Sadie and Michael's Reception

Our niece Sadie eloped with her fiance Michael in April, so we decided to throw her a reception to celebrate at our other niece and nephew's home.  Since we had a month to prep and throw the party, we pretty much made everything.  I was in charge of the decorations, so I made the same type of displays like I made for another niece's first birthday party, inspired by my friend Debi Boring.  

 

 Medallions!  I just love making paper medallions.  I love punching the background "doilies" with Martha Stewart's circle edge punches.  They are so fun and beautiful! And easy, did I mention how easy they are to use? They are my favorite tools!  I had to make seven different centerpieces.  I picked up the different vases and pots from Michael's and Jo-Ann's Fabrics.  They had some great sales going on at the time, so they were very affordable.

 The yellow and grey color combo was not the usual combination for me.  I tend towards blues, purples, and pinks.  And I wasn't sure how the colors would come out.  I threw in an aqua blue color and a minty green, which helped make the colors kind of pop.  After using so much yellow, I think it's a color I can do again.  I think the combination together is really pretty.

 Her theme also was a bird theme and music.  Sadie and her husbands are singers in a band.  So I found sheet music books at the flea market to cut up into the medallions.  Everyone who knows me knows how much I hate cutting up books, really, I really hate cutting up books.  But I think this was a great way to recycle old music books. 

And for the bird theme I found bird salt and pepper shakers at the dollar store.  OMG, it was such a good find.  We were finding single birds for $1.99 to $4, so finding the two for $1, and having a dual purpose of being salt and pepper shakers were awesome.  Kill 2 birds with one stone! LOL No pun intended.  Ok. maybe a little intent.  ;)

 Also found the pinwheels at Jo-Ann fabrics as well.  That cut out the time that I would have taken to make those as well.  And they came in yellow!

 Sadie had been pinning on pinterest that she loved photos hanging from a clothesline type of looks.  So I printed out a lot of their wedding photos from Walgreens, and pinned them everywhere.  And now I have the photos to put in a scrapbook for them.

 We made a really cute table display for the sign in table for when people walked in.  Her step-mom saw a pin where they used a record album as a sign-in book. Very cool idea.  At the flea market I found an old Beatles album for $3.  And it was an album of a lot of their love songs, which Sadie loved!  I guess they just had been talking abou the Beatles earlier in the week.  :)

 We decorated the entry archway with dangling crystals. I saved them from a previous wedding reception we threw, and luckily this time the flowers were in bloom. 

 The reception food tables were decorated with photos and the tissue paper pompoms.  Those things are really cool looking, pain to do sometimes though.

 This is what the backyard looked like. They have such a beautiful backyard, and we're so thankful that they allowed us to borrow it for the day.

 We also decorated the drink area.  They had gotten this bar from someone else, and we just plopped it in a shaded area, decorated it with lights and more photos.

 The main course was tri-tip.  Phil BBQ'd the tri-tip on a BBQ that a friend of mine from work made.  It was so very delicious!

 Our friend Tom brought his griddle, and we had some really awesome fried potatoes!

 Phil's famous Coke meat was made into sliders, and we also left them meat in a pan in case they wanted to eat the meat without bread.

 The salad area, a really great tossed salad with Champagne dressing.  I loved the dressing!

 Phil also made some really great baked beans, and we had pasta too.

 The yummy potatoes with the sliders and vegetables.

 This is what the whole set-up looked like.  Not bad if I say so myself.  LOL

 Sadie and Michael inviting us all to dinner. 

 The cake table.  Her aunt brought a little wedding cake for them to cut, plus some cupcakes.

 How cute are they? 

This is how I felt after it was all done.  LOL

More Embroidered gifts

 I embroidered this sweat jacket for our receptionist at work for Christmas.  She rides a purple Harley, so I thought this would be great for her to wear.  I haven't seen a whole lot of purple Harley logos, and I love that you can substitute colors when you're embroidering to make a really personal gift.

This is a close up of the embroidered logo.  I really love how it turned out.  I hope she'll like it too!

Embroidery designs

 I've been slowly getting back into embroidering.  I don't have the time to do much after I get of work most days because we're working longer hours.  So I've decided to take more me time to do my crafty stuff again, especially before Christmas.  Here are a few things I've stitched out.  I've got to actually stitch them out on the final products, but just wanted to give you all a look as to how they were turning out.

The CAL logo is for a co-worker.  I found this online, and will stitch it out on a sweatshirt.  The colors aren't quite right yet, the yellow isn't the right color yellow, so I'll be off to the sewing store tomorrow or the next day.  Turned out not so bad though, I do have to tweek the settings because the bobbin thread showed through in a couple of spots.

 My sister-in-law works for a company called D.Hill Trucking, so I thought I'd try a little applique for her, I still need to practice a bit on the applique part. I  finally bought the fancy pair of applique scissors because they were on sale at JoAnn's. They work really well.  I just have to learn how to cut closer to the stitches so the fabric doesn't show through.

Lastly, is the hand towel for the Louisiana Family members.  Lately I've seen this saying all over, It's a Melanie Thing, it's a Cheryl thing.  So when I saw the Louisiana thing saying, I iknew I had to make those for the family.  I had a Louisiana State Applique that I found on Etsy at Rouge Embroidery.  I think it came out really cute.

I've got a ton more things to stitch out tomorrow.  Will post again with finished projects soon!

Advent Calender

 A friend at work asked me to help her find an advent calendar this year for her two grandkids.  She didn't want what she called one of those "Hokey Advent Calenders that you buy at (Enter Generic store name here), where they have chocolate inside, but they all fall down before you can open the doors, and you have to try to get them out of the bottom of the box.  I want a cool one."

Yes, she actually said that more or less.  LOL

I'm thinking, I can make this:

Then I'm thinking, I have a week, and I have to find all the stuff to put in the box too.  So I found this on pinterest:

How easy can this be?  I mean I have the cardstock, I can get this printed, and then cut out all the boxes.  How hard can that be?  Of course, it wasn't hard at all. With all the paper tools that I have, it was easy to cut the boxes, score the fold lines, then use the sticky back tape to tape all the boxes.

And the great part about this, when they've opened a box, you turn the box around, and it's the same drawing, just without the number.  And even better yet, we can save these till next year and just refill them!! 

I think the best part about doing this was the shopping for all the little things to go in the box. I had to alternate between something for a boy and a girl.  It wasn't hard to find little things to put inside.  I went to Talbot's Toyland in San Mateo for some of the little toys and candy.  And also to Diddams.  I had so much stuff, I can now make stocking stuffers! 

This totally has gotten me into the mood to get creative again.  Will be in the embroidering mood in the next couple of weeks.  I'll keep you posted as to what I've created next!

Niner game 10-5-14

Today we were lucky enough to have tickets to the 49er/Chief's game at Levi's Stadium.  It was my first visit since their move from Candlestick.  I have been to many games at the Stick, so this was a very exciting day for me to visit the new stadium.  We parked at one of the Red lots which was a few blocks from the stadium.  It was kinda weird parking in one of the businesses surrounding the stadium, but cool that they were able to utilize parking that would normally be empty on game days.

 It's really cool to see all that red walking towards the stadium. Great America is right next door, and they actually close the park on game days so that the stadium can use their parking lot.

 Phil and Jackie outside the stadium. Luckily we were there early so we could see the stadium without a ton of people there.

 We're getting closer to being inside.  Just love the look of the new stadium!

 Welcomed by the LED signs.  Too cool!

 Here is what the inside of the stadium looks like, we were sitting in the below section, towards the left walkway.  Downside was that it was really really hot until the shade reached us at about halftime.  The seats were smaller than at Candlestick. You think they would have taken into account the heat during the first part of the season.  If the stadium looked empty on TV, it's cause everyone was standing under the overhangs to get cool.  Candlestick would have been cold even during the summer months.

 But I loved the fact that there were so many food choices, and there are a ton of restrooms at this new stadium.  Candlestick was sorely lacking in both.

 The game was fun to watch,  I really enjoyed watching the game at the stadium, especially when we finally got to have some of the shade!  :)

 And Alex Smith came back to the Bay Area.  He is such a great guy, even in the interviews for this game, he was very gracious.  Wish I could have cheered him on, but he was on the other team.  Sorry!  LOL

 Loved the guy with the ring hat.  I want to know where he found those big jewels on the ring!

 And I didn't know that Jackie had them put my name on the big screen for my 50th birthday this week.  Yep, I'm going to be 50.  LOL And now everyone who was at the game knows it.  ;)

 All and all, it was such a great day!  I got to go to the new stadium, watch the Niners win, and eat a bunch of great food! :)  It was a great start to my birthday week!  :)

Minnie Mouse Birthday Party

 It was Sofia's second birthday, and it was a Minnie Mouse themed birthday party in the red/black color scheme.  I didn't realize how hard it is to find red/black Minnie mouse party anything.  Most of the Minnie Mouse items are now in pink. But luckily, we all made a lot of her party items, to keep the color scheme.

 I made her shirt with the embroidery pattern I found at mysewcuteboutique on Etsy  I just love the Disney font as well.  Very cool set!  Since the shirt was so small, I had to do some creative hooping,  I like hooping with sticky stabilizer, and putting the shirt on that, sewing the fabric onto the hoop to hold it.  And like usual, I pull the back of the shirt up  out of the way of the sewing area.  But since this was so small, I had to actually hold the fabric out of the way of the sewing area while sewing.  I've never had to do that before. 

I think it came out really cute, and she paired it with a red and black polka dotted skirt.  Heather had been working on a really cute tutu, but since Miss Sofia didn't want to wear it, she went with this option, which I think was just as cute.  :)

 My next project was a foam ball Minnie centerpiece.  This also was a bit of a challenge.  I thought that spray painting the foam balls would be much easier then hand painting them, but I didn't realize that you need special spray paint to paint them, because the regular spray paint tends to melt the foam balls.  And after watching a youtube video, I realized it was because of the chemical it uses to make the paint sprayable.  If you spray too close, it melts the foam, but if you spray further away, no problem.  I would test it out on a small item first before using it on your real project so you know the distance you need to be at to not melt the foam. 

It turned out really cute!  I found the white bucket at JoAnn's Fabrics, and the flowers were from the dollar store.  I didn't realize that foam balls can be kind of spendy, so I used my coupons from JoAnn's to purchase those.  They really do come in handy.  The flowers and the green foam blocks on the inside were from the $1 store. Which helped out a lot on the cost.

Sofia's Poppa made the really cute Mickey Mouse frame for everyone to take photos with.  Just love it!  It was great cause he put handles on the back to hold it easier.  So very cool!

Her cake was adorable!  One of Heather's friends made the cake, and it looked awesome!

The goodie bags my sister-in-law and niece made from red bags and cut out black and white paper.  They turned out really cute.

 Sofia had such a great time!

Banners and bracelets

 Sofia's second birthday is coming up, so I'm making her a banner for her birthday.  She's having a Minnie Mouse themed party, in red.  Since they don't have any cute Minnie Mouse material in red, I decided to use the red with black polka dots. 

 The flag design is from Big Dreams Embroidery, the Make a Banner ITH Project.
The designer of the program, Kate, makes it so easy to create.  She has really detailed instructions, and it's really easy to add your own fonts/designs to each flag.

The letter font is from My Sew Cute Boutique, and it came with Minnie and Mickey icons. I've got to figure out how to do the icons, but that will be easy to do.  Will post the final design soon.

 I've also been making bracelets for my sister's non-profit Raining Hope.  From the quilted ornaments I made in an earlier post, I had some scrap strips of material, and I remembered that Marah Johnson posted some fabric bangles on her instagram.  So I thought it would be a great way to use up all those scraps and some of the beads I have in my stash.

 These are metal bangles above that I had in my stash from Forever 21.  I just covered them with the fabric and wire-wrapped them with beads.

But since those bangles are all one size fits all that really don't fit all sizes, I had a request for larger bangles.  SO, I found some tubing from Orchard Supply Hardware, and made the above bracelets.  I think they turned out really cool.  They are thicker as well, so I had to adjust and use larger beads.  I hope my friend likes them.

So that's what I've been up to this weekend, that and watching the Giants and the 49ers.  Go Niners!!  What have you been up to??

Quilted Ornaments

 On a few groups that I belong to, some of the people made these beautiful quilted ornaments.  So of course I just had to figure out how they made them. Because I just needed one more craft to do in my life.

So, I began to research how to make them. Pinterest, of course, has a lot of pins of different ornaments people have made.  There are a few different patterns, but this one is the basic one.  And this is the tutorial from Pot Holders and Pantyhose.

I used fabric that my sister brought home from Africa.  She does work for a non-profit called Raining Hope, and travels to Uganda twice a year.  I thought this would be a great way to use some of the fabric she brings back and to help them raise money for their trips.

 I'm still not sure if I like the bows on the top of the ornaments, or if I just want to use jute. I'll have to experiment a bit.

The above two are almost finished.  The one on the left is one I made from scraps around the house.

This is a really fun craft to do, a bit more labor intensive than I thought.  But a great way to use oup some fabric.

I'm Back!

So, it's been a few months since I've actually posted.  Had some personal issues I've been working on the past few months one of which has resulted in my having to buy a new car.  Of course it's a Subaru, love them to pieces.  They just drive so great, and have so many little extras that really spoil me, like the heated mirrors, wipers, and seats.  Once you have those in a car, you really have to get them in the next one.  LOL

So, I now have a new used Outback.  I just love it so much!!

And Phil loves it too!  It's such a cool car. And it's the first non-red car that I've owned in oh almost 24 years. Can you imagine that?  It's still so weird driving in a not so red car.  But I'll get used to it.

 We took a trip again out to Reno.  I don't know why it's my favorite place to go to, but it is.  I just love getting away for a couple of days just to relax.  Not gamble so much, but just to relax.  So on one of our trips at the Sportsman's Warehouse, there was a guy sitting there with an owl.  So I asked if I could take a picture of the owl, and he says, "Nope, but you can take a photo with the owl for $10..."  SOLD!

I guess the owl was in the Harry Potter movies.  Heck, I didn't care what movie the owl was in, but of course, being in the Harry Potter movies made it that much cooler.  I just got to take a photo with the owl!  And holding the owl at that!  I was so very excited!

A few weeks ago, I met up with my friends Debi and Joanne in Santa Cruz.  Debi took me to her favorite spot on the coast, she calls it her "Special Spot".  It's so very beautiful out there, and it was right before the storms that we just had, so we were lucky to have a warm gorgeous day!  Almost like it was summer.

I spent the winter crocheting boot cuffs as gifts.  The girls just loved them and they are quick and easy to make.  I was burnt out from all the wedding and party decorations, that going back to crocheting just was so nice and relaxing for me.  I still haven't gotten back to paper crafting yet, but hopefully will get there soon.

Oh, and just for good measure, I thought I'd add a picture of our outside cat.  I come home sometimes to see him just looking at the door waiting for someone to let him in.  If we didn't have Velcro, he would be an inside cat.  She just doesn't like any other cats or animals, and she's an older cat.  So we keep her happy.

Have a great day!