Gallery Pick of the Week

Each week the editors of Club CK pick layouts from the gallery that they liked, and mine was picked this week! They chose my airplane layout because of the way I did the banner. Couldn't believe it when I was scrolling through the post and there it was. If you want, you can check it out here.

Once a camper...

always a camper, at least that's my thinking. While last weekend was devoted to quilting, this past week has been devoted to scrapbooking. I subscribe to Creating Keepsakes magazine, and their online site, Club CK, held a summer camp this past week in which you could earn merit badges; how's a former Girl Scout supposed to say no to that? (and if you're thinking dork, don't worry, as I was typing that, I was, too). They posted two badges a day during the week, and thankfully gave us the weekend to complete them as well. I churned out about as many pages this week as I usually do in a month- if I'm lucky. So, here's a run-down of the layouts I did for the badges (some badges required no layouts).


First-Aid badge required that we somehow fix a layout, so I chose to switch up the pictures on this from black and white to colored. As it would also happen, Ian ripped the before page long ago when I was first working on it and not loving it. It was a sign it was not supposed to be completed as-is I guess. The layout celebrates his first year of line with a picture from each month.




Flag badge- you had to somehow incorporate a banner (which is all the rage right now in scrapbooking) into your layout. I chose to have an airplane pulling one across this page of Ian playing with the airplane Noah made him.
Arts & Crafts badge was really kid-centered, so I did a play on the Candyland game using characters from the movie Cars. Ian helped me glue down most of the colored squares and characters, and is now obsessed with playing it.
Fire badge- this one required the use of a heat gun to emboss on a layout. I used a leaf stamp and embossed it with gold on the background for this layout.
Nature badge- you had to use either bugs, trees, clouds, or a wildlife scene in your layout. I had been wanting to scrapbook this picture, so I chose bugs. It's a little artsy-crafty-cutie compared to my other pages.

Journaling badge- for this you had to write in a certain shape, use your own handwriting, or tell why you loved a picture. I almost always use my own handwriting, so I took the why approach and wrote why this picture of Ian is my favorite picture.

Darrin asked me yesterday as I was finishing the last layout if I was ever going to do one of Annaliese. I am... I just don't feel that far behind on her yet. With Ian I have LOTS of pictures I want to scrap, and while I already have a ton of Annaliese I want to do, I'm only behind on like 15 layouts of her, while for Ian it's about 75...

Now it's time to return to the world of quilting and finish the free-motion on Ian's quilt, complete SBG#1, complete SBG#2, and start on SBG#3. Maybe after I get all that done I can finally do a page of my baby girl

Her new obsession

Annaliese is now obsessed with her toes:



She had her 4-month checkup last Friday and she looks fabulous. 26 inches long and 15 pounds 11.5 ounces means she's big for her age (around 90%ile for both), but not as big as Ian was. I looked back and he was 18 pounds 7 ounces and 26 3/4 inches, so he was even more a chunker than she is. She's growing too fast- I hope she doesn't move up a size of clothes before the fall, I really don't want to have to buy the next size until she needs long sleeves. I guess the weather could just stay hot, because then she doesn't need any clothes...

Quilt Retreat 2010

Quilt retreat this past weekend was lots of fun and I'm still recovering from exhaustion... and the 10 pounds I gained from the great food (we definitely did not go hungry. Here's a few pictures from the weekend that were snapped on Marlena's camera (mine was left home for Darrin to use).

Nancy and Jane brought gifts for each of us. At the end of retreat last year, they were putting all our individual trash into one can and had the idea to make something out of each of our scraps. Thus we each received a miniature made from the remains of our trash cans. We also received little organizer bags, small cutting mats, and personalized scissors.


I started off working when I got there on Ian's tractor quilt and by Friday night I had it sandwiched and had started quilting on it, only to have my thread break three times within 5 minutes. So I moved on and made myself my Runaround bag.

Saturday figured out my problem and with a new needle, returned to free-motion quilting Ian's quilt. It's the first time I've done this for a whole quilt, and after a few minutes, I really got into it. It's quite fun. Of course, when I left Sunday at noon, it still wasn't quite done. I'm not sure if the quilting on it is too close. Next time I need to figure out where to start better, as I crossed the threads many times. Thankfully you don't notice it unless you examine the quilt. The stitch length is all different lengths, too, but my whole attitude while doing it was just go with it and don't look back.

I have to share what Marlena was working on, too. Her due date was 10 days away, and she was diligently working on the baby quilt. She took this quilt she had made:
And, using a special template, proceeded to cut it up so that it looked like this (from the back):

Help me plan my quilting attack

Friday is the start of our annual friends and family quilt retreat. Whereas last year we went to Lou Ann's in Iowa, this year they're coming out here and we're staying at Minglewood Lodge, which is owned by The Quilted Moose. I've been sitting in my quilting area trying to figure out what to work on, or more importantly, the order of what to work on. I'm torn between finishing up some of those UFO's listed off to the side and starting a new project. Here's what's on my list so far:

1- Runaround Bag: I use this for my purse and have been using the same one since I made it, which looking back in the blog, was nearly two years ago. I have two fabrics from the Make Life line by Sweetwater picked out to use.

2- Verna Tablerunner: I already made one of these for my mom. When I was working on it, I started another. It's already sandwiched and I've started the quilting on it. It just needs to be finished.

3- Annaliese's curtains: Poor girl has an east-facing room and gets the sun nice and early in there. I'd like to make something that looks like this, but not necessarily follow the pattern.

4- Ian's tractor quilt: It needs borders and to be sandwiched (I despise that part of the quilting process), and then quilted. If I don't get it sandwiched before Friday, I may not take it...

5- Christmas tree skirt: I've had the pattern for about 5 years, and every year at Christmas I tell Darrin, "Next year we'll have my tree skirt under there." I'd actually like to shock him and have it under the tree this year. It's a diamond log cabin quilt-as-you-go skirt.


So, please advise what order you think I should do them in. Do I finish up the Verna and Ian's quilt? Or do I work on the tree skirt, which is what I'm excited to do? Make the curtains for my little girl? Update the look of my purse? I might add that after this weekend I have to focus on getting some baby gifts made. I'd take them along, but the mommy-to-be will be there... So, if this was your list, what would your plan of attack be?

4th Fireworks

Last night we saw the fireworks at Rosenblatt for the first time since we've been in Omaha, and it will be the last time, as Rosenblatt will be no more after this baseball season. We had some of the best free seats thanks to Sara, sitting up by the botanical gardens at Kenefick Park with her, Marlena, and Noah.

Before it got dark (and even when it was dark) Ian was obsessed with the two trains that were up there. All he cared about was walking over there and looking at them, even when the sky was lighting up with fireworks.


The fireworks didn't disappoint. Annaliese woke from her nap to stare at them in awe. Ian, however, through a fit on my lap because he wanted to look at the trains instead of watch them, and then when they were over, he cried because he wanted to see more- go figure?!


Everyone got to sleep by midnight, and thankfully the kids slept in this morning: Ian until almost nine, and we woke Annaliese a little past noon (that's TWELVE hours!).

MMMMMM... Food

We started off the 4th of July weekend with some great All-American food for supper- so good I had to share.Baby backs on the grill with cornbread and watermelon. D-lish

But, the best part was dessert.
Homemade Double Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream: Oh. My. Goodness!
This was the most delicious homemade ice cream I have ever eaten, and I'd like to think I know a little bit about ice cream. This was so unlike any other homemade ice cream. And the flavor is so fabulous. It tasted so much like ice cream from an ice cream shop. I could go on and on, mmmmm. The only bad thing is that it's going to be gone too soon. If you own a homemade ice cream maker go and make this- NOW!

That's about all I have to blog about for now, because for the most part this week, our kids looked like this: