Week 36-Nursery Sneak Peek

We've officially been baby "showered" three times and this little one certainly has been blessed!  We've been trying to organize the nursery and find a home for all of the new items as well as do a few loads of baby laundry and start packing our bags.  It's still a work in progress but I wanted to share a few photos thus far:

First up, 36 week belly photo (in the freshly painted hallway):

The nursery-this is my before photo :).  Many boxes to unpack...I'm not going to post any whole room photos until we are done.

The crib skirt, I started this before the holidays but just got it finished!  Hoping to post more about it soon:

Changing table (we painted it, added new knobs and I made the topper):

The baby quilt!  I've laid out the fabric but haven't started it yet:

An entire shelf of our linen closet is now diapers.  We have an assortment of sizes ready and waiting:

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

We've been busy baking, decorating, wrapping and enjoying the holidays over here.  Hope you have been too!  Last night we finished most of the prep work for the holidays (just a little more food to prepare for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) so I thought I would share some peaks of our holiday with you:

Holiday Baking:

And gifting (we give away most of the treats as gifts to co-workers and clients):

 

Holiday Crafting:

Making gift cards more personal-homemade gift bags

Homemade wine bottle gift bags

And decorating (I wanted lights and greenery above the bay window but I'm told that isn't possible...maybe next year!):

Thank goodness for UPS and FedEx, I ordered 90% of our
gifts online this year and everything came in time!

What have you been doing to prepare for Christmas?  What are some of your favorite Christmas traditions? We cannot have Christmas without cut-out sugar cookies....I make them 1 time a year and they are so delicious!  We also go to Midnight Mass and have breakfast with C's family afterward.  It's such a fun tradition that I'm hoping to be able to stay awake for this year!

Posts of Christmas' Past:

Christmas in our NC Apartment (2008)
Christmas (2008)
Fitting a 7 1/2 foot tree in my Jetta (2009)
Christmas Prep-Our Old House (2009)
Christmas-C was on leave from Afghanistan (2009)
Stocking I made for Grant (2011)
Too busy for Christmas?-Grad School (2011)

Blanket for Colin

In October, I flew to Nashville for a girls weekend and to meet baby Colin!  I made him this modern, striped quilt to welcome him into this world and backed with nice, soft minky fabric.  Colin's Mom Alison told me she was decorating the nursery in green and brown and it took me a while to find fabrics but I loved the way this one turned out.  Hopefully Colin enjoys it for years to come!

Check out the contrast binding, I had bought this fabric to use in the quilt but all the pattern made it way too busy (C and I both got dizzy looking at it) so I swapped it out for cozy white flannel instead:

Baby Quilt for Paige

I seem to have lost the cord to connect the camera to the computer in the move so vacation posts are on hold until I can figure out where it is or another way to move the photos (I've tried the SD card, I'm having issues with that too...technology is NOT my friend) so in the mean time, I thought I would share a baby shower gift I made for my friend Abby's pending little one, Paige!  I met Abby in college, we were both retail merchandising majors at Ohio University involved in our college association, Fashion Associates and we were both in Alpha Phi Omega (co-ed service fraternity).  We both moved to Columbus after graduation and started up the ritual of monthly brunches with another friend, Amy, to stay in touch and keep up with what was going on in the retail industry or just to talk about life.  Abby told us she was pregnant shortly after she found out at our last brunch before we moved! 

I did a few things differently on this quilt than I 've done in the past for Case, Kolt, and Molly using strips of fabric instead of blocks and I also used the same print in three different colors.  I loved the outcome!  I've got one more quilt for a friend to work on and then my focus will shift to preparing the nursery to our little one (crib skirt, quilt, wall art, glider cushion, curtains....I'll be busy this winter!) 

Attempted free-hand scalloped edge!

My Quilting Assistant

A couple of weeks ago, I was working on this quilt (for a baby shower so I can't reveal it yet...) and Max decided to help me out.  He loves my craft room because it's the only carpeted room in the house.  Here he is sitting directly on my project! 

My Quilting Assistant

Lila's new sweater

Finally had a few minutes to tackle a project that's been on my list all winter- a sweater for Lila.  Our little pups have a hard time keeping warm in the winter (and it FINALLY has turned to winter in Ohio, we've got snow and temps in the teens).  Max has a few sweaters (including one my grandma crocheted for him) already but Lila needed something of her own (and a bit more girly).  I roughly followed a pattern I found on Pinterst (I'm addicted, by the way) but our long dog required a few modifications:

Lila in her new sweater, not to happy to be modeling:

iPad cover

Just a quick craft project, an iPad cover for my cousin!  I based this one off the same pattern I used for my Mom's (which you can read about here).

Christmas Stocking

A few months ago, while browsing around one of our local quilt shops I came across this old-world nautical fabric and knew that it would be perfect for our friend Grant (here are a few posts where Grant has made an appearance on the blog: Thankful Day 9, C's Brazil Trip, Pre-Deployment Charleston, and our UK Adventure).  Grant is one of the friends that Chris first met when he started his Army career and they deployed together twice.  Now he's one of both of our dearest friends.  Grant is working on his masters in history at the University of Exeter in England so even though I made this stocking months ago, I had to wait until he received it to post it!  

  

 Close of up of the toe:

 Close up of the top, I did a slight ruffle (but not too much since it's a guys stocking!)

I've got a few other projects to get to before Christmas so more to come!  Are you hand-making any Christmas gifts?  If so, I'd love to hear about it!

ipad Cover-Take 2

A few months ago, I made an ipad cover for my Mom, you can check that one out here.  She loved it but wanted one that she could use WITH the screen cover on it.  The green one provided a snug fit and left now room for the screen cover. It's taken me a while but I've finally had the time to make another one for her.  (I apologize for the wonky photos, my camera wasn't available so I used my new iphone....clearly, I have a lot to learn about taking photos with it!)

I didn't use a pattern and just used our ipad as the template.  One of Mom's favorite colors is purple so when I saw this fabric, I thought she would love it.  I added a ruched section in the middle for a fun detail.  I used fusible fleece to give it some padding and a soft purple flannel for the interior.

Front cover, work in progress

Closure detail, button and elastic loop

Final product, our ipad and cover!

Beautiful Balance Check Book Cover

TODAY is the birthday of one of our dearest friends, Lea (Happy Leapalooza, my friend)!  What is Leapoolza, you ask?  Well, it's the week before and the week after Lea's birthday and the rules are simple:

1-Do something extraordinary that brings you joy ever day. 
2-Do something extraordinary for someone else everyday.

One of my "for someone else" was to make a special gift for the birthday girl, a check book cover from Amy Butler's Style Stitches.  I've used this book before to make a gift for another friend (you can read about it here and see the outcome here).  I still wish that I could have more photos in the patterns but this one wasn't too difficult though somehow I ended up with a whole extra piece of fabric cut out and and lined and then I didn't know where to put it....so I guess I have the start to another one of these!

Amy's cover calls for a plain front but I wanted this one to be extra special

We were even able to give our gift in person this year (Lea is one of our NC friends) and have dinner with her on Friday night!  Happy Birthday to a wonderful friend!

Twins! Baby Shower

A few months ago, Chris and I learned that we were going to become an Uncle and an Aunt for the first time ever and to TWIN BOYS!  Over the weekend, the girls threw a baby shower for Danielle, Tim and their pending bundles of joy and the guys went golfing.  Here are a few photos of the festivities.   

Our gift to the babies, hand-made satin backed blankies for the nursery.

A request of the momma-to-be, mini fruit pizzas.  They were yummy, so yummy that Chris ate 4 of them.

Amanda made this amazing cake, so cute!

Danielle, with the cake

At these cutie monkey cup cakes

With us, it's all about the desserts :)  Don't worry, we had other food too!

So many gifts, these twins are going to be set!

Danielle, with her SIL Lori, due 2 weeks apart!

Diaper Cake gift, such a cute idea!

I'm so happy I was able to be a part of welcoming these little guys into the world and the family with the baby shower.  It was so great to catch up with family at the party and also to see all the beautiful handmade gifts (very crafty families :)).  Can't wait to meet the boys in a few months!

Mug Rugs-Winner!

I did a mug rug give-away here and the winner of my random drawing was ALICIA! Congrats and looking forward to seeing you this weekend!

Mug Rugs

My newest sewing obsession is a small, easy project that I can create using scraps, Mug Rugs! I love the Wonky Starburst pattern I found at Stitches and Scissors. There are even more ideas at Two More Seconds!

You can use these little mini-quilts for just about anything: snacks, potholders, coasters and they have so much personality! There's lots of freedom here, create any size and shape you want. I kept mine less than 8 inches in either direction. Here's a few that I threw together this week:

Warm colored Mug Rug:

Cool colored Mug Rug, creating the front panel:

I used fusible fleece for some padding:

Quilted it together:

Added some binding:

Finished Product!

So now that I've got a couple, who wants one? Leave a comment letting me know which one you would prefer and I'll draw one person and mail it out :) Deadline August 31!