Quilt

It took me almost a year, but I finished my big quilt!  I did this one start to finish, even doing the top quilt and binding (Logan's baby quilt I had professionally done).  I love how it turned out!  I really wanted to make a big cuddle quilt (its a little bit smaller then a queen size), because my favorite blanket/quilt we own is now ten years old and showing its age.  Its one that Brad and his friends made for us for our wedding.  Have I ever mentioned that before?  Yes, you heard me right.  It was a tradition with Brad's friends (put on by a mother of course) to get all the guy friends together to tie a quilt for the newlyweds.  Some type of bachelor party.  I think its a hoot, but really that blanket was one of my favorite wedding gifts.  Maybe a tradition I can carry on to my boys?  Anyway that quilt has had lots of love and after 10 years its starting to show a little wear and tear.

You really can't just buy a nice homemade quilt like that so after I saw a friend post a picture of one she made on instragram and how darling it looked I was determined to make my own.  Then another friend asked if I wanted to get together to make a quilt I knew it was meant to be.  So every week I'd go to Christine's house to cut fabric and start piecing this quilt together.  Then summer came and I had a baby and it got put on hold.  Then ladies in my ward started getting together to work on their quilts and it was just the motivation I needed to finish it (plus these ladies are professionals and know their stuff! It was nice to get their help!)

(love the gray backside!)

I really had so much fun making this!  I know its going to get lots of love and use. Plus it looks gorgeous in our living room.

Pinot's Palett

On Wednesday night my friend Erin from my neighborhood had a birthday party at Pinot's Palett.  Its a place where they give you instructions on how to paint a picture while you drink wine (or in my case a Martinelli).  It was such a fun girls night!  I had never heard of this before, but apparently is really popular in this area.  I loved it!  Such a different way to get all the girls together and have some fun.

Here's the picture we were supposed to paint.

and here is my Master piece.  I did yellow flowers instead of blue to match my house.

And here is the group of girls with their finished paintings.  Its fun to see how everyones personality comes through.

Quiet Book

I have been wanting to make a quiet book for the longest time, but it was just way too overwhelming.  I then came across a blog on pinterest that said they did a quiet book exchange.  She got 10 people together and they each created a page and made 10 copies of that page and then they swapped.  It was perfect!  So I found 9 girls in my ward who also wanted to make one.  We set some guidelines (found also on pinterest) and gave everyone 2 1/2 months to make them.  

When my mom came out in May to babysit the kids while we went to New Orleans, she helped me make the pages.  She did almost all the work and without her I'd probably pull my hair out.  We ended up doing two pages since someone dropped out last minute.  My moms amazing.  She did so much while she was here.  Brad made the comment she did more to our house in just under a week then we could do in a year.  She did some small fix it jobs around the house, redecorated, organized my pantry and cabinets better, and bought some cute little finishing touches to our still somewhat bare house.  I asked her how she did it with the two kids and she said it was exhausting.  I know the feeling.

My mom at the sewing machine.  I pulled out the sewing machine a week or two ago to finish one of the pages and Carson told me "thats Grandmas machine."  Shows you how much I sew.  After my mom left something broke in our house and I couldn't fix it Carson said "don't worry mom, grandma will fix it".  If only she lived closer.

Anyway back to the quiet book.  So after 2 1/2 months we got the girls together to swap our pages.  We had pizza and prizes for the most trips to the store etc... It was really fun and the pages turned out so cute!  I'm so glad we did this.

Some of us girls showing off our pages:

From top left to right:  tic tac toe, shoe tying, Jonah and the whale, Mr Potato Head, flower button, a Garden, Noah's Ark, hair braiding. (Missing two pages from girls who where out of town)

I copied Etsy

I saw these really cute birth announcement on Etsy and they were $25.  I thought they would be so cute to put in the boys room, but I was not willing to fork over that kind of money for something I knew I could do, but just didn't have the right software to make them.  Then I got photoshop for Christmas and this is one of the first things I wanted to learn how to do.  With the help of my friend Lisa  she taught me how to do it!  Now I just need to get them printed and framed, but I'm so excited how they turned out.