As of Late

It has been too long since I last posted.
This week, Jen, Amy and I are going to stay with some adopted family. There is a revival going on in Aunt Becky's town, since its too far for us to drive every night, we are just gonna' camp out at her house. It's been a while since we've seen and spent time with them so we are really looking forward to out trip.
So before I leave out here is a post of what I've been making lately. =)
This past year we met a young girl named Abigail, at camp. she is 12 (I think) and very rambunctious. She's mischievous, and sneaky, and sweet. We got to spend a little more time with her at a camp meeting earlier this year where she saw some of my letter art and loved it. So I decided that I would make her a bookmark with special lettering and send it to her. It has been a few months since I decided this, but lack on my part puts me sending it now. She doesn't know its coming and I'm sending it out tomorrow.

My Uncle Mike's birthday is the day before mine, so I made him a birthday card. I sat down at my card table and had no idea what I was going to do. We don't talk except for on special occasions so I had no clue what to do. I knew one thing though, he loves the Steelers. So I got on the internet and looked up birthday cards for football teams. This is what I did.

What's cool about making cards, is that you can make them any size you want. A lady in our church has been sick and out of church for a couple weeks, so we decided to make a card and send it to her saying we missed her. This card is super small. It is adorable! Compared to the regular cards we make, this one would be the size of the label on the envelope. (maybe a little bigger)

My penmanship I am hoping to improve.

Sunday I did Jennifer's hair. Normally Sunday mornings are busy, but since I cut my hair I currently only leave it straight and pull back the sides or leave it all down. So I'm done early now. I saw this hairstyle on Pinterest and it looked really cute. Once I did it, I thought it looked REALLY cute. =)

Simple, yet beautiful.

Have a blessed day.

Bethany

My New Card Tools

This past Saturday, October 4th, Mama, Jennifer, Amy and I went yard sale-ing. It started out really good. The first yard sale we stopped at, the guy was selling this old Pentax camera with a lens, for $10.

 One of the reasons I like the old cameras is this reason right here, the colorful markings on the lens.

I've been wanting one of those since I started my photography course through NYIP. The reason why is because that was Chuck Delaney's camera, and the model camera in a lot of the lessons. So I was super excited to get this.

It works too. I have to get film for it though before I can take pictures.
In between the first and last yard sale, I found a really nice dress, Jen found an adorable, dressy, red jacket. and some little miscellaneous stuff.
The last yard sale we went to this lady was selling all her scrapbook stuff. She had gotten married and was expecting their first baby, so she didn't have the time anymore to scrapbook. She had corner clippers, templates and cutters, scissors and measuring mats. Lots of good stuff. She was also selling her 4 drawer organizer that had all of that in it. Amy and I are the major card makers in this house, so we were looking at it and trying to figure out what we could get for what we had. But we wanted all of it.

The organizer itself she was selling for $10, empty.

The cutters she was selling for $5 a piece.

And then there was the other stuff. All individually priced.

 Scissors, a straight cutter, a template cutter, ruler/hole punch combo.

 Oval and circle templates, size charts and cutters.

More templates, and cutting mats.

So we asked her how much she would take for the whole thing. . . . . And she told us, $40. What?! That is an awesome deal. So for my birthday present Mama bought me this whole organizer full of scrapbook utensils. Now I'm not using it for scrapbooking, I use it to make cards. In the next post I'll show you some of the new cards and designs I did with my new tools.
Have a blessed day.
Bethany

 

Quilting

A little while ago, I took on a task that I'd never done before; quilting. My Aunt Becky (by adoption lol) wanted her grandmothers handy work finished, so I took home a small topper and have since put it together. I am now in the process of quilting it and am having so much fun.

This quilt top was hand-sewn together by Aunt Becky's grandmother. I absolutely love the colors and pattern. Even though today we are all about matching colors perfectly, I think this color scheme is great. Old quilts just have that feel of 'this-materiel-is-not-just-materiel', it has the feel that is came from something special. You see where they take old shirts and dresses and make the patch work out of them. That's the kind of feel you get from old quilts. And then there is the fact that it was hand sewn together. Today we all use machines to sew the quilt tops together, and much of the quilting is done on machine not by hand.

Since this quilt top was hand sewn, I thought it deserved to be hand-quilted. And so here are some pictures, just for you Aunt Becky, so you can see the progress and how it looks.

Since I'd never quilted before, Mama told me the different ways you could quilt; like the different quilt patterns. Cross wise, on the seam, 1/4 inside of the seam, ect. I wanted something easy that way I didn't get frustrated and want to put it down, but I wanted it to be nice, so I chose the inside the seam by a  1/4 inch.

I am using a quilting square. I know you've heard of the quilting hoops but this is different and holds the fabric so much better. Quilting hoops tend to let the quilt slide and you have to keep tightening it. This is a plastic square that holds the materiel from the backside. I was putting it on the top but found that I could get closer to the edges it done backwards.

Here is a close up of the back.

 Hope you enjoyed seeing my project. I will be posting the finished project in the future.

Have a blessed day.
Bethany