Future Idea

Although I've decided not to try and keep up with this anymore, I thought it might be fun to do a flick'r account for crafty project photos.  It's quick and simple to upload photos, so I'll let you know when I get that account figured out.  It may sound silly, but it sure feels good to not think about keeping up with this blog anymore!! 

The whole house issue is not the end of the world, both times we've listed it we've gotten buyers almost immediately, so I'm thinking it will work out before too long.  It's just very tough to be paying a mortgage and rent, bills at each house, and living on 1/2 the budget we used to have!  It's beautiful and sunny here today, not to mention 40 degrees (in the middle of December!); and we sure have a nice little family.  Last night we went to Dollar Tree to look for a silicone pan (more on that later), used up the last of Breanna's gift-card from her birthday at Dairy Queen for some good old ice cream fun, and celebrated the fact that we still have a really nice house in Alaska.  Ha ha.  Actually, maybe we should go for a vacation!  =)

The reason we were looking for a silicone pan, is because my friend Katie showed a fun post about making crayon shapes from broken crayons.  We gave it a try, what fun!  Not sure how we're going to get the rest of the wax out to try again, but the kids are sure how fun they'll be to color with! 

Thanks for reading my blog, hopefully it has inspired you to be creative, and I'll let you know my flick'r address when I get it.  Might be next week, I'm working on the JoAnn's quilting challenge and it's due this Saturday!

Pictures

Ok, so I need some help.  (Here's where my brothers would jump in and start making teasing remarks of the truth of that!)  But this is as far as photos.  Don't know about you, but I don't really enjoy blogs without photos.  Especially if they are of crafty stuff, I need to see pictures to be inspired!  Is it just me, or are you all having trouble uploading them?  I can do one at a time, then switch over to dashboard, then back again... it gets annoying, not to mention severely deminishes my desire to post!  Do I need to upload a newer version, or am I doing something wrong?  I've been taking some pictures so that I can post to help inspire you all to sew, or at least try.  Any advise?  Here's one, since none would be severely boring. 

Andy helping Daddy split firewood on Saturday.

Crafty Stuff

Here are a few of the projects I've finished since moving. 

Today Lois is watching the boys while I have a "mommy day", so I'm going to get sewing while I have the chance!  She offered to watch them while I went shopping in Bend, but I decided rather than taking two hours of that time just driving, I'd stay home and sew.

This little tote is for my cousin Tami, who requested it after she completely wore the previous one I made her to shreds.  What better compliment is there than that, someone loving what you made them so much, they wore it out and need another?!

And this little apron I made similar to one Tami's mom made for Mom, only I shrunk it down to Breanna's size for her birthday.

And even smaller for her dolly to match, I just wish there was enough fabric for me one to match!  This tiny one is so cute, and I decided next time I'm going to make the bigger one with a gathered waist also.  It just looks more flattering.

Mom got this mirror from a garage sale quite awhile ago, it was sitting in the basement to someday be painted white.  Breanna loves purple, so I just cleaned the cobwebs off and left it that way!

She loves butterflies, and I had these little ones from shower-curtain-hooks in our bathroom in Alaska.  We only have one shower and it has a glass door, so I pulled the hooks out of the back and glued them on.  I also included a couple larger white butterflies Kristy gave me awhile back.

She loved the result, and it looks cute in her bedroom!

We also needed a dresser, so Mom gave me an extra she had that really needed refinished.  I wish I'd taken a picture before Dad started sanding and painting it, but I'll just say it was pretty bad.  Kindof a yellowish color, and someone had etched flowers and initials all over.  It's in our bedroom now, and I absolutely love it.

Tyler also made a coat-rack from an old piece of barn-wood and some hooks he painted black.  This house has lots of closets, but we needed something for the kids to be able to reach for their coats.  I'm feeling quite spoiled all the neat things popping up around here! 

Tyler also helped me set up the quilting machine table, and put the machine back together; and it works!

Hope to have lots of fun things finished by the end of the day, but that means I'd better get off the computer.  Have a wonderful day!

We're not on the trip anymore...

Kylee kindly let me know yesterday that I haven't even told my blog that I'm not on the trip anymore.  Oh my, the thought of still driving that bus after this many weeks.... I don't even want to think about that!  One side of my back is still all knotted up from sitting for a week, turned sideways to see out the front as we drove. It's so nice to be able to go to sleep in your own cozy bed every night, and move about the house.  After weeks of packing and finishing the house we left, then a week on the road, it felt soooooo good to be "home" and get back to normal life. 

So yes, we are now moved to Oregon; and we are loving it!  Talking to friends back in Alaska I almost feel like I'm cheating, not dealing with rediculous weather.  We are getting winter here, but it's amazing..... the snow comes for a few days, then goes away!  So strange it seems, last winter it got cold and snowy.... then  colder and more snowy.... from about October till April.  I hear they start planting crops in February here, so that tells me this is going to be a different story.  And supposedly it doesn't get above about 90 or 95 degrees in the summer, so I can handle this!  Another strange thing, is that down here it gets light in the morning about the time you are supposed to get up, not 3 hours later.  Amazing.  I do love Alaska, but I certainly don't miss the weather.

We are also really enjoying being closer to family, the past 3 days we saw Kylee & Kiera & Doug right here at our house!  The cousins got to play together so much, and aunty Anna sent them all matching jammies, so we got some fun photos.

These two are very close.  Breanna was wishing she could have missed some school while she was here.

One of the downers of moving, is all the special friends we left behind.  There are some wonderful people down here too, but we still miss our northern friends.

But I'm sure glad we got to bring these kiddos along! 

This was when we were shopping for a "moving" vehicle, they were impressed with aunt Lindsey's "window in the roof".

And yes I have been sewing; that actually is the problem.  You see, so many things have been going on, that when I get a spare moment I feel like sewing, not blogging.  And of course, it's quite inspiring to blog when people are leaving comments.  Then I know they are actually reading this!  =)  I'll get some of my sewing projects on soon (I promise), but right now Andy is sleeping and in a little while I need to get Breanna from school, so on to some sewing!

Still sewing....

Can't avoid it, so I brought along some scraps to try out hand-sewing! 

Alaska's state flower is "forget-me-not's", how appropriate for the drive!  =)

Been making some fun little flower-shaped yo-yo's, and Breanna's been sewing too, but for some reason I can't get more photos to work at the moment.  sorry.

The Trip

Tune: Over the river

Over the mountains and thru the snow,
out of Alaska we go.

Dad knows the way to drive the bus,

Oer the white and greasy roads.

Tears come and go as we've said goodbye,

to many, many friends.

Who've been to us like family,

In this far away Northern land.

Over the border and now on in,
to Canada we go.

The frost heaves are high and we bump along,

as on and on we roll.

Breanna and Levi are having fun,

and little Andy too.

They love the bus, the big blue bus,

that we've packed all our things into.

to be continued....

(Sorry, I have more pictures but they are on the camera and Tyler just headed out with it to load things up again- we got the luxury of a motel last night!)  Wi-Fi in Canada is .... uh..... lacking. 

P.S. photos are from way back in Wasilla.

State Fair

Breanna made a quilted tote this year, her first fair entry! 

She made the front piece with grandma's instruction last spring, then turned it into a fun purse.

And the back.

And she was delighted to go to the fair and find she'd gotten a 1st place blue ribbon!

As usual, I waited till the last minute (literally, the week they were to be turned in...), and wanted to try out Crazy Mom Quilt's zig-zag pattern.  I wanted to make a twin size to be more useful... but of course didn't have enough fabric- and since it was stuff from my stash the stores quit selling it awhile ago.

So instead I made it into a large rectangle, quilted it.....

and made 4 coordinating placemats.

And some pot holders.

I'd been saving these fabrics to make something for my friend, Ellen, who loves these colors.  Sorry, Ellen, hope you don't mind honorable mention.

This baby quilt was from scraps, and certainly not what I'd consider entry quality- but I decided to enter it anyway.

Second place isn't too bad!

I bought these coordinating fabrics to make my sister an apron, but in my last-minute dash for fabric to make another entry for the fair- I decided to use them.  No pushing, Anna, but it's ready in case you get the urge!  And by the way, I am still going to make you an apron.

First Place!

Then I tried another zig-zag quilt, using some fun fabric from mom that had tiny buttons all over- along with a rainbow of bright colored scraps.  The quilting was new for me, but I love how it turned out!  Somewhere I saw a recommendation to do lots of semi-straight lines.  This is supposedly a great way to do regular machine quilting, but on the longarm it was a breeze!  I found it worked best to make some stabilizing lines a couple inches apart, then go back and fill in.

And the back I liked even better, this has lots of texture!

And when I saw it at the fair with a "Division Champion" ribbon, I almost fainted.  I actually like the back better, but I guess they must have thought my construction was good?

Looking back at my first fair entry from last year..... I see that I've made a ton of improvement.  It turned out pretty and was a lot of work and time- but the construction was certainly nothing like the rainbow quilt this year.  And even though it's not really big enough for our king-size bed, we've been using it anyway.  I still like to look at it, and our new place is going to have a cute little sewing room where I can hang it on the wall.

And although the quilts are my favorite part of the fair, there are other things that go on there.  Here in Alaska we have some extreme daylight conditions all summer, which makes for some giant pumpkins!  This 1101-pound whopper is the biggest ever recorded!

This one was pretty puny, he was only 902 pounds...  =)

And we showed up just in time to watch some of the livestock judging, namely swine (pigs); which brought great curiosity from the kids, and brought back a whole lot of 4-H memories for me.  We're thinking it might be nice to get some animals when we move to the farm.

Breanna loves the pony rides every year... but this year Levi wanted to try.  I wasn't sure he'd really go for it, but he assured me he was ready, and thoroughly loved it!  Only problem was, he didn't want to get off when it was done!  =)

Miss B.

Andy was content to be an observer.

At the lumberjack show one of the woodsman was giving mommy a hard time, so when he cut the small chair from a log- he offered it to Levi.  He turned extremely shy and refused to be coerced up there, which made Breanna turn extremely shy too- so mommy went up and sat Levi on it.  Now that we're home and there are no staring crowds, they are both quite adamant about their ownership of it.

Andy was only a couple weeks old at last year's fair, so we got to teach him about some of the finer things there- one being elephant ears slathered in cream-cheese frosting and powdered sugar!

Levi always loves to try out the motorcycles.

And Breanna was content to ride in the semi.

Andy seemed to enjoy it just as much from the sidelines.

Then Daddy took him on the big slide.

They all love that one!

Mommy got to go on the egg-beater with the big kids.

Andy's first ride on the carousel.

Some cute little heads I got to watch while pushing the stroller.

Another great fair, next year I guess it'll be the Oregon fairs we attend!