Homeowner's At Last!

I've been away for quite awhile, but with good reason.  J and I became homeowners earlier this month!  Our landlord for 8 years decided to move back into the property we were renting, which gave us the push that we needed to find a home we could call our own and it's been a whirlwind of activity over the last few months.
Here is our new place before we moved in:

We just moved in a little over a week ago, so we are still living in box central, but we are slowly making progress.

J is not so interested in the interior decor, but he has already started working on our curb appeal!  The man has limitless energy and Home Depot has become like his second home!  The bush to the left of the stairs is already gone, as is the straggly rosebush under the window and the ill-placed satellite dish.
He is still working on the front of the house, but I will share pictures soon.

As for me, I'm still "nesting" and haven't quite gotten used to this being our home. I love the master bath with a soaking tub (something I've always dreamed of!) and the huge deck overlooking the woods is the perfect place to relax in the evening.  Our previous place was in an older, crowded neighborhood and on a main street, so we were used to hearing traffic and fire engines and police cars scream through constantly.
The new house is at the end of a quiet court surrounded by woods and all that we hear at night is crickets and frogs.  (I've also been warned that the foxes make quite a racket sometimes, but we haven't had that yet.)

But the best part of the new house is that I'm super close (like one street away close) to my sister, Quilted Cupcake, which means tons more sister sewing and crafting time!

I can't wait to share our before and after pics of our progress.  Our to do list is crazy long, but it's so much more worth is when you are working on turning your own house into a home!

Always,
K

She Art

My latest obsession has nothing to do with fabric & sewing and everything to do with mixed media art.  I used to scrapbook and stamp and used mixed media there, but She Art is new to me. (Apparently it's been around a few years, I just never came across it.)

So I decided to try my hand.  I bought a bundle of 8x10 canvases at AC Moore with my 40% off coupon and pulled out my old stamping and scrapbooking supplies for the reast.  

Not sure how it would go (and wanting to be able to return the canvases if i hated it) I also uncovered a small 6x6 canvas that had a design on it to use as a test.

After modgepodging book pages over the design, I went to work and ended up with this:

I love how it turned out and I loved the process.  I can't wait to make more!  With all of the tons of supplies I already have on hand, I think I found a cheap new creative release.

If you want to learn how to create your own She Art, check out this pinterest pin from the Queen of She Art, Christy Tomlinson of Scarlet Lime.

Always,

K

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Blogland!  I've been adding more bunnies to my collection.  For some reason they keep ending up blue.  I also made the eggs by modge podging old book pages to plastic eggs from the dollar store.

For the bunnies,I used the free pattern from my sister, Quilted Cupcake.  So quick, easy and fun!

You can find the pattern here.  Enjoy!

Always,

K

Thrifty Finds

My sisters and sister-in-law attended he AQS quilt show in Lancaster, PA this past week.  Unfortunately, I was unimpressed with the quilt show.  I had attended in 2011, then skipped last year and found that this year seemed pretty much the same.  While I found lots of pretty fabric, for some reason the Wow Factor was missing.  We spent three days in Lancaster and only 3 hours at the show.

I always love trips to Lancaster for visits to my favorite places like Zook's Fabric Store, Goods Store & Shady Maple.  This time my sister, Jean, and I spent most of our time in the local thrift stores as well.
My favorite was definitely Re-Uzit .  We went to two different locations (New Holland and Ephrata) and we definately scored some great stuff.  The prices were so low compared to the Baltimore area thrift stores, we went a little crazy!

One of my favorite finds was a bunch of vintage scissors for .25 to .50 each.  They immediately found a home in my craft room in a small square jar.

We also found a ton of zippers - some vintage, some newer.  They found a home in a half gallon mason jar that is place conveniently in my sewing area.  We each got a huge bag of reclaimed zippers for 1.00.

I immediately tried my hand at something I've been dying to try - a zipper flower. 

I used this great tutorial I found on Pinterest.   I'm super happy at how it turned out and can't wait to make more.  (Note to those who may try this: Cut the zippers with scissors, cutting with a rotary cutter may lead to slicing your finger open and interrupting your project for 15-20 minutes while you apply pressure and bandage the wound.  Further note: If you do end up with a bandaged finger, it works really well to block the hot glue from burning you.)

Look for another post soon to share more thrifty finds including linens and reclaimed wood finds from a roadside store.

Always,
K

A Sew Relaxing Week

Before I batten down the hatches and hunker down to meet Hurricane Sandy (or Frankenstorm, as forecasters are calling it) I wanted to share some of my recent sewing and quilting endeavors.

I was on vacation this week and I spent the majority of the week sewing and playing with fabric. Best. Vacation. Ever.

I spent all day Monday sewing with my sisters Jean and Jan.  I didn't get much done, just a small attempt at a wonky scrap block, because I spent a lot of time cutting up some fabric and digging through the ton of scraps that Jan was getting rid of.

I've been really into blues lately so my scrappy block is all blue:

Since "wonky" drives me nuts, I'm not overly thrilled with it, but it will make a nice potholder or mug rug once finished.

During the rest of the week I skipped from project to project, testing out things I have wanted to try.  My main focus was to complete a new mini quilt for the Alzheimers Art Quilt Initiative.  It's a great charity and one that both my sister, Jean, and I have made projects for before.  The finished quilts they collect are no bigger than 9 x 12 and are auctioned off the raise money for Alzheimer's Research.

My latest quilt is one I call Shattered Blues:



Since I wasn't able to participate in the yearly walk in our area this weekend, I wanted to contribute another way.  Serious props to my sister, Jan, and  brother-in-law, Jim, and their family for participating in the walk and raising $750!! 

Another small project I completed is something I've been wanting to try and have kind of been intimidated by: a quilted notebook cover.  I'm not the best at measuring and adding seam allowances and having them actually turn out correctly but I threw caution to the wind and tried the cover.

I'm so glad I did because I love how this turned out!

It was not nearly as hard as I had thought and now I want to cover every book and notebook in my house!

I ended my week of vacation with a sweet treat for J and I this morning: Cream Cheese Cookies.

It was a simple recipe I found somewhere on Pinterest, but I can't seem to find it again.  Basically it is a package of cream cheese, a stick of butter, a box of yellow cake mix and a 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract.  You mix it together, chill it for 2 hours then roll into balls.  Then coat the balls of dough  with powdered sugar and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Once cool you sprinkle some more powdered sugar on and viola!

Not my favorite cookie in the world, but definately tasty and worth a try!

Also, my Boston's wanted their pictures taken while I was taking pics of the cookies, so here they are:

This is my 13 year old Boston Terror Terrier, Blair.  As I've mentioned prevously on the blog, she has been through a lot in her 13 years.  She has lost her left eye, most of the vision in her right eye, a toe and the majority of her hearing but if you could see her when the pizza man comes to the door, you'd never know it!  She's our pitbull in a 20 lb body.  She's never met a stranger she didn't bite terrorize let know that they were unwelcome.

This is Jovi, my 3 year old Boston.  She what you might call fat a tank chubby. It's hard to get a picture of her upright because this is literally her favorite position.  She sleeps like this and plays like this (what we call "back wiggles).  If we would staple her food bowl to the bottom of the table she would eat like this too.  Her personality is the polar opposite from Blair and she is always wagging her tail and wanting love from every stranger who passes by...not that easy to do while Blair is trying to bite those strangers at the same time.

That's it for today, I have a few more  quilty things to share soon, mostly WIPs!

Always,

K

Gift Giving

I love to give handmade gifts.  I try to give them as much as I can.  I try to not nitpick my gifts and immediatly point out the flaws when I give them. (Am I the only one who does this?  I will literally interrupt someone as they are thanking me to say "Sorry about the little bit of crookedness on the side" even though they didn't even notice it!)

Sadly, my absolute favorite coworker left our team at the end of this week.  I'm sooo sad.  She is so awesome and even though she is in California and I am in Maryland and we've only met twice I consider her a great friend.

The best way I could think of to tell her thank you for your hard work, good luck with your new job and I will miss you terribly was to make her something.  I threw around lots of ideas before I decided on a business card holder.

I was really happy with how it turned out.  I didn't use a pattern and I did have a couple of failed trials before this success, but I'm hoping she will love it as much as I do!  I'm tucking in a Starbuck's gift card and one of my own business cards so she won't forget me!

My other project this week was ruffles.  I will admit that ruffles scare me, or should I say scared me.  I am all about the ruffles now!  I read a few tutuorials I found on a google search and armed with some  good tips, I went to work.  How exciting that I got some decent ruffles on my 2nd try!  I've been wanting to try one of those multi layered ruffled towels that I've seen on Pinterest and I did it!

These ruffles are hand done, but once I fell in love with the ruffles I immediately went on Amazon.com and bought a ruffle attachment for my sewing machine.  I'm hoping it gets here before I go on vacation next week so I can spend some ruffle-y time!

This towel is made out of a cheap flour sack towel that I cut in half.  I used half for the towel and the other half I made into the ruffles.  I love the white on white look.

I'm planning to make a few towels and potholders for another team member who just got married yesterday.  (And I STILL have to do bibs for yet another team member who just had her first little one!)

Needless to say, I'm keeping busy and I couldn't be happier!  I'm hoping to get together soon with my Stitching Sisters for some girl time and sewing time! (We've happily added my sister, Lucy, to our sewing circle and she is SEW excited to quilt and sew!)

Always,
K

Studio Makeover - Part 2 - In Living Color

My studio has always been predominately decorated with red accents, but always with a mish mash of other colors thrown in.  Little by little as I thin out my excess crafting stuff (which sounds better than "get rid of my crap") that I don't need/won't ever use, I'm trying to stay within my chosen color pallette of red/aqua-teal/pink.
A few weeks ago I did a mini-redo of what is possibly the ugliest free standing pantry ever.  I bought this pantry at a thrift store I worked at back in 1993 while living in Virginia.  To be fair, it's little particle board self has held up well.  I keep planning to repaint it, but #1 it's really heavy and #2 I keep saying I'm getting rid of it, although it somehow always ends up sticking around.  For a short-term fix I modgepodged some adorable red & white polka dot wrapping paper that I picked up at Michael's for a dollar (score!) to the front panels. 

Who knew that a little thing like that would brighten it up so much!  I also plan on changing out the knob hardware and doing something to the side that faces my main crafting table, but I'm still thinking on those.

I love how the red & white accents draw your eye up to the scrap fabric in mason jars stored above.

As many of you know, my sister, Quilted Cupcake, has such a great eye for color and decorating, whereas my eye is a little, shall we say, off?  If you haven't seen pics of her studio follow the link and check it out.  It's my dream studio!
My studio is slowly but surely getting there.  I'm in no hurry to get it all done.  I do a little bit at a time and it seems to work better for me stress-wise.

Would love to see some links to your studios!  I'm always looking for inspiration!

Always,
K