Happy Valentine's Day!

I know, I haven't blogged in a loooooooooooooooooooong time. But Valentine's Day is one of my favorites, so it's definitely worth getting off my behind and blogging about.

Here's what my kids will be giving their teachers this year:

 

I just love those little mailboxes from the Target $ Spot! Kiki helped with the pink one on the end.

And inside:

Rolos as dynamite, anyone?



Last year, Finn had robot valentines, to I was glad to keep the theme going:

That's a mini candy bar in the middle. And yes, I started cutting out the pieces for these right after Christmas. There was a lot of assembling for all 20 valentines.



Kiki is still cat-crazy, so I made these cute Lion valentines for her:

And it's all attached to a sucker!

I'm not overly romantic, but I really do like Valentine's Day. I think it's just a combo of pinks and reds everywhere. After last year, I was really hoping we could do DisneyWorld every V-Day, but that clearly isn't happening this year.

And, of course, I've got my wreath hanging:





**I got ALL the Valentine ideas of Pinterest (of course) and I'm pretty sure both the robots and the lions were from Fiskars website**

Blogger's Choice Fat Quarter Bundle

Have you heard about the Blogger's Choice Fat Quarter  Bundle Challenge? It's going on over at Quokka Quilts and it's so much fun! You have to pick out 16 fabrics (full rules on the Quokka Quilts blog) from the Fat Quarter Shop and submit them to be judged. If you win, you get a half yard of each fabric!

I'm currently picking out fabrics for a new project anyway, so this totally motivated me to get a little more organized about it.

Here they are:

1. It's a Girl Thing Gray Doily Dance Yardage 

2. Bella Solids Aubergine Yardage

3. Bella Solids Marine Yardage

4. Echo Gray Aneta Yardage

5. Bella Solids Silver Yardage

6. Nursery Basics Sky Speckle Yardage

7. Sweet on NYC Grey Swirl Yardage

8. Sketch Pink Screen Texture Yardage

9. It's a Girl Thing Bloom Play Dot Yardage

10. It's a Girl Thing Blossom Disco Dot

11. Echo Gray and Purple Choma Yardage

12. Domestic Bliss Aqua with Cream Beaded Curtain Yardage

13. Terrain Foliage Seedpod Yardage 

14. Summer House Robin's Egg Blue Twinkle Yardage
15. Terrain Mist Leaves Yardage

16. Sherbet Pips Pink and Grey Play Dot Yardage

Let me know what you think!

Homemade Graduation Gift

My son's preschool class has had a very nice student teacher this semester. She'll soon be leaving though--because she's graduating! 

I made up this little sign for her to hang in her new classroom. I know if it was me that had to deal with a group of 20 preschoolers all day, I'd need a little reminder of why I wanted that job in the first place!

I kid. I'm sure they are all perfect angels for their teachers right? Someone please tell my children that...

I took a simple flat white canvas, and painted red acrylic paint on the section I wanted to be red. After that dried, I spelled out the quote using two different types of stickers (I have a Silhouette, and I suggest that if you don't want any bleed through around the stickers, to use one with vinyl). Then I painted the whole thing with a couple of coats of black paint. When it was dry, I peeled off the stickers.

Like I said, there was a lot of bleeding around the sticker edges. It kinda worked for the "worn" look I was going for, but I still touched up a few spaces, especially the red letters. The last thing I did was dilute a little of the black paint in a bowl of water and brush it all over the canvas.

Add a little flower and you're done!

Linking up here.



It's Raining Babies!

 Okay, they aren't quite pouring down from the heavens, but pregnant women are coming at me left and right. I have 3 close friends and a sister that's preggers right now. I can only pray that they name their children something that is easy to applique!

My work friend has already picked her baby's name (so convenient for me), Elissa Joe. Pretty adorable huh?

I whipped up some burp cloths for her. This was actually the first project I used my embroidery machine for:

A few hair do dads:

And a super soft minky taggie toy:

I wasn't entirely sure I would have time to make her a blanket, but this one was so super simple and I knew the fabrics would look so cute together, I just couldn't resist! This is one of my vintage sheets, with a backing of the same super soft rose minky.

Man, do I love this minky!



(It isn't technically a quilt, since I didn't use batting and I only tied it with yarn in a few spots)

I wrapped it all up in a personalized bucket with a little shrink wrap.

Linking up here.

Buttercup Bags

Who doesn't love Made by Rae's Buttercup Bag pattern? It's simple, it's cute and it's FREE. Perfection.

Here's a few I've made recently:

This one is made of some Japanese print that a friend gave me. It's for my niece:

I think that I'm going to give this one to the friend who gave me the fabric:

This one's for me. Red, white and navy. I love it!:

This one is a little special. I originally was just going to use only zebra print, however...



...after I finished it, I realized my daughter was so kind as to cut a little gash in the side for me. I couldn't be too mad, since she was probably trying to "help.":

A friend of mine mentioned I might try to patch it up, so I used the other animal prints in the above picture. What do you think?

Linking up here.



LadyBug Picnic!

I made this little cutie as a Christmas present to my daughter. It's the first time I have tied a quilt instead of free-motion quilting it. I have a tutorial coming soon!

Turkey Day Shirts

Linking up here.