Quilting Week Three: Sewing Your Hearts

Ok, it's confession time. It takes a long time to cut out the hearts, right? I have 40 cut out. How about you? Have you cut all 80 out yet? How about just one? Since I'm half way through, I decided to take a break cutting and sew my hearts. Either way, let's continue the process and sew our hearts to the muslin square.
I promise this part is super easy!

**(Sorry about this image being sideways, for some reason blogger won't let me put it horizontal.)
Lay out 3-5 muslin pieces and line them up evenly. Then lay one heart on each square. I do this so they will all look even. It doesn't have to be totally perfect, but you want them to be pretty close. So I just eyeball them.

Then use 3 pins to secure your heart to the muslin square.

There are a lot of different ways to sew your heart on. I chose the most simple way, which is to use a straight stitch. Sew as close to the edge as you can. If you want it to fray a little more, you don't have to sew it as close. I chose this stitch because when we go back to actually quilt everything, we will use the same stitch again.

That's that.

If it's any consolation, using the interfacing under the hearts makes the sewing much easier.

It's pretty quick, and definitely satisfying. Now the quilt is really starting to come together!

Next week we will be sewing all of the muslin squares together.

If you have any pictures of your progress, I would love to see them.

Leave me a comment with a link to your blog so we can see what fabrics you have chosen and where you're at.

Once again, please also leave any questions you may have and I'll answer them in the comment section as well.

If you want to go back at all, here are the links again:
Week One: Supplies You'll Need

Week Two: Cutting Your Fabrics

Don't forget about this awesome give-away either. You can enter up to three times!

AWESOME frame GIVE-AWAY! (for TWO winners!)

The super sweet people over at All Children’s Furniture, who carry amazing children's items like kids chairs, kids decor, and toys, have offered up an amazing give-away on my blog! For not just one person, but for TWO lucky ducks!

They have a very large variety of products, and often times many of these products are on sale. I found so many things there that I would love to use in my home. Unfortunately, I don't get to enter a give-away contest that I'm hosting...:)


The two lucky winners will each have the opportunity to pick a set of frames from the following selections:

1. Heirloom black and white set

2. Maya Pink and Brown

3. Max Blue and Brown
4. Trendy green and brown

Here are the rules:
1) leave a comment for one chance and tell me which set of frames you will choose if you win
2) blog about it with a link back to this post
3) Be(come) a follower to my blog.

Make sure you leave a comment for each entry.

This giveaway will be closed at midnight Sunday and a winner will be announced on Monday.
Good luck!!:)
xo
Chrissie

Thrifty Treasures

I found this tall skinny shelf at Goodwill for $4.99. I love the color and the natural distressing. I'm planning on making a huge posie to cover up that country heart.

This Demdaco frame was only 99 cents at Goodwill.

How sanitary is it to buy used salt and pepper shakers? They are dishwasher safe, but I'm still getting the heeby-jeeby factor for some reason. I don't know, but I love the color and they were $1.99 for the set.

Do you see a color theme going on here? This cute quilted bag (in browns and blues again!) washed really well and will work great for "art on the go" bag. ~$1.99~

Does anyone else have an "art on the go" bag? It's for those moments that you have to wait, like in the car line at school or at a Doctor's appt., etc. Small embroidery projects, inspirational art and home decor magazines, and small pieces of paper to cut for some decoupage or usually in my bag. Does anyone else do that or am I just that addicted to crafts?:)

On another note, here's a silly joke I heard at church today:

A preacher trained his horse to go when he said, "Praise the Lord," and to stop when he said, "Amen". The preacher mounted the horse, said, "Praise the Lord" and went for a ride. When he wanted to stop for lunch, he said, "Amen". He took off again, saying, "Praise the Lord". The horse started going toward the edge of the cliff. The preacher got excited and said, "Whoa!". Then he remembered and said, "Amen", so the horse stopped at the edge. The preacher was so relieved that he looked up to heaven and said, "Praise the Lord!"

Thanks for looking! Now head over to Rhoda's for some more great finds.

xo
Chrissie

Art Camp

I had the priviledge of hanging out with these 8 girls this week during my second art camp. These girls were so much fun, so eager to learn, and so full of grace.
The camp lasted three days so on the first day we worked with clay. They spent a lot of time and hard work making these coil pots...

...and these large tiles. I loved how each one was so unique and really showed the girl's different personalities.

On the second day they glazed their pots and we loaded up the kiln. We were all so excited to see how everything would come out the next morning!

Imagine my horror the next morning when I woke up and eagerly ran out to my garage and opened up the kiln.

Yes...

that is the girl's work.

Blown up into a million pieces.

Y'all, my heart sank. I almost cried. My stomach was churning and churning. I've had this kiln for almost 4 years and I've never lost anything.

I waited for them to come and I was expecting tears and devastation...

But every single one of those girls were okay. They were more than okay. They were like, "It's no big deal. Can we make another one?"

Full of grace, I tell you. Not a tear was shed. They were happy to make something new.

They were totally awesome.

We also made abstract self-portraits. I forgot to take pictures after the glue had dried. They used watercolors and colored chalks to finish them off.
Remember my posie tutorial? I gave them free reign over my scrapbooking papers and they made lots and lots of posies.

We also painted bags with fabric paint and made mandala's.

It was a great time:)

'Nuff said!

Quilting Week Two: Cutting The Fabrics

It's time to cut our fabric! Some of you are using fabric, and some of you are using clothes that your children have outgrown. For Ava's quilt, I'm using a combination of both. The process is the same for both.
1. Pick out your piece of clothing (or fabric.)
2. I made a 6 x 6" template out of cardboard. Lay it on your fabric and loosely cut around it so you have a piece of fabric .

3. I just wanted to show you it doesn't have to be perfect.

4. Iron your fabric to the fusible interfacing. This gives the fabric a sturdiness, which will make cutting out your hearts much easier.

5. Print out this template to use for the hearts.

6. Pin your template on the fabric.

7. Cut around the template.

8. Here is a picture of your fabric heart. Now do that 79 more times!:)

9. To cut your muslin, cut 14 (6 1/2" -wide) strips.

10. Now cut your strips into 84 (6 1/2" x 6 1/2") squares.

11. You will have 84 muslin squares and 80 fabric hearts. ( When we cut the fabric for the borders later, we will make 4 more hearts for the corners of the quilt.)

Cutting all this fabric is a little time consuming, but I thought it was fun, and easy. Next week we will be sewing the hearts to the squares!

If you would like to make this quilt with us, go back to Quilting Week One to start.

I can't wait to see what fabrics you ladies have chosen. I personally used a lot of Ava's clothing and fabric scraps that I already had, so all 80 of my hearts are different!
Again, if you have any questions, leave a comment and I (or one of our quilting buddies) will answer it in the comments as well.
Have fun!

I don't want to jinx myself...

...but I dare say I'm enjoying cooking something new every week. I used to hate to cook.
I've always loved to eat:)
I've mentioned before that we are on the Dave Ramsey plan, and food is one item in your budget that has a lot of give. To feed my husband and I and four of our children, we have a budget of $150 a week on groceries.
We do cut some coupons, but I save the most money by planning my meals for the week and shopping for those items only, aside from fresh fruit, veggies, and the normal neccessities (milk, bread, eggs, etc.)
I also try to "use what I have" all week long.
Since I've been participating in Jen's Tasty Tuesdays, I've been challenging myself to try one new recipe a week. It's actually been a fun challenge for myself. I've also noticed that my kids want to help me cook, and it's something new we've enjoyed doing together. I've been trying to get fish in once a week, so here is a recipe I got from Rachel Ray:
Ingredients:

• 4 tbls extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 medium red onion (chopped)
• 2 large garlic cloves, chopped
• 1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• salt and pepper
• juice of 2 limes
• 2 tbls honey
• 1 tsp chili powder
• 4 6 oz salmon fillets
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 1 10 oz. box of frozen corn (or fresh)
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 15 oz. can of black beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 tbls fresh cilantro leaves, chopped
• 6 cups of baby spinach

Preheat a medium skillet over medium heat with 2 tbls of EVOO. Add the onions, garlic, red pepper flakes, cumin, salt, and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes.

While the onions are cooking, preheat a medium non-stick skillet over medium-high heat with the remaining 2 tbls of EVOO. In a shallow dish, combine the juice of 1 lime, honey, chili powder, salt, and pepper. Add the salmon fillets to the lim-honey mixture and toss to coat thoroughly. Add the seasoned salmon to the hot skillet and cook unitl just cooked through, about 3 to 4 minutes on each side.

To the cooked onions, add the bell peppers and corn kernels and cook for 1 minute. Add the chicken broth and continue to cook for another 2 minutes. Add the black beans and cook until the beans are just heated through. Remove the skillet from the heat and add the juice of the second lime, the cilantro, and spinach. Toss to wilt the spinach and then taste to adust the seasoning. Serve the salmon on top of the warm black bean and corn salad.

My husband and I loved it, but the kids thought it was...ok at best.And they aren't what I consider picky eaters.
I would make it again, but it definitely won't be a "regular" item on my menu.
(oh, and cutting those red onions are a booger! I cried and cried...what's the trick to that?)