We have a House! And a wedding.

Our story has had some ups and downs lately.  We moved back to Idaho from Seattle and thought we had a townhouse to move back into.  It was all set, we checked it out, it was getting cleaned and then we'd be good to move in.  Until it was sold!?!  We were never told it was on the market so imagine our surprise!  That was on Thursday.  So I checked out 7 houses on Friday.  We talked with the owner on Saturday and started moving in on Sunday.  We are still very much Not set up, so I have not been doing much crafting.  Hence these last few posts have been older crafts.  So here's today's.  

My husband's niece (my niece as well I guess?  It was weird to marry and suddenly be an aunt to 9 kids) got married in January.  (She's not a kid, I guess).  With her parents both being teachers and not much time for planning/creating her wedding, I volunteered to come help for the week before since I didn't start school until after the wedding.

I had all sorts of fun, checking out thrift stores (where we got these cute metal baskets that I got to keep in the end!) to find cheap but cute ways to decorate.  I got to try these string balls, wrapped around balloons.  It was messy, but it was fun and they looked awesome.  We made some (close to 100) tissue paper flowers as well, the big ones!  No pictures of those.

For her shower I made her some pillow cases (and I was nice and gave her pillows inside the cases as well.)  I saw these somewhere (and for some reason I took a picture of them on my computer screen instead of bookmarking or pinning them).  So off to JoAnn I went!

I like them!  I made simple envelope back cases.  I used Martha Stewarts tutorial. The hard part was freezer paper stenciling the letters on.  We printed the writing out and my husband and I slaved away with exacto knives, trying to cut tiiiiiny lines out.  We were a little off on the spacing of the words, but I think it still looks awesome. They love Dr. Who so I tried to get a Tardis-ish blue.  Not that you would think that looking at it.  But I thought of it.

To make them a little more exciting I decided to add a button placket on Mr. Right's, just taking a strip of fabric, folding it in 3rds and stewing it on an angle on the case.  I sewed the buttons on after (I think they're still pinned in this picture!)

For Mrs. Always Right I made some ruffles.  To be honest, I can't remember the method I used, but I'm going to guess it was the - sew down the middle with a basting stitch (twice, perhaps?) and pull them to create the ruffle, then I stitched it down the center of the ruffle on the opposite corner of the Mr.'s.  Just for a little necessary girliness.  

I also found these Amazing shoes at target for $10.  Green and shiny silver, I loooove them!

It also snowed like crazy.  That's my car.  I think it looks like a giant monster took a swat at it.  So much snow.

I also made my first bouquet.  Just roses.  Simple is good for me.  But I think it turned out great.  I made two boutonnieres for Mr. Right as well, but I wasn't great at pictures this trip, so no pictures. 

I hope you've enjoyed my trip down memory lane.

See you soon!

(with pictures of a new craft room?  and a new craft??)

Some Inspiration

Life is crazy sometimes.  My husband and I just moved back to Idaho after a 2 month stint in Salt Lake and Seattle.  Of course, we don't have an apartment yet because our previous landlord decided to sell the place, so we're momentarily homeless. 

We are super lucky to have amazing friends who let us crash with them.  I have an idea on how to thank them for this, but I'll keep it secret for now.

We should have a home by the end of the week.  Which would be lovely since my body is telling me I'm stressed.  I keep getting new illnesses that I've never had before and I think it's related to moving, not having a home, starting classes for the semester, starting orchestra again and having my husband working nights.  

On a happy note, these are all images from the Museum of Glass in Tacoma which is soooooo cool!  The best part was the hot shop, a giant cone where they do live glass blowing.  They have guest artists come in and you sit in the stadium seats along one wall and watch them work.  Someone with a microphone explains the process and they have some videos to watch to introduce the artists and their processes.  It was amazing.  (They also have live feed from their hot shop that you can watch on their website!  In case you're not near Tacoma).

I've been seeing quilt designs in everything I look at lately.  It's an exciting but dangerous new vision to have.  For now, though, I have made the promise to only work on 1 (one) quilt at a time.  I read about a lot of quilters that have 20 odd quilts on their list of Works in Progress and I don't know how they do it!  I also don't make quilts any time I have inspiration for it.  I've decided it has to have a purpose, it has to have someone to go to and for a reason before I make it.  It's helping me limit myself and not letting quilting over run my life completely.  (Which part of me would love, but it would probably kill my love of quilting after a few weeks.  Or days.)  I need balance in my life and this is how I hope to maintain it. 

I also don't buy fabric to build up my stash.  I only buy what I need for the one quilt I'm working on.  My Whirlygig quilt was exciting because it didn't take much of the patterned fabric but I had to buy the minimum required 1/8 yd so I have a good amount of leftovers (in comparison to the handful of scraps I usually have).  But typically I try to get the exact amount I need plus a tiny bit of wiggle room.  Like a few inches max.  So I don't really have enough scraps/stash to make any scrappy/stashy quilts yet.  Eventually I will, but for now, I get to shop for every quilt!

This last picture is from the Museum of Flight.  Theres a place there where you can listen to the actual tower workers talking.  Behind the screen is the air strip where the planes land.  And this picture is showing all the planes that were in the air (I think either leaving from or heading to North America) at that time.  Each dot is an airplane!  I don't think I ever thought of how many planes were in the air at a time, but if you had asked me, I would not have guessed this many.  There you go.  Fun mind-blowing information.

See you soon!

(with some more crafting?...meaning hopefully with less unwellness...)