House Decorated for Halloween - check!

Ok, so it's not my house that's decorated for Halloween, but my Mom's house sure looks cute.  I've always loved being at my parents house for holidays.  My mom has always done such a good job at decorating and making everything feel so fun and festive. 

Here is her beautiful fireplace mantle.  If you haven't seen what it looked like before, it's worth checking out,  it's quite the makeover.

Can you find anything wrong with this picture?

My mom can spell, but I guess Walmart can't  :)

 

If your from Utah you've probably heard of the Wood

Connection.  They always have the cutest wood crafts.

These cute cats I actually think my brother n' law cut out and

my sister painted.

Now for the cutest picture of all.  Meet my new

little nephew.  Ok, so he wasn't that little.  He was

9lbs 9ozs.   Isn't he cute.  My sister's doctor was out

of town and the midwife told my sister  that she 

had to do a little research about delivering such a 

big baby.

Mom and baby are both doing great!!!

I think I'm in Fabric Heaven

My mom is a very talented seamstress. She made every dress that I ever wore to a school dance. She made my twin sister's wedding dress.  I've always liked sewing (sort of).  I've worked in a few fabric stores, but never really cared that much about fabric.

Note:  This isn't my stash,  I just wish it was!

Isn't this the prettiest stash of fabric you've ever seen?

But the last couple years................... I get so excited over pretty fabric.  I get jealous when I see other people's pretty stashes of fabric.  Really...............it's ridiculous.   I may or may not have even dream t about fabric a few times.  Well, this fabric definitely got the better of me and my little fabric addiction.   And lucky for me, it came in the mail last week.

Meet.............Ruby,  by Boni and Camille for Moda.   Isn't it pretty!!!  I have big plans for this pretty fabric although it kind of breaks my heart to think about cutting it up.

I've also been working on a project out of this fabric.  This is a line that Basic Grey did for Moda, I really like it too.  It took me like a year to get up the nerve to cut into this one.

I'm starting to feel a little more comfortable with my free hand quilting.   Don't look too close, there are still plenty of mistakes, but.............I'm getting there!

I've also discovered a fun photo editing site called Picnik..    It's worth checking out if your into photography at all.  And for the most part it's free, unless you want to get real fancy with your photo's.  There are a ton of options that are free.

Fall Projects

It's been a little crazy around here.  First off we have raspberry jam galore.  Every year we seem to make more than the year before, this year we definitely hit the jack pot.  I ended up doing 8 batches of raspberry jam.  Of course I had to freeze like 5 ziploc bags of raspberries for jello salads, I mean I am from Utah.  I told my husband it may be time to invest in a deep freeze.

 Here is my attempt at Salsa, it  is a ton of work.  Not sure I'll being doing salsa again anytime soon, I guess it will depend of whether or not my family LOVES it or not.

 

Here is a project I'm trying to get done for Moda.  I'm super excited about it.   I think I may be getting a little better at free hand quilting.    It still stresses me out, but I'm going to keep at it if it kills me.  I did find some quilting gloves on line that helped a ton.  It was so much easier to move the fabric around. 

I really need to get going on this one.  My little sister is due any day now and I'm going to make her a quilt out of this fabric.  Poor thing,  a week ago the doctor says her baby boy is already over 9 lbs.  Were pretty sure there are going to be football scouts hanging out around her hospital room when he is born.

My husband also let me order some fabric that I have been drooling over.  My poor neighbors probably think I am spying on them waiting for the UPS man to come.  I can't wait to show it too you, I have a project in mind for it that I can't wait to get started on.  PLEASE hurry UPS man!!!

The Winner and a Super Cute Halloween Craft

The Winner is..........................Ashlee (comment #37).   Congrats Ashlee!!!

Ashlee also happens to have a super fun cooking blog, called the Culinary Queen.  I am dying to make these Key Lime cupcakes.

I had to show you these cute pillows I found on my friends blog  Chapman Place.   Aren't the darling.  I really want to make them.  She has a tutorial on how to make them and she also has them for sale in her Etsy shop for $24, a great deal I think.

Thanks Again to everyone who entered.  It made my day to see 500 followers.  Sort of silly I know, but for some reason I get a kick out of things like that.

A Fall Giveaway

note:  Well, it turns out my tutorial for Glace Forever Quilt was too similar to an already published pattern so it has been pulled.  I understand,  there are so many quilt patterns out there,  it is bound to happen. I just don't want anyone to think I would ever copy a quilt.  I would never do that.  I know (to a small degree) how much work goes into designing a pattern.

First off, be sure and go visit the Moda Bake Shop today! It took me two years but I finally finished a tutorial over there.   Thanks to everyone who is over here visiting from the bake shop, hope you will like my little giveaway.  Be sure and come visit again, I  have some big projects in the works!

Included in the giveaway are 4 fat quarters of this pretty fall fabric by Sandy Gervais, for Moda.  Also I made these two flowers.  One is a barrette and one is a pin you can attach to a jacket or bag or whatever works for you.

To Enter -

For one entry, become a follower on my blog.

For another entry -  Become a follower and tell me what you'd make with this fabric.

For Five entries - Do everything above and post about this little giveaway on you blog.

Make sure you leave me some way to notify you if you are the winner!

I will pick the winner by random generator first thing Wednesday morning.  Thanks Again for everyone who entered!

Our New Cozy Nest

 Most of you already know that we sold this little house of ours about a year ago.  We just out grew it.  Six people in 1400 sq feet was a little cramped.   It's weird but there are days that I really miss it.  There were just so many good memories there. 

I was on a walk one day and saw a house being built about 4 blocks north of where we  lived.  I checked into it and found out  there was a new subdivision going in.   To me it seemed perfect - our kids could go to the same school and it wouldn't  be too much of a change (I don't handle change well - at all).  The park that I love is literally in our back yard (which is good because we hardly have a back yard).    To make a long story short, our home sold 3 weeks after we put up a sign and we started the building process.

So, here is our new (a little bigger) home.  This is the dining room.  

Now we can fit our dining room table, leaf and all.

Here is our kitchen!  I love it, it's not

too big or too small, for us it's perfect.

Then entrance way.  I love the wood work,

but wow is it a pain to keep clean with 4 kids. The 

banister was supposed to be the same color as our 

kitchen cabinets, it's not..

I'm still trying to get them to fix it.

The living room.

Here is my absolute favorite thing about our house.
I love having this pantry.   Sometimes after I go grocery
shopping and  get it nice and organized,
I just stand and look at it. (weird I know).
It's just nice to know that one area in my house
is organized.

So there is my house.  I will take pictures of the front when the front yard is in (hopefully in a couple weeks.)  The backyard will have to wait for next year and another tax return :)   I haven't decorated much, especially in the bedrooms, once I do I will post some pictures.   The basement is unfinished so your not missing much there.  Once it's finished there will be 2 or three bedrooms and a nice big family room.  Oh and there is a cold storage room, I'm excited about that.

Now for some really exciting news...........at least to me.  I'm  posting a tutorial for this quilt over at Moda this Saturday.  I'll also be doing a little giveaway so celebrate the Moda post that took me two years to write so be sure to come visit!

A furniture Refurbishment!

So when we sold our other home and moved into a tiny little apartment while we built, we had to sell our piano.  There was no way it would fit in our apartment, and with Utah weather we knew we couldn't store it in a storage shed.   Well about the time we moved into our home we found a piano on KSL but it was missing the piano bench.

My daughters piano teacher found this one at the DI for 15 dollars.   I guess it was an old sewing bench.  I loved it, I love how it's a little smaller than a normal bench.

This isn't the best picture.  But here it is after a lot of sanding and staining and varnishing, and my first attempt at reupholstering.  I don't even know if I could call it reupholstering, it was so easy. 

And here it is in it's new home.  It was a lot of fun, and to go buy a new piano bench would have been close to $100.00.  My cost, bench - $15,  stain and varnish - already had, fabric from hobby lobby with coupon - around $10.  Total cost - $25.  Too bad when we tell our husbands how much we just saved them, we don't get the difference back to buy fabric or something. 

I promise to post pictures this week of my house, well parts of it anyways.  Hopefully you wont be disappointed with my lack of decorating.  Too bad, everything has to cost money.

An Alfresco Dinner

Last week on our door was an invitation for an Alfresco Dinner at a neighbors house.  I was super excited.  One because she is a caterer so I knew the fool would be super good (and it was).  And their house is one of those houses that I've been admiring forever and really wanted to see more of it.

Isn't it the cutest house.  I will go by in the daytime one of these days and get a better picture for you.  

I knew she would have it decorated so cute, and she did.  I love the bunting (I hear it's no longer a pennant garland it's bunting).

For dinner she served the most delicious homemade breads and everyone who came brought a salad.  I wish the guests would have brought there recipes too, because there were some really good ones.  For dessert she served the best fruit cobbler I've ever had, and all this time I thought mine was good.

Here is the cute deck that is just off the side of their house.  They just had a daughter get married and her husband told me this is where the band played.

For dinner they just laid out a bunch of blankets, it was so cute.

I love their pretty garden, it almost makes me want one.

At the end of the party I saw people inside their home, so of course I went right in.  Her Father was the artist for the LDS church magazines for 30 years so her home is filled with beautiful art.

Their dining room, so cozy!

Her kitchen was very Art Deco (I hope that is the right term).  She had beautiful cabinets made out of gum wood. 

So as you can see I was in heaven.  I took as many pictures as I could with 4 kids.   Remember a while back when I talked about all the beautiful houses in my neighborhood.   Well I am super lucky because now I live even closer to these beautiful historic homes.    And I go to church with a lot of the home owners every Sunday.  Sooooo..........you can bet I will do my best to get inside of them and snatch a bunch of pictures.

I almost forgot,  I'm so excited about this.  I FINALLY finished a post for Moda.  It's my favorite quilt ever.  I made this quilt over two years ago, and have just put off writing up a tutorial for it.