G is for.......

.......Garden.

"It all began in a Garden"

This morning I spent a couple of hours pulling weeds, raking, washing chairs and tables and just doing general cleaning in my "secret" garden
 in preparation for my kiddos coming over to color Easter eggs.

I love this time of year because it is such a beautiful time to spend outside.

However today when it was time to color eggs it was too stinkin' hot

to be outside to do it!  All three of the tables I had set up were in the sun!

So instead we had to color eggs inside.  

and we had to be ever so much more careful that we

would have had to be outside!

You just can never count on the weather!

I made this fun flower pot tower several years ago,

but last year I took it all apart and painted the pots

in funky patterns and colors.

I've seen several of these flower pot towers on Pinterest lately.

The top photo shows Mia and I planting some strawberries about a month ago.
Here she is today checking
to see if she has any ripe strawberries.
AMAZING!
She ALWAYS has a strawberry to pick!
Sometimes we help Mother Nature a little by "planting" a strawberry for her to find.

As it got a little later and it got a little cooler,
we played a little knock the colored water bottles
down with the beanbags.

We also played a little badminton.

This is a picture of the quilt I didn't get photographed YESTERDAY!

My heart is so filled with gratitude for all the blessings that God has given me.

He is my constant companion and strength.  I am truly blessed.

Easter Blessing to you all.

tammy

F is for Finish

Here is it almost 10pm on Friday evening and I have not worked on my blog post for F.

I decided that today would be Finish-Up Friday!  I had a whole stack of finished projects to 

photograph and a whole stack of projects that I thought I could just whip thru today and FINISH!

Best Laid Plans.............The following are some pictures of FINISHED projects.....

with the exception of the FINISHED t-shirt quilt that didn't get photographed.

Fleece blanket with a crocheted edge

I'm loving crochet!

Apron started in the "A" post!

Customer quilt all finished up

 What I didn't count on was my husband being off for the day

AND the arrival of this little munchkin.

I figured that I'd just get my unfinished projects done during her afternoon fiesta 

 I mean siesta!

Naps are short and projects can be finished another day...........

Discovering the softness of feathers on a baby chick

and the hearing the delightful sound of a giggling child

are so much more fulfilling than 

finishing up a few projects.

Making up these beanbags found at this site

will wait til tomorrow.

The world will not stop turning if I don't put a few more stitches on this quilt.

or do the applique on the class sample, or finish the gifts that need to be done next week.

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams

 Faithfully yours,
tammy

E is for............

Earrings!

This is a silly little post really, but earrings are what I have chosen to write about tonight!

I have alot of earrings.  

Pretty much all of them are costumey stuff, but I still like them.

So what do you do with them all?  

How do you store them.....and then find them when

you want them?

Well for a long time this was my solution:

Yep, that's right.

You are looking at ice cube trays.

Perfect for storing small little earring pairs.

I'll probably still keep these ice cube trays around,

but here's the problem.....

I had trouble seeing them.

(Darn old EYES and short arms!

Those of you who are a "certain" age will understand!)

So here is my new solution:

A little black dress!

Pretty exciting huh?

I recently spent a week in San Diego with my parents

and my mom got me this Little Black Dress at

The Container Store.

Isn't it so elegant?

There are a ton of little plastic pockets which will hold

earrings and bracelets and pins.

The told us at the store

that this particular item was one of 

Oprah's Favorite things

and they had trouble keeping it in stock!

Well, you ain't seen nothin yet.....

When you turn it around it has little velcro tabs 

where you can hang your necklaces!

It was only missing one crucial thing.....

If I have earrings to match the necklace I thought it would

be nice to hang them together,

So on each of the velcro tabs I added a very small

Elastic, 

you know the kind that you might use

in braces or in very thin hair,

and it worked like a charm.

So there you have it...........My blog post about the letter "E".

So much more exciting than "Eating" or (shudder) "Exercise".

However I will pause to say that I read a pretty interesting post

by a blogger whose blog is called "Look Better Naked".

Pretty catchy title, huh?

Certainly made me look.

Rachee has a fun writing style that is enjoyable to read.

Especially her post on Belly Dancing!

Eventually this is something I'd like to try!

Have a look.

Guess that is all for now...............

Except I can't really leave the letter "E"

without wishing everyone a very

  Blessed EASTER!

Ever yours,

tammy

D is for Dessert

About a month ago I had bunko at my house and

I made a really 

Delicious Dessert!

Now Dessert is just about one of my favorite things 

and these little 

Mini Key Lime Pies

were just the perfect size.

You can get the recipe Here

This is what the pies looked like:

But I wanted to use my little canning jars so

I deconstructed the pies and layered them 

using loose pie crust crumbs,  key lime cheesecake mixture and whipped cream.

What I really liked about this recipe is that it is NO BAKE!

Another cool thing is that they can be made ahead of time!

Now....think Raspberry, blackberry or lemon

Don't these look yummy?

I think these Banana Caramel Creme Desserts

will be the next one I try!

You can find the recipe for this tempting treat at Glorious Desserts.

I Love Pinterest!

You can find so many Delightful and Decadent and Delicious Desserts!

Have a delicious day!

tammy

C is for Choices

Hmmmmmm..............should I write about Crafting and Crochet?  Cleaning and clutter?

Cooking and cake pops?  Oh my goodness.............Choices are So Hard!

There are so many things that I am interested in learning and doing 

that there are NEVER enough hours in the day to do them.  

Crochet.........I've recently picked up my Crochet hook again and have

been add Cute little Crochet edges to blankets and waterproof pads.

I am loving this!  So relaxing to do at night while watching a show.

Starting to Crochet again was sparked by a visit to a Project Linus

blanket bee were ladies donate quilts, afghans and fleece trimmed in

a pretty crochet edge.   These blankets are given to Children to Comfort them in times of Crisis.  

Cake Pops.......my sweet mom bought me a BabyCakes for my birthday

this year.  BabyCakes is like a waffle iron.  There are 12 little round holes

in which you put 1 tsp of cake batter, close the lid, and in 4 minutes you have

Cake pops!  They are they perfect little bite-sized treat.  Yummilicious!

Bakerella makes some really cool cake pops, but she uses crumbled up cake and mixes it with icing to form her cake pops.  I like having the cake only cake pop and adding some icing to them.  Who needs more icing? Right?  

I've been hearing some really strange noises in my attic lately.

Like loud thumps!  Mike will go outside and look and see nothing.

Well this weekend he went out during the day and found THIS:

We had our roof replace quite some time ago and they left this part of our roof/attic exposed!!!!!

Hope they come back to fix it or we will need a Carpenter!

Brought to you by the letter C.

Choices.

Crummy at them!

Maybe tomorrow I should think about Decisions and Decisiveness.

B is for Babies and Blessings!

The same friend who yesterday on April Fool's day tricked me into believing that she and her husband were moving also told her son and his wife that 

Mike and I were adopting a baby! 

 They fell for it!

I guess everyone knows that Mike and I 

are real fond of babies!

Designer Burp pads double as decorations!

I spent a lot of time last week preparing 

for a very special baby shower.

I made these designer burp cloths by appliqueing 

the letters of the baby's name

on a pre-made diaper.  

The two on the ends are monkey embroideries to match the design of the nursery.

My babies spent a great deal of their early months hurling the contents of their stomachs

all over me so I always like to give new parents some burp cloths.....just in case.....

Motorcycyle made out of diapers

My husband found this giraffe and wanted to include it in the baby shower decorations.

So I found a link on Pinterest showing how to make a motorcycle out of diapers.

You can see the directions Here.

Diaper wreath


This Diaper wreath was something that the mom-to-be had mentioned that she wanted,
so I made one by simply wrapping a diaper around a foam wreath and securing with rubber bands.
The Welcome banner was made from an idea I also found on pinterest.

Another diaper cake for baby shower decoration.

At one point during the baby shower Mia sat down on

the floor and howled!

I thought she was jealous that I was holding another baby, but in reality she was sitting

down so she could hold the baby

and mad because I didn't give her the baby!

After getting permission from mom I let Mia hold this
precious babe.
She was so gentle and so happy. 

Life just can't get any better than this!

A baby to hold and a sweet toddler to give me kisses!

About 2 years ago I wrote another post that is SO appropriate for today's Letter B.

It is all about the new and improved baby items that I never had when my babies were little.

You can see it here:  

Babies and Boppies and Bumbos, OH MY!

Beautiful baby blessings to you,

tammy

I read on another bloggers post.....

This Blog was brought to you tonight by the Letter B.

Design Wall Monday

Revisiting my Design wall today is the Pink Floyd t-shirts 

that I am making a quilt out of for my brother in Oregon.

I've had these shirts for many years.

He is probably wondering if he is EVER going to see a quilt

made from them!

I guess what is holding me up is the two large 

"The Wall" shirts.

Just can't decided on how I want to design the quilt.

I've recently seen a really cool t-shirt quilt design and

have been thinking how I could incorporate

the design ideas into this quilt.

I would post a picture

but alas the photo is on my phone and I

have not uploaded it here yet.

I'll have to do that later and update this page.

That's all for now.

Too bad this isn't the "D" day for my

A-Z Challenge.

Guess I'll be back with my "B" post later!

Have a Blessed day!

tammy

 

A is for April, applique, and aprons

April 1, 2012

In my house April 1 is APRIL FOOL'S DAY!

For the first time in I can't remember when my husband did not play an April fool's trick!

He has really pulled some good ones over the years....

...like the time he set all the clocks up one hour and I took the kids to school early.  

Or the time he turned off the water main to the house!

He's a trickster.

One of my best friends called me today and told me that 

they were putting their house up for sale and moving to be closer to

their kids...........I bought it hook, line and sinker!

I've always been a gullible sort.

Look at me!

I completed my April Calendar block right on schedule!

I pieced, appliqued and quilted this block just today.

Now I'm all set for the month.

My sweet baby granddaughter loves to cook when she 

comes to her grammy's house and I've been meaning to make

her an apron of her very own.

I found a cute and pretty easy looking apron pattern on Pinterest.

Maggie, who writes a blog called

 Smashed Peas and Carrots

posted a great tutorial on making a vintage apron for a toddler.

Click on the blog name to make one of your very own.

On a recent visit to San Diego I bought this cool apron pattern book.

I'm anxious to make some of these!

I recently made this cute little apron for a little girl for her birthday.

The fabric has monkeys on it and the apron has pockets to hold crayons.

It was a Simplicity pattern.

As you can clearly see, my sweet baby needs an apron of her very own!

I think I'll work on that tonight!

Have a blessed day,

tammy

Blogging from A to Z

Last night while perusing the internet at 4am I came across a Blogging challenge.

Blogging from A - Z.

The challenge is for the next 26 days or so is to write a blog post using 

a letter of the alphabet as your starting point.  

You can chose a theme if you like or just write what you feel that day.

I'll probably write about quilting or crafts or cooking or my family or my sweet grandbaby.

I even thought that I could find something on my new best friend 

"Pinterest"

 that would fit into the daily letter.

The first part is writing YOUR blog post

and the second is to visit some of the blogs of the other

people participating!

I believe I was the 1782 person who signed up!

I've got alot of reading to do!

So this is just my little introductory post.

I still have about 4 hours to complete my REAL post for the day......

Starting with the Letter A.

Piecefully yours,

tammy