Quilts, Cosmo Cricket and Kindle Cover

Hello All! First off, I want to apologize for yet more bad pictures. I'm having a hard time finding good light in the house and figuring out my new camera.

Julie over at Cosmo Cricket recently posted about quilts. It got me to reminiscing about my quilting and quilts that I have. One summer while I was home from college working I got the itch to make a quilt. I spent time at work doodling on grid paper and came up with a design (Shh...don't tell my parents, who I worked for, haha!). This is what I ended up with:

I still have fun pulling it out and looking at the pictures I put on it.

Chris (before we got together) was working at a mail and copy center I used to get my photos onto fabric. I remember walking in and thinking he was kinda cute! Now, we had known of each other a long time, but I knew his brother better and he knew my cousin better! Anyhow, that was the start of Chris and me meeting, so the quilt has extra special meaning to me!

Next is this pretty quilt:
My senior year of high school, my mom was going to make me a quilt for my dorm room. My high school band was looking at doing a fundraiser to raise money for a trip we were going to take. My mom volunteered to donate the quilt for a raffle. :-( I was quite sad, but she promised to make me another quilt. Of course I hit up everyone I knew to buy tickets. One of our families good friends, who I love to pieces, ended up winning it! I was stoked that at least someone I knew and loved won it. Guess what? She gave it back to me! :-) How cool is that? So this quilt has special meaning too!

And a close up:

Now onto Cosmo Cricket. Julie has beem posting challenges the past three weeks. Every project created for and linked to her challenge counts as $5 to a good cause. How cool is that? I think that is such a generous and kind thing to do! I have played along the last two weeks and wanted to play along this week. Julie challenged us to create a project using the color yellow. You can use whatever Cosmo Cricket products you have (fabric, papers, etc). I started out trying to make a card. I wasn't so happy with it....
See...blah.....

So I decided now would be a good time to make the kindle cover I had been wanting to make. I just so happened to have some yummy Cosmo Cricket fabrics on hand. I originally got the idea to make this cover on Pinterest. But seeing as I living in a itsy bitsy little itty bitty town and not being able to find the products she used, I ended up doing my own thing with what I had on hand!
Here it is! I took an old hard back book and cut out the pages. I then took some thin batting I bought at the thrift store and hot glued it to the cover. I then hot glued the yellow fabric on top. I flipped it over and cut a piece of thin cardboard to fit inside and covered it with a coordinating fabric. Before gluing it onto the hardback book piece, I punched holes using my Big Bite and put eyelets in those holes. Thank goodness I hadn't purged all those darn eyelets that are 10 years old! haha! I then put some elastic through the eyelets and tied knots for the elastic to stay in place. The elastic I found at a garage sale over the summer in a bag of odds and ends I bought. I am pretty sure it is vintage looking at the card it came on. 6 yards for 15 cents! I then glued the inside in. The cover kept popping open. So I decided to make a closure for it. I grabbed one of Maddy's hairbands and a couple buttons and sewed them on. Here are some more photos of it:

I had a Kindle Cover, but the elastic pieces were a PAIN to get the Kindle in and out of. So I made mine quite a bit bigger and a bit looser to make it very easy to get the kindle in and out.

I love that the picture above reflects my all time favorite decor piece I have made using the Cosmo Cricket Wanted line. :-)


Now the cover is kinda boring. I do plan on adding something. I am just home with two very sick little kiddos and not sure I will get time before the challenge ends and wanted to share this project!

I love how it turned out. The hubby was quite impressed at first, then realized it was in green and yellow and decided after all he didn't like it! Haha! On that note, GO BEAVS! And in my defense, this yellow and green is TOTALLY diffferent!

Birthday Card and Sign

Over the weekend we celebrated my Grandfather in-laws birthday. I had no clue what to get him. So I set out to make him a special card. I had pinned a card on Pinterest a while back that I thought would work out great. This is the card. I traced the kids hands. Maddy's being the front hand and Peyton's the back.

I cut two hands from each and glued them together to make the card thicker and less flimsy.

Isn't Pinterest addicting? I could spent HOURS and HOURS browsing that site! A while back I came across a sign and fell in love with it. Fast forward a few weeks. I hosted a couponing class at my house recently. The teacher, Dana, has MANY talents. One of them is painting. Check out this sign she made for me...

Yep! It happens to be dang close to the sign I had pinned but 10 times cuter! The sign reads: In this home we are real, we do 2nd chances, we show grace, we say sorry, we give hugs, we do family, we do love...the family of dupont.

Another idea I have seen on Pinterest was the drawer knob that it is hanging by. I took an old wood knob I picked up at a thrift store and painted it black. I then used it as the hanger!

Isn't that cool? I just LOVE it! Dana has an Etsy shop. You can find it here, Selah Signs. Check it out !

Where did I hang the sign? Well, somewhere I would see it often. This is the little wall that I pass by more times than I can count every day. It is in the dining area of the house. I see it when I walk in the house, I see it when I am doing laundry and when I'm cooking and countless other times throughout the day.

I have a layout to share soon! You still there or did that knock you over in surprise? Haha! Yep, I actually scrapped a layout Friday! :-) Birds of a Feather is having a crop this weekend and I sure hope to be able to get some scrappy time in this weekend too! I'd love it if you came and joined us!

Birthday Card and Altered Gift Using Scrabble Tiles

My mom is turning 60 this Saturday! Her birthday is just 2 days after Maddy's birthday! I am busy getting ideas and trying to get my ducks in a row for her birthday party. Invitations went out late...oops! but I did get them out! I started decorating a bit today and can't wait til it all comes together.

Last week I took a few minutes to make my mom a card. I know she really appreciates the ones I make so I try to always make her birthday and Mother's Day cards. I saw this card on Pinterest by Amber Davis and pinned it right away. I grabbed some of my moms favorite paper that I am now hoarding for projects for her and lift the pretty card by Amber.

I just realized I forgot a pearl for the center of the flower. I better go do that before I forget! Now this doesn't seem very Birthday-ish. But I couldn't find a rub on or stickers I liked to spell Happy Birthday. So I went with 'smile'. I came across a poem on Pinterest that I really liked and wrote that out inside. You can find the poem .

I used a satin flower I had made. I just love those flowers!

I have been collection scrabble tiles all summer. I wanted to make ornaments for everyone in the family, but after adding up all the A's I decided that it just wasn't going to happen. So I came up with these instead:

I thought they would be cute sitting in front of picture or on a shelf or ?????? I used some flowers I had made on these little guys too!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope everyone had a great weekend! I also hope that everyone is staying safe in this crazy weather we are having.

Favorites from 2011

Where did 2011 go? I know I say that every year, but I can't help it. This year I have enjoyed my scrapbooking home, Birds of a Feather and the friends I have made there. I haven't scrapped as much as I have wanted to, but I think that will be the case from here on out! haha! I have, however, made a few projects that I have liked and thought I would do a recap post and share some of my favorite layouts, cards and projects.

This layout took a LONG time and was a lot more work than I anticipated, but I LOVE it! Lots and lots of stitching. I also used some of my satin flowers that I started making this year.

Next up is a layout I created using Cosmo Cricket. Love that company! I had fun with the banner and the grid style design.
I lifted a layout by a fellow BOAF friend, Linda, and came up with this layout. I have recently fallen in LOVE with Jillibean Soup. I love how easy their papers are to use and all the stickers and die cuts that make embellishing super easy. I just love Maddy's curls in these pictures.
The Ranch. I made this for me and LOVE it. The pictures are of my Grandpa's homestead that has been in the family for over 140 years. Inside is a lot of the history of the homestead, which I grew up calling 'the ranch'. My mom fell in love with it so I gave it to her on the agreement it would come back to me one day.
I made this layout for my Dad. My Grandpa passed away a little before Christmas last year. I knew this layout would mean a lot to my dad. I used a sketch by Jill Sarginson, that she created off of one of my layouts.
I had a lot of fun with the Cosmo Cricket DeLovely line. Such bright, cheery and fun colors!

I love this color combo. I love how the papers went so well with Maddy's outfit.
I started Project 12 in January. I have enjoyed it SO much and plan on continuing it next year. These are two of my favorite layouts from my album so far.
I think its the colors in this one that I love and the embossed envelope.
I made a few cards but still feel that I struggle. Once I find a good design I tend to use and reuse and reuse and abuse and reuse.... ;-)
I made a few minis. This one was for the Creative Cuts & More blog hop. I had a blast with it. I used mostly Echo Park papers and embellies for it. Fun, fun, fun. If you want to see the inside, go here.
I made this one for the Christmas Bazaar I participated in. I took one of the kid sold board books and cut it apart. It was hard to sell. I just love this Kaiser Kraft line. The colors are so pretty!

I made one of these for my mom and one for my mother in law. I got the idea somewhere in blog land.

This is one of my all time favorite things I have made. I found this piece at a thrift store. It was light wood color and had a mirror. I painted it and added doodied it up. It was SO much fun!

I made a few of these 'catch alls'. Or at least that is what I call them. My mom uses hers to keep a few pencils and notepads by her telephone.

Do you have favorite projects/creations from 2011? I'd love it if you linked me up so I could check them out!

Thank you for stopping by! I wish you all a very Happy New Year!

Birds of a Feather Blog Hop

Hello all! If you came directly to my blog, make sure to head over to the Birds of a Feather blog to make sure you don't miss out on any eye candy! We are celebrating Birds of a Feather's 1st birthday! What better way to celebrate than a blog hop and crop? Make sure you go back to the beginning and post on each blog along the way. Amy is giving away $50 worth of Bella Blvd. goodies to one lucky blog hopper! If you came from Karen's blog, welcome!

I decided to make a gift set for my Step Grandma who recently turned 90. I used the March Birds of a Feather Kit Co. kit.

I apologize for the dark pictures. We've been very overcast and gloomy the last three days. I found this frame at a garage sale for a quarter (ssshhh....don't tell). I liked how it had a large space to embellish.

The tiny type alphabet stickers and ribbon are from my stash. The paper and stickers are from the kit. I popped up a few of the birdhouses for more dimension.

I had some bits and pieces left over so I thought I would make a few cards to add to the package.

The card on the left was lifted from a card I saw on Pinterest (the SRM sticker was from my stash). The one on the right is using a Cardabilties sketch.

And since I still had a few pieces left over that I just couldn't throw away, I altered a little notepad.

I punched three butterflies, layered them and sewed them to the patterned paper.

Each person in the bloghop has a special word. Put them all together and you have a phrase. That is what you need to win some Bella Blvd. goodies valued at $50! M word:

Now hop on over to Lisa's blog to see what goodies she has up her sleeve!

Make sure to visit the Birds Of A Feather site. Amy is having a big sale to help celebrate! We are also having a crop! You can find the message board, where the crop is, here. The grand prize winner gets a BOAF kit! One thing I LOVE about the crops, is that Amy gives you a few extra days to complete all the challenges! The challenges are due on the 12th!

Artful Delight Blog Hop Challenge #3

Challenge number 3 at the Artful Delight birthday bash blog hop was to use the colors pink, kraft and white! This was a bit of a challenge for me. I don't have much pink and I don't like using

pink. But I gave it a go anyway and this is what I came up with:

Make sure to scroll down as this was my 4th post today!

Artful Delight Blog Hop Challenge #2

Challenge #2 over at the Artful Delight birthday bash blog hop was a tic tac toe challenge. I really like the tic tac toe challenges! They are so fun! Here is my take on the challenge:

I did some stitching on this one and used a bunch of tiny type stickers from Adornit to finish the sentiment.

With all of these cards I used little bits and pieces from different Cosmo Cricket lines. I really need to work on using up my rand scraps and cards are the perfect way to use up the scraps!

Artful Delight Blog Hop Challenge #1

Second post of the day????? Me????? How could this be? Well, I came across a birthday bash blog hop for Artful Delight! They posted 3 different challenges. Their first challenge was a sketch challenge. I opted to make a card as the challenge ends in 8 hours. I just found out about it today so a card it is. This is my take on the sketch:

Cards and a layout

Last week I needed two cards. A friend posted on Facebook, that one of her cousins is serving a 18 month tour (I can't remember where exactly). His birthday is coming up and she asked, for all those willing too, mail him a birthday card. The other card was a card just to say 'hi' and send updated photos of the kiddos. I struggle with cards so I almost always start off with a sketch. For these cards I happened to use a fantastic sketch from Cardabilities! I love this sketch and know I will be using it in the future!

I used some papers from a 6x6 Basic Grey pad. I never have been interested in the 6x6 pad size. I picked two up at a garage sale for CHEAP and have to admit, they are VERY nice for cards!
This is the birthday card. I pulled scraps from my stash for this one! I also used a SRM sticker. LOVE those stickers!
I also created the 3-d star, figuring a guy probably doesn't really want a flower on his card!

I'm not digging this layout at all. But it is what it is. I had hoped to journal in white and when I couldn't get ANY of my 3 white pens to work, I gave up!
These pictures were from my Grandpa's birthday. I kick myself now for not getting a picture of Grandpa with all the kids. This was taken at an assisted living center where most of the patience had memory issues.

Thanks for stopping by!