I found the ornament I will be making for Christmas 2007. You wouldn’t believe how much time I spent searching the internet for an ornament project. I’m very happy with this one. Here’s my supplies area and the one completed ornament so far. You wouldn’t believe the mess I made with seed beads. I will be picking seed beads out of my carpet for weeks. Sprinkling seed beads is not as easy as it sounds. For the next ornament I will need to come up with a better system of containing the beads. The countdown for Christmas is less than a month away! I had better get busy.

Join the fun of the Pay It Forward Exchange. It’s based of the concept of the movie “Pay it Forward” where acts or deeds of kindness are done without expecting something in return, just passing it on, with hope that the recipients of the acts of kindness are passed on. So here’s how it works: I will make and send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment to this post on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I do not know what that gift will be yet, and it won’t be sent this month, probably not next month, but it will be sent (within 6 months) and that’s a promise! More than likely I’ll get it made after Christmas and sent out early in the New Year. What YOU have to do in return, then, is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog to 3 different people. Unfortunately this is only possible for those who have a blog.

If you’d like to join the fun and receive a handmade gift from me comment to this message. Only the first three to post will receive a gift. Then you can pass on the fun through your own blog.

PAY IT FORWARD EXCHANGE IS CLOSED.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving with your families! I had a great time this year hanging out with my cuz-buzzes. Since my mom’s family is so large we stayed out at a Bible camp that our family is very involved in. It was great because the cousins could spread out and not all be confined to one space. Picture #1 is our welcome from the camp and picture #2 is some of my cousins doing dishes. They had so much fun. All of the kids stayed in one of the cabins. Boys on one side, girls on the other. I was the cousin’s counselor for the girls. Which is fun. I love being a counselor. We even had devos every night led by my cousin Steven. We made my mom cry with that one.

The meal was of course great but the time spent with the family is priceless. I was especially thankful that our love for the Lord was so in evidence this year through taking time to prayer over situations, time spent in the Word, and through our love for each other. Picture #3 is me and the fam working on a puzzle. We always end up doing at least one puzzle over the holidays. This year we did three! And the last picture is of the cousins minus six and plus one adopted cousin. We are quite the crew. You’ve got to love them.

Okay, I know it’s just after Thanksgiving but I have to share the Halloween costume I made this year. And plus I only finished it last week. The picture is me on Halloween night. I wore the costume to Awana at our church where I work as a Sparks leader. I thought I was going out with the girls to hang out later but it got too late for the working girls. So I didn’t get to wear it out that much but it was definitely fun to wear. The part I didn’t finish until last week was that I remade the corset piece. It wasn’t long enough for me to be that comfortable wearing. I added 4 inches so now it goes right from the corset into the black lace. I also changed the lining. I was dumb and original made it with white lining which you could see a little bit around the edges. So when I remade it I used the same maroon fabric as on the rest of the dress. It looks great and I can’t wait to wear it again next year. (Automated Post #4)

Here is automated post #3. You know, I’m really not sure what day we are coming home… oh well. This is a cross-stitch baby bib that I made a while ago in my spare time. It will be personalized with the baby’s name that it will be a gift to and I’ll put some cute fabric on the back so you can’t see all of the thread on the back. I have another bib partially done to. And I have two babies in mind for these bibs. Now I just need the correct spelling of names. I’m also thinking I might sew up some of these Burb Cloths as well to go with them.

I know I’m enjoying the Thanksgiving leftovers right about now… how ’bout you? This is automated post number 2 and in this post I’m sharing with you a project that is long overdue to get finished. I started it summer of 2006. How sad is that. My main problem was that when I started to quilt the pieces I tried doing a random all over stitch that didn’t turn out. That completely stallled the project for over a year. Last week though I got inspired to work on it again. I pulled out all the stitches and quilted it with squares instead. Much better. I may actually finish this project before next summer. One piece is quilted and one isn’t at the moment.

Here are my first two blocks for the quilt-a-long hosted by AmandaJean at Crazy Mom Quilts. She is showing us how to do one quilt block every week for twelve weeks. So at the end of twelve weeks I should have enough blocks to put together a quilt. How fun is that? I’m using a dark purple fabric with bright paw prints for my background fabric and whatever other bright fabric I have for everything else. I’m also thinking about making a second quilt-a-long quilt with the tons of country fabrics I have left over from my mom doing craft shows. I’m pretty sure I am going to do this so look for a couple more blocks in a few days. Head over to Quilt-A-Long Week 1 if you want to join us.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I hope you are having a great time with family and friends. As promised this is my first automated post.

I finished two more quilt squares for the quilt-a-long. Here are my country ones. I have so much country fabric from when my mom used to do craft shows. I’m not really a country girl so I don’t know what to do with it all. But this is a perfect use for it. I’m really liking how the squares are turning out. Not sure what I’m going to do with the quilt when I finish it but I’m enjoying making it and using up some country fabrics. I was thinking I might give my purple quilt-a-long quilt to my sister Jessie. But then Annie will want one too. Maybe I’ll make three quilt-a-long quilts at the same time. Am I going crazy? Yes I believe I am. Join the craziness by heading over the Quilt-A-Long Week 1.