Merry Christmas!

Lydia was wanting a cupcake pin cushion so I finished this one up for her for Christmas. She loved it.

I just love this time of year. The time spent with family, Christmas music, Christmas Eve service, helping others, celebrating the birth of Jesus, and visiting the Emergency Room at 1 a.m. on Christmas Eve because your daughter has an ear infection (sigh).

We spent Christmas Eve with my family...

And Christmas day with my husband's family...

Lydia enjoying a rare moment...a spot in Papa's chair!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to You!

We are going to an 80's New Year's Eve party. I'm still working on our costumes. I will share pictures. Should be a blast.

We've Been Crafting, Just Not Posting!

Lydia and I pulled out the sewing machine the other day and made this pillow for her baby panda bear.
Lydia also did some cookie decorating at a holiday party...
I think she did a great job. So detailed!
I didn't finish the frog cross-stitch for Christmas so now this is a birthday present for my grandma. Her birthday is January 27.
Once I finish this I plan to get back to the "Strength" (tree) cross-stitch. I learned that I had been suffering needlessly on this. When doing work on such a small thread count you don't stitch in EVERY hole, you do every other. What a difference that makes! WOW! No more need for dramamine when working on this project.

(The above picture is owned by monsterbubbles.com.
You can purchase the pattern from monsterbubbles.com.)

Cross-Stitched Frogs

My grandma collects frogs and my goal is to make this cross-stitch for her for Christmas. I should have lots of time to craft until Christmas now. Work is slowing down and my vacation starts this Thursday. I will not go back to work until January 5th. Woohoo!

Scrapbooking Po the Owl

Lydia and I did some scrapbooking last night. She is holding up a page she made for the owl she and her class adopted. His name is Po and he currently lives at the Pineview Rehabilitation Wildlife Center. Lydia raised $21 for him by doing a mathathon and completing 113 math problems. Thanks Grandma Jensen for your donation.

'Tis the cold season and I have one. Ken and Lydia went to church without me this morning while I sit here drinking echinacea tea. I was up most of the night coughing and just basically feeling really yucky. I see out the window in front of me some white flakes drifting down. It is a great day to scrapbook in comfies and that is what I plan to do.

Anything wrong with this picture?

Lydia's off from school today and it's a beautiful day outside so I decided to take her with me for a run on the trail down by the river near our house. Threw her bike in the back of the truck; her helmet, nano, water bottle, and jacket followed. Grabbed my water bottles and waist belt for them, heart rate monitor and watch, ipod, and my green tennis shoes from our shoe box and threw that all in the truck too and then we were finally off. Parked at the head of the trail and put my right shoe on. All is well with my life. Put my toes in the left shoe. Notice anything wrong with this picture??? I considered driving back home for the left shoe for about 3 seconds but with all I wanted to get done today, said screw it and ran 5 miles wearing 2 right shoes. Not the most comfortable run I've ever had. We passed about 6 people on the trail at different times and nobody noticed. They were probably distracted by Lydia's whining about her ear buds not staying in her ears. It sure was a beautiful run though.

Pumpkins and Brain Cupcakes

I had off from work for most of the day today so Lydia and I decided to make some cupcakes -- brain cupcakes that is.

We carved pumpkins this week too. Ken's is on the left, Lydia's is in the middle, mine is on the right. I think Ken and Lydia's pumpkins turned out great. Ken said his looked like he felt the day we carved these and I believe him (sore neck).

Lydia also painted several pumpkins and had lots of fun with this.
Lydia is a cheetah for halloween this year. I totally misunderstood the look she was going for. I bought the leopard jacket thinking she wanted to be one of the members of the Cheetah Girls singing band but when she asked me to paint her face I realized she was going for the actual animal. Hey, she's happy with it, so I am too.

Cupcake Card Swap

This is a quick post. Just wanted to share these really cute cupcake cards I got this month in the swap. The card I made is the set of 5 above and in return I got the following 5. So fun!

Halloween Banner

I love all the banners I see people making so I thought I would make one for Halloween to hang from my fireplace mantle. I made it too darn big for my mantle so here it is hanging from my curtain rod. *sigh* Next one will be smaller so I can hang it from the mantle!!
Scout turned 13 yesterday. Never thought he'd see the day, especially when we found out he had emphysema at age 7 and he was given one week to live without surgery. He had the surgery and here we are 6 years later. We celebrated with presents and pup cups. Love you Scout!

Happy 40th Birthday Dawn!

My good friend Dawn turned 40 on October 2nd. Happy Birthday Dawn! I remembered she had commented on this book I got a few months ago called Last Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts. She said she really liked the birds from the book. So, I made her some for her birthday. The first one, which Lydia got to keep, was a little tricky until I got the hang of it. If you make some of these birds from the pattern in this book, do not sew the loop in where the patterns says to. Move it up closer to the head or your bird will hang crooked.

5th(?) Annual Door County Weekend

Cheers to another super fun weekend with the girls in Door County. We laughed until our stomachs hurt and shopped pretty much until we dropped. We hit the thrift stores and garage sales hard and I came home with some fun treasures.


My friend Dawn tells me this embroidered piece is probably a pillow case. There was also a "Good Night" that I didn't buy. It would go on the flip side of the pillow if I were to use these as originally intended. My plan for this is to frame it for my kitchen.


I really like this table cloth and these napkins and glasses I found. We used all of this for supper last night and it made a very pretty setting. (Orange is my favorite color.)



Lydia wants to be a Cheetah girl for Halloween. I found this jacket and boa at Goodwill. These will be perfect for her costume.

I am looking forward to next year!

39th Annual Art in the Park

Today we attended the 39th annual Art in the Park event held at Pfiffner Park in Stevens Point, Wisconsin. It brings artists and crafters together to display and sell their work. I remember being Lydia's age and attending this event. We started off doing some painting, compliments of the Art Village. Above, Lydia and her friend are painting a square with blue and white paint which will become part of a larger composition like you see in the first picture. The piece in the first picture was created last year and the theme was circles. This year, the theme is blue and white.
The two girls on the left are the crafters who made these bracelets. I should have asked for their names! Lydia and Emily each bought a bracelet from them.
These are locker pockets. They have magnets on the back so you can hang them in your school locker and put pens and pencils in them. Each of the girls got one.

The cardboard box painting is what Lydia was really looking forward to.


The girls had a great time painting the boxes. I think they spent just as much time painting themselves too! They definitely had a lot of fun with this.
The weather was perfect today for this event. We saw lots of neat things and I came home with a few ideas too.

Pleated Handbag

I have been a busy sewer these last few days. Today I finished this pleated handbag which is a pattern from Amy Karol's bend-the-rules Sewing book. This was my first time creating pleats. They are so easy to make! I will be using this bag for sure. It's a keeper. I love the shape and I like where it lays when I have it on my shoulder. Very comfortable. The instructions called for cotton flannel lining but all I had was a sheet of batting so I used that. It's a very cushiony bag.

When my mom was going through chemo a few years ago we went to Hancock Fabrics and she picked out this red fabric for a head wrap I was going to make for her. I never got the chance to make the wrap because she didn't live long enough. There was just enough of this fabric to make this bag. Also, the yellow fabric is a table cloth I got from my mom's craft room. Still using up the supplies I have on hand and I think my mom would really like this bag.

By the way, Amy Karol's bend-the-rules sewing book is a great book for beginner level sewers, FYI. I have made several of the projects now. There are many cute and useful projects in the book and they can be completed in relatively short amounts of time which is good for people like me who need to see results quickly.

Reversible Purse - Trick or Treat Bag

Lydia really liked my reversible purse so I made her one for trick-or-treating with some fabric I had left over from some bandanas I made the dogs a few years back. I am trying to use up some of my old stash.

Reversible Purse

I found this really cute pattern for a reversible purse at www.marthastewart.com. I thought it would be a great bag for church as well as for my annual weekend in Door County with the Jensen girls which is just around the corner! Woohoo! Can't wait. I used fabric I had on hand. I love this print but I thought it was too busy to do the whole bag in it so I cut up an old pair of jeans and used it as an accent. I am happy with how it turned out even though it does have a few imperfections. This would have been a lot easier had I not made modifications to the pattern to accommodate the printed fabric.

First Day of 2nd Grade

The big day finally arrived. Lydia was very excited for school to start. She loves school.
I had tears a few times, once when waiting in line for the rest of the kids to arrive she said to me, "You can go now mom. I'm OK". I am continually amazed at how fast the days and years go by.