Hello There,
As you all can imagine, the last 5 weeks have been sort of insane...all good stuff! But insane none the less. So I have tons to share with you all, including how things went last week during my tapings for the New Sewing TV Show called It's Sew Easy that I told you all about in my last post (crazy excited about this!) and my very first blog tutorial (yes, I finally wrote a tutorial!).
Let me announce the winners of the last giveaway quickly, and then on to some serious sharing! As always, I used the random number generator.
Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:
6 11 44 18 67
2
Timestamp: 2011-03-15 21:17:24 UTC
The 6 winners are:
Prize#1: comment 6....congrats Bryanna!
Prize#2: comment 11...Congrats Mary P.!
It's a tie between 5 and 6. I love them both! My resolution this year was to do more handwork. That could be embroidery, sashiko, applique, etc. I just feel like it is something I haven't really tried and I'd like to learn something new!
Posted by: Mary P | February 04, 2011 at 07:06 PM
Prize#3: comment 44..congrats Barbara G!
Fabric, fabric, fabric! Though all the goodies are wonderful! TT collection is my favorite. Resolution? finish 3 WIPs and don't start another until they are complete!
Posted by: Barbara G | February 05, 2011 at 07:49 PM
Prize#4: comment 18...congrats Paulak!
I love all the dots in the Hoot collection #5. My sewing resolutions for 2011 include getting my Christmas quilts done before Dec. 1st!
Posted by: PaulaK | February 04, 2011 at 08:17 PM
Prize#5: comment 67...congrats Sara!
Oh, I would love to win any of your prizes - but, have to say #5 and #6 would be my favorites...
I have resolved this year to finish some of my UFOs
nhsarab at yahoo dot com
Prize#6: comment 2........congrats Barbara G!
Fabric, fabric, fabric! Though all the goodies are wonderful! TT collection is my favorite. Resolution? finish 3 WIPs and don't start another until they are complete!
Congrats to you all. Please email me with your contact information so I can get your goodies off to you.
Now, let me share a bit of what has been going on over the last several weeks.
First, I was supposed to share this with you all a few weeks ago, but just did not have time to pull a blog post together. Cutie Pie Penny has two new patterns in her shop. The hexagon pin cushion is just the cutest, and I proudly own one of the pincusions made by Penny herself (thanks sweetie!). Her latest pattern is an adorable grocery bag pattern. After you finish reading this post, be sure to check out her shop!
Next up, I joined my first quilting bee! It is a charity bee group called Do Good Stitches. I am in the comfort group and we all have to send in blocks and the resulting quilts are donated to children in need. Here are the 2 blocks I made for the January quilt:
And here are the two blocks I made for the February group.
I need to get going on the March blocks....
Next, I am excited to say I have my very first tutorial up on the Moda Bake Shop blog (it went live on Friday)! I actually started this post on Friday to share with you and am just getting around to finishing it all up!
It is a DIY Party from a fat quarter bundle project and it was so much fun to put together. Get on over to the Moda Blog to read the full details and to get instructions on making all of the projects (tote bags, headbands, ponytail holdres, a confetti party banner and cupcakes!). I hope you'll love it as much as I do!
The Moda Bake Shop post was in honor of my girls 10th birthday. In addition to the fun DIY Party project, I had a blast organizing the party activities. We made bath salts, bubble bath and lip balms. My daughter loves all this spa stuff, but I hate buying her products filled with harsh chemicals and dyes. So I thought it would be fun to show her and her friends how to make some at home. All the girls had a blast and all love mixing up the beauty products in the kitchen. Here are a few pics of them in action and of some of what they made.
My sweet birthday girl!
They put on a fun pool-side show for us!
After the main party ended, 4 of Leah's closest girlfriends stayed for a slumber party. They piled up in my bathroom and painted their toenails and talked about school, music and even a little about boys (yes, I was eavesdropping big time!). Then they all piled up in her room chatted into the late night while listening to music.
They slept about 6 hours and then woke up super hungry. Hubby whipped up his delicious pancakes (he is the pancake maker in our house) and the kids help me in the kitchen whipping cream and making fresh orange juice.
Hubby whipped up his "famous" buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. The girls and I made the whipped cream from scratch and also made some fresh squeezed OJ. Yum!
This birthday party was so much fun to put together. And I think we managed to create some really special memories for Leah and her girlfriends!
I wanted to share with you all some Etsy shops that I bought some of the supplies for the beauty products, as they all provided great service! I bought the chap stick and lip balm containers from here. I bought some of the bath salt supplies and the plastic flip top bottles from here. And I bought some oils and the lip balm base here. The kids loved all the oils, especially this cherry oil. The rest of the supplies where from my local super market.
If you have never tried to make your own beauty supplies, I encourage you to do so. It is such a fun and easy weekend project.
If anyone is interested in my recipes/directions for making the beauty products, let me know and I'll put them together and post here on the blog.
Leah told me this was her favorite birthday party ever, and that is exactly what I wanted for her. I have to admit, I think I enjoyed it all even a bit more than she did. :)
The next thing I'd like to share with you all is that I just returned from taping my three segments for the new sewing program called It's Sew Easy, which will debut on PBS this summer. O.H. My! Was that scary and fun! I think overall I did okay, especially considering I have never done anything like this before, ever. I was super nervous and super excited! And I learned a ton. I can hardly wait to get back out there in August to record more episodes for Season 2! I met so many wonderful folks at the tapings. I'll put together a full post sharing some images and sharing more details of the tapings and the shows. For now, here is a glimpse of me on set.
A note on my shops...all are on vacation until I get to Michigan next week and start unpacking/setting up house and shop! I hope to have everything back up and running the 1st of April, but I may need more time..we'll see. I'll certainly keep you all posted!
Speaking of the move, the packers/movers arrived early Monday morning. They have already packed over half of the house and have partially loaded the truck (our house is almost 5,000 square feet, so they have alot on their plate!). They'll continue until Thursday and then we will relax over the weekend and then fly up to Michigan on Sunday. We don't do any of the packing/loading, but are here to oversea everything and keep out of their way! It is such an excited yet sad time for us, watching our belongings get packed yet again. We have so enjoyed living in Texas and are just going to miss our house here and all our friends soo, soo much!! Even though this is our 3rd move in 5 years, it really has not gotten any easier. You settle in, make connections/bonds and grow to really love people and then you have to move on. I am really hoping this will be the last move for a while...we'll see. But I am staying positive, as we really found a great house in Michigan, the kids got into the school we really wanted them to attend and I even found a fab studio space around the corner from their school! We are blessed and thankful and look forward to a new life in Michigan, but will surely miss all we leave behind here in Texas. The most important thing as always is that the 4 of us are together, happy and healthy. The rest is gravy!
Okay, that is certainly enough for today! I'll be back soon with more to share.
Hugs,
Sheree
I would so love to have a copy of the Elizabeth Hartman's book or the Kaffe Fasset shot cottons! So yummy!
For this year I resolved to join some VQB so that I could be challenged to make blocks I probably would not have made for myself.
Posted by: Bryanna | February 04, 2011 at 06:32 PM