Day 19 of 21

I want to share with you a blog I follow...why, because she was braver than me and figured out how to cut fabric in a Cricut...you betcha...this is gonna make my scrapbooks pop and my applique on my quilts even better!!!

ya'all go check this out...

http://maluukkonen.blogspot.com/2010/07/creating-your-own-applique-design.html

Missy at the Little Green bean is amazing....enjoy!

Day 18 of 21

Dag nab it....

It's a beautiful friday in my part of the world today. The sun is spreading her warmth and glow, the wind is just ever so slightly whisping at my hair...(ERRRKKKKKK put on the brakes sista...you're working today)...urgh.

OK so from my "tinted office window" that I have to look through a hallway and someone else's office to see out of it looks like a perfect day. I however will drive home in a blazing hotter than the stones in a pig luau pit vehicle to get home tonight, in traffic full of people like me wishing we'd been smart enough to book the friday before the long weekend off. All of us driving along, snearing and jeering at those who are already in trucks/trailers heading to the lake. Fill up your bug spray suckers, those little blood suckers are gonna be having a buffet this weekend.

hmmmmm perhaps I will do something fabulous tonight:
lounge in my kiddie pool? Nope
watch all my favourite shows in no particular order while sipping a sangria? Nope
Playing in MY CRAFT ROOM with AC blaring and tunes jammin? Nope

I will be cleaning out the laundry room from 2 weeks worth of laundry, so that the delivery men who show up tomorrow with my dryer can get it into place and working so I can "finish up" that growing mound of laundry that has become my new arch enemy!

I hope you all enjoy your long weekends for those of you here in Canada, and for my US friends, I understand it's a holiday monday for you too...enjoy, go to a sale, hit a garage sale, help a friend with a laundry room makeover??? whatever...just do it in style and with a drinkiepoo in your hand!

Day 17 of 21

only a few days left for my 21 day challenge...whew...I have so much respect now for those great ladies and gents who post daily, some twice daily to entertain me and my peeps.

Today I realized that sometimes, life is fair....fair in a good way, you work hard, you show your accolades, you show your strength your determination and after all the work you put into something, viola...you get the pure joy and pleasure of knowing that you are appreciated.

Today was my day to have this A-ha moment....and on a Thursday too! Friday will be amazing...Saturday my new clothes dryer will be delivered....you don't realize how long 2 months with a brokern dryer feels like in a house of 6!!! With 3 teens.....urgh!

but no worries, cause today is my day! Hope yours was just as splendid.

Day 16 of 21

I bumped into a new blog "the little green bean" and she has a great idea for storing fabric...I just had to show ya'all....

Enjoy!

Missy at “the little green bean” blog spot showed me a great organizational and CHEAP system for storing fabrics…great work Missy!

Her Great Tutorial on Fabric Storage can be seen by clicking on her button on the right side...

She took a piece of 20 x 30 foam core board, and cut it down to 10 x 7.5 You can get 8 from one sheet. Next she wrapped the fabric around the bolts, the great thing about them being foam board is that you can use stick pins to secure the loose ends.

Now add to your shelf and it's done, ready to organize your delicious selections of fabric!

Note: Cut your foamboard to an inch shorter that the height of your cabinet/shelf and it will be "custom made".....

Thanks Missy for sharing such a great idea...

...and to think I bought a box of these made by a manufacturer for $1.99 each! eeekkkk...foamboard here i come!

Now it's time to sew, I am making some great bags from a tutorial on Moda Bake Shops blog more to come on that! Go on over and visit....My blocks for Bradies Summer Star Sampler are cut out waiting for the Sewing fairy to showup at my house! hint hint

Day 15 of 21

Oh my goodness...i have to tell ya'all about the swap blocks that arrived today. I joined the #2 ziggy swap...this is a block (fabric for those scrappers) that you make, sign with a fabric pen with your name and location, submit 101 blocks to the organizer then you get 101 back from folks all over the world....guess where some of my blocks came from?

nope

yep

nope

Kangaroo Flat, Austrailia....holy cow eh! I also got one from a girl in my little home town...gonna have to facebook her and get together. tons of folks from the US

This swap thing would be great for scrapbookers as well, can you imagine making a page 10 tens, then receivng 10 different pages all back to complete your album?? hmmmm sounds pretty tempting doesn't it....

This was a super Canada Post deliver day!

cheers!

Day 14 of 21 two weeks down one to go

ok, so i never do promotions here, but today I found the sweetest deal ever on Costco Online of all places...

HOT BUYProvo Craft®Cricut Expression® and YourStory® Bundle
Die-cutting Machine andBook Binder and Laminator-Machine Bundle
Item # 236235
RatedOverall Rating:
Share this Product:
$299.99

OK, This along with the Accucut-go for my quilting are the two biggest things I want to have (insert continuous whining here)....so I thought I would share it with ya'all today to hopefully make one of your days, when you order it and share with me! hehehehe

Day 13 of 21

today was a great day, yesterday was crazy busy....

I spent the entire day today at the Edmonton Indy with my hubby, great weather, the sun brought us 24 degrees, great food, perfectly chilled coolers and beer.

The race was great, all that advertising and paint jobs on the car brought me super ideas for some quilt designs and tons of page layouts....

Have you ever done that...used advertising for designs...?

I came home to spilt bbq sauce on my laptop...one of the "teens" in my house left their mcD's bbq sauce packet on my laptop, in the sun, it fell over and spilt into all the ports on my laptop...so now all the keys on the left side are sticky.....sticky...urgh...cleaning out the ports with toothpicks is a pain. oh well .big brother is on tonight, so off I go...see you all tomorrow.

day 12 Opps sorry folks didn't get one

Day 11 of 21

TGIF...or in human terms, thank goodness for fabric....I ran down, actually jogged with a little walking, to the local scrapbook store last week, cutting out shapes with fabric....

Holy Cow, as my 15yr old says SWEEEEEETTT....shapes on pages, shapes on quilts, you wouldn't believe the stuff I've been doing with these shapes. I made some "designer" tshirts, prettied up some of the 5yr olds "stained" shirts with a new lease on life!

I created a bunch of thank you cards using scraps of fabrics, wow wow wow...I just can't tell you all the things you can do with fabric....and my cheat for the week? Go to a local garage sale or thrift store, pick up a really cool shaped jar....get some brightly coloured, or colours to make your room and stuff those coloured fabrics in the jar.....viola! Art!

you wouldn't believe it.....beautiful

Day 10 of 21

long day at work...no time to blog...need sleep! sorry folks

Day 9 of 21

Work keeps getting in my way. How is a self expressive, texture addicted, colour enhanced gal supposed to get designs done, quilts done, pages and scrappy books done if I have to work?

Well it's all about time management. Work takes my time monday to friday from 7am to 4pm...then the kids need to be driven to sports, supper must be made or a coo would be started against me. Then and only then do I get to run away and throw fabric and sparkles in the air....seriously, i usually spend a quick 20 minutes cutting up kits, pages or something before a scream interrupts me, or a "mommmmm" gets yelled out from the bowels of our home.

I try to spend at least 30 minutes before bed in my creative space. It seems to calm me, get my brain thinking on a different track than what it was on during my work time, kid time and family time.

So, off the blog and into my creative space i go...have a great night everyone!

Day 8 of 21

I am sooo tired. I couldn't sleep last night, staying awake until 5am and then being awoken at 6:15 by the dear hubby to ask if i was going to work didn't help either.

oh gosh, too many crafty ideas were swimming in my little head, I couldn't slow it down to go to sleep. However, in the depths of the night, in the silence of the house, i was able to work up 4 page layouts and a new quilt design for my 5" charm pack I've had "aging" for the last 3 years. keep your eyes peeled for its completion soon.

but for now, I will make this a short blog checkin and go have a much needed nap before I take the cuteness to her swim lessons.

PS I went to the local thrift store today, what deals, apacathy jars for my buttons only $2.00 and books for 10cents....hmmmm...i gotta put that on my to do list more often!

Day 7 of 21

It's Monday, a monday that I took off for a ME day....I spent the day running errands for teenagers. But lucky me I spent the evening with great friends at the guild meetings. It's so inpiring to see what others are doing.

Why don't scrapbookers have guilds? There's enough of us out there....would once a month be too much to meet? Would programming conflict with store workshops? hmmmm I'll have to look into this. (ah another thing on my too busy to do list).

Bachlorette is on tonight? i don't watch much television, i tend to rather spend my "quiet" time in my craft room. but alas, the terror trolls have scattered things around in my room so much it's frustrating me with it's messiness......do you get frustrated with a messy work room? Or do you thrive in it...let me know your secrets.

I get to join a class tommorrow night at Creative Scrapbooks with Gail Schaffler as the teacher...whoo hoo can't wait!....and what's your next class?

Day 6 of 21

Day 6 of 21

Isn’t today supposed to be a day of rest...I’ve been up since the sun decided to shine. The breakfast my family received would put any pancake house to shame. The laundry, although 4 feet high when I entered the room, is now only 1 foot in height. I managed to take 2 hours to run to the local scrapbooking store and use the Accucut machine to cut out 100 5 ¾ inch circles of fabrics and a ton of butterflies and maple leaf cut outs...and definitely did some damage on the huge sale table.

Upon return home to make a great taco salad lunch for the “hard working boys” I found a note on the door to say that all 3 of the boys (dh and 2 sons) had taken off to go to the Mopac and hockey card shop (which happens to be 2 stores down from my 2nd favorite scrapbook store) and they didn’t even call me to see if I wanted to go....dang it.

It’s only 3pm and I am exhausted, still working on the secret project for the Oktoberfest/Socktoberfest retreat...supper has to get on the stove but it is waaayyy to hot out for that.

I think we’ll have to order in tonight, and don’t forget my fav show is on tonight, Big Brother will tell the players who the Saboteur was...cause she was a twit and got kicked out the very first week! Duh!

So off to the workroom for a couple hours, til I have to feed the boys (if a miracle happens, they will stop and get themselves something)....

Hope your day of rest is restful, peaceful and lacking any chores of any kind.
Remember....make it your day!

Day 5 of 21

Challenge....would you be up for a crafters challenge? I go online and join swaps all the time, but I was laying in bed last night thinking I should host a block challenge for the quilters out there and a page challenge for the scrappers....hmmm what theme is good for summer. Do you participate in challenges?

I have done page challenges at retreat and then we donated all the pages to the Make a Wish foundation. We done a block challenge and sewn the blocks together to make a quilt for Breast Cancer foundation.

hmmm i'll have to think about this one a bit more and get back to you all.

Guilty pleasures????spill it!

Day 4 of 21
Guilty little pleasures....
What’s your guilty little pleasures...you know, those secret things you do or have that your “friends” would never believe?

I have two crazy ones that are too hilarious and I am sure ya'all are gonna be shocked.

o.k. first I secretly love watching Big Brother...yep, stupid reality show vixen by night, but man I think it’s hilarious. I would love to be in the house, I am sure I would see through all the cons and or tick off someone by week two (do you think they like the flat chested crafty types in there?). I am so addicted to the show that I will stop scrapbooking and quilting to run to the nearest television set to sit down in front of a boob tube, grab my favourite night time junk food snack and my cup of tea and scrutinize the hilarity.

My second guilty pleasure is my obsession with Bic pens. They “write right the first time every time” and that to me is worth it. They are inexpensive, come in great colours and they are lightweight and never explode in my purse like that gel one did.

So now that I’ve dished the dirt on my guilty little pleasures...what are yours?

Day 3 of 21....ummmm made some cookies today to go with yesterdays muffins...now onto todays topic:

Season’s ...up here in Canada we have 3 seasons...winter, construction and rain....we don’t get alot of nice days....this does allow me more time in my craft room however! Quilting is hard to do in 28 degree weather, and don’t even go to the scrapbooking section, paper curled up from the humindity, stickers not sticking...ugh! I am rambling, sorry, back to the seasons...what’s your favourite season? Everyone who knows me knows that Halloween is MY season. I let others pretend to enjoy it too, but it is truly MINE. I start making costumes for my kids in July, I make costumes for my pets, for my house, for my yard, for my desk at work, everything can be made into something else for just one day!
When I was a kid, Halloween was the time to pretend, the time to dress up as something you always wanted to be or thought you wanted to be. I was always a tomboy, hard to believe I know. That meant I wanted to be combat guys, vampires, etc. And now look Vampires are all the RAGE...I love them even more now than ever!
What was your favourite season, tell me all about it.!

Day 2 of 21....are you?

Day 2 of 21 blog challenge

You have probably all heard the term “dedicated quilter” or “dedicated Scrapbooker”, you know the one that has at least a couple of sewing machines or Cricut machines, a room dedicated to art/craft and a stash that rivals any store – she is the envy of all of us.

Where do you think she/he gets their inspiration for all those drop dead gorgeous projects? They get it from the same place as you and I...from life. Everything around you can inspire you, from the cover of your cereal box to the advertisement in that magazine you’re reading right now. My greatest inspirations have always come from my friends and the ladies that I retreat with.

Surround yourself with a bunch of girlfriends and those craft men in your life (and some giggles) who all share the same passion as you do. Girlfriends of all ages, different experiences, different levels of expertise...it’s a wonderful thing. Enjoy your time with friends, they can teach you a lot. Plus, if you’re lucky, they let you raid their stash whenever you need too! And sometimes even when you don’t need to!

Remember Quilt or Scrapbook unsupervised...and dare to run with scissors! Everyone is creative, yes even you shaking your head!
Cheers

Day 1 of 21

OK so I am on day 1 of my promise to blog for 21 days in a row! ohhh ahhh...i know all of you are sooo excited right!
on to the blog....

Turning "Someday" into Today
Some Tough Options

It's time for some cold, hard facts. You and I are quilters, scrapbookers, crafters.

We're not going to be able to read every book that we want. We'll never have time to watch all of the Harry Potter movies or the New Moon Saga (yum vampires). The house will never be clean enough for your mother-n-laws visits. There will always be another errand to run including the 2 errands you forgot about when you were doing 10other things while using the swiffer (frannie that one is for you). The grass will continue to grow no matter how much compost you throw on it and send the kids out to play on it to trample it. Everything you buy will need to be dusted, repaired, maintained or disposed of in some way, well except of course your stash, it needs to be organized, colour coded, size coded and oh yeah, ready for inspection by your friends who are "borrowing" from your stash!

This is not a critique of any lack of organizational skills on your part and definatley not mind either, or a reason to give up altogether (i tried that and found out that I am not a quitter, yet). Rather, it's a statement of freedom, freedom to be creative no matter whats going on.

When you know that life will still be waiting for you tomorrow--no matter what gosh darn it--it gives you the freedom to make today count as much as possible, so go to your craft and spend at least 10 minutes on anything. "Someday" is right now, it's later, it's tomorrow, it's always. Anytime. And that is exciting, if you let it be, will you let it be?

Try to give yourself 10 minutes each day? your someday

New Idea...Some call it crazy

I am going to try to do a post every day for 21 days..make a habit or break a habit right....o.k. so it will have to be during lunch time, since i work full time, but dang it...i'm gonna try.

Honestly, what's one more thing on my plate....will you follow the ramblings ????

Swaps and More

I am so excited by all the swaps out there...joined the Posy needle case swap...can't wait....fun fun and more fun.

Learnt a new technique for quilt as you go on connecting threads the other day, so I made a baby quilt with the technique (picture at bottom of page) and it only took me 2hours from start to finishing using the only 11 half pieces of a jelly roll!

try it you will love it.

Swaps

Lately, i have been fascinated by all the swaps available out there. Have you participated in any swaps? I joined a Modern Ziggy Swap, which I await my autograph blocks back within the next 3 weeks, signed by fellow quilters from all over the world...this stash will be put together and made into my retreat quilt!
I just joined the applique posy needle case swap...the ideas have been swarming in my brain for the details of this one.
My next one i hope for is a block exchange, but in the meantime, i have joined the summer quilt along with my good friend Bradie Sparrow "a quilty kind of girl" for her quilt sampler for the summer.

Let me hear about your swaps....i've even done page swaps for my scrapbooking! it's so much fun!