Crafting 101

So remember when I bought the batting and the back of my quilt? Well, when I went to line it all up, she didn’t give me enough fabric for the back! Ugh! She measured it and all and I think she just thought of a number. So I had to rework it a little bit, but I got the quilt pinned and ready to tie and sew the border. I am not sure if I’m going to put it in the machine or hand sew it, but we will see. I plan on starting the tying tonight after I finish writing this. Hopefully I’ll get a lot done. The kids are watching a movie so maybe I’ll get some done.

So I’ve been trying to find grommets for my purse. The ones my friend had were too small for my straps so I went to a couple of places today and the only colors they have were gold, silver and bronze. I think the bronze are good and will work, but man, I’d really like some color! So I’m going to check and see if I can find any online that are colorful. So I don’t know if I’ll have it done by my birthday (which is tomorrow!) But at least it’s done, well almost.

So I hope that January has gone well for you! I feel like I’ve gotten lots done, not as much as I’ve wanted, but a lot. Remember, February is all about hearts and love and gifts so I hope you’ll enjoy it!

I’m super excited! I have finally lined my purse and the next thing I have to do is put the grommets in and it’s done! I’m also going to make me a makeup bag to go inside, I need to get a zipper for it. But it is lined, so I’m happy!

Anyways, the lining is this neat green fabric I found in the scrap pile at Wal-Mart for like 50 cents and I think it looks great! I’m excited that it’s fixing to be done.

I want to work on my quilt tomorrow, but not sure if I’ll get to it. I’m going to be scrapbooking on Saturday so I’m getting that stuff ready to. I think I’ll work just on Jonathan’s album and see if I can get his Christmas stuff done. I’ll be happy if I do!

BTW, I hit 1,000 visitors this month! Thanks so much! I’m actually over 1,100 visitors which is the first time since the blog has been up so thanks a million! I guess next month I’ll short for 2,000!

About February, all the crafts will have something to do with Valentine’s Day and things you’d do for your sweethearts anyways. I will be making some stuff since I have sweethearts and there will be things that I will show you that can be made depending on if you have the materials or not. So I hope you’ll join us for a month of love!

Today the kids had the day off from school so my oldest went to spend the night at a friend’s house and her friend’s sister came over to spend the night with my second oldest so we had a different day for sure! So I needed to work on something pretty simple. Well, I was cleaning up some stuff and found my daughter’s Girl Scout patches that needed to be sewn on. So I grabbed some thread and a needle and got those patches all sewn on! That was something brainless that I could do while they played. While that wasn’t one of the things I listed, it was something that was needing to be finished!

On another note, I stated rereading my novel from November. I was mainly just going through and noticed some typos and a few wrong details and then I added some in. I was looking at Casablanca Authors (which I found by following Toni Andrews over on Twitter) and they mentioned how they were looking for people to submit novels or portions of their novel and they wanted it to be at least 90,000 words. So looking back at mine, I’m under 80,000 words. So if I want to submit it in the future, I think I’ve got more I need to add!

But in looking at my other novel, one I wrote years ago and not only did I find a huge section of it was gone, but it barely had 13,000 words! I was thinking it was a lot longer, but I guess not! I’m not sure what happened to the section that was gone, but I will probably be rewriting it anyways since it’s not near long enough. I guess it’s a good short story, but I want to really work on it and make it much better.

So that’s my update for today. I hope to get my purse measured and get the fabric cut for it so I can line it. I plan on finishing my quilt, I need to do that in between laundry too. The month is almost gone, can you believe it? How much have you gotten done?

I know it doesn’t look like much, but I purchased the quilting batting for my quilt and I picked out some flannel to put on the back of the quilt. I decided to go with a neutral color. I couldn’t find something that I was happy with in another color. I wish I had some extra money because JoAnn’s had all their quilting squares on sale so I could pick up a bunch of them. But I vowed not to buy anything extra right now. Anyways, the good thing was JoAnn’s was having a huge sale. I got the flannel that I needed for $8! Normally it’d be $16, so half off is good!

I wasn’t able to get to it today, I got two dressers off freecycle last week and my hubby helped us get them up to the girl’s room and we totally cleaned out Megan and Kathryn’s room. Their old dresser practically collapsed so having these new/old ones works a lot better! I hope to get to it in between church services tomorrow. My plan is to sew it on around the outside, but to tie the square corners.  My grandmother has done this before so I’m doing it with this one. Mainly because not all the squares are perfectly square (it’s my first one, you know) so I’m hoping this will help some. I will post a photo when I get finished!

Yes, I do enjoy my scrapbooking playdates! I haven’t been to one in a few months for whatever reason, but today I was able to go and got some work done. I took a quick snapshot of what I finished right before we start cleaning up. I know it doesn’t seem like much, but I got all of Jonathan’s first trip to the beach scrapbooked so that’s a good thing! I almost forgot to put it in his book until Deanna reminded me! I did get some cropping of Jonathan’s first Christmas pictures done, well, I got all of them cropped and I hope to try and get them scrapbooked this weekend. I went to Michael’s today and got some red and green paper that I needed. I was upset that it wasn’t on sale like some of the other papers, but I did get some.  Oh and while I was cleaning some things over the week, I found some more family pictures that I have to scrapbook so I will try and get those done too. I need to order some photos from online so I can get some more scrapbooking done. Anyways, that was what I did today. I have more to share tomorrow!

I haven’t done much the past two days in relation to working on projects. Gotta clean the house and fold laundry some times! But this morning, my purse was dry enough for me to stick my huge size 17 needles into it to make the holes for my bag so the strap could go through it. So here it is sitting on my hubby’s desk for a quick snapshot. I need to run the strap through one more run in the washer and I need to borrow a grommit maker from my friend so the holes will stay like they are and then line it and I’m done! It seems easy, but it’ll probably take until next week to finish.

I am hoping to get to a fabric store this weekend to get fabric for my quilt and get the batting so I can finish that. In looking at my other projects, I am about 85% done with my family scrapbook album since I worked on it a lot over the weekend. Friday morning I have my scrapbook playdate and while I didn’t write this one down, I’m going to be working on my son’s baby album to get it finished. I’m hoping to scrapbook all of his first Christmas at least. I plan on cropping the pictures Thursday afternoon so that’s done. I have worked on my socks, but they are slow and steady for sure!

Anyone else succeeding with the WIP’s? I hope so! I’d love to see any pictures you might have to share with others. TTFN!

Here it is! It finally felted this morning after one more wash. The instructions had me put it in a pillow case while it was in the washer and I don’t think that worked well for this one. I threw it in this morning with a pair of jeans and it felted right away and shrunk like it was suppose to. So I have Dickens, Brown and many other authors (i.e. books!) inside the bag to make it the shape I want it. I’ll give it a few days to dry and shape and then I’ll make the lining for it. I also have to put the holes in it for the strap so I’ll probably do that tomorrow. But it’s almost done! Whew!

So how are your projects going? I appreciate the comments from everyone! I am going to finish scrapbooking my kids pictures in our family album so I can work on Jonathan’s album at my scrapbooking workshop on Friday. Those are always fun!

Also, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m using Twitter to post updates to the site! I wanted to increase my readership and I think it has! I have hit almost 500 unique visits this month already. So I’m excited! Thanks for visiting! Well, TTFN!

I spent about three hours Saturday night scrapbooking at the house. I took over most of the kitchen table which is alot of room! But I got all of Deanna’s pictures from when she was a baby to last year on pages. These are her professional pictures, like from Wal-Mart and school and the like. I felt like that was an accomplishment since she had the most of all the kids! I got some of Megan’s done today after church and will keep working on those pages this week.

I started felting my purse this afternoon. It went through two washes and it still isn’t done, so I will try again when I get home tonight from church with another wash. It didn’t shrink very much either so I’m hoping my washer got hot enough. I will post a photo once it’s felted and then when it’s totally done since I have to line it to. My goal for this one is to finish before my birthday which is the 31st!

So I think I finished my novel. I’m just shy of 79,000 words, but I feel I could either stop right where I’m at or I could actually keep writing for probably another 20,000 words. I just can’t figure out what to do!

These are the last 237 words I’ve written:

“Yes, we are, but we aren’t suggesting you try and pack your bags and not come back. I was talking with your mom and I realized that you have ballet exams in two weeks and a recital in three and that we’ve had you under a lot of stress lately.”

“Annette, I want to apologize for everything I’ve done in the past and here lately. I’m not expecting you to forgive me and I know it won’t all go away, but I want you to know I’m trying.” Mom said with tears in her eyes.

“Mom, it’s okay.” I went over to Mom and gave her a hug.

“Now, that’s something I haven’t seen in almost twelve years.” Dad said. “George, I know that none of this makes any sense, but we aren’t a perfect family. Mistakes were made in the past that we regret, but we wouldn’t change them for the world. We’ve had our ups and downs, but that’s how life is.”

“Mr. Harper, I understand. You don’t have to explain anything to me. I will love your daughter for who she is and who her family is. That’s why I love her to begin with. Nothing can tear me away from Annette.” George said.

I got up and went back over to George and sat down. I hugged George as tight as I could. Life was fine now. I could go on. On forever.

Do you think that ends it? Should I go on and discuss what happens with the ballet exams? With the recital? I haven’t said anything about what ended up happening at school so I’m not sure if I should continue or stop. Eek! I need ideas, suggestions, anything to help me out. I know I want to write sequels, but the sequels were more for when she was older. Any thoughts would be great. I’m actually going to put it away for a few days and tackle some other projects over the next few days. I want to scrapbook Saturday so we’ll see what I get done.

Have a great rest of the week!

So one thing I need to finish and finish soon is my novel. When I ended NaNoWriMo in November, I was at 61,011 words. Yesterday I worked on it all day off and on and now I’m at the 75,000 word range. Whew! I’m trying to figure out how this is all going to play out so hopefully I can get it done this month. Then I want to edit it and see about getting it published. That’s my goal!

Today I am rereading it to make sure it’s following well. Of course, I’m editing it a little as I go since I noticed that sometimes my fingers didn’t pluck out what I meant to say!

I also wove in all the ends of my purple and green bag and the strap. Tomorrow I will felt it. Once it’s felted, it’ll take a few days to dry so it’ll be interesting to see how it turns out! Once it’s felted, I have to line it and I already have the fabric to do that. But I can’t measure the fabric until it’s all nice and day.

So I’ve been plugging along at my WIP’s. How are you doing? I’d love to hear from you and it doesn’t matter what type of WIP it is, just share! TTFN!