I really love the way they both turned out. One of the best parts? The blankets are backed with minky fabric.
They're really luscious. My husband compared them to the truffles of quilts. The outside is crisp and smooth and the inside is soft.
The above two quilts are for my two sisters, but I didn't want to leave out Henry. Here is the beginning of baby boy quilt #3.
I made this quilt for the Babe's big girl bed. When I picked out the individual colors, I thought they looked fun together. When it was all done, it was really bright.
It's the first time I've done binding on a quilt that was separate fabric from the backing. I like it!
This was the husband's:
And this was mine, "Prego Peterson":
It was a fun way to make the announcement.
For Halloween last year, I wanted to really break in my new sewing machine and make my costume. In my excitement I picked an overly ambitious project, especially considering this is the first dress I’ve ever sown.
I also didn’t measure myself and relied on the size chart to pick my pattern. Big mistake. After spending untold hours cutting fabric and sewing the bodice, I learned that sewing sizes are completely different than store sizes. My dress was 4 sizes too small! I was devastated. I’d spent too much time and money to just quit, so I was convinced I would have to sell my dress on ebay because it would never fit me. The husband gave me a good pep talk shortly after this discovery and reminded me that I am the MacGyver of crafting and I could make it work for me. I took that to heart, ripped a few seams, and added fabric inconspicuously. It worked! If I entered a sewing contest I wouldn’t win any prizes, and perhaps it's slightly ill-fitting, but as a Halloween costume, I think it was stunning.
Plus it was fun to spin in, and that, truly, is the measure of a good costume.
I wanted something that would keep her happy and quiet for an hour of church. This is close.
The first page is a mailbox with removable envelopes.
In the envelopes I put flat things, like buttons and fabric flowers and stickers. She loves taking stuff out and putting it all back together.
This next page is my favorite, but also the most frustrating. I never worked with metal eyelets before, but I now know they are no good on felt. They need to be used on stronger material (like canvas) or they will just fall off.
But the prize for opening each element is a fun texture. In the shoe is a fleece mouse which you can't see in this photo.
The last page is a shape tree. All the shapes come off and can be put in the little blue pocket. Or piled in the corner of the closet in the office, which is where I found all the shapes last week. That is one disadvantage to having removable parts - they're bound to get lost. Luckily, these are all pretty easy to make again if it comes to that.
That's it! I made two of these books at the same time, which consumed TONS of my time right before Christmas. I didn't get any pictures of the second book, but it's basically the same. In the future, if I ever make one of these again, I need to remember to reinforce the fabric for the pages. The thin fabric needs a thick interfacing or I need to use a thicker, stronger fabric. This just feels too flimsy to stand up to some of the velcro dots, unfortunately. I hope it will last, anyway.
Check out the blog here.
We're big Jimmer Fredette fans around here. I made these shirts at the request of my husband. We used printable iron-on fabric transfers and I designed the graphic.
I've done commissioned pieces before, but this was the first book cover. When I originally thought of cover ideas, they all had scenes from the book or action poses of the lead character, but my first instruction was: NO humans. Humans are kind of my forte, so this posed a new challenge for me. I decided to do the cover graphically rather than in paint or other raw media.
I know most people probably won't even care, or notice, the font, but I see it and all I can think of is all the work it still needs! Oh well. I also designed a progressive swirling "blast" graphic for the head of each chapter.
The below image also represents a blog post I did for work explaining how to make digital stickers with dingbats in Photoshop for digital scrapbookers. Writing tutorial type blogs takes a lot of effort! Probably the most elaborate effort I took for a blog post tutorial was this one from last year about making calendars. Whew, I'm exhausted just looking at how long it is. But it inspired some people, and that was the point.
This photo below is my niece, Sofie. I designed the frame(s) as a product to sell and I really like how they turned out and how they work together on this photo. This "shabby chic" style is still popular after going strong for like five years. I still like the style myself, but I'm anxious to see what predominant fad will come next. (As a designer, I always want to be on top of those sort of things.)
For another work blog post I went a little mason jar crazy. Below isn't even all of the labels I made, these are just the ones I have photos of. My canning adventures with tomatoes and peaches will have to wait for a different, non-work post.
Another product I designed that I was pleased with was a dingbat designed to be used as simple jack-o-lantern patterns. To demonstrate, I had to carve one myself, of course.
I also did a whole shebang of Halloween decor, but I've already blogged about that here and here, so no need to beat a dead horse.
And here is the after:
It's bright! I like it for now, but I can see myself growing tired of it. Hmm, what's next on my spray painting list...
Does anyone know how to make oatmeal look good in a photo? I just got a lot of gross shots. Does anyone know how to make oatmeal taste good without adding loads of sugar? 
I like these kind of crafts, the kind that take less than a half hour but look nicer than that.
I'm not really fond of the font I used for "GRACE" so one day I might change it. I really like the font for "finds beauty in everything" and if you're interested you can find it here.
I have begun my big new old-fashioned food experiment. I have to admit, this is the first time I've made whole wheat bread! This is also the first time I've ground my own wheat! And not as surprising, this is the first time I've soaked flour overnight in buttermilk! All in all it turned out pleasantly.
The recipe I used was from here. I halved the recipe, left out all the optional ingredients and the dough inhancer, and *ahem* accidentally started with an extra cup of flour. I'm not so good at halving recipes in my head. I kind of expected a flaming disaster and a soaring success all at once. What I got was somewhere inbetween-closer to the success side. The texture was perfect! I could've sold it at the grocery store and competed with Grandma Sycamore. The bread was tasty, too. However soaking in buttermilk left a sourdough tang that I don't know if I really love. It's not bad, but it's not for everything.
The point of this experiment, though, is not to make things that are out-of-this-world delicious. The point of this experiment is to see if eating homemade foods prepared with old-fashioned techniques helps me feel better and digest food better. The more I think about it, the more daunting this experiment can be. The only way to really know the difference is if I am consistant and replace ALL my bread with this bread, and ALL my grains with soaked grains (or the like). 
I had envisioned just what I wanted, but decided to look online to see if there were some examples of how to do it. I couldn't find any examples of just what I wanted. I found some tiny wire flowers with stretched sheer fabric, but I wanted quilting fabric. So I made it up.
I must say, I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out. They've really cheered up the room. I still want to make a few more smaller ones to trail around the wall, but I probably won't get to them for awhile. 
I used 20 gage floral wire to keep the petals stiff and assembled them all together in floral foam. They were easy to hang on the wall--I just poked a hole in the foam and voila! As I was making these I wondered to myself how many hundreds of people had made the very same sort of thing, but any photos just hadn't made it to the top of the google image searches. All the supplies can be found at Walmart. I wonder these sort of things about my crafts often... "how many people are making this very same thing right now..."
I started with a layer of vanilla ice cream, followed by a layer of homemade caramel topped with peanuts, then a layer of chocolate cake. Repeat. Cover it all with dark chocolate ganache. Take the remaining ganache, whip it up with some more cream and dollop it on the top. Drop snickers candy bar slices on each dollop, and Happy Father's Day!
I've always wanted an herb garden in my kitchen window. I finally have a south-facing kitchen window so my dream can become a reality!!! This makes me so happy! You know what else makes me happy? This red pot.
One of the first things I did when I unpacked my kitchen was to find my Christmas Cookbook and christen my new kitchen with it's deliciousness. This photo was taken several days after I made the bread. The loaf was HUGE! I used store-bought pesto, but in the future I want to experiment with some homemade pesto. The bread was delicious, but the pesto was a little too tangy on the first day. It mellowed out perfectly by the second day, though.
