Boy clothes

Sometimes I wonder if we'll ever be blessed with a boy one day - someone that hubby can teach golf, fishing, sports, and all the "guy" stuff to. When each of our girls was born, I know I looked to him for any signs of disappointment when the "it's a girl!" was announced and although I never saw anything but pure excitement and joy, I still felt a little bad for him that so far he hasn't had a son. Someone to share that special bond that I'll get as the girls get older and when I get to teach them the life stuff.


These are a few boy outfits for some new boys born into our congregation (first child for each couple). Although I missed the baby shower the other day (one of the girls was sick), it worked out nicely since I finished the second of the outfits today.

Auction Quilt

A girlfriend and I have been working on an auction quilt together (she's actually the same wonderful woman who taught me how to cut and press properly and got me hooked on the world of quilting). This quilt is for a fundraising auction for our kids' school. Since we both have three girls, we went through some of our stash and made a scrappy girls twin size quilt.

PLEASE VOTE FOR US!!

I entered a contest where I had to submit a story of how Brad and I met. The winner gets a $50 gift certificate for dinner. Our story got picked as one as the contestants and the story with the most comments wins. So PLEASE go to the link below and comment on our entry (#21 - has a pic of Brad & I in grade one).


THANK YOU!!
Brad & Rebecca


http://genxparents.blogspot.com/2008/04/love-genx-style-contest-entry-21.html

SCRAP N' CRAFT!!!

What can I say about a whole day out of scrapbooking and cardmaking? WONDERFUL! FUN! PRODUCTIVE! A ticket cost me $20 and it included lunch, dinner, snacks, drinks and some great scrapbooking goodies. Lunch was a salad buffet - lettuce, eggs, shredded chicken, tonnes of different veggies and toppings, dressings, and buns with yummy garlic butter. Dinner was salad, lasagna, and some more garlic butter buns. The food alone was worth the ticket cost! But I also got to enjoy a full day of socializing with some good friends, and getting some work done.

This is the mini-class we took during the day (there were lots of classes to choose from):

These are the scrapbook pages I got done on Alyssa's album (15 in total). I'm about half-way done her one year album now but need more pictures developed to finish it (plus she's not quite one yet!). For Elayna's album I had done a pink theme, for Chantel's I did purple, so for Alyssa's I chose a rose red. It was a really fun colour to work with and there are lots of wonderful coordinating things out there that helped!

All packed up . . .

Tomorrow = 12 uninterrupted hours of scrapbooking.
No kids, no husband, and lots of catching up to be accomplished.

More Fabric Shopping . . .

Well, I am no longer a "Jo-Ann's virgin". I made the cross-border trek today with a good friend and a good sis' and we hit a huge sale. My jaw dropped a few times when I saw another part of the fabric section, and then another, and then another. I could've bought ten times what I bought, but thankfully I had a bit of a shopping list and some restraint (and thankfully I wasn't in need of any scrapbooking supplies because then I could've spent the whole day there!). I am definitely going back - but I better tackle some projects first! I've been itching to start on some this past week but my sewing room is non-functional right now. But hubby and my good sis's hubby are busy putting together the desk in there tonight (which was too complicated to be a one-man job) and I am hoping to put things back to order tomorrow.Seersucker for sundresses and Summer outfits.Flannel for a rag blanket.

More than enough cottons to finish off Chantel's quilt (including the backing).

FABRIC SHOPPING!

Since the time change, my older girls have been waaaay off schedule - sleeping late, and staying awake REALLY late at night. So in order to skip their naps today and since it's too rainy to play outside, we made a trip to the fabric store. They did really well - it definitely helped that we were picking out fabric for them.

The girls picked out these pieces for aprons (they're a heavier material so they should hold up well).

I found these coordinating cottons at a great price. I'm hoping to turn them into sundresses with tiered skirts for church this summer.

Then I also picked up these seersucker fabrics for some little boy rompers for baby gifts. I liked these but had something different in mind and was really disappointed with the serious lack of boy prints in our fabric store. I was hoping to find some coordinating prints for a shirt/pant combo. I guess I'll be driving west to some bigger fabric stores to look for that next time.

I also picked up the background fabric needed for Chantel's Lucky Stars quilt. So now all I need is my craft room put back in order so that I can get going on all these projects. I painted it over the weekend and need the new-to-me desk set up and everything organized.

I love FREE stuff!

This post is to say THANK-YOU to the wonderful ladies that picked me as winners on their blog draws recently. I love everything!! Two of these I came across randomly and one of them was from the bloggy carnival hosted by Rocks in my Dryer (there were over 800 participants giving away items - so I spent way too many hours going through them finding which ones were available to Canada and entering). I love discovering other women's blogs who share my love or style of quilting, raising girls, and loving God. I am so amazed at how many Christian blogs are out there and how many are written by stay-at-home moms. It is so wonderful to find inspiration this way.

This is a diaper bag from Musings of a Housewife. It's packed full of all the girls "stuff" and I have been using it and loving it.

This is a wonderful homemade bag from Piece of Mind which is so pretty (the picture does not do justice to the quality and texture of the fabrics) and is going to look great on the wall of my craft room when I finish painting and decorating it (Ann-Margaret is not only a taleted crafter but also a Christian author). She also threw in some great fabric that my mind has been making into different projects.

This is a box full of goodies from The Random Ramblings of a Working Mom (and if you noticed that the Ritter bar is actually empty, then that's because I have no self control when it comes to chocolate).

and a matching headband

I made this cute little headband to go with this outfit and did manage to squeeze it onto Alyssa's head - I'll have to make her a bigger one since she didn't mind it at all. I used this tutorial and found it really easy - and if you try it, then take the time to follow the notching instructions (something I would normally skip, but found myself with lots of time so I did it exactly as pictured). It made the ties look great when they were flipped right side out.

little Summer outfit

There's a baby shower for someone in our church tomorrow so I got this idea in my head of something to make - and wow - I think it is so cute! I usually don't love my projects this much, in fact I'm usually overly critical of them - but I just love these fabrics and the overall look of the outfit. I started working with a Simplicity pattern but couldn't find the directions and I ended up changing a bunch of things anyways - and now I just really have to remember what I all did so I can make another set for Alyssa. I was really hoping to squeeze Alyssa into it for a few pics but she's just too big - good thing the baby that it's for is eight months younger!

front

back

another cute little purse

Here's another purse from the same pattern as this one. But this time it's for me! I have been finding more time to do my sewing lately since our storage room has become my crafting room. A friend gave me a big table that fits the width of the room perfect. It has been so nice to start a project and leave it all laying out until it's done and to be able to sneak in there for a half hour here or there. I've also been tackling my scrapbooking supplies over the past few days and now I can finally see what I all have and will hopefully get some of this caught up too this year. The room has a bunch of shelves that were already there - so they are all filled up now and organized - it's definitely a big motivator to start on new projects when you can see everything.

And an update on Brad: he had his surgery this morning and everything went really well. When I went to pick him up he looked so great - a huge difference from his similar surgery seven years ago! He came home only three hours after surgery, was super hungry since he hadn't eaten yet today and he is now in bed having a nice long nap. I'm starting to get excited now about having him off work for the next 3-4 weeks. It will be so nice to spend quality time with him - he can't run off and play golf or work on anything in the house. It also might give me a chance to run an errand here or there or do groceries without taking all three kids with me. Alyssa will definitely be joined to my hip during the recovery since Brad will NOT be able to pick her up, but I should be able to leave the older two with him here or there.

new coat and new purse . . .

Did I mention I love Ebay? I have been wanting to get a new wool coat for quite some time now but couldn't find the right fit or the right price. I found one on Ebay that I loved but was a little hesitant because of worries about sizing and quality issues. After much contemplating I finally decided to go for it since it was such a great deal and I had to find something good to spend some birthday money on. It came today and I LOVE it! And it is much nicer in person than photographed.
I also went back to my sewing room today and sewed up this purse for myself. I know it has its' flaws but I'm still quite happy with it. It will nicely replace my current everyday purse which has holes in the lining. I'm hoping to get better at this purse sewing thing since I love doing it and hate buying purses that break on me.

a cute purse

Well I went back to the sewing room in an attempt to make something I was happy with - and this is what I came out with. I used this tutorial which is super fast and easy and I'm very happy with the finished product. This purse will be going to my younger sister - since the fabric was actually bought by her and left over from another project. I think it's a great size and hope to make myself one too!

my new bag

I've been wanting to make this pattern for awhile and finally got around to it. I'm not as happy as I thought I would be - I would have made it narrower for this type of handle and definitely would have tried to find a stiffer lining. So I may just take it apart to make it narrower but I'll leave it for now and maybe try it out once or twice before I pull it apart.

my new fabrics

These are the fabrics that I picked up recently:

And this is the quilt design that I'm thinking of using for them:

And of course, I'll include a pic of the kiddos for Gramma - here they are snuggling in the rag blankets I made for them.

our "new" highchair

Our highchair cover cracked in two pieces some time ago and it didn't bother me too much until Alyssa started solid food. She has a habit of banging her head from side to side and doesn't even flinch when it smacks against the plastic of the highchair. So this is my cute (and machine washable) solution.

Crayon Rolls

I found a cute pattern online for a crayon roll and tried it out today.

Alyssa's Quilt is finished!

I set up my craft room and with the help of our quilter's group getting together again, I am finally back to my quilting. This is a project I had hoped to get done before Alyssa was born (I have enough fabric for a boy version too) but when we ended up moving before she was born, my quilting got boxed up for awhile.

Anyways, I used the Yellow Brick Road pattern which even though it is super easy, I still managed to make a mistake on the cutting directions but thankfully in the world of quilting, you can just rearrange and make something a little different instead. I used Moda flannels for the top and quilted random hearts. For the backing, I used a minkee fabric (super soft) but since it's also tricky to quilt, I only quilted the top to the batting, not the backing. It made for less work when finishing off - no binding! And thankfully I didn't have to hand-stitch the minkee. It was a fun project and I'm happy with the results - and I think Alyssa is too.

auction quilt

So there's a fundraiser tonight for JCS and I was called to make a donation. The donations are supposed to be of your time and most people commit to things they will do in the future - host a workshop, make flower arrangements, make a meal or baking, etc. But with baby on the way, I decided I'd rather put in the time now if I wanted to donate something. So I got this idea to make a rag quilt but wanted to keep costs down and wanted it to appeal to parents of school-age kids. So I made a John Deere quilt from donated jeans cut into squares, my stash of fleece to make the batting, and purchased flannel. Because I was cutting from jeans, I couldn't make the squares larger than 7" so I ended up needing 150 squares for each of the top, middle, and backing - so on I went to cut 450 squares. And I started the project before life got even busier with the house thing, so thankfully I received some much needed help from my friends Laura and Miranda when it came to the piecing and sewing - otherwise I don't think I would have had it done on time! I'm pleased with the finished project and it turned out nice and big - a twin-size quilt (90 x 60). Hopefully there's some interest in it tonight.

Update: It went for a very nice $225!