Doorbell Tile

More fun with vinyl last night.  Those of you mama's know the inner rage that happens with the doorbell rings and then you hear a baby cry from upstairs.  Oh the pain!  With Micah still being such a little guy, he naps three times a day, sometimes four which basically means our house is in a constant state of possible nap disturbance.  Awhile back I put a little note above the doorbell which was imidiately effective and people were very respectful of it.  Unfortunately paper, even paper wrapped in a baggie (tacky much?) still became faded and worn (and ugly and tacky) so I knew I needed something more durable.

I wanted a gentle message so as not to scold or boss people as they stepped up to our threshold and thought this did the trick.  I wish I had a little sleeping baby graphic that wasn't cheesy but I am always a fan of birds so there you go.

I thought it turned out nice and it might become a new gift for the new mamas in my life.  or maybe I'll make a few more and pop them in my etsy shop. 

today I'm linking up with: 

Christmas House

I needed a hostess gift last night and thought I'd whip up a cute little Christmas ornament to tie onto a bottle of sparkling cider. I popped over to my Christmas ornament Pinterest board and thought these by Retro Mama might be cute.  (and funnily enough she's posting about her Christmas houses on her site today!  Check out her blog, I LOVE her stuff)

I added a little Christmas-ish holly on top and dabbled a bit on the free-motion cursive (to which now I'm totally addicted)  Might have to make a few for my own sad little tree.  I'm pretty sure my kids can't break ornaments like these, or at least if they do I won't find them sitting in a ring of crushed glass Christmas balls like I did last Friday.  (grrrrrrrr.....)

but that's a different blog post altogether....

Today I'm linking up with:

  

Breaking out the Silhouette! (finally)

Last year for Christmas my super rad sister-in-law planted a bug in my mom's ear that I might enjoy a Silhouette. And then Christmas morning came and I opened it up and freaked out, I was so excited. I had so many ideas and things I wanted to make with it but it took a few months to get a computer that I could use it with and then there was the craziness that was a new baby's arrival and our summer vacation and so on. And I still hadn't used it! Till last night. I got the kids to bed and brought it all downstairs to sit by the Christmas tree and figure it all out with a couple episodes of Foyle's War in the background. It was fun and oh so addicting. I finally fumbled into bed about 1:30 am (!!!!???) with two projects that had been jingling around in my head since I got my Cameo and heard of chalkboard vinyl.

Chalkboard vinyl is fun and super easy to work with.  I was worried that it wouldn't erase well but it really does.  This is a big improvement over the stained dollar store dry erase board I was using.

And I've been wanting to do a little thing like this over our big family picture in our entryway for pretty much as long as we've had a big family picture in our entryway.  I still have two little flourishes I want to put on either side of the lettering but the learning curve of working with the vinyl pretty much used up the small amount of black that I got so I've got to order some more before I can do anymore there.

But I love it!  Expect to see more with the Silhouette now that I've figured out how to do it.  Anyone have any good projects they've done that they really liked??

Today I'm linking up with:

  

Baby Booties

I'm sort of obsessed with my baby wearing mama made booties.  I made two little pairs that he wears ALL the time on my big drive up to Washington back in August but lately I've been craving a little more variety for his feet.  Unfortunately I just haven't had a lot of time to make them.  Last night, however, after sending my kids to bed early for reasons only partially their fault, I found myself with a little time on my hands.  So I made a yellow bootie. One yellow bootie.

Maybe tonight I'll make another one.

Postcard Quilt top complete!

I've been working my way through my bin of WIPs and last night I finished my Postcard quilt top! Woo hoo! I started it with a pile of old fashioned type scrap prints that individually I didn't really like but put them together and now I think it looks beautiful. I used Kona Mellon for the boarders and sashing to give it that civil war era look and I think once it's quilted up it will look great and be a nice autumn colored quilt to put out. Or I've even been toying with the idea of hanging it in my big blank wall space in my living room. We'll see! For now I'm just really happy to be making such good progress getting through those WIPs.

for the new mr. and mrs.

Earlier in the week my friend mentioned a little project she needed for another friend's daughter's wedding. (follow that?) anyway, the mother of the bride had an idea of sending the newlyweds off on their red-eye honeymoon flight with personalized travel pillows. It gave me a good excuse to break out my embroidery machine and hamg oit with a dear friend. Despite some computer/sewing machine communication difficulties, we got it done and I think they turned out really cute. Great gift for someone heading out on a big trip!

Liberty of London

I just got back last night from a whirlwind trip around England and Scotland with my sweet brother and his rad wife.  We toured the entire island in 8 days and made it to York, Scotland, the Lake District, London, the Cotswolds and even a little in the Peak District.  It was amazing and I had such a wonderful time.  And now I'm home and totally beat!

Since we were only going to be in London for one day I had to pick my priorities and so I told my sister-in-law that I really wanted to see the Tower of London and the Liberty store. So that's what we did.  We bought tickets for the hop on and hop off bus and when we happened to break down near Regent Street, we decided it was fate telling us it was time to hit the Liberty store.

And let me just say that it didn't disappoint.

I was in sort of a manic state as I walked around and tried to decide what my trip treat was going to be.

They had the cutest little section of precuts that I spend about a half an hour going through, trying to decide which one I couldn't live without.  It was tough to narrow it down.

Oh and then I found the remnants bin.  Reduced price Liberty fabric?  Yes please.

I finally settled on one little set of precut hexies and three remnants and a bundle of assorted prints.

We ended up spending the better part of two hours and it was everything I ever dreamed it would be!