FNSI and IHSW results :)

First - my FNSI results:

 I know I showed you pictures of Sweetwater fabric

and I said I was going to sew curtains.......but......

I didn't have enough fabric to make the style

of curtains that my daughter in law wanted :(

I did, however, 

have a project that needed my attention.

2 of my grandsons needed me to replace

some of their little felt dinosaurs 

that had been loved to death :)

You can read more about the dinos here.

So I cut and stitched these little guys for them.

They were super happy to have 

their "Kung Fu Dino Posse" complete again!

Now for my International Hermit & Stitch Weekend result:

I finished my "America" by Little House Needleworks

It is stitched on 32ct evenweave over 1 thread.

I love to stitch super tiny crosses over 1.

It looks so compact and bold.

I changed out all the colors to what I liked

that I had on hand.

And last, but not least

some of the Father's Day fun

that I was working on:

Every year I made a special Father's Day card

for my hubby.

It's his favorite thing 

and he looks forward to it more than Christmas!

You can see some of his previous cards here.

This year I went with Despicable Me :)

(I love me some Minions!!!)

Took me an entire day

to cut out  those tiny blue overalls

and those goggles were tricky too!

Those are our 4 grandsons and 2 granddaughters.

He loved his card!

Now I have another year to start

planning his next card :)

I also made some mug rugs for my hubby

and our son and son in law.

I used fabrics to match their offices

and phrases that they each use

that would make them smile :)

I baked up some chocolate chip cookies for the Dad's at church.

I found these great free printable labels on the net.

Gotta love the Internet!

All in all it was a busy weekend.

We had a fabulous Father's Day with all our children

and grandchildren :)

Hope yours was lovely too!

Traditions

It's funny how traditions get started. 3 years ago I made my hubby a fun Father's Day card with photos of him and our grandsons and it became his instant favorite. Seeing that today is Father's Day it's time to unveil the custom Father's Day card for 2011. He told me the other night that it's the thing he most looks forward to each year!.....no pressure...right?

He does sooo much for me every single day that it makes me happy if I can do something that makes him smile! This year's card is my version of an old John Wayne movie poster. The hubs is a huge fan of the Duke :) When I came across this poster, I knew it would be perfect. If you look closely you can see our 4 grandsons and our new little Sofia as well. He was so happy with it he had to show it at church this morning :)

This is the card that really started it all. I made this card in 2009 for Father's Day. At the time we had 3 grandsons. A lot has changed :) Since I had photos of each of them wearing helmets at different times I wanted to incorporate them into one card. I did a lot of paper piecing, cutting out their little bodies and cars. I used ribbon for the highway and brads for the hubcaps on the cars. This one still makes me laugh :)

Besides being a fan of the Duke, my darling hubby loves Star Trek. So last year I made him this card with our son and son-in-law together with my hubby on the front of the card and then my hubby with our 4 grandsons on the inside of the card. I make these cards by printing out the background pictures I find online and then going through my photo files and try to find pictures that will match up to replace the original actors. Then I cut them out and glue them in place. I know I can do it in Photoshop, but I love the look of layering real photos on top of these backdrops. The main thing is that my hubby really loves them and displays them in his office all year long. He asked me today to check into having them framed. That makes it all worth it. So I guess I've created a tradition in our household. I'm already thinking about what next year's card will look like :)

Also for the Dad's at church I made Caramel & Bacon Popcorn from a recipe I found at a cool blog called Zakka Life. You can get the recipe here. I don't know about the men around your home, but all you have to do around here is mention bacon and you have their attention!

I went to MarthaStewart.com and got these great free Father's Day printables to

finish off the project. All the Dad's were pretty excited to receive these today :)

Pressed for time...

A week ago we attended A Night of Film, an annual event that is put on by The Veracity Project (our very talented son-in-law is co-founder of the Veracity Project) and at one point during the evening, one of film directors made the statement that "if you want to inspire an artist....just give them a deadline". I don't consider myself and artist, but more a crafter, but for me the same holds true. There are things I feel like doing at a particular time, and others I leave for later. (That is probably why I have so many projects only 1/2 done ) I tell myself that I have plenty of time to get to it. Of course, I wait until the last minute and I'm always surprised by what I come up with when I'm down to the wire. I think I do some of my most creative thinking when I'm pressed for time. My dear friend Terri asked me a few weeks ago to make some blank "Thank you" cards to give to a friend of hers that is battling cancer. There will be a fund raiser event for her on Saturday and Terri thought it would be nice if her friend had some cards to use to thank all the people who have given their support. I made 2 each of 6 different designs. I don't know Terri's friend, but I know cancer. My niece just had a cancerous tumor removed from her thyroid. My best friend survived colon cancer. My mom survived cervical cancer. I lost my dad to lung cancer. I lost my grandfather to prostate cancer.  Cancer impacts us all. Pretty much everyone I know has had a loved one diagnosed with cancer or has had cancer themselves. There are wonderful people who suffer greatly in this life. It's hard to wrap your head around. I stopped trying to understand it. I find peace in my faith in Christ.

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

It's all in the cards...

I don't really know when I started making cards. I guess I made my share as a child.You know the kind - a piece of notebook paper folded in half and a hand drawn picture for your mom :) I've always loved art in many forms. I've tried my hand at so many different things and although I can't say that I'm a master at any of them, the only thing that really stumped me was knitting. I was ready to stab myself in the eye with my knitting needles by the time I finally gave up on knitting. I admit defeat...I'll take the zero. Luckily for me there are alot of other crafty things to fill my time with and I'll leave knitting to the people who are good at it :) Card making is really just another opportunity for me to use my scrapbooking supplies in a fun way. I've learned alot of fun techniques from watching tutorials on YouTube. Believe it or not you can learn how to do just about anything on YouTube. Who knew? So here are a few of my cards (the ones I actually remembered to take pictures of )

It was all about the boys!

Yesterday was such a wonderful day! Sometimes I tend to over-think "special days" and expect things to go a certain way and sometimes everything just unfolds into a beautiful series of moments that become lasting memories. Yesterday (maybe because I've stopped over-thinking everything) turned out to be a really lovely Father's Day. The last thing that my husband said to me before we drifted off to sleep was "Thank you for today. It was really awesome." I am so blessed in my life to have such a loving family! God is so good! So here are the pics of the Father's Day card I made for the hubby.



He's a major Star Trek fan. Not the kind that dresses up in costumes and goes to the conventions (although I'm sure that if I went with him, he'd love to go but I have to draw the line somewhere). Anywayzers.....he's a fan of the "Captain Kirk" era as well as "Captain Piquard" next generation era. I think it came out pretty good. He loved it and kept picking it up and laughing.

We had a yummy lunch after church and then we all went out into the backyard so the boys (big and little) could play with their water guns. The only sad part of the day was that my oldest grandson was struggling with his asthma and couldn't really run amok as he normally would. Good news is that he's doing better today.