Chalk board rolls

So I was suppose to post yesterday I know but I didn't have a picture of what I wanted to post so I will just post something I do have a picture of Chalk board roll. These are way cute and I am sure kids will love them. They are made with chalk board material so you can draw on them with chalk. This one has a little pocket to hold chalk and eraser but I have also seen them where the chalk board material takes up the whole mat. These mats then roll up because the material is flexible and there are little ties to hold them together. These would be perfect for car rides or church. This picture is one I took of a mat that Ben Franklin (craft store) made but I was just going to make up my own pattern to make it what ever size I want. Both the chalk board material that you write on and the material that looks like a green chalk board my mother-in-law and I found at Ben Franklin so just look around at different craft/fabric stores in your area.

Great Resources

I have recently discovered the books for Dummies and I love them. they are so helpful and they have one for anything you can think of. I first got the digital photography for dummies and digital art photography for dummies. I am getting a new DSLR camera and was really excited to learn how to take more professional looking pictures. I just went to the library and checked out a bunch of books and the for dummies books were my favorite. I have since picked up Crocheting for dummies and knitting for dummies. My mom taught me how to crochet when I was younger, but I had never knitted before and I just taught myself how to do it last night using this book. I get the books from my local library, but is you are one of those people who would rather spent money half.com is a great place to buy books. They have lots of books for as low as 75 cents.
If you don't want to go to the library or buy books then just google what ever it is you want to learn and there are tons of sites out there. You can also get free patterns off the internet. I do this by googling free pattern and then what ever it is that I want a pattern of. When ever I find a site that I really like that has lots of free projects I add a link to my side bar so this website is also a good way to find things if you don't want to weed through all the websites yourself.

Fun, Fast and easy project

I am in big brothers big sisters and I meet with my little sister every week. DeDe (thats my little sister) wanted to make a stuff animal, but she has never sewn before so to teach her how to sew I helped her make a pillow case. This was very easy and a good first sewing project. I just used a pillow case I already had as a pattern. Since DeDe had never sewn before the hem line around the top of the pillow wasn't the straightest and we used white thread so it was very noticeable so we took matching ribbon and used iron on tape to attach it over the hem line. I think it looks really cute and no one can see that we didn't sew straight.

Breast Cancer Quilt

I finally finished the pink breast cancer quilt I was making for my grandma. this was the first quilt that I ever hand quilted. One tip I have for hand quilting is use a template. In each square I quilted either a flower or a breast cancer ribbon. The first square I did I just free handed the ribbon and it didn't turn out how I wanted so I got on the computer and found clipart pictures of a ribbon and two kinds of flowers blew them up to the size I wanted and printed them out and then used those to trace it with a quilting pen right on the quilt. It took me a year to finally finish this quilt. I started it last summer thinking that I could get it done before I saw my grandma in July, but it took me a couple of hours to quilt each square at first ( I got faster as I went) so I thought I would finish it before Christmas, but I came back from my grandma's pregnant and sick and the quilt got put away so after I had my baby I remembered I still hadn't finished the quilt so I got it out and finished it before I went to my grandma's this summer.

Cupcakes!

I started a new hobby. I decided that I wanted to learn cake decorating. I bought a cake decorating set from walmart and my first attempt were these cupcakes that I made for the SNDA bake sale at my husband's school. I thought they weren't bad for a first attempt. They sale all of their baked goods for $1 but one lady thought my cupcakes were with $2 so she paid $2 for one of my cupcakes. My favorite were the ones that I just used the star tip and covered the top of the cupcake. It is so easy but makes a cute cupcake. I added a little bit more detail by putting a different color poka dot in the middle of the stars.

Flood in Iowa

I have finished a lot of new projects but because of the flood in Iowa we left town and before that our internet was not working so check back in a few weeks and there should be an overload of new projects on here.

Dangly shell earrings

I made these earrings this week as a distraction while I was letting my baby cry herself to sleep. Both earrings were made by hanging 3 chains from an earing hook and then using jump rings connecting shell from the chain the green one also has other coordinating beads. The green earrings were made for my friend that moved away to Colorado today.