

February's blocks.  Jennilyn's is the first one and Kathy's on the bottom. I made the orange one with blue stripes.

Hope you are enjoying this beautiful weather! 


Blessings friends,

I'm Alive!

I can not believe it's been almost a month since my last post! On the first day of school one of my teachers told us that if we miss a class we have to get ourselves to the college library, write a paper on what ever topic we missed and hand it in by the next class!  So I jokingly said I guess I'll be dragging my butt to school even if I'm deathly ill and what do you think happens? I have not been that sick in years... I wound up with a bad sinus infection which then turned into a diagnosis of asthma... Not the best way to start off the school year. With being sick and school work I have been so bad at keeping up with reading new posts from all the blogs I follow. Here is what my inbox looks like. 775!!  Yikes. I have got to sit down and start reading!

I did make a cute project for a birthday gift exchange with my quilting friends. We were given a name and their birthday month and then it was up to us to come up with a gift.  My friend Chris' birthday is in April so when I saw this fabric it made me think of spring. I made this weighted pincushion organizer that I found here.  I changed it up a bit. I found emery on Etsy and used it in the small blue section of the pincushion for sharpening pins. I also didn't sew the pocketed section into the pincushion, but used velcro to make it more versatile. I used sand inside the pincushion instead of rice because of the possibility for bugs. I like how it turned out and Chris liked it too! 

                                      

Yeah for getting something accomplished!  I hope you are enjoying this crazy winter weather we've been having.  

Blessings!

Ground Control to Major Tom

This is how I feel this morning as I get ready to leave for my first two classes at our community college. I took a class last semester but that was online.   This time around I am actually going, so I feel a little like that astronaut stepping into the unknown.  

David Bowie's song is in my head: 
Ground control to major Tom 
Commencing countdown
Engines on 
Check ignition
And may Gods love be with you.




Blessings friends,