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)

finished quilt....

It was cold this morning.

Very cold....below zero (Fahrenheit)

But I wanted to get a picture of the finished Zombie quilt before the sun came up...

while it was nice and bright, but no glaring sun hitting it!

I added red button eyes because Mary Lou Weidman says in her book...

(when making faces)

"avoid red or orange buttons-they make the person or animal look a little crazy."

Perfect.

Now all I need is to give this to Jacob. 

He will be so happy! The first thing he says when I see him is...

"is it done yet??"

I can finally say yes!!!!!

fabric, fabric and wood.....

There is a small box of cherrywood fabrics that are left overs.

scraps!

I have been playing with them.

This is what I have so far.

The LOVE ones (tonya loves) are potholders and the other one

is going to be a mug rug for the table in the living room.

(or will be once I put on some binding)

other sewing......

This month's block lotto block had me thinking. What is light? What is bright?

I hope next month I won't have to think so much.

I really have 7 to enter, but I lost the picture of the first one.

I did a quick table quilt using the scraps. I used raw edge applique. Should have tried a little harder getting all the edges sewn down. The edges are sorta hairy.

Now the wood...

When we moved here, there was a table base made out of 2x4's.

Nothing special.

Tractor joe added some  wood to the top and and we used it outside for the last 

decade or so. But the top started cracking and falling apart.

I had visions of putting on some "new" old barn wood and painting the base black.

A table for the living room so you could put your feet up.

Tractor joe was hesitant.

"it's junk"

"in the living room?"

"it should be thrown out and burned"

But he cut, attached and sanded some of the old barn wood for the top.

I painted and stained the top.

I love how it turned out. 

It is now upstairs where I can put my feet up if I want.

& I think tractor joe is glad he didn't burn it after all.

Ian Malcolm.....

I am still busy staring at fabric.

and it is staring back at me.

painting and paper.....

This post doesn't have any fabric or sewing in it. This will be about what I do when I am not busy staring at fabric and wondering what to do next. (this way? that way? what color?)

This is about a free online workshop. [strathmoreartiststudio.com] The first one is doodles unleashed or some such thing.

I should have stopped at this point. It looked kinda cool. But no, I added doodles like the video showed.

These images are the before. When I finished, I was horrified by the doodling I did. It wasn't very pleasing to look at. (I never took a picture, it was late and dark outside) 

So I painted over everything and started over. 

I have come to the conclusion that I am not very good at doodling. 

I went back to what I know, stencils and cut-up sponges to apply the paint.

I will try again, but for now I am happy with these sheets of painted paper, as they are, right now.

All of them hiding 3 different workshop attempts. The sheets are 18x24 inches.

What to do with these now??

Well, 

My other latest obsession is making little books by folding paper.

Like this [8 page] or, this one that is [16 pages]...

I have used an old atlas page, 

12x12 scrapbook paper, (they are the tall skinny ones) 

18x24 makes the garden/love size with 16 pages

my paycheck deposit sheet, (the little white one) 

and brown packing paper. 

Plus several at school using unclaimed painted paper.

I think the workshop papers will be very happy becoming little books.