Scraps of My Life

December Daily & 30 Days of Lists

As I've done in previous years, I combined my December Daily with 30 Days of Lists. I've found that it makes it easier and quicker to have them both in the same binder. That way I can write down my list for the day and also print my daily picture and write a quick journaling card and the day is done. This year I used a 6"x8" Project Life binder, pocket pages, Hello December Project Life cards, and Christmas paper all from Stampin' Up. Here's the cover and a few of my favorite pages.

I made a few Christmas presents this year, but forgot to take pictures of them.  I did, however, finally make a tree skirt and our new kitty Leonard really seemed to like it.

The pattern is Kaleidoscope Tree Skirt from the book A Merry Christmas with Kim Schaefer.

Yesterday I spent the day cleaning up the studio, so now it's all nice and neat and ready for a new year of projects. Some of the planned projects are:

• gray, black, and red quilt for my husband
• shades of blue quilt for my nephew's high school graduation gift
• an improv challenge quilt for the South Sound Modern Quilt Guild
• quilt guild quilt-along from Patchwork City by Elizabeth Hartman
• finish the blue and yellow quilts for the guest room
• purses from the Bag of the Month Club
• One Little Word with Ali Edwards
• Project Life for 2016

What projects are you starting in 2016?

 

Where Bloggers Create 2015

Welcome to my studio and the Where Bloggers Create party hosted by Karen Valentine at My Desert Cottage. 

 

Not a lot has changed since last year, although I did recently repaint the room in a lighter shade of blue and add this cute orange and blue bird rug.

This is my scrapbooking area where some of my stamps are stored on shelves built by my dad. My computer and Silhouette Cameo are in easy reach so I can quickly cut files as I'm working. I'm addicted to 6x6 paper pads and keep them handy in my Raskog cart from Ikea. 

I painted this organizer recently in this great shade of blue. It was black (see picture above) and I like it much better now.

One of my favorite new storage solutions is this Spicy Shelf I added to the cabinet above the Silhouette. I love how easy it is to see all my paints now.

I have my sewing machine, Singer Featherweight, and serger set up on the counter along the wall, but can easily move them when friends come over for a sew day.

In this picture you can see the ironing station my husband made for me and my cutting table that is a dining room table that belonged to my Grandma Zangl.

This end of the room is where my Avante Handi Quilter resides. I also store baskets with fabric and batting underneath.

My design wall is surrounded by bookcases full of quilting, sewing, and scrapbooking books. The shelf on top holds some of my childhood dolls.  On the wall above the treadle sewing machine, which belonged to my Grandma Skog, is a shelf built by my dad that holds fat quarters.

Well, that completes the tour. Thank you so much for stopping by and don't forget to check out the other amazing studios here.

I couldn't resist closing with this adorable picture of Zoey "helping" in the studio.

Me: The Abridged Version

I just completed Cathy Zielske's Big Picture Class - Me: The Abridged Version where you journal about your life using nouns from A through Z and then add pictures. I found it fun, frustrating, and ultimately rewarding. It was time consuming to come up with the words, journal about them and then take or find pictures to complement the journaling, but I'm really glad I did it. 

Here are a few of my favorite pages:

If you ever have a chance to take Cathy's class, I highly recommend it.

Thanks for stopping by and check back on Friday for another Flashback Friday project.

September 2014 - 30 Days of Lists Update

Well, where does the time go? I never planned to be away from my blog for two months, but life sometimes has other plans. Part of my absence was due to the fact that I really didn't have much to blog about. I hadn't been spending much time in my studio creating anything, but I did manage to finish my September 2014 30 Days of Lists. In my last post, I shared my supplies and my completed cover. Here are a few of my favorite pages:

I found the paperclip tag embellishment idea on Pinterest. The cute little camera stamp is from Stampin' Up.

What looks like washi tape at the top of the page is actually "Tape It" stamps from Stampin' Up. I stamped them in different colors then cut them out at different lengths. I like how you can personalize them using different colors of ink.

I made the little envelope for this page using the "Envelope Punch Board" by We R Memory Keepers. I love making all different sizes of envelopes with this tool.

What can I say?  I love hexagons and all these were made with the hexagon punch from Stampin' Up.

I hope you enjoyed the little peek at my 30 Days of Lists book. Please come back soon to see some new quilts I'm working on, my completed "Me - The Abridged Version" scrapbook (from Cathy Zielske's class on Big Picture Classes), and Flashback Friday where I'll share some of my "older" quilt and craft projects.

September 2014 - 30 Days of Lists

It's time again for the 30 Days of Lists challenge hosted by Kam of Campfire Chic and Amy of Lemon and Raspberry. This will be my seventh time particpating in the challenge and I'm so excited for it to start. I've been working on making my mini book to hold all my lists so I'll be ready on September 1st for the first prompt.

I started out with a small clipboard that I painted blue and paper from Stampin' Up. For my lists, I'm using a variety of Project Life cards because I have so many!!

Here's my cover and the first two pages: 

I have 18 pages finished and the clipboard is getting pretty full, so hopefully all 30 days will fit. I'll be sharing my lists periodically here so make sure to check back. Also check out all the great 30 Days of Lists ideas on Pinterest.

Are you a lister too? 

Around Here

Sewing...January Bag of the Month at Sew Sweetness.

Notepad holders for me and my sister. The cute coffee embroidery is by Wild Olive.
Teaching...my friend Terri how to quilt on the Handiquilter.
Making...cards and envelopes. I love my new envelope maker from Stampin' Up. It's so fun and easy to use.

This card was made on the Silhouette with a cut file from makememori.com. Unfortunately it isn't available anymore.
Cards for the Stamper's Sampler challenge.
Meeting...Tula Pink at the Sewing & Stitchery Expo in Puyallup, WA. My sister Paula and I were lucky to run into Tula during the show and she was so nice to agree to a picture with us. We also attended her talk in the evening and it was great. She was so funny and it was interesting to hear about her fabric design process.

Shopping...at the Sewing Expo.
Listing...March 2014 30 Days of Lists.
Finishing...the Tula Pink's City Sampler 100 Modern Quilt Blocks Quilt Along. I made all 100 and used 64 in the Trellis Quilt (plus ten on the back).



Welcoming...the first signs of Spring in my yard.

Up Next Time...a few Pinterest inspired projects.

One Little Word 2014

I'm excited to be participating in Ali Edwards' One Little Word 2014 class this year. This is my third year of picking a word. My previous words were Start and Organize. This year my word is Learn.

This word starting floating around in head last month as I was thinking about all the on-line classes I'd bought but never even started, let alone completed. When it came time to register for One Little Word, I knew I'd found my word for 2014.

In addition to all the classes I want to complete, I'd also like to learn to use more features on my BabyLock Symphony sewing machine and how to get organized in "My Digital Scraproom."

Thanks for stopping by today and reading about the start of my One Little Word journey for 2014 and check out the One Little Word Blog Hop for more "Words".

December Daily - Getting Started

I'm excited to be starting my December Daily album. This year I'm using the Seasonal Stripes collection from Stampin' Up. The binder comes with several different types of pocket pages and the Journaling Tags and the 4x6 papers that fit in the pockets are all really cute.

Those cute Santa Flashcards above are from Pretty Little Studio on Etsy. I'm going to use them on each page for my date. I'm trying to use holiday stuff from my stash and I've also been pinning lots of ideas to my Pinterest December Daily board, so I have tons of inspiration.

Here's my completed cover. I attached a vintage Christmas card and a Noel bingo card to the cover, then cut the December 2013 on the Silhouette and mounted it on a piece of gold flocked transparency. I added a few other transparent embellishments and bows. As a final touch I made two flowers out of Christmas fabric and glued them to the bows.

I covered the inside of the album with cardstock and washi tape then attached this cute countdown to Christmas calendar I found on Pinterest. You can find it at the Stitch in Time blog. I then used a snowflake stamp and gold ink to highlight days we have plans. 

The next page has a cardinal I cut out of vinyl on the Silhouette mounted on gold flocked transparency. No real reason for this page except that I really loved that cardinal.

Now I'm starting to play around with the pocket pages and cards but I won't really start putting the pages together until I have some pictures. My book actually starts on the day after Thanksgiving when we put up our outdoor lights.

I'm also doing the December 2013 30 Days of Lists and plan to incorporate my lists into my December Daily album, so I'll be sharing those once that gets started.

On a quilty note, I just finished Block 81 in the City Sampler Sew Along. Wow, less than 20 to go! Check out the Sew Sweetness blog to see more of these amazing little blocks.

Anybody else working on their December Daily albums or the sew along blocks?

30 Days of Lists - September 2013

Just a quick little post today about the upcoming 30 Days of Lists for September 2013. This will be my 4th time participating in 30 Days of Lists and I'm really looking forward to it. It's fun to check my e-mail every morning for the list prompt of the day. Then I can think about it all day and be ready to write out my list and make my little scrapbook page when I get home from work.

Here are the previous books I made.

For my first 30 Days of Lists book, I used a mixed paper book from Elise Blaha that I bought several years ago.

In September 2012, I made my first attempt at an altered book. I like how it turned out, but it was way too much work for a daily project.  I seemed to always be behind.

This was a kit that was offered on the 30 Days of Lists website in March 2013. I put the whole thing together beforehand, so all I had to do each day was write out my list and glue it on the page. Easy peasy!

This year I'm making my own book from my stash.  I'm using an envelope and tag book along with papers and embellishments from 9 to 5 by October Afternoon and some other odds and ends.

I liked having my book already made before the prompts started, so I plan on putting this one together soon. I'll post more pictures as I work on my book, so please check back to see my progress.

Are you a lister? It's not too late to visit 30 Days of Lists and join in the fun.

Two Finished Projects

If you've been following my blog lately, you've probably noticed I haven't blogged about any current projects recently and that is because the two projects I was working on were graduation gifts for my niece McKenzie. I didn't want to put pictures up here before I gave her the gifts on the chance that she might check out the blog and then the surprise would be spoiled.  But now she has her presents and I can share them here with you.

I made her a new quilt for her dorm room using her favorite Tula Pink fabrics; the Birds and the Bees and Prince Charming. The pattern is "Starflower" by Angela Nash and it's from the book "Modern Quilts from the Blogging Universe."

Here's a closeup of the quilting:

I pieced the back fron several different colors of Kona solids and some scraps from the front. I also used some different scraps in the binding. For the quilt label, I used a leftover portion of one of the big pinwheels and just sewed the muslin label to it.

The quilt coordinates with this body pillow cover I made her previously.

The other project was a scrapbook of favorite family memories - vacations, family barbeques, traditions, etc.

Inside the front cover I typed up "memories" of things we do, places we go, and funny family moments.

McKenzie loved both her gifts and I thoroughly enjoyed making them for her.

I have a few quilts in the works, so please come back soon and check out my progress.