cards

My mother-in-law needed some birthday cards for a couple of her girl cousins.

She wondered if I could make her some.

(she had talked to tractor joe, who said, "Mom needs 2 birthday cards")

I made a few birds with happy birthday on them,

postcard style

Hmmmm....there was hesitation as she looked.

This will work for one of them, but the other is turning 90,

and she is a quilter

and I need an envelope....

(tractor joe didn't get the details of what she was thinking)

Okay, back to the drawing board.

Now I had the details...

I made this one on card stock,

using fabric,

getting a quilt block on it,

 made sure it said 90,

and it is a real card with an envelope.

On my way to give them to her this morning!

we kame and konquered

We were out geocaching yesterday.

One of the caches was (Ocheyedan Mound Earthcache)

There is no actual cache container up there. 

To get the find we had to walk up to the top.

Time for a little exercise!

We needed to take a picture up there and figure out what area was the highest.

Here I am on the highest area, bracing myself against the wind.

At least it wasn't cold, just a nice warm WINDY day.

Most of the others were micros (film canister size)

I stuck my finger up the black hose and the whole thing came off the wall.

Ahh....a fake water faucet! It was held there with a magnet.

When you twisted off the hose, you find the tiny cache container.

This one is called Rainbow Bridge. I don't know how old the bridge is, but it's in the middle of nowhere. The locals have been marking it up for years.

I wasn't very impressed with the graffiti.

The cache was simple enough to spot.

It was hanging there, in plain site. That made it easy!

We went for 7 and found all of them!

I need to work on some triangles for the block lotto. This month is going by way to fast.

blue baby quilt....

The blue baby quilt is finished! 

It was the backing that slowed me down.

I love pieced backing...

as long as I am not the one doing it.

I loved making the letters, but getting the rest of it sewn up just dragged me down...and it wasn't even that many pieces. oh well.

The baby's mom saw a picture of it and said,

"it is beautiful, I will never use it"

I hope she does! It is quilted heavily and should hold up to several washings.

It was starting to snow when the picture of the quilt was taken.

Then the white stuff picked up...

it was really pretty....

and the dog needs a haircut.....

We'll wait till it is warmer.

Yesterday was balmy warm...and all the snow is gone.

Now today there is a nice cold brisk NW wind and thoughts of spring are not as strong.

back in the house I sewed up some scrappy trip blocks...

I don't know my total, but it is a nice sized pile!

The "Letter Love 101" class is over. 

heavy sigh, I miss it.

One of the last things we were to do is use about 10 of our favorite things from the class and make a journal.

So far, I have one little page.

painted papers...

My great aunt Meta had lots of bingo dobbers.  She has moved to a nursing home now, so my Mom asked if I wanted them. Sure. They are such pretty colors. I tried them out recently.

On plain paper I drew hearts and flowers with a yellow crayon.

Over that I started dabbing with different colors.

Love, love, love.....

I made more "I love you more than coffee, NO WAIT" cards.

and since I am easily side-tracked....

I also starting cutting up painted paper that I had from this free online class...

sign up here!

(I didn't doodle on these, I just wasn't lovin' the results when i did)

My favorite place for fonts is...

http://www.dafont.com/

under Fancy is "typewriter"

I printed out the typewriter looking words. Size 22.

I cut a bunch of birds from that paper and made several postcards.

I found the words here....(etsy shop)

St. Valentine's Day postcards.....

I saw the words for this one on a quilt....but now I can't find it back,

so I can't link to it. The words stuck with me though.

I made a bunch and put them all in the mail... to relatives (moms, sisters & cousins)

The preschoolers made cards too.

Some painted cereal boxes, some painted paper,

some stamped letters, some punched hearts and white postage stamps

and some did a little bit of everything.

It took us all week, doing a little bit each day.

We ended up putting all the elements into a community pile.

They each picked a card, then stamped their own backgrounds with the love and swirly stamp.

Some used lots of hearts, some glued just a few.

Putting the letters L-O-V-E in order turned out to be optional.

This was so much fun.

Happy Valentine's Day

letters....

I am taking an online class.

Letter Love 101...and I LOVE it.

Joanne Sharpe is the teacher, this is a link (click here) to her blog.

I adore her stuff.

for practice, she has us use a composition notebook

Crispy had one from 8th grade science.

It has been in a cupboard for 4 years....

waiting for me to find a new use for it.

he hardly used any of the pages

so I am, for practice

Over the years I have collected pens for scrapbooking. This is a good way to go though them and find out which ones are good yet...and which ones are dry and no good.

On to sewing....

The blue baby quilt is still not done!

I had a border on it and went to cut backing and batting.

I needed to piece everything. 

I wasn't very careful and ended up making it too SMALL.

Dang.

Then I quit working on it and everything just sat here.

Sometimes things work out...

The next think I knew, it was February and baby boy was born.

And of course he got a name.

Now I am kinda glad I didn't add more fabric to the backing and get it done before he was born. 

His name will make the backing bigger. My lettering class came into play here.

I stuck blue on the inside of the letters.

Yes, it is all working out the way it should.

block lotto blocks.....

Block Lotto has moved!

The new place is (HERE)

I posted these blocks there, and it seemed to take me forever. It isn't with blogger, so there are new and different ways of doing things. But I managed.

The blocks can be any heart block using at least two, or all 4 of the colors...

 pink, orange, gray and cream.

This heart doesn't work. It only used light pink and dark pink.

I wasn't that crazy about the look of it.

Too long.

It needed doctoring real bad.

Real, real bad!

I sewed through the middle of the heart to shorten it and liked the look of it much better. 

Then I needed to add different colors to make it work for the lotto.

This is how it looks. I love it now.

There is a big Super Bolt Sale this Sunday at The Quilted Forest in Forest City.

I will be going to get pretty pinks and gray. I have so little of it.

Here is the link for the kitty/heart block... (so darn cute)