Some summer fun things

We went to Climax, Saskatchewan for a family reunion August. The family, food and fellowship were amazing. The scenery in the Frenchman River Valley incredible, not many trees, south coulees and valleys.

My niece turned 11 this summer. We always make her cake together, she designs it, I bake it and we decorated it together. This year she wanted a three tier cake!

It turned out pretty good! My nephews then decided they needed to make cakes even though their birthdays aren't until November.

And one last cake I made and decorated this summer!

Blogging a new way

No more running upstairs to the third floor to post on my blog. My hubby bought me a mini IPad for our anniversary and this is my first attempt!

We had a good summer, it was really hot in July when we up in Clear Lake in Riding Mountain National  Park for 10 days. While there my niece taught me how to use pic collage, which we had a lot of fun with! Not everyone's idea of good design!

  

New quilts and smashing mosaics

Wow, I can't believe it's been nearly three months since I wrote my last post. I had commented about how beautiful the snow was, well it has continued to snow for the past three months, the snowbanks are very high and though it still does look beautiful I think we are all getting tired of winter!

January was a really cold month, and the cold makes my fibromyalgia pain worse. The third floor where I have my computer is the coldest place in our house so I didn't make it up here all that month. In February, I had a severe flu and sinus infection that just wouldn't go away. So now it's March and I'm anxious to get going again.

I did do some quilting during January and February, I managed to finished my blue and green quilt top. Because there is no busy pattern on the front I'm trying to find something really amazing for the back but haven't had any luck finding fabric that matches the front colours.

I also dug out some fabric I had ordered online a very long time ago and decided to sew it into a quilt. It was orginally going to be a lap quilt but I had enough to make a queen size. I bought some really cozy flannel for the back of this quilt and it's ready to go to be machine quilted.

I usually start a hand quilting project to work on while I watch American Idol. This year I'm working on a wall-hanging with four squares. I used my stash of felted wool to make these flowers and birds and I am blanket stitching around the outer edges. The design is from Piece o'Cake with some modifications, I can't do any pattern exactly the way it is for some reason.

I took a class at ArtsJunktion two of the coldest evenings of this winter. It was on making mosaics,  taught by Doug Wiebe and lots of fun. I have been searching second hand stores for dishes to smash, but I think I will do much better when garage season arrives.

This is the first one I made during the two classes. I really liked it so I decided to make 2 more!

wrapping up 2012

Hi, I hope each of you had a special Christmas with family and friends! It's such a beautiful time of year where I live! I'm looking out my third floor window, where my computer is, it's a cold sunny day and all the rooftops are covered with blankets of fluffy snow!

I love to make crafts before Christmas, usually they end up as Christmas gifts, but this year I made a couple for myself! The only person who got a handmade gift this year was my sister, I made her this ribbon and felt wreath.

Last year I became obsessed with little pressed cardboard houses called Putz or glitter houses. They were made in Japan for the American market and were really popular from 1928 until 1937. They are covered with sparkly mica chips. They stopped making them in the 1950's. I bought a little pink one on ebay last year and a few little turquoise ones in an antique store. Then I found a reproduction, larger version at Winners last year. This year after being inspired by a magazine article I designed to make a few of my own.

I had so much fun making them. I saved little cardboard boxes, including one Kraft Dinner box, turned them inside out and painted them white. I used sheet of glitter foam I found at the dollar store for the roofs and door and then put clear glitter on all the white parts!

A few weeks later we were at my sister's and she had found cute wooden houses at the dollar store for us to paint. My neice, above, my daughter, sister and I love to make crafts together!

These are my glitter houses and church lined up on my mantel. The green one on the left is the one I bought at Winners.

I have wanted a christmas ball wreath since I first saw Martha Stewart make one many years ago. I managed to find the ornaments on sale and finally made one!

I made this advent centrepiece. You light a candle each of the four Sundays before Christmas and then the centre one to present Christ's birth on Christmas morning.

 I managed to finish a wall hanging for myself before Christmas using a collection of Denyse Schmidt fabrics.

and get finally get this double size quilt I made finished except for the binding. I hired someone to  machine quilt it for me and she did a great job!

My family came over on Christmas day and after llunch we made these minature foam confections, the largest is 2 inches across. They harden and will last forever, what fun!

For the past couple of Christmases, my family has started a crafty gift exchange, the first year's items were made of air dry modelling clay, last year was dollar store canvesses and this year's item had to be made from rocks! Here are some of our creations!

Thanks for looking at my blog. You may remember that I started this last year as a new year's resolution to myself, and amazingly I'm still at it! It may be the only resolution I've ever kept. I hope to keep it up during the next year! I've had 1400 views, totally amazing to me.

Hope each of you have a happy new year, a year of health, hope and happiness!

cakes and quilts

It's been ages since I've had time to work on my blog, November and December just seem to be so busy. My twin nephews recently turned 7 so I have a cake update. The theme for this year was Power Rangers. I had to google them to see what they looked like, my kids must have been the wrong age when they were popular the first time around. It's amazing what you get to learn when you have kids in your life! The first two cakes are their family birthday cakes, then a photo of them in their Halloween costumes, which my sister made for them and then the school birthday cake!

I also found some quilt photos that had gotten missed so I'm putting their photos in now!

I designed this lap quilt myself using fabrics that reminded me of the fabulous week Barry and I spent in the Mayan Riviera in Mexico in 2011. I loved the bright colours of Mexico, especially the turquoise water!

This is a wall hanging that I started several years ago and finally finished!

 Last year I wanted to design my own quilt pattern. It was much harder to do than I had expected! I made the one above in blues and greens and it reminds me of the south of France.

This was the first version, unfortunately the colours in this photo don't really show up as well as I'd like, that's why I made the second version in brighter colours!