Finished Crafts

I FINALLY did the valance!

I've been putting it off because I was concerned I couldn't figure out how to get the squares to turn out looking right. Mostly just the one on the far left. I'm not an expert quilter, so putting these squares together was intimidating! But I did it.

They each measure about 12" square, with a layer of batting inside for some form and weight, and I tied them to the rod with orange rope. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

I looked up sailing flags, and the valance spells out M-A-S-O-N. Well, the second one from the left was supposed to hang different and have a triangle cut out, but I didn't want to deal with that. So it sort of spells Mason.

The lighting is really bad, sorry, but you can see (sort of) the blue paint. We finished that this past weekend and it looks so awesome! I'm so happy with the color. And I swear it makes the room seem bigger. Even with all the same furniture in it, it still feels like there's more space. Maybe it's just that there's nothing on the walls yet?

And I finally finished this little guy. He's been without eyes for the past year now. I figure Brighton is old enough to not eat a giant button- we'll see. So far, so good. And he's supposed to look all crooked- I'm not just a really crappy sewer :). He's from the book, Denyse Schmidt Quilts. Her designs are more funky and modern- not everything is to my taste, but she does do some fun stuff.

Fourth of July- The REAL Party!

We used our sparklers from Sarah and Jason's wedding to entertain Brighton the evening of the Fourth. She enjoyed dancing around them.

Here's Brighton's festive outfit. I was going to freezer paper something on the shirt, but got lazy and never did it. But I did make the skirt! It's from a bandanna in the dollar section at Target. Then I added the white ruffle! Super cute and she liked it too.

Here's B and Daddy watching the sparklers go!

Brighton, dancing to the music? No idea, but she's having fun.

Our neighbor had a ton of these little flags, and so she gave one to B. She had fun waving it around.

Here's proof that I was there too!

Our neighbors were celebrating a birthday- and the Fourth of July. Talk about an insane party. They started letting off fireworks and brought us some candy from their pinatas. We decided it was time to pull up a chair and watch the show.

We even let Brighton have a sucker for a few minutes. Lucky girl. She stayed up until about 9:30 watching the fireworks, and then started to fall asleep in my lap. The fireworks didn't even keep her awake as the neighborhood continued to let them off until midnight!

Morning of the 4th

A good friend of mine that I used to work with got married on Saturday, the 4th of July. It was held at an old historic church in Port Gamble. Dale and I had never been over that way before, so we made sure to arrive an hour early so we could check things out. We had a photo shoot near the water. I'm huge and pregnant, and was in no mood to play model.

But Dale loves to pretend he's Derek Zoolander, so he enjoyed the photo opp.

We went into this store and saw tons of shells from all over the world, weird starfish with zillions of legs (I know, I thought they only had 5!) and stuffed sharks. Pretty cool.

Everything is kept in an old town feel with white picket fences everywhere. It was really a cute little town.

It being the Fourth of July, there were also flags and beautiful red, white and blue flowers everywhere.

Here's the groom (Jason) waiting for Sarah to come out and walk down the aisle. It was officiated by a woman minister, which was interesting, and different. The church was really small and could only hold about 50 people. It was really nice to have such an intimate little wedding. And the reception was held just outside in the yard of the church.

As favors, we were given sparklers- sticking with the whole July 4th theme. Here's me, modeling the beautiful favors. The best man gave a great toast- and when I say great, it was REALLY REALLY great. One thing he DID make a comment about was the fact that they were getting married on "Independence Day." An oxymoron of a day. It was really good.

Here's Sarah on the steps of the church tossing the bouquet. Her own mother caught it! Way to go mom! But I don't think she's hopeful about a wedding in her future... :)

This is not a pretty picture. It is meant to show you my absolute disgust with the wind. We're on the ferry ride home and Dale wanted to go outside and model. I hate the wind! It gets your hair messed up and caught in your lipgloss. It's why I will never own a convertible. I'd never have the top down. I hate my hair blowing around my face. UGH!

Labradoodle Pups

Last Tuesday evening we went over to my friend Heather's house to visit with her little pups. Brighton and Dale hadn't seen them yet, and they're finally at a fun (and safe for Brighton to grab) age to play with.

Brighton was wearing her new dress that I made using this tutorial from MADE. I'd picked up the shirt from the thrift store probably about a year ago and finally decided it need to be made into something quickly. I've tried to make things for friends or Brighton in between baby room stuff just to take a break from it. I think it turned out super cute!

I made this dress with the intentions of having it grow along with Brighton. I made a drawstring waist instead of elastic, and the hem can be let out another two inches as she gets taller. Dale laughed at me and said pretty much "You know you'll never let her keep it that long- you'll decide she needs something new." But I did make it with the INTENTION that it will last her a while, so I at least FEEL good about it.

Brighton was fine to just watch everyone else play with the puppies and get wet kisses.

Aren't they so cute? They're 8 weeks old, so new owners will be coming and taking them home in these next few weeks. So sad! I will miss them!

Quilt Along Update

I had quite a few squares to make up for, and then I got carried away and just finished up until I had the 70 all done. It's not officially day 70 until Sunday, so I'm good to stop procrastinating on making Mason's valance. The above are squares #55-62.

As I was making the squares, I was supposed to cut out a few extra- 144 little squares- for the border. I decided to count them out and see how many I had. WAY TOO MANY! I decided to make the rest of these squares out of those extras, so there's only one of each of these, instead of two like the others.

Yay! 70 squares and 144 border squares. I can't wait to get this thing pieced together. Hopefully I can get it all quilted and bound before the baby comes!

Baby Shower Gift

This is nothing fancy, but I thought I would share because this ball is crazy! My friend Nicole just had her third boy and her shower was last night. I didn't know what to make for her and have wanted to try this pattern out for ages. It's in the "Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts."

The author found a ball at an antique shop years ago, and made several attempts to recreate it. It's an interesting ball and the way it's put together is really cool. It's called a puzzle ball, and I'm hoping it will be a fun little toy for a new little boy! Seriously, I should get free stuff for promoting this book so much.

I forgot to mention that the sailboat quilt pattern also came from this book.

Boppy Cover

I tried to use my old Boppy cover to help make this, but it was seriously getting crazy. They make them all weird and the pillow is such a weird shape anyways, I was really intimidated. I googled and found a few websites where they mentioned a blog called Economical Baby. Sounds like a great blog, right? Sadly, it no longer exists. But then I stumbled upon Vanilla Joy and she actually had the downloaded tutorial from Economical Baby! The luck!

When my ordered fabric for the baby's room arrived, I thought I bought way too much. But I'm slowly using it all and don't really have all that much left. Luckily the valance is the last thing on my list. I'm sure I'll come up with other stuff later. Or my friends out there who might be having boys- be ready for blue and orange gifts!

I was going to make a boat applique for the Boppy, but decided Dale would appreciate a whale so much more! And I didn't make anything yet with a whale on it. I used some left over blue felt, and embroidered a cute little face on him.

Here's the back of the Boppy. I used a zipper that I bought in a giant bag of zippers at the second hand store. Man, I love shopping there!

FYI: If you're going to make a Boppy cover for yourself, this tutorial was great- not that it's all that complicated, but it's nice to have the pattern. The only thing I didn't like, was in Vanilla Joy's pictures, the cover seemed really REALLY baggy. The tutorial said to do a 1/4" inseam, but I did more like 3/4" and I still feel like it's baggy. So my suggestion is 3/4" and then trim the seam. Or you could just shrink the pattern down a bit to get the perfect size. I also used a 20" zipper and it was perfect; the tute says to use a 24".

More Baby Stuff!

Dale stole the camera this past weekend for his YM camping trip, so I'm sorry for the long delay (MOM!) in posting these up. I finished the quilt on Friday- just in time to hurry and scramble something together early Saturday morning for Father's Day (before Dale got home). Is it anyone else, or did that holiday just creep up on you? I'll try to post up some pictures of that soon, but I have yet to take any...

I just quilted it with horizontal lines, nothing too outrageous. I thought about changing directions in each piece, but decided to make my life a little easier. I quilted it with the coordinating colors- light blue, white, cream, brown, and dark blue and kept the bobbin thread cream. The backing is the orange and cream stripe. Thanks again, Bri, for the idea to do the binding on the bias. I just wasn't thinking!

I used some of the left over scraps from the quilt to make this little pillow. I used a lumbar pillow while sitting in the rocking chair, nursing Brighton, so I wanted to make a new one to match the rest of the room. Plus, pink and green flowers don't go very well with blue and orange.

These are some decorating items I've been picking up over the last few weeks. The boat I got at Goodwill, I think, for $1. The little frame was from one of Brighton's baby shower gifts (that I never had a place for until now!). The whale, of course, from my sister. The lighthouse I found at a garage sale for $1. Finally settling on a name, I got the "M" from Michael's for 50% off! I just found the bird at the dollar store yesterday. The bottle in the back is from Goodwill too, $1.

When I was at Michael's I saw some bottles with twine glued around them, on clearance for $10. I figured I could do that myself!

Here's everything all prettied up! I have two wooden shelves that we've had no where to put until now. We'll stick those up on the wall in Mason's room, with all these fun goodies! The boat and lighthouse have been painted- not professionally, but they'll do ok. The bottle has some twine glued around it and I decoupaged some of the orange stripe fabric to the "M." I'm thinking all I need now is a nice starfish and another big shell.

I'm officially in nesting mode. I've starting pulling out all the newborn baby stuff and am getting ready to go. Too bad I still have like 10 and a half weeks. Well, 9 and a half if we induce... :)

Quilt Along Update

I'm behind already... I've been working on stuff for little Mason's room and haven't been focusing too much time on making squares! I'll have plenty of work this weekend when I finally sit down and pump a few out. It's like day 58 or 60 or something like that. The above squares are #47-54. Not too far behind...

It's the Little Things That Really Count

Isn't it those little unimportant things that make all the difference anyway?

I've been tagged by my friend Megan. The game goes as follows:
* List Six Unimportant Things That Make You Happy
* Mention and link to the person who tagged you
* Tag six of your favorite bloggers to play along

Unimportant Things That Make Me Happy:

1.) I don't like text messaging. But I LOVE it when Dale will send me a random text every now and then telling me that he loves me.

2.) I love to sew, and on a great sewing day, I never have to pull out the seam ripper. Now THAT makes me happy. Also, not running out of bobbin thread in the middle of sewing and not noticing...

3.) When we're sitting down to eat dinner and Brighton starts singing "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" (well, just the "beam" part) with hand motions.

4.) A new pair of shoes. There's nothing quite like it, no matter how much they cost- $5 or $100- or how uncomfortable they may be. As long as they're cute.

5.) When Dale rubs my feet, and actually does a decent job. He's not that into rubbing, and usually zones out after 30 seconds.

6.) Drinking 2 or more liters of water a day. I feel good about it, and who doesn't like seeing that their pee is clear?

Now for 6 friends:
Brianne S.
Emily A.
Brittany G.
Laura G.
Jessica L.
Kim L.