Sunny Sunday

I can't believe that this is the last weekend in August already, summer flew by. Pattie and I finished my first quilt over the weekend, photos will be posted shortly. It turned out beautiful, I am extremely pleased. I also finished making aprons for the retreat that mom and I are going to in a week and a half, I can't wait. For today's creativity I am going to show you all the stash and dash bags that I made for my cousins Kelly and Danielle for their graduations this year.

Up first is Kelly, who graduated from Nursing School.


Congrats Kelly, Here are the stash and dash bags I made for her using the Amy Butler pattern.

The blue fabric is by Moda and the brown by Joel Dewberry.

Danielle graduated with her BA in community studies from CBU

Congrats Danielle, Here are her stash and dash bags

The green fabric is by Heather Bailey and the blue polka dots by Amy Butler. I love making this bags, they are fast and easy, and you can use left over fabric from other projects so they are also relatively inexpensive. The best part is they make great gifts, I still want to make some of these for myself. If you're feeling adventurous today or soon, this is a relatively easy project to start with and whoever you give it to will love it, you may even just want to keep them for yourself. Hope you all have a great Sunday and start getting creative.

the master artists

Hope everyone had a great weekend, it was of course way too hot and humid here in Houston but I'm sure you already knew that. I am going back in time to Mike's birthday for today's creative tale. This year I decided it would be fun to test our skills as painters, and luckily there is a place downtown called Pinot's palette that let's you do just that. The idea behind it is you bring wine and snacks and learn how to paint a famous painting. The class that was offered on May 1st was the colorful muse, this is the painting by our teacher, which is similar to how ours turned out but not exactly the same.



Now for the fun stuff, here we are in the beginning mainly outlining the face and hair of the muse


you can already see the difference between mike's and mine. Mike's is the one with the hand in the photo. Now we have a little more of the painting complete and its time for some more wine and a break.



Unfortunately this is the last photo I have until the finished product so you'll just have to use your imaginations on how the rest of the painting process went. Without further adieu here are the finished products.

Not too shabby if I do say so myself, you know you'd buy them :). Yes my eyes are closed in the photo do you expect anything less from me, you'd think I spent most of my life with my eyes closed judging by my photos. If you're curious how the rest of the class turned out, because I know that's what you were thinking here you go. The other thing that might be on your mind is man those are some dirty aprons, we did not add all that paint to them ourselves the majority was already on them when they were given to us. We weren't quite that messy.



Here's the link to all the photos taken by the teachers http://picasaweb.google.com/pinotspalette.montrose/ColorfulMuse05#

For the finale of this post we hung our masterpieces side by side on our bedroom wall, so here they are adorning our home.


Hopefully you enjoyed following me on my journey to become a master painter, it was a lot of fun but I think I will stick with sewing and scrapbooking for now. Until the next creative tale, let your creativity take over and see where you end up, maybe you'll also be painting a masterpiece.

great weekend

Mike and I had a great weekend with his parents and brother. I am almost finished with my first quilt thanks to the help of Pattie (my mother-in-law), I have the front and the back finished now I just have to add batting, quilt them together and bind it. I'll be sure to post photos of the finish product I can't wait to finish. In the meantime I'll post one of my other fun projects, since we are not on the topic of shirts that I made I'll continue with another awesome shirt.



I am still learning how to properly do this self photography in the mirror thing so bare with me. This shirt pattern is the Amy Butler liverpool and the fabric is heather bailey peonies that's right I'm branching out, wohoo!! What until you see my quilt then you will know how much I am really branching out, their is not a shred of Amy Butler anywhere in my quilt, that's right not one piece of fabric or pattern by her. I was impressed when I realized this fact, go me. I hope you are having a great week and are being creative.

I'm Back

Sorry for the length of time between posts, I am going to try and post more regularly. I am going to jump backing to a sewing project for this post. The halter top pattern and fabric are both by Amy Butler of course I'm sure you're starting to see that most of the fabrics and patterns I use are made by Amy Butler. I am starting to branch out to other designers slowly but surely.




The fabric is from the midwest modern collection and the pattern is the cabo halter . One word of advice when using patterns for clothing, trace the pattern in the size you want don't cut the actual pattern. That way if you change sizes you can still use the same pattern, something I learned the hard way and thought I would pass it on. I now have two cabo halter patterns. This was also my first time working with zippers, this particular top uses an invisible zipper which is a little tricky to work with at first. Once you get the hang of it, its super easy.

Now that I have the creative part of this post taken care of on to other stuff. I took a quilt class over the past weekend and it was loads of fun. Once I get the border and the rest of the quilt finished I'll be sure and post it. I hope to get it finished in the next two weeks. My in-laws are back in the US for a couple of more weeks, we are getting together this weekend for some family fun it should be a great time. Pattie and I have a fun day of girl stuff planned on Saturday while the guys play disc golf, hang the canoe in the garage, and pick up crabs from the fish market for dinner. We are having a crab boil for dinner, yummy. Another thing I am really excited about is spark its a creative retreat in Utah that mom and I are going to. I can't wait only a couple of weeks until we are sparking it up together. Well that's all I really have for this post. Hope everyone has a great weekend, I'm sure I will. I'm going to try and make my next post early next week, until then try something creative.

Happy Anniversary to me

Today Mike and I have been married for 2 years, time has been flying by. It does not feel like 2 years at all. And the best part about today is that we took the day off work and are loving it. Mike's parents are back from Nigeria for the month so we are going to have lunch with them today and celebrate his mom's birthday :). Today's creative post is something I made at a retreat last summer and finally framed it, now I just need to hang it on the wall, baby steps.

Sorry for the glare, I had to use my flash because I took the photo at night. This is made using the house of three welcome banner letters I love it. It was actually quite easy to make, its on chipboard which is similar to strong cardboard, then covered with vanilla cardstock, the letters from the welcome banner are also printed on cardstock, there are a few things printed on transparency paper, and then the rest is just odds and ends to make it all come together. The frame is a 10" x 20" from hobby lobby, there is no glass on it since the front of the welcome sign is a little bulky. I can't wait to hang it in our entry way. Hope you all have a happy Monday and are inspired to maybe make a welcome sign of your own.