Quilts - Appliqué

My friend, Sharon is an amazing artist. Her medium? Fabric! She makes the greatest quilts out of the tiniest of fabric pieces. Her mind is an endless resource for creative quilt art.

This quilt is named "Jungle Jim" and is full of bright colors, designs and stitching. Sharon also has a softer side as depicted in the below quilt that is yet to be titled. What would you name it? What I love about this quilt is the 3-D effects throughout (see the daisies?). I love how Sharon took a traditional craft and made it contemporary! I hope you are as inspired as I am.

Writing - Journal Cigar Box

I've always enjoyed writing but when it came to keeping a baby book on my girls I failed miserably. I remember as a kid looking at my older brother, Tim's baby book filled out so nicely. When I looked at my big sister, Shelly's baby book it had a few details written in. But no matter how hard I looked there was no baby book for me or my baby sister, Cathe. What happened?

When you have your own baby you soon find out what happens! You can document in your prettiest handwriting the baby's first sneeze and hiccup or you can sleep.

I have kept a journal most of my life and just couldn't NOT write about the fun things my little darlings said, got in to, caused, or created. The journal cigar box was born.

I picked up the cigar box at a local humidor because I thought it was pretty not to mention free. I sat it on my night stand next to my bed and filled it with little snippets of memories. Regardless of where I was or what writing resources I had I would write about whatever my little girls did.

In my cigar box are dated entries on paper coasters, napkins, torn box tops, scratch paper and receipts. Here are some of my favorites:

This is a little entry I wrote 20 years ago when my daughter Stephenie was five. I hope you can read the dialogue.

One night while tucking my little Elizabeth in she informed me that she didn't like potatoes and that's why she hadn't eaten them at dinner. I called out to Daddy to make a note that she didn't like potatoes. Just then Elizabeth yelled out, "And write down that I don't like fruit-n-cotton-tail!" To this day, 14 years later we still call fruit cocktail 'fruit-n-cotton-tail'.

This is a little card Elizabeth filled out in school when she was 10 years old.

I love that she was 'usually happy'.

Don't let formality hold you back from documenting your children's life. When you get to my age you will be happy for any nugget that links you to those chubby cheek children of yesterday!

Construction - Week Four

The constant rain this week has halted work on the street. You can see by the photo that my little 'OPEN' sign shines bright in spite of the current demolitions. I'm not going to lie to you, my faithful reader, business has been affected. It's difficult to see that the stores on the construction block are open because your car cannot get close enough to see the signs, but WE ARE OPEN! So, grab your pals and spend the afternoon or 1st Friday together on C-Street. We'll be open until 10:00 pm (September 5th).