A fun idea for Senior Pictures

My sister in law is the photographer for her daughters Field Hockey team. She came with a great idea to make a banner with "Class of 2012" to use for photos of the seniors this year.

She enlisted my help to make the banner and I was happy to help!  I love a good project, and she had an awesome idea.

The banner was simple, I just used various blue fabrics, cut them to 10"x10" then into triangles using my ruler and pinking blade for my rotary cutter.

The banner to be double sided - I put my nieces name on the other side so that she could use it later.

To do this I just put 2 10"x10" fabric squares  wrong sides together and cut them at the same time with the pinking blade.  I then just stitched around the edges about 1/4" in.   I then sewed the banner pieces to a piece of bias tape and stitched some extra ribbon to the ends.

The lettering was done with felt and just ironed on (I didn't stitch through it).

If you want to make one yourself, Traci of Amazing Mae has a great tutorial on her site.

About Perfection...

via instagram

Forgive me today, I'm going to wax a bit poetic...

This year for Christmas I bought my 10 yr old daughter a sewing machine.  I couldn't resist the aqua blue hello kitty one I found online.  I told myself it was mostly for "her" *wink* and added it to my cart.

It's been a great little machine,  I set her up in the basement with my box of fabric scraps and a few sewing kits that we picked up at the local craft store.

Christmas Albums DONE!

A few years ago I decided to jump in on Ali Edwards 25 days of December.  The idea was to document each day in December to show how your "everyday" life runs leading up to Christmas.

I finished my '80 and '09 albums about 90% and I had to skip '10.  This year I picked it back up again. I just finished my 2011 album along with putting the finishing touches on my '08 & '09 albums.

All 3 years albums

I thought I'd share a few pages from my 2011 album with you. This year I decided to keep it simple and just do a 3 ring binder for the album with divided page protectors.

The divided page protectors helped the album come together very fast. I didn't have time to work on it in December, but was able to finish it in a just a few days in January.

I just kept a word doc on my laptop and wrote down what we did each day. That along with my instagram photos saved me. I was able to go back though December and document what we did most days.

After I finished up I sat and looked at all 3 albums and could not get over how much the kids had changed in those 4 years. It's crazy, they grow so fast you just miss it everyday.

Great Handmade Christmas Gifts

Thanks to everyone that linked up to my Handmade Christmas Linky Party!!!

I really really LOVED looking through all of your creations.  I truly have a passion for all things handmade whether it's sewing, crafts or food.  I loved seeing how much time and thought you guys put into the gifts you gave for Christmas.

Here are a few linked up from the party...


The most visited link:

This amazing dollhouse at Let's go Fly a Kite

a few others:

Adorable hand painted princesses at Crafty Cleverlings

Wave Quilt at Our Busy Little Bunch

Lots of fun handmade gifts at Goddess in Progress

Spiderman Quilt at I'm Johns Daughter

Snuggly Bricks Quilt at My Sew Called Life

 Pinecone Elves at Nesting in the Bluegrass

   Coffee Cozy and other gifts at The Crafty Polkadot--- hmmm wonder if it would fit my Diet Coke can :)

Drawstring Bag & Other gifts at Canoe Ridge Creations 

Bike Quilt from the Crafty Cupboard

There were also LOTS of other items that were all wonderful!!! Thanks so much to everyone that linked up from flickr- for some reason I can't "use" those photos here to feature... but make sure you click through- toots2u made 4 Quilts!!!  

For the little red haired girl

My sister has little kids.  I take full advantage of this and love to make things that my kids are too "big" for.  She was smart to have kids 2nd, if only for this reason *wink*.

My sister has wanted to name a baby Ruby since she was in high school. Her first two kids were boys, then her 3rd came along after a long and difficult pregnancy, a girl.  Ruby was finally here.

Ruby has lived up to her name, she's an adorable little red haired girl.

For Christmas this year I made her a little doll and matching quilt. I got the idea for the quilt from the Pretty in Patchwork, Doll Quilts Book.

I raided my stash and pulled out every fabric I had with a red haired girl on it.

Most ended up being Heather Ross prints.

I made my first dresden block (which came out much bigger than I thought it would, I need to read up a bit more on dresdens).

It was fun to tackle a mini quilt, lots of instant gratification of a project that is done quickly.

I also made dolls for her boys- more on that next time :)