More Ric Rack Baby Blankets

Well more new cousin babies are on their way and as always that calls for some new baby blankets.  I decided to resort to one of my favorites - - - the ric rack receiving blankets with the tutorial from Sew Much Ado.  It's a classic . . . it's easy and quick . . . and they sure are cute. 

This one uses two Riley Blake Peak Hour flannel fabrics that I absolutely love.  I may or may not have a whole pile of this line in cotton just waiting to become a couple of pieced quilts.  Such a perfect boy print - and sometimes those can be hard to come by.  I think I may have to stash away another couple of yards of flannels for just these occasions in the future. 

And this one uses another couple of prints from Riley Blake.  Love the camping/outdoor theme. 

Both of these blankets are now with the soon-to-be parents.  I have at least one more that I can't wait to see finished - think cowboys. 

Kid's Calling Cards

My boys go to a school outside of our neighborhood with kids that we don't know and that generally don't live around us.  They're young enough that most of them haven't memorized phone numbers yet either.  They have made some great friends this year so I came up with these fun calling cards (as in "Call us and we can have a play date") for my boys to give to some of their best friends at the end of school last week. 

It is just a simple MS Word project with pre-made business cards and a template.  It was fun for them to hand out to their most favorite playmates before they left for the summer.  We hope that some of them call to come over and play!

A Flock of Tote Bags

Is it a flock or a herd or a litter or a gaggle?  Well regardless, it took me much longer than it should have (because these are super dooper easy and quick) but I'm finally done with all the tote bags we'll be using for teacher gifts for the boys this year.  They have just one more week of school left.  I'll take these and roll them up, add a gift card and a ribbon and we'll be done.  I used a great tutorial from Skip to my Lou's blog.  Add some great canvas fabric from Hobby Lobby (what a fantastic selection!) and ta da - bags galore!

This last one is my most favorite.  I've said it before and I'll say it again - it's all about the fabric!!!

Tutorials I Love

Since this blog is for me to keep my crafting life organized, I decided to post a tutorial that I found that I think is great. I want to be able to find it later . . . When I really need it most. And I'm always so impressed by the time and energy people put into tutorials. You really can learn almost anything you need online. I always seem to find just what I need on the Internet! Any hoo . . . This great tutorial is from Red Pepper Quilts and it is How to Machine Bind a Quilt. I have a couple of quilts waiting for their binding. I've tried machine binding once before and wasn't especially happy with the results. I think I might just give it a go again with this tute at the ready.

Little Bags and Big Bags

I seem to have a thing for bags.  And really, can you ever have too many bags?  Big bags, little bags, medium bags.

Well here's a little linen-look bag that I whipped up for a quick birthday present for one of my favorite neighbors.  I found the inspiration piece over at Periwinkle Pincushion.  Cute, cute, cute!  She calls it the French Country Zipper Pouch - I call it super cute.  I found the linen-look fabric over at Hobby Lobby.

And the lining is a favorite from one of the Riley Blake lines.

And here's the stack in progress - I decided to make teacher thank you gifts for all of the boys' teachers this year.  I knew I needed to get an early start.  So - - - I have one all done, and quite a few more left to go.  I'll show more when they're all done.  Easy!

Happy Birthday Wood Decorations

It is coming up to Birthday season at my house - my boys' have birthdays in May and June. Last spring I came across this cute Happy Birthday felt banner HERE from a local crafter's ETSY shop. Love it! I had seen these fun wood balloons and presents on other blogs and noticed that they were from a local wood craft shop. I finally had a chance recently to stop in and pick them up. A little bit of paint, some scrapbook paper, and some glitter and now I have some great additions to my Birthday decorations.

Here is a close up of each present - three sizes. Here is the small:

The medium:

And the large:

I might go back and tie on some ribbons with the colored wire (which I loved to work with - so easy and colorful!). And here are the two balloons (there were three, but I thought two was plenty for me).

And the polka dot one - can't go wrong with polka dots!

So the plan is to put these out on the mantle along with the banner for our birthdays - very festive and fun - - and easy!

Lots of Pink - Baby Blanket

Wow - can you say pink? I live in a house full of boys - including the dog. I'm not used to seeing very much pink. But I needed another baby blanket for a gift and went to my enormous useful stash of fabric and found this incredibly cute pre-pieced quilt top and matching backing fabric. A quick seam around the edges, turn it right side out, top stitch all around again and there you have about the cutest little girl PINK blanket I may have ever "made". (I'm not sure I can really even say that I made it since it came pre-pieced - it wasn't any work at all.) The great thing about this line of fabric (from JoAnn's) is the variety of textures and the 3D effects. I hated to give this one away but a cute new niece is now the very proud owner. The backing is the green dragonfly fabric. Oh sooooo cute!