Check . . . and Check!

I'm a list girl - always have been . . . always will be. But for me it's a good thing. I love to make a list and check things off as I accomplish them. So for this week, call it check and check!

1. Fabric bookmarks - these are still my favorite fabric bookmark pattern. I've made a few already and whipped these up yesterday for teacher gifts for the end of school. Little Birdie Secrets has a great tutorial for these on her blog. Fast . . . easy . . . and very cute!

2. Charm pack baby quilt - And the top is finally finished. Cluck Cluck Sew made hers a little while back and I wanted to whip one up. Now that I finally got over not having every little intersection perfectly aligned, I think it looks great.The flower was fun to work up and create. I think I'm going to try machine quilting this one on my own. I've been working on piecing the back this afternoon. More to come!

Here is the next project I have in mind for this week . . . a new summer tote bag from Noodlehead. Here is her version. I have some perfect scraps waiting to be used for just this bag. And for some reason I feel some pom-poms coming on for this one - we'll see.

Projects in Progress

Well its been one of those weeks where life just took over from my "best-laid crafting plans". Work, family, yard work, and a Sunday nap have kept me busy. I do have a few projects in progress . . . I hope to get a few of them checked off on my list of projects to finish soon.

#1 - Fabric bookmarks: I want to have a couple of cute but relatively inexpensive teacher gifts on hand for the end of school in the next few weeks. Being a teacher myself . . . and being married to one . . . I know that practical gifts are THE right gift for teachers. We have a kitchen full of mugs and a counter full of candy that I don't need to each at the end of every school year. So "we" voted and I will be making some more fabric bookmarks to be given along with a gift card to either Amazon or Barnes & Noble (where ever I manage to get gift cards purchased) for each of son #1's teachers.

This is my current favorite bookmark tutorial - from Little Birdie Secrets. I've made a couple already but given them away before I remembered to take pictures.And then I found this fabric bookmark over at Creation Corner. Cute and easy!And another similar variation from Funky Polkadot Giraffe.

Finally a cute version from The Small Stuff - simple and easy.

And then there is my continued love-hate relationship with this charm pack baby quilt. I have about half of my rows sewn together . . . and I've just not had time to go sit back down at the sewing machine to finish it up. This is the inspiration quilt from Cluck Cluck Sew. I didn't want to lose the link so I'm linking here since I still need to hurry and make the applique flower.In big news though - my flower containers, flower beds, and garden are all turned, composted, AND planted! Ya hoo!

Above and beyond my typical craft projects - I am up to my neck in getting caught up on digital photo books for my boys. I do one for each of them documenting their year in pictures - from birthday to birthday. I got behind this year and am playing catchup. I'm not going to finish son #2's in time to use the big coupon that MyPublisher.com is advertising right now. But I'm sure they'll have another sale soon. I'm about half way through. Then I'll play catch up for son #1's book and then . . . . maybe I'll take another nap next week!

Felt Birthday Banner

I've been wanting to make a birthday banner for my boys for a very long time. I've been looking all over blogland for cute ideas and tutorials. I thought I had settled on a paper one - bought myself all of the supplies even . . . . but I just never got around to it. Then I blog hopped over to AmeroonieDesigns a few weeks ago and found her super cute felt birthday banner. She even had a tutorial - so I went out and bought all the supplies to make it. Well it seems that birthdays come around much more quickly for me than they do for my boys and what do you know, son #2's birthday was coming along very fast. Too fast, in fact, for me to get a banner made. So I quickly emailed Amy to see if she happened to have one that she would sell me (please, please, pretty please!). And guess what - she did.

(Source: AmeroonieDesigns.blogspot.com)

She popped it right in the mail to me (we actually don't live very far from each other, but with varying schedules we couldn't arrange a meet and sell). And here is my new absolutely adorable felt birthday banner and son #2 on his third birthday. I am so happy with it! It will now be an official part of every birthday celebrated in our house. My boys were so excited to see it magically appear on birthday morning. Great idea - wish I had thought of it! Glad I have one to use from here on out. Even for my own birthday!

A Growth Chart

I've been looking around for "the perfect" growth chart for our boys for a long time. My friend had a really cute one that was a full 6 feet tall that she found at a local craft store a few years ago. It was simple and just right. But . . . I couldn't find anything like it. So we spent hours and hours looking through ideas and samples on the internet and finally decided to go with something simple and full-sized.

We went to Home Depot and bought a 6 foot MDF board already primed white. After a very lengthy debate in the paint isle about just the right color, my husband finally gave in and let me get this Rustoleum satin spray in Nutmeg. So glad - I love the color! He kindly painted it for me.

I ordered some vinyl from a cute little Etsy shop - Abbie's House. It was super easy to put on. And wa-la . . . we have our perfect growth chart.We'll be going back through all of our medical records and recording the boy's heights at various times throughout the past years. And we'll start marking their heights this week on son #2's third birthday. The boy's are so excited!

In other crafting news . . . I'm having a love - hate relationship with a baby quilt I've been working on. I found a cute pattern while blog stalking awhile back and decided to whip one up. The pattern used two charm packs - I just happened to find a clearance sale on a couple of cute packs and picked them up. Well - no wonder they were on clearance. I don't know who cut them, but none of the squares were the same size and piecing them together has been a mess. I finally have the rows done and need to sew the rows together. I've almost given it up a few times - and I'm not a novice quilt maker. We'll see how it turns out.