Karen's latest baby quilts.....

Karen came over this afternoon to show me
all the quilts she has been working on....
A little boy due in March will get
this one.

This isn't for anyone in particular....

But she wanted to have a baby girl quilt ready to go.

Just in case someone has a girl...someday...

It is so soft and sweet.

There is a blue one done up just like this one....

but that one is at the quilters already.

Another boy one....

When she finished it, she called and said.

"It looks so plain. So dull"

(or maybe it was texted to me...anyway)

How about appliqued hearts?


But it's a boy quit...oh yah....How about stars!

That did the trick...I love it.

Those girls at the office have no idea how lucky they are...

They are lucky Karen works there with them...

and she has been sewing up a storm!!!

Instead of "quilts by others" I should have just labeled it "Karen's"

ozzy...

This is the last page for awhile.

There was this stack of photos from 2008...

all separated into groups...

(I don't remember doing this, but I must have)

It sure helped get going on some pages though.

My pile of completed pages keeps on growing.

Now back to some unfinished sewing projects

and maybe a new one or two.

friday and saturday....

Crispy wanted to know....

would be all right if

some of his friends came over.....

"how many?"

"oh... just a few"

they wanted to play video games.

I say this is more like several.

But what do I know??

Poor Ozzy....hardly any room on the rug for him

after I arranged the shoes!

They must have had fun.....

they gathered both Friday and Saturday night.

hope they win...

It won't be long now...
In about 1 hour
I will watch some football...

Go VIKINGS !!!!!!!

Once in awhile you gotta love a cheese head.

birthday page

I wasn't sure how to scrap a birthday picture of a twenty-something with a really rinky-dink cake. (the big guy, my oldest)

....and then....

I saw this quote....

* (light bulb popping on)

that's it....that's what I can use.....

It is a quote from Paul Hawken.

See the checkered squares???

and the black behind the letters for LIFE????

They came from the film strip frames in Snow Cold....

(below)

It just tickles me when I do things like that.....

2 page spread....

no school....again......

I actually went to the post office and mailed off

Carolina Christmas, Bri's card and Maddie's little book...

all about her trip here to Iowa.

This is the last page.

Two more pages to show on the blog.

In 2008 my aunt Meta turned 99.

whoa!!!

99?

geez, we better go celebrate with her.....

On Sundays, she loves to eat the Snackers @ Kentucky Fried Chicken...

and then go to bingo!

So that is what we did, we went to KFC.

Then back to her house in Minneapolis for cake and ice cream!!

We didn't do the bingo that trip...

(we saved it for her 100th last year)

I wore pink.

It was March, spring was officially here...

even if the weather was still cold and snowy.


We did the tourist thing and stopped at

Minnehaha Falls.

They were half frozen.

I know I sound like a broken record, but...

They were SO PRETTY

I am so proud of myself here....
I was going through a box of paper and found...
the snowflakes, I bet they are almost 10 years old.
The darker snowflake paper was in there too.
I used it as is, just glued it down.
And the words...I cut them out of the back of a
Christmas card I had cut up earlier.

Yes, I have a problem with throwing things away.
You never know when you might need something!

late start.....

The thick, pea soup fog

created a 2 hour late start at school.

So I sat at the desk and worked on another page

for the scrapbook....

the color isn't quite right because of the lamp light...

but I didn't want to wait for daylight.

*****

*****

it was so warm!!

32* feels like 32* (O* C)

It was time to clean some snow off the roof.

I guess snow is in the forecast.

Imagine that.

It was so warm....

I didn't even wear boots or shoes.

I was wearing my summer shoes out there.

My job was to hand tractor joe the shovel after he had climbed up there....

and take pictures...

and answer text messages coming in.

There was quite the buzz about the Vikings winning today!

34 to 3

Poor Dallas Cowboys.

It was so warm that tractor joe took off his coat.




It was so warm he even said,
"I'm sweatin' like the 4 of July up here."

That's what I love about frigid, brutal, bitter temperatures.

It makes 32* feel so warm!!!!

the kitchen table, ink & alcohol....

For today's fun I needed to get out

fabric squares that are about 5" x 5"

glasses

rubber bands

rubbing alcohol

pens.....sharpies or other, I used some brush tipped kind too.

I better list the links that inspired this experiment....

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/experiment/00000032

or

http://happythings.typepad.com/happythings/2009/10/quick-if-a-little-stinky-craft-with-the-girl.html

or

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=327588.0

You will probably find much better directions at these sites too.

I marked the fabric with the brush pens today....

here it is on the glass, ready for action.

I dropped a small drop of the alcohol and watched it spread.....



decided to do another drop since the first drop wasn't that big.



It is so cool watching it spread.
very addicting....


I wish I had a dropper to do this. I only had a straw.

Here are a whole bunch I a did up this morning..........







I tried making a snowflake pattern. After it did it's thing and it was dry, I went back over it to make the snowflake pattern stand out more. I only did half of it so you can see the difference.

Here are some of yesterday's put to use.

I put some heat and bond on the back of the circles...

then cut them up for flowers.

I rarely use flowers when scrapbooking.

(3 boys and flowers just don't jive)

so here was a chance to use them.

These pictures were from 2008 in late March......
Here is a close up of the flowers. These were from the sharpies.

You can see all the circles of dots I made to make these.
Because of the heat and bond on the back of the fabric...

it was pretty slick using the iron to attach these to the page.

The white flowers are plain old cardstock...they were just laying around in the drawer....

waiting to be used.

I have so much stuff.....

that is one of my goals....use what I have around here.....

and make more scrapbook pages.

and one more picture....

The sky was so blue this morning and the trees were so white from the frost.

It was so so pretty.

4 cards and 1 mini album....

I have been working on 3 thank you cards
1 combo thank you/happy birthday
and 1 mini album using pictures from last summer.

Bri's birthday is today, the 13th, and since she won't have this card
in time.....I wanted to make sure she knows that it is in the works....

and say...

on the blog....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BRI!!!!

note to self...get box ready for mailing to Virginia!!!

I wanted milk.....

The grocery store ran out of milk on Wednesday.

Weather conditions kept the truck from coming, it was stuck in Nebraska.

We ran out of milk at home sometime Friday morning.....

Word on the street was that the truck would be coming late Friday

and it was true!!

Early this morning (Saturday) I was able to buy 2 gallons of milk!!!

While out and about, I took some pictures of the banks TIME and TEMP!

Karen and I plan a trip to the quilt shop in Forest City....

we decided to wait until the afternoon to go.

It might be a little warmer.

scrapbooking

It wasn't all fun and games outside today....
There was work to do inside too.
I gathered up this years
Christmas cards....
and started......


cutting
them up...... A couple of them were left whole,
to hold the newsletters that came with them....
and one my Mom sent had to be about
50 years old.
She said it came out of her mom and dad's house.
Poor card was just sitting in a box...
waiting to be discovered
and stuck in my scrapbook!

I haven't sent out cards in years
every year I say I will....
and then
I don't get it done.



When I finished these 3 pages, I discovered a few more cards....
So, I am not quite done.

I have saved the cards and pictures from the last several years.
They are even organized, each year held together with a rubber band.
Maybe I will actually get them done....
it is kind of fun cutting them up and making everything fit on the pages.

the day after the storm.....

This poem was in my email today.....It seemed like a perfect time to use it!!!

snow again....

There is no school today.

All the roads around us are "no travel recommened" or just plain "closed".

My mini Carolina Christmas (32 x32) is ready to show....

I just quilted on the diagonal, about 1 1/2 inches apart. I had a few spots of puckering...but that disappeared when I washed it and then tossed it in the dryer. Now the whole back is puckery.

oh so pretty....http://quiltville.com/carolinachristmas.shtml/....even if it is a much smaller version of this....

I decided not to add any borders...

the batting I found for it was just the right size...

....and this seemed like a very good reason to call it done.

and so my borderless quilt is finished and ready to send to Virginia....

what they REALLY want is a bedsize quilt....

someday....

someday...

playing in the cold Saturday morning...

We had a bird visiting our suet feeder.

We didn't know what it was....only that it was

black and white and had red on the back of it's head.

The one book we have.....

didn't have anything that looked like our visitor.

So we wondered and watched it come to eat.

When tractor joe was over at this mom and dads, they went through a different book.

and there it was...

finally we have a name....

Downy Woodpecker!!!!!!

We had to bring the big guys truck in for repairs.

Before we left we "played" with the cold.

We tossed super hot water into the air

It would vaporize into a cloud,

very little of it ever reached the

ground.

I blew some bubbles too. They turned a frosty color and would float down....then roll along the top of the snow. That fun lasted until the wand froze up and it was time to leave with the truck.

I grabbed a picture of the thermometer in the car. dang it was cold.

My mini Carolina Christmas is getting washed and will be in the dryer shortly

so it will get that crinkly look....and hide some of my wonky machine quilting.

I know, I am surprised too .....at how quickly I finished the binding.