Paper Crafts/Rubber stamping

I love to make paper crafts such as cards, notebook covers, scrapbook pages, etc. and usually throw in my love for rubber stamping while I'm at it.

I came across a neat blog yesterday that I would like to share with you. She has a gorgeous notebook with cloth strips made for tabs. I got to work and using scraps of my fabric made a few tabs for a notebook journal I use quite often.

Home Sweet Home Inspiration is where you can find this cute idea, along with the website where it originated.

I love using notebooks for journaling, schooling, recipes, and much more. I first learned about the notebooks from Tiany's blog, which is one of my favorite blogs. My Home Journal Notebook is where I keep all the important things I need to remember. It's very important for me that they be kept in one place because I actually forget where I put things????Any of you relate to this?

Anyway, I designed my notebook cover like I would a scrapbook page, with rubber stamped title, cute papers, and some ribbon.

Using pages I designed as dividers, along with cute ones I found at the Dollar store, you can put it all together in the order or fashion that suits you individually.


Mine has dividers with the following: calendar, menus, schedules, homeschooling group info., homeschooling ideas, etc.

I made one for my Recipes and inserted a favorite recipe on the front cover. I was forever searching for that special recipe when I needed it. No more! It sits on my kitchen counter waiting patiently.

Thought I'd share a couple of my favorite pocketbooks. I love making pocketbooks and bags!! I like buying them too!

Mama's Day Out

Oh, my, what a fun day! I had the opportunity to visit some wonderful quilt shops within 30 minutes of my home. With just a few snowflakes swirling I took my queen size quilt to the quilters and on the way back stopped at two fabulous quilt shops! So many fabrics, patterns, and anything else you could possibly desire. I had such a great time just looking around and admiring all the fabrics, ooohing and aaahing as I strolled through the store. I definitely love red and brown together and would love to make a quilt with these colors. One of the quilts displayed just jumped out at me and I still have the picture in my mind. Of course, I love pink, green, blue, and so many other colors. The bright designs are so fun, from polka dots to swirls. I usually have a difficult time matching colors when I have so many to choose from but I know what I like when I see it together in a quilt! :0)
Off now to eat dinner. I came home and made a nice pot of Broccoli and cheese soup, yummy!

I've added a few new friends to my sidebar and would love for you to take a look at their wonderful blogs! I love making new friends!!

First, Megan, at Will Work for Fabric has a cute pattern for a Nifty Needle Case for free at her blog in honor of her 100th post, you'll want to take a look. She just made a beautiful black and blue bag that I love!

Blogland is just awesome, my new friend Anne Ida is in Norway, isn't that just too cool! She has just finished her latest quilt, Home for the Holidays and it's gorgeous!

Marcie at Patchalot More has so much on her blog that I could just sit all day and daydream! She has instructions for making labels for your quilts and a cute quilt story to go along with it!

Enjoyed visiting Angie's blog at Threadcatcher and learned a little about her from her post on 7 Random Things About Moi. Love those red hearts you've pieced!

Redwork 2008 Stitchery

Capricorn Quilts has a BOM for 2008 and I'm so excited to start. I used the instructions on Bren's blog to transfer the pattern to muslin and it worked great. I am using red thread because I love the REDWORK and have been reading about this for a few weeks after seeing some beautiful REDWORK on some of the blogs I've visited. I looked in some of the quilt shops in our area and none of them sell the patterns for redwork so I was so excited to see she is offering this pattern free for the BOM.

This is a picture from QUILT Magazine.

For quite some time I've wanted to make both my girls quilts. I've been looking for just the right pattern so it isn't so difficult that I may actually finish the quilt before they move out. A few days ago I picked up the latest copy of the QUILT Magazine and came home to look over all the gorgeous quilts displayed. Flowers from the Heart is the name of the quilt pattern and it looks fairly easy except that I have never done applique with quilting and I'm not sure which applique stitch to use. I would love to do the invisible stitch where the seams are turned under but this looks tricky. I decided to practice using Heat and Bond and then using a handstitch around the edges. Not too pretty....I need practice.
I am definitely open for tips on applique stitching if anyone would like to help me out!

My sweet daughter went shopping last week at an old Mast General Store and this is what she got for me! Isn't it gorgeous? I love the red! It fits perfect in the corner of my kitchen cabinet with the glass.


I thought I'd show a picture of a snowman wall hanging that I made a couple of years ago with my sister. I have placed it on my coffee table for a change along with a beautiful plate my oldest dd made when she was around 12 yo. We were a part of a homeschool group of girls called Keepers at Home and this was a project the girls made using a clear glass plate and decorative papers for decoupage. Very easy and the colors turned out so vibrant. I usually keep it in my corner cabinet with all my favorite collectibles.
I have been working on some of my unfinished projects for about two weeks and they are coming along very nicely. The queen size quilt will be taken to be quilted by a professional quilter next week and I have almost finished another lap size quilt I started several years ago when my oldest dd and I participated in a class together. I will show pictures when it's finished.
I've been wanting some homemade peanut butter cookies so I set my mind to it and they have just come out of the oven, yummy!

The Sun's Out

Wow, didn't I just show you pictures of that blizzard the swept through here??? Just kidding, but for our area, that was quite a little snowstorm. The bad part, it melted in just one day and it was just blowing around, didn't accumulate. Our
friends who live in the mountains, however, did get about 4 inches.

Now, fast forward to today, and what do you see??? Sunshine and a balmy 67 degrees. Nice day to wash the car don't you think?
Hubby is washing his dad's van. Isn't that sweet?

I have been playing around with the fabric postcards I have seen on so many other blogs and websites. These have been around for a while but I'm just now finding them! How cute, I love the idea. I made a couple over the weekend and wanted to show you.

I'm also showing my younger daughter how to make pinwheel blocks. Here is a picture of one she made and will be making into a pillow for a friend's birthday gift. The colors are fabulous!

Happy New Year

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!
I really love the idea of a new start and new beginnings. I have made a personal list of goals for this year and I hope to have them completed and may post them soon. Looking back on 2007 I am so very blessed to have a happy and blessed year. We are going into 2008 with anticipation for what the Lord has in store for all of us.
My oldest daughter is looking forward to starting her second semester of college and eager to begin horseback riding lessons. The only thing she wanted for Christmas was a pair of boots to wear while taking the class.
She's also looking into going away for the summer on a mission trip. We're all praying with her about this decision.
The youngest daughter has started back school since our Christmas break and looking forward to winter activities we are planning like ice skating with our home school group and skiing soon. She enjoys her art lessons more than anything at the moment. She is very talented and loves to draw, especially her favorite animal, the penguin.

Yahoo, we have snow! We are so excited to see the beautiful flakes coming down last night but we were surprised to see it snow all day today! I took a few pictures to share.
The temperatures are a drastic change, dropping to 21 degrees today. At least we can wear our warm winter coats and new boots we got for Christmas.

My cozy kitchen is the place where I do all my crafting, sewing, scrapbooking, etc. since we don't have room in any other part of the house. The past few days this little kitchen has seen lots of scrapbooking going on as I try to get my pictures organized and put into the scrapbook. I finished another page today and plan to put it away and replace it with my sewing machine. I love to sew when it's cold and snowy so I thought I'd begin today. My plans are to get the queen size quilt sandwiched together and pinned. I've also got a plan for a new handbag I have been planning.