Monthly Archives: January 2016

Memory Keeping:: Layout Share

Posted in Digital Scrapbooking, Documenting Life, Layouts, Memory Keeping, Scrapbooking by

Happy Playoff Sunday!  AS of the last minute of the 4th quarter, the Patriots are not looking so good 😦

The upside is I’ve been doing some digi-scrapping and wanted to share with all of you!

As you all may (or may not) know, I am on the Creative Team for Little Feet Digital Designs.  This year, Janet has started a kit / prompt series called “52 Narratives”  more info to come but wanted to share the first few layouts I’ve done using the kits and prompts.  All are available at Janet’s shop at PickleBerryPop

I am thinking of having a photo book made with all of these layouts at the end of the year, we’ll see but I think it would be neat to have something in a bound book (I usually have my layouts printed then put them in page protectors in scrapbook albums along with my paper layouts)

Cover:

52Narratives-Cover-Page-WEB1

(uses 3 kits:  New Year Narratives,  52 Narratives – January – Week 1,  52 Narratives – January – Week 2)

Week 1:

Week-1-Passion-WEB2

(kit:  52 Narratives – January – Week 1)

Week 2:

LFDD-52-Narratives-week2-layout-WEB2

(kit:  52 Narratives – January – Week 2)

And a bonus layout not related to the above project…. I had this photo I took at Squam Art Workshops this fall and I’ve been waiting for the right way to scrap it… think I found it.

Saw-with-my-heart-WEB1

aaand still working on my December Daily book, working on finishing up a few Project Life albums aaand starting work on PL 2016.  I’m excited about finishing up projects  !!!

What did you work on this weekend?  I have a few more layouts up my sleeve and some digital supply organization before Downton Abbey later tonite!

Happy Sunday!

 

Making-Modern Half Square Triangle Quilt Along

Posted in Craft, Fiber fun, In the Studio, Make Stuff, Quilts, Sew this by

I’ve been broadening my podcast horizons lately and have started listening to the “Modern Sewciety” podcast and I love it, Stephanie has such a lovely way of chatting with her guests about quilting and the quilt world (which I admittedly do not know much about).  I have made a number of quilts over the years but would not consider myself a “quilter” because, well, I didn’t use an established pattern, I made everything up and made my own patterns. And, I don’t quilt as in put the three layers together and hand stitch them on a quilting frame the size of my dining room table…no thank you.  I have quilted smaller quilts on my home sewing machine, tied a number of larger quilts and sent one out to Nebraska to be machine quilted, hmmm funny still didn’t consider myself a quilter. Well, I guess that is all about to change with this quilt-a-long I heard about on Stephanie’s podcast a few weeks ago.   I’m embarking on the Modern Half Square Triangle (HST) Quilt Along this year courtesy of  Alyce  at  Blossom Heart Quilts .

2 blocks per month x 12 months will equal enough squares for a nice sized quilt.  I’ve pulled fabrics from my stash and purchased just a few pieces to round out the color palette, I’ve also purchased a light grey fabric with white printing that will be the background fabric in each block, I am waiting until the top is done to decide on the sashing and binding fabrics.

QAL Fabric Pull

Aren’t they pretty?!  I went with very highly saturated colors for the most part which I think will give some nice contrast against the background.

QAL-block 1

Aaanndd….here is my first block!  Yay!  I have had that dark blue fabric for YEARS!  I’ve been hoarding it as it’s one of my all-time favorites but now it has found it’s perfect home as part of the new quilt!  The block is a little rough around the edges as I need to “true” the block up, I’m waiting to do that until I purchase a 12.5″ square ruler specifically to that task.  But it’s done!  It didn’t take forever!  It didn’t make a huge mess!  Everything went back onto the shelf until it’s time for the next block!  Win Win Win!

What have you been making this weekend?!

 

Memory Keeping:: Layout Share

Posted in Digital Scrapbooking, Documenting Life, Layouts, Memory Keeping, Scrapbooking by

Happy Friday everyone!

A quick post to share two digi-layouts I’ve been working on and finally finished!

Pumpkin-Carry-WEB-1

I’ve unofficially dubbed this one “Pumpkin Carry”  this photo of my nephew and my daughter makes my heart sing.  Love the two of them together, and they were so little back then!  This layout was a multi-year layout ha ha!  Started in 2015, finished in 2016.

Kit:  Enchanted Woodland Forest   /  Template:  AOAT #2 by Little Feet Digital Designs.

st-chapelle-WEB1

 

 

I thought this photo of Saint Chappell from our trip to Paris would be perfect for these papers.  It is an amazing place, like being inside a jewel box!  Wanted to make sure I had really big photo featured for this design and I’m really happy with how it came out.

Kits:  All That Glitters is Gold and Stained Era by Little Feet Digital Designs.

Thanks for stopping by… More digi layouts in the works, as well as working on December Daily from 2015 and catching up on Project Life albums.  What are you working on this weekend?

 

1/14: The Big Gray Pot

Posted in Around Here, Cooking, Creative Practice by

Happy Middle of January !

Winter had finally arrived here in New England.  It’s cold, it snowed (not enough to really shovel but enough to look pretty), the sun is out and it’s cold.  Just the kind of weather for hearty yummy carb-laden goodies made in the Big Gray Pot.

This week (so far) I made risotto with shrimp and peas.   Risotto is one of those dishes that everyone in the house loves, but I kind of forget about when I’m thinking of things to make.  It is super easy, I use the basic recipe from an old, old Williams Sonoma “Risotto” cookbook.  There is half an hour of minding the pot on the stove as you add the chicken stock but easy to do while you are puttering around the kitchen making salad or cleaning up.  Add to that peas in the freezer and frozen cooked shrimp on sale at MarketBasket and it’s risotto for the win!

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The night I made it was my basketball carpool night, after the risotto was finished, I put the lid on and put it in a 200 degree oven to stay warm while I picked up and dropped off hoop stars.  I’ve never “held” risotto in the oven like that before and I think were I to do it again, I’d add a little extra water on the top to keep it moist.  The rice kept sucking up the cooking liquid and wasn’t dry but not quite as creamy.

Hope you try something like this, I love the fact that I can cook something on the stove and then hold it in a warm oven rather than letting it get cold and them microwaving to heat up later.

Have a great day everyone!!

 

…It was supposed to be a quick project…

Posted in Around Here, In the Studio by

How many times have we said that??  Come on, raise your hands, I know you are out there.  It seemed so easy.

Me:  Hey honey, I decided I want to use my birthday money from your folks to help pay for a new worktop for my studio, can we go to Ikea and pick up the new furniture for my studio?                                                                         Charlie:  Sure!

That was the easy part.  Actually, I should say going to Ikea and actually getting the stuff, easy peasy.  I had made a list of what we needed.  I’d even mapped out the entire project step by step.  Yay for organized!  We brought everything home and put it all together in a few hours.  PicTapGo-ImageLooked great!!  Of course it did, fit just like I’d planned.  So excited to have drawers!  So many I’m not even sure what I’m going to put in them (ha ha ha).  On my list of things to do was to clear out the shelves and re-organize them, and take down all my notes on the wall from 2015.   PicTapGo-Image copyYay organizing project.  In addition to cleaning out, I found $6, and a bracket for the shade I would like to hang on the driveway side window (hopeful bracket #2 will turn up soon), and I cleaned.  I am going to swap the workstations with sewing on the right with the ironing board behind me and computer/memorykeeping on the left.   All was going swimmingly, until the subject of this came up… PicTapGo-Image copy 3and yes, people I went down that path.  I thought I’ll just put a coat of poly on the top so I don’t mess it up.   Um no…. old poly, wrong brush means took for.ev.er. to dry and didn’t cover well.  One new fresh can of poly later (read on the This Old House blog you should toss poly after it’s been open for a year….yeah, that can came from our old house 😉  ) here we are.  Looks much much better!!  Dried perfectly, nice and smooth, full coverage (just a tiny bit of fine steel wool polishing will happen today) All ready to go!  PicTapGo-Image copy 2Put the stuff back in that’s been junking up the upstairs hall.  PicTapGo-Image copy 5So excited, can’t wait to work on one long continuous counter, spread out my fabric or my projects, a home for the scanner and maybe the tablet, this is going to be great!  Or not, wait, it seems a little low for me.  Get out the tape, measure, yup, the worktop needs to come up 1″ – 1 1/2″, and I need a big piece of something for on top of the cart to make up the space on the back that won’t be covered by the top, since I have to move it forward to the edge of the drawers (overhang = not getting into the back of those drawers) *sigh*

Honnneeeeee  !!!  I have a little project for you !

Pray for me…hoping to have this all sorted out on the weekend and be making stuff in here soon… this wasn’t going to be on of my 52/16 projects but it is starting to verge in that direction!