Another Gift Idea

So I'm a little late showing you another piece of the gift baskets!

These are wonderful gift ideas, all alone... for people in your life that you want to give a little something to, but just aren't sure what... this is perfect!

They are hand scrubs!

Have you been to Origins or Bath and Body and used their hand scrubs? 

Dan and I LOVE them!!

These will be going to girlfriends.. a couple of the gals at Starbucks that are always so kind to me.. and a few relatives.

I used these tutorials - Lemon Hand Scrub & Brown Sugar and Vanilla Body scrub

I used these wonderful print out labels and hand wrote in instructions and such...

I used old jelly jars, small jelly canning jars etc that i picked up at the thrift shop...

and tied them with bakers twine and old tiny souvenir spoons that i had laying around from the shop and crafting. Cute right?? :D

 I don't know how I get anything done around here with jokesters like this following me around.... LOL

 He's like - MOM take the picture!! See? It's like the jar has bunny ears!! bahahahaha!!!

Yah. crackin himself up! LOL what a goofball!

Tomorrow i am going to show you one more thing! AND show you what i recently won and am in love with !!! wooohoo!!!!

Have a great day!

I am off to sew! (for the first time in... 2 weeks?!)

What a great day!

We're tired! :)

Happy and tired!

We had the most gorgeous weather we could have asked for, after several weeks of VERY cold cold cold, did i mention cold?  (-9* - w/o windchill!) 

Today was beautiful! I'm guessing high 40's or low 50's even.

We wore ourselves out for three hours, starving afterward went over to chili's and woofed on some great food... and then it was home for a couple hours of guitar hero together!

(yes, i'm proud to say i can actually hold my own in that game! lol)

All in all a perfect day!

Hope your Sunday was just as perfect!

xo

Bren

ps... hoping i don't scare ya'll with pics of me with no makeup!!!  ugh definitely looking my age without it! :(

Advent "Calendar"

Hello friends!

I am soo excited, I just got these done this afternoon!

I have been wanting to make a swag like this for years, but just never got around to it in the seasonal rush. This year, I said no more! I am going to take the time to do some of these things that are important to me! 

So I did! And i LOVE them!! 

And because I couldn't see worth a darn on my little (mini) laptop screen which pics were which while i was trying to upload - they are all mixed up! Sorry! 

And yes, since it's already the 4th and i didn't get this done by the 28th of november, i decided to just start on the fourth this year! LOL

But of course i did make the others as well for the coming years. 

Soo excited!

Had so much fun filling them with family activities and scripture! 

And today's activity is put up the Christmas tree and decorate... so I'm off! 

'Tis time for my elf self to take over for the next month! :)

And since we just got a gob of snow, and i got this made, and started on my gifts, i am now mentally where I should be!

Yay!

May you all be abundantly blessed this Christmas Season!!

xo

Bren

Starting on Christmas gifts...

Hi!

So this year I am way behind on making my Christmas gifts! How bout you?

Last year I made everyone quilts - and worked on them all year. This year... I just couldn't settle on anything. So I started scouring the web for ideas, and came across some great tutorials that helped me decide what I am going to do!

I have several women in my life that I like to gift to at Christmas, so it seemed fitting to make kitchen oriented baskets this year.  Here is the start of what will be going in the baskets.

Oven mitts made to their kitchen colors, with matching potholders.

 I used this tutorial for the mitts.  And changed it up a little bit, as the thumbs were just gigantic, as were the hand part, so i made them a little smaller to fit women's hands :)

I also added a loop on the side with snaps.  I don't know about you, but I never have a convenient place to put an oven mitt! And great... they all have loops... but i have no place to hang them! If only I could hang them on my oven door....

So by adding the snap closure to the loop and inside cuff, you can hang them on your oven and just pop them off when you need to use them, and then they will be out of your way when you aren't using them!

(please disregard my horrible sewing job on this one - it was my first and will consequently be staying with me, since i discovered so many things along the way! lol)

 Little tip if you go to make these: I used home dec weight fabric. Great for this purpose! But add the heavier fabric + insul brite+cotton batting+ lining for each side... it is THICK!

And word to the wise, when you quilt that kind of thickness the only bendability you are going to get is whichever direction you quilted! 

This one i did vertical lines.... um... yah... no bendy! :D

and the pot holder i did diagonal lines... care to guess which way it wants to fold when grabbing a pot?

Sooo... the next few sets I made I quilted horizontally - and voila they work great! LOL

Still have 3 more sets to make, but now that I know what I'm doing, it will go fast!

Next item in the basket will be home made vanilla!

mmmmmm!!!

yep, getting a late start these won't be ready to use until about feburary!

But I will be putting homemade labels on the bottles, and little hang tags that say "I'll be ready to use on this day"   - Here's what they look like right now...

Not very attractive yet. LOL

But they WILL BE!

I followed this fantastic and easy tutorial here.

And yes... that is a little mini cheap wine holder! hee hee... they were the only bottles I could find that would work! So hey... got a few glasses of (actually not too bad) wine in the process! :)

If you're interested in making some great vanilla follow the link!

I got my beans HERE.  Great prices, great fast delivery!

I'll give you a sneak peek to the rest of the goodies in a day or so!

xo

Bren

On of those moments you wish you had a camera!

There are things to be thankful for EVERY day! I count my blessings every single day.

But there are moments in time, where you just wish you had a camera glued to your hip all the time - am i right?

And as a mom... there are MANY of those moments where you are kicking yourself for not having a camera handy!  Well at least I do ! :D

Today was one of those times.

And one of those thankful "Mom moments"

You know the ones... the kind that just warm you inside and out, and reconfirm that you have raised good kids!

I had to run my high school sophmore son's lacrosse stick down to the school for him, and Calli was with me.  We pull into the school, and immediately see Bailey sitting posing on the bleachers. Obviously, he thought some girls must be ogling looking at him. LOL  Wearing nice jeans, a white v-neck T, and his shades. Could he look any cooler? (obviously we know that HE didn't think so! *coughzacheffroncough*)

Big man on campus and all that. High school years - remember those? :)

I'm rolling my eyes at the posing and huge ego, but didn't say anything. lol

He opens the van door, we chat for a second and he gets his stick, says thanks for bringing this mom. Sure no problem :) 

And then...

one of the moments that just defined him as the coolest big brother ever - he asked Calli if she wanted to come and hang out with him and his lacrosse buddies.

She about jumped out of her seat - YES!!

I asked Bay - are you sure? She'll be bored... and you really want her tagging along?

His answer - yah, it's totally cool.. i don't think she'll be bored. C'mon Cal :D

That little girl (9) was soooo absolutely thrilled !! And watching them walk up the hill together... (i have a "thing" for backside shots of big person and little person walking together) him in all his high school coolness... and her small frame hustling to keep up with him... and looking up at him with that look... you know the one... the one that only the camera can capture all the emotion in such a simple look of "my big brother is soo awesome!"

  And i didn't have a camera!!! Arrrggghhhhh!

But ya know what?

Photo or no photo, he earned points today. Mom points, sister points, and just all around brownie points! LOL  and yes... my heart swelled, as it often does in those moments, and I was thankful for my kids!

There are silly little tidbits like this every day. Maybe I'll start sharing more of them. They make me smile... and years from now, going back to my "online journal" that i dont make enough entries to it will bring a smile again!

What are you thankful for today?

In Progress...

In progress... working on getting this top pieced tonight :)   and then starting on some Christmas gifts. If i don't get a chance to post again before Thursday... wishing you all a very warm and blessed Thanksgiving!!

xo

Bren :)

1 UFO Finish!

First UFO finish! And as much as I struggled with this one - which was actually more of a struggle with my non existant creative juices at the time -it has turned out to be one of my favorites thus far! It is such a soft quilt... a soft drape, perfect suggle-ability for those cold nights on the couch! And I really think that denyse schmidt green floral made it all come together. I LOVE it!  And I'm happy to finally have it done! :)

We had a snow day yesterday (schools closed we got hit so hard) so I have no where to lay this to take pics, except thrown over my couch!

on the outer borders, I did free motion daisy chains with leaves in between. The border isn't crooked, that's just my picture taking skills! lol

 For the back, I used an art gallery print that I had a yard and a half of... and this other sweet print that is butter yellow with soft pink polka dots and flowers. I just love the feel of the art gallery fabrics!! And I think this backing was cheery and well suited to the quilt :)

 Binding was an old tula pink print that i found in my stash, and had just enough to bind with! I don't think it could be any more perfect! I'm loving how the greens pull everything together in this quilt!

 And... plopped on the back of our couch. Looking at this picture i am seeing how tired our couch is starting to look :(    (and in case you're wondering what that brown cushion is all about... we put a throw over the middle cushion, because we all like to curl our legs up under us when sitting on the couch - and knowing that would become the most dirty, worn part of the couch, I have always just tucked that throw on there to protect it! It looks horrible i know. And when company comes over, it comes off.  But I didn't feel like cleaning up before taking these pictures! LOL)

 And not to be left out of the picture taking, Lexi kept moving around trying to get IN the pictures. LOL  (if you zoom up to the first picture, you'll see her trying to be incognito)  So, to make her feel better, I snapped one just of her :) 

It's been a long couple of weeks. My mom is doing pretty good. It's slow healing, and frustrating for her, but it's amazing how fast the body heals and makes progress! Every day there is small improvements. 

I am beat. We've all been fighting this flu bug that has been going around... so far Dan, Bailey and I have managed to keep it from coming on full force. Calli wasn't so lucky ;(    She was sick all of fall break, and I was at my mom's all weekend and into this week. And while they all took a snow day yesterday (rest, movies, and play) I was busy trying to get the house back in order from my absence.  I'm mostly just taking it easy today. Finishing up laundry, cleaned the kitchen and made a pot of chili.  Wanting to sew.... but just not having the energy ;(   Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be feeling better rested!  Taking my vitamins and drinking echinacea tea and hopefully a little rest will keep this bug at bay!

Hope you all have a great week!

xo

Bren