So far so good.  I have been focusing on finishing my unfinished projects, at times I get a little overwhelmed, but I re focus and have been getting quite a lot accomplished lately.  Even with the lovely hacking cold going around our family.  Lots has also been happening this last month.  Two of my wonderful children had birthdays. So I was busy with all that fun.  I was able to make a super cute onsie for my now 1 year old. (they grow way too fast!) and outfit to go with it.  I chose a black and gold theme, which was perfect for decorations because all the Christmas stuff was on clearance and I found a lot of gold sparkly stuff on the cheap.  And then I had some twinkling Christmas lights as well. It worked out.

 I finally put the binding on this super cute triangle quilt I made like 2 years ago.  It was just sitting in my craft closet waiting for the binding for 2 years.  It's nuts that I let things sit for so long, but glad to have it done and put to use.  I'm also finished up another baby quilt for a friend on mine. It turned out super cute! I'll be posting about that later.
Some more fun little bit size projects I finished up.  I made scripture bags with CTR ironed on,( Choose the Right) for our primary at church for all the kids. We just bought the bags, and then I used inkjet printable heat transfer vinyl which is awesome!
I embroidered a few blankets I made for a friends and a baby sleeper as well.  I got that baby quilt all sandwiched up and ready to quilt which I will be telling you more about. So excited, isn't it adorable!  My friend is going to love it.  One of my most useful things I made this last month was my chalkboard menu for my fridge.  I think it turned out super cute. Though I need to be better at making a menu. I love the little chickens I added.  We have 4 chickens ( use to have 5 but one just died, sad story).  

But I think one of the funnest things I did was make Valentines cookies with my kiddos.  They are so creative!  My son made a dinosaur one, and one of my girls made a horse one.  Then there were a lot of abstract ones as well.  love it. Hope this inspires you to do what you love and make something unique and awesome too! Happy crafting.

So I am always looking around me for inspiration.  It’s what I do, I love to hoard ideas and make plans.  Sometimes I need help in the getting it done, partly because of so many ideas and plans I do make.  But when I do finally move into action I know with out a doubt it is what I want and I am usually pleased with the results.  So this post I am going to share with you some of my favorite places to look for inspiration, and my resolution to finish the unfinished.

       First place I look for is of course Pinterest, but ideas can get over used there so if you are unsure what you are specifically looking for I feel it can be over whelming at times and I have wasted many hours on Pinterest.  Another place that is full of great ideas is etsy.  Even if you don’t plan on buying or making sometime to sell, it is fun to see what other people are actually making.  It inspires me to make something myself and put my own twist on it.  Magazines, they are always fun to flip through or look at on your tablet, because the magazine has put the best of the best in and you don’t have to sift through a lot of ok ideas to find that one great one. My favorite magazine is Country Living, and Better homes and gardens because they have a great variety of ideas for all kinds of projects.  If you don’t subscribe to them you can look at their websites or your local library.  Which brings me to my next big inspiration go to.

 The Library!  I love checking out loads of books on quilts, and home renovation, gardening, sewing, cooking, canning, photography, and crafting you name it your library probably has it.  And if your library is like ours if they don’t have it, your library can get it from another that does.  I love our library we go there once a week and I always have stacks and stacks of books around the house. 

Get out and about.  So much inspiration is around us we just have to open our eyes and see it!  Our family went on vacation recently to Texas and we loved it.  It has inspired me to make a quilt this year with some southwest designs and colors.  I’m obsessed now.  Or going to an antique mall or flea market.  My favorite is in the fall is going to craft fairs.  Craft fairs are like pinterest and etsy in person.  I get to touch and feel all the cool items and designs.  And if you don’t know where a craft fair or flea market is near you, just go to a store!  Sometimes store displays are all we need for inspiration. What ever you love to do, go and do it and you will feel inspiried to create something you love.

Recently I discovered those adult coloring books with all those super cool detailed designs you can color.  Coloring in those really help me feel inspired and feel like I am doing something more than just reading or looking at a tablet for inspiration.  I am actually playing with designs and colors.  Which in turn gives me inspiration for my next projects, I am able to see what color schemes I like and how they work together and all I had to do was pull out the markers.  And not to mention it is a fun activity to do, my kids love it too.

            So many ways to get inspired. But with that being said sometimes it is hard to find the motivation to act on inspiration.  I am a busy mom of 4 and I don’t have a lot of time for what I want to do.  So when I do start a project I try to keep it simple.  I try to have a clean work space because it is hard to feel creative in chaos, the rest of the house might be a different story though.  Have a area set a side for your workspace,  even if it’s a table in the corner.  It’s not motivating to do a project when you have to allot time for set up and clean up at the dinner table.  Also it is easier to keep the kids out of my stuff if I have my own work area and I’m not fighting for space at the family table with them. 

Finish projects!  I am more saying this for my benefit.  I get an idea, I start my project, then half way through I get distracted by other things to do, or find another awesome project to start, and before I know it I have 10 unfinished projects  Pretty soon I am not feeling very productive and I feel very overwhelmed by projects. 

So my #1 New Years resolution this year is to finish the unfinished.  So January and quite possibly Feb 2017 will be devoted to finishing all my unfinished projects.  My goal is to pick one for two a week, depending on the size and scope of the project.  And go from there.  My other resolution is to NOT beat myself up about not getting everything done when I want to get it done.  I am super hard on myself when it comes to accomplishing my goals.  I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes.  'Goals are stars to steer by not sticks to beat yourself with.' I heard this a long time ago, so I’m not sure who came up with it, but they are words of wisdom.
So with all that being said my next post will be all about a project I have finished!  Until then happy crafting.

This November I was able to visit the Mecca of all quilting stores , at least in the Midwest. The Missouri Star Quilt Company is based out of Hamilton, Missouri.  I didn't realize how close I was to this luscious quilt store until recently.  So I planned a day trip and I couldn't have been more thrilled.  I discovered MSQ through the many youtube video tutorials they do, in fact they have an app you can now download with all their tutorials right at your fingertips ( it's awesome). Now I love quilts and fabrics and designs of all sorts and my next favorite things are all things rustic and old anything that tells a story.  Old historic buildings (especially old barns) are my favorite!!! So upon my discovery of MSQ I was even more delighted see that they have revamped most of the older buildings in 'downtown' Hamilton, MO.  I love it when something old is brought back to life.  And not only do you get to experience one shop,  you get to experience 12!!!! Yup they all have a different theme of fabric.  You have the main store but then it branches out from there to florals, vintage, kids, holiday, solids, etc!!! They even have a man cave just for those husbands that's get dragged along but don't want to shop for fabric till they drop.  This is seriously and awesome store.   You also earn MSQ points while you shop and each little store.  So many points will translate back to cash in your pocket!   They also have super cute little charms you can earn at each store depending on what you spend.  Fabric, jewelry, rewards?! What didn't they think of?  I felt like all my dreams of owning a store one day had been pulled from my head and was what I was seeing right before my eyes.  So fun and if you are ever close to Hamilton, MO it is so worth the stop.  Can't make it in ?  They have an awesome online store too and catalog!! It's pretty awesome and the coolest thing about it all is it all started with one quilting machine, and a woman who loved to get together with friends and do crafts and sew.  My kind of story😀.  So check out the Missouri Star Quilt Company you won't be disappointed.  

So I am still here, just haven't posted anything in over a year. Why you might ask? It's not for lack of doing things, in fact its more doing to many things!  Time seems to get away from me.  My husband and I for over the past few years have been working every spare moment we have on our fixer upper.  Well we conquered the horrid bathroom last summer, and in the middle of that project found out that I was pregnant with our fourth.  So by the time we finished the bathroom I was in full blown sick mode.  Then the kids school started their various activities.  After the baby came we had to adjust to life with 4 kids.  But we are so happy and super blessed.  Since last summer I have worked on tons of different projects most of them were house projects, of course I am in the middle of one right now so I don't have time to post details at the moment but I will be soon.  Not so much details of everything that we did, more helpful tips when living in a remodel.  Coming soon!

So I started a goal this February to put up two blog posts a month.  Which might not seem like a very big goal but for me it is.  You see as a mother, and wife I wear many hats.  I’m sure a lot of you can relate. Well life has seemed to have gotten in the way of my goal this past month as far as posting my 2 tutorials/month I’ve promised, but don’t worry I have been working on many many projects lately. But this blog post I want to give you a better idea of all the hats I wear and see if you can relate to me.  I am a wife, mother to 3 children and caregiver to another.  I run my own Etsy business which dabbles in fabrics and photography.  I teach piano lessons, I am also the music leader for the children at our church. I am my husbands personal secretary/accountant for our household. I am a home school teacher to my children and participate in a co op, and I also am the Chef that creates most of the family meals. And in the middle of all these roles I am in the process of remolding the house we are living in.  So when life happens I have to put my much loved hobbies to the side and focus on my most important role of all, of mother and wife.  Sometimes it’s hard feeling like I never accomplish what I set out to for the day because my 3 year old is having a bad day and making it worse for everyone around her.  Or when I am playing taxi service to my older kids getting them to and from all the various activities and sporting events. Or when my Husband calls and needs me to do X, Y, and Z for him since he is at work and can’t take care of it. It can be disheartening, and I sometimes I struggle with feeling like I’ve failed in some way when I throw a package of mac and cheese on the stove for dinner.  But back to the reason I am writing about all of this, though it might seem like I am complaining, I’m not.  Because among all this chaos and the challenges I sometimes face in accomplishing my dreams and goals that I have for this blog and website, I’ve realized something, one day I will have all the time in the world to do projects, to blog about them, and have a clean house and be able to talk on the phone uninterrupted by children, but that will be the day my children have grown up and started their own lives.  So all my goals, while worthy to always keep working toward, don’t seem so important.  One of my favorite quotes is,

“ Goals are stars to steer by, not sticks to beat yourself with.” –Barbara B. Smith.

 So bear with me while I try to share my many projects and inspiration, and realize that you are not a lone in feeling overwhelmed, that sometimes it’s worth it to set your many projects aside, and focus on the most important ones like reading to your little ones before they go to bed, and leaving the dishes for another hour to play catch with your kid.  I find that I have started to accomplish more when I make time for the little things that aren’t planned in a day.  They are really what make life worth living, it’s not my to do list I get up every morning for, it’s for my family,for those moments.  “Moments are the molecules that make up eternity.” – Neal A. Maxwell. When ever I need reminded of this I watch this video, it still gets to me.

OK off my soap box,  here is a fun little project I have finally accomplished, it’s been sitting around since Christmas. It only took me 40 minutes from start to finish.  For Christmas I made all my family fleece pj pants, super easy, check out this tutorial if you want to make the pants. You don’t even need a pattern all you need is existing pj pants and these pants take like maybe 30 minutes to put together once you've cut them out. I make my kids pj pants a few sizes bigger than the existing ones so they can wear them all year, till I make some more. I make them every Christmas. But this Christmas it ended up that  I had some left over fleece from the girls pants not sure what to make with it at the time I set it aside. Till now, I decided to make them some snuggly blankets to match their Pj pants, and they turned out awesome!  

p.s. Sorry there aren't any step by step photos but I threw these together so quickly I forgot to take photos along the way, that easy.  But I plan on making more for my other loved ones to snuggle and  read more books so I will update with photos soon.

Supplies 

1 yard or more of 60” wide Anit-pill fleece  (depending on how big your want your blanket)

1 yard or more of 60” minky 

Matching thread

Tools

Scissors

Sewing Machine

*walking foot

*I use a walking foot when sewing with stretchy or bulky fabrics (both in this case) because it makes life sooooo much easier.  It’s not a must but trust me when I say this project isn’t as much fun with out it.

*** I bought two yards of fleece, and was able to get 1 pair of Pj pants and a 40”x 60” cut of fleece for the snuggle blanket top. ***

This tutorial is pretty straight forward, I love the super simple projects because it leaves you feeling like you accomplished a lot, but didn’t spend forever on!  

1.      Lay out your fleece right side up, then place your minky on top of the fleece with the minky right side down.  Now right sides are touching.

2.      Pin all the way around, don’t skimp on the pins, cause fleece and minky like to stretch

3.      Sew all the way around leaving a 6” opening on one side so you can turn the blanket right side out. I used just over ½” seam allowance

4.      Trim excess fabric and clip corner points off

5.      Reach through the 6”and grab the farthest corner and pull it through bringing the right sides out, and poke the corners out. 

6.      Now top stitch all around the blanket, I used a wavy stitch,, tucking in the 6” opening as you top stitch over it

7.      Bam! Blanket done! 

It seems almost to silly to blog about this, I mean who wouldn't think to do this right? But sometimes it’s the simple projects turn out super awesome and I end up loving the most because I get to immediately enjoy it , as do my girls in this case. And it took such little time and effort that I could easily get up and walk away from it and then sit right back down to work on it.  My son and Nephew saw these and are begging me to make them their own snuggle blanket of fleece on minky. I love it so much I  almost love it  more than minky on minky blankets I’ve made.  Even my husband was asking me to make him one.  I think I might have to get some sports fleece and make some football snuggle blankets.  These blankets would be super cute if you had more time and ambition to personalize with embroidery or appliqué .  But for now these work, and if you will excuse me I need to go snuggle under a blanket and read a book with my munchkins.

Well I am pretty proud of myself.  I promised myself to get two blog posts done in a month and here is the second one! I even did it in the shortest month of the year too, with a few days to spare.  So yup that's my goal this year, trying for two tutorial posts a month.  Hoping this goal with help me with traffic to my site and to help me finish some projects that I haven't and ones that are rolling around in my head. Anyway enough chatting, lets get to my block tutorial.

I'm pretty excited about my tutorial theme for the month.  10" pre-cut squares.  They are so cut, and so much more versital then anyone gives them credit for.  I love pre cuts because I don't have to spend any extra time picking out coordinating fabrics, washing, drying, and then squaring any of it up.  With pre-cuts you can get right to the fun part, putting your project together.  I honestly think they save you more than just time, money as well.  I chose Primrose Garden from Riley Blake Designs, and it comes with eighteen 10" sqaures, if I was going to the fabric store for that many fabrics for a quilt, I think I might break my bank.  Stackers are fairly inexpensive.  You can find some in my etsy shop here, I only have a few left of Primrose Garden.  Well with our further ado, lets find out how to make these super beautiful blocks.

Have many of you have seen the Disney Movie UP?  Isn’t it such a cute sweet movie. Loved it. My favorite parts are usually with the talking dogs.  I think it is because I relate a lot to them.  I totally act like them when it comes to fabric, and crafty things.  You know the part where the dog is talking and then all of a sudden stops and blurts out ‘Squirrel!’.  Yep, that’s me in a fabric or craft store.  This can be problematic when trying to narrow down my selections of fabrics.  But that’s where the fabric industry comes in saving everyone like me a lot of trouble.  They invented these great things called pre cuts!   Love them, they are pre cut stacks or rolls of fabric from individual fabric lines all in one nice and neat ready to sew package.  But then my biggest problem comes down to what do I do with a stack of 10” squares, sew them all together? Boring.  So it was time to switch it up a bit.  And that’s where this tutorial comes in.

No need to cut out squares, already done! Saves me time already, I like it.  Throw some borders around the block and it is an A+ eye catcher.  You friends and family will think you spent hours and days matching up fabric and patterns, and piecing, and it won’t take you more than an afternoon to throw together! Let’s get started on how to piece this block!

Today I am just posting on how to piece these blocks together.  It is up to you how ever you want to finish your quilt, I added borders and sashing, making each block stand alone in all it's glory.

Supplies

1- 20 Block 10” Stacker

                *I Used Country Girls from Riley Blake Designs it had 21 blocks so I didn’t use one block*

Tools

Cutting Mat

Quilting ruler

Rotary cutter

Pins, Thread, Sewing machine

Cutting the Blocks

1.       Before any cutting can commence you first need to open your stacker and admire the fabric. My favorite part J *sigh*. 

2.       Now that you have your squares laid out, you can now pair them together however you want.  One way that helps me is I try to find contrasting colors that look nice together.

3.       Take your first pair of 10” blocks, stacking them on top of one another (saves cutting time) line them up super good and make these cuts starting from the left               Measure over 3” and cut
               Measure over 4” and cut
 Total strips and measurement for 1 block are 2- 3” strips and 1- 4” strip

First I want to give a huge shout out and thank you to everyone that participated in our giveaway! It was so much fun teaming up with Katherine over at Bitty Bugs.  I sure hope everyone who commented or liked us on Facebook, and all the other social media settings will continue to check out what we are up to.  

OK so you want to know who the winner is of my 5" Treasure Map stacker from Riley Blake Designs?  Kristin Coe!  Congrats!  I will be contacting you with a personal message and more info on your awesome prize! Please respond withing 24 hours to claim your prize. As for the circle skirt winner, well you just have to click on over to Bitty Bugs to find out.  And I had so much fun doing a giveaway I just might do something for Christmas!

I promised you one more thing,  I am giving you a sneak peak at the quilt top tutorial I have been working on.  It's super cute, and super easy! Yeah don't you just love cute and easy?!  I do. Have a great day! Do something crafty!  

Alright, are you so ready to pump out this super easy,cute, and snugly project?And if you want to know more about my team up with Bitty Bugs  and our Giveaway going on read to the bottom for more info! 

If you have a friend about to have a baby this is a great gift that doesn’t take too much time.  It only took me an afternoon from start to finish (including kid interruptions).  And if you skip the quilt top and just use a solid piece of fabric, takes an hour tops.  One of the great things about this project is you don’t have to pre wash anything!  The pre cut squares are ready to go, and minky doesn't need pre washing so this is something you can pull out and start sewing!  

I briefly mentioned in my first quilt top tutorial on how to square up your fabric.  I said I would post later on how to do that, and in the mean time just to Google it if you had any questions.  Well I am finally living up to my word. Here is a quick tutorial on how to square up your fabric to get ready to cut all those lovely exact little pieces for your quilt top.  Measuring, I have found, is the key to a beautifully pieced and mostly no headache quilting. So without more jabbering here is how to square up!

Tools
Rotary cutter
Cutting mat 
A very long ruler or yardstick (I would love to have a nice metal one, my mom had one growing up, but for           now I had a home depot yardstick that cost me $0.68 laying around, it works fine.

Materials
Pre-washed Fabric that needs square up

1. After your fabric is washed I find that ironing helps me get my fabric squared up faster and nicer
2. Take your fabric and fold it in half with the selvage edges together
3. Iron it nice and flat and smooth
4. The raw edge where it has been cut won't line up nice and perfect like the selvage edges, that's why we are square it up, so don't about those edges yet. Make sure the selvage edges are lined up perfect.
5. After you have iron out any wrinkle move over to the cutting mat.