12.31.10

Are you ready to ring in the New Year tonight?? I have a lot of crafting to do before counting down to 2011, but I wanted to share a few things first. I have been busy making more birthday cards, this time for my Grandma's Birthday Calendar - thankfully we decided to celebrate Christmas on January 2nd with my mom's side which gave me more time to get her book in order and filled with cards! Here are just a couple that I have made. (I can't wait until I can take pictures outside again, it's so hard to get good lighting in my house.)

When I get bored with birthday cards, I switch to quilting. Here's a shot off all the fabric cut into strips just waiting to be stitched together. From the blue print to the first set of thin brown strips will be one quilt and from the green print to the second set of thin brown strips will be the other.

Yesterday, I managed to sew all the strips for one quilt together and get them cut into squares!! And even though it was late, I couldn't resist laying the squares out to see if I actually liked the fabrics we picked. Good News: I do!!

The agenda for today includes more birthday cards and a few anniversary ones as well and sewing the strips for the second quilt! Sometime this afternoon we will be heading down to some friends house to welcome 2011! I even bought myself a bottle of sparkling grape juice for the celebration!

Have a wonderful, safe and happy New Year's Eve! Thanks for stopping by!

~Anika

The post of Randomness

I have several random things to share with you today. The first being the cards and gifts my students' made for their parents. We started out by making these cards, they always love using my Cuttlebug!

Then we stamped lunch bags, added a container of Hot Cocoa and topped it off with some candy canes and marshmallows that we dipped it chocolate. I think they turned out pretty cute and I hope the parents appreciate it!

Next up is the Birthday Calendar book I made my mom for Christmas. I just adore this cover which was inspired by the layout of a card Maile Belles did awhile back (if I'm remembering correctly).

Today I was able to go shopping with my best friend! All through high school we would make trips to the fabric store to pick out material for miscellaneous projects...garters and dresses for prom, dresses for a Madrigal Dinner, numerous altered shirts in support of our school's athletic teams, the list could go on and on! Now that she lives on the West Coast and I'm still in Wisconsin, our shopping adventures are few and far between, but today we were able to head back to the fabric store for baby quilt material! Here is what will **hopefully** turn into 2 beautiful baby quilts in the coming weeks...

I pre-washed it all when I got home and am in the process of pressing it so I can start cutting the strips and squares tomorrow. I figure if I don't get a good start on them before I head back to school next week, all I will have in April is a pile of fabric! I have a pretty easy pattern picked out so it should be pretty smooth sailing if I can manage to cut the pieces out without any mistakes!

Wish me luck!

Hope you are recovering from your Christmas celebrations and gearing up for the New Year!

~Anika

Winter in Wisconsin

No card to share today, although I did make a bunch yesterday while watching the snow fall! We were told to expect a blizzard beginning Friday night and lasting through Saturday. So I managed to talk my husband into going for dinner Friday evening and finding a place to take our Christmas picture. (I had been putting it off, waiting for the baby bump to grow a bit more.) We took my brother in law along as our photographer. Here is the picture we ended up with...

(There is no way I would go out in short sleeves now, but it actually wasn't too bad at the time...but maybe that's just the pregnancy heat wave talking!)

Sure enough, we woke up Saturday morning to blowing and drifting snow that lasted all day! It was really hard to tell how much snow we were getting since we live on a relatively wide open hill where it blows all over the place. A few trucks in our neighborhood ventured out and this car made an attempt...but it was a huge fail!

It wasn't until this morning that we even attempted to go out in the mess! At about 9:30 we were still waiting for the city plow to come by when my dad came by. He had to plow a path on the road to get to our driveway. (Not sure why our street is last on the plow list...it's noon now and there is still no sign of the plow.)

Anyway, see that big bare spot on the driveway?? All the snow that was supposed to be there, blew up against our garage door instead!

Andrew and a neighbor worked on shoveling that while my dad took care of the rest of the driveway and I stayed warm and dry in the house! (At least I have a good excuse for not being out there this year!)

Now that we can actually drive out of our garage and down the road, we are headed out with my parents to a bakery for a Christmas Cookie Exchange. For $45, we get to sample about 30 kinds of cookies while sipping on Hot Cocoa and Cider, then we can pick 12 dozen of our favorites to take home! As much as I love to bake cookies this time of year, I don't really think this deal can be beat - especially since my kitchen won't need to be cleaned up afterwards!!

Enjoy your day!

~Anika