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It’s December!

We made it to December! Yay! And how was November? Let’s see…

  1. 30 scrapbook pages. Well, I didn’t get that done, but I did get 12 pages done! Most of them Project Life so I’m counting that as a win.
  2. Scrap every day. I didn’t accomplish this either, but I did scrap for 9/30 days which was pretty fabulous.
  3. November 2019 project life. Done!
  4. October 2020 project life. Done!
  5. December daily prep. Well, I ordered a kit, does that count? lol. I’m 99% sure I want to make my own travelers notebook so we’ll see how that works out. I might give up on that once I dive in tomorrow.
  6. Butterfly embroidery. I’ll be honest, I didn’t even look at this.
  7. Caterpillar embroidery. This either. ::sigh::
  8. Advent calendar. Well, I pulled it out and worked on it for exactly 1 day. Then I realized that 2020 is not the year for this. I have high hopes for 2021 though!
  9. Order Christmas cards. nope. I really need to get that done today or tomorrow. We even have great pictures this year!
  10. Quilt diamond quilt. I actually made a lot of progress on this, though I didn’t finish it. The center is all quilted and I’m working on the border.

I know it seems like I got almost nothing accomplished in November, (which is partially true lol) but I did spend quite a bit of time figuring out how to design, cut, and ship acrylic ornaments! Maybe I’ll write a blog post about that later this week. 🙂

December Goals.

  1. December 2019 Project Life. I only have 3 more spreads to do and the whole dang book will be done.
  2. November 2020 Project Life. ::sigh:: I’m falling behind on this, but once I wrap up 2019 I think it will be easier to keep up with.
  3. December Daily. I’m not putting pressure on myself to finish this project in December. But I do want to be intentional about taking a photo and writing down a story for each day.
  4. Activity Advent Calendar. I need to sit down today and plan out the activities for the month. It’s going to look a bit different since we can’t go anywhere so I’ll need to get a bit creative. I’m thinking weekly movie nights for sure. lol.
  5. Christmas Cards. I need to order, address, and mail my Christmas cards.
  6. Plan out 20x21in2021 goals and give some thought to how I want to document my progress.
  7. Bind Christmas Quilt. I cheated and got it quilted by a long armer! 😀 Now I just need to cut the binding and get it bound and labeled.
  8. Finish (Hand) Quilting Diamond Quilt. I’m actually nearing the end on this and would be thrilled to have it finished before the end of the year!
  9. Change out Design Wall. Currently, I have my Bee Yourself quilt up there and I’m about out of mojo on that one. Time to change it up and make progress on something else, perhaps the poor neglected caterpillars and butterflies?
  10. Finish Hexie Block Number 33! I’m toying with the idea of setting a year long goal to finish the hexagon top. Not sure if I’ll go with that or not, but either way I want to finish up this block. 🙂

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20×20 in 2020 Update

I’m writing this on November 1st which means that I have 2 months left to work on my (rather lofty) 2020 goals. Seemed like a good time for a check in so I sketched it all out in my bullet journal and I’ve actually made more progress that I thought!

I left a spot for a check in on December 1st and then a final update on Jan 1st. To my surprise, I’ve actually completed 8 of the 20 goals! And I think it’s totally possible that I could finish 4 or 5 more before the end of the year.

I’ve really enjoyed this. So much that I’m considering doing 20×21 in 2021. lol.

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Ice Cream Soda Quilt

I had the best intentions of finishing a quilt before I started a new one, but then I caved and started on the Ice Cream Soda quilt. Y’all, no regrets. lol.

This is the fabric that started it all! I got a mini charm pack and it was so stinking cute that I went back and got a layer cake. I decided I just had to cut into it.

I thought about making a whole Halloween themed Ice Cream Soda quilt, but then I saw these crabs in my stash and they just had to be turned into a block!

This pattern is so much fun for fussy cutting. And since the outer pieces are bigger, you can feature fussy cuts that are usually too big. 🙂

I cant’ believe I got these stripes to match up!

This is one of my favorites! Bees, honeycomb, then honey bears!

Current plan is to have each block be largely monochromatic with alternating high and low volume fabric. And of course to follow a theme! This was was balloons. 🙂

So much fun! I have a ton of ideas for more blocks, just need to set aside time to prep some more fabric. 🙂 I imagine this will be a long term project as I gradually acquire more fabric. And I’m good with that.

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NaNoCraftMo

I’ve written about this before, but every November RaptorDad participates in NaNoWriMo. This entails him writing a 50k word novel in 30 days. It’s actually super cool and this will be the 12th year he’s done it. Every year I toy with doing my own NaNoCraftMo where I do something crafty each day and every year I give up. lol. But this year will be different! Maybe. hahahaha.

That said, I am going to set 2 complimentary goals. The first is that I want to have finished 30 scrapbook layouts by the end of the month. That’s basically 1 a day, but I’m going to let it be an average to give myself some flexibility which I think will really help me not to give up if I miss a day. The second is that I will do at least 1 scrappy thing a day. That could be as simple as printing one photo or as complex as finishing a layout or 2. The thought process is that I will at least sit down at the scrap table every day and hope that will translate into getting loads of stuff done.

And as I’m typing this I’m wondering if I should go crazy and try to finish 60 layouts in a month? 2 a day seems doable, but 60 in a month seems insane. Probably I should stick to 30. lol.

And since I’m setting goals anyway, figured it would be a good time to set them for the whole month. Let’s check in with September first.

  1. September 2020 Project Life. Done!
  2. November 2019 Project Life. Halfway. I got 2 of the 4 layouts done.
  3. 5 Old Layouts. I got 3 done.
  4. Halloween Costumes. I did not have my stuff together enough to make costumes this year, but we ended up ordering costumes for the twins and they were thrilled.
  5. NaNoCraftMo Plan. Well, I’m coming up with it today and not during October, but I’m still counting it as a win!
  6. Advent Calendar. Whoops.
  7. Design and Complete Teal Fruit Block. Nope. But I did start a new quilt. lol. More on that later.
  8. Fall Break Plans. Yes! We went to a little cabin in the Hill Country and had a lovely time.
  9. 4 Blocks for Bee Yourself. Yes! I actually got 5 done. 🙂
  10. Deep Clean 1 Area a Day. Well, I only got 6 areas cleaned not 31, but that’s 6 more than I had done in September!

Here are the Bee Yourself blocks for the month. 🙂

Overall I’m super pleased with the progress on this quilt!

November Goals.

  1. 30 Scrapbook Pages
  2. Scrap Every Day
  3. November 2019 Project Life
  4. October 2020 Project Life
  5. December Daily Prep
  6. Butterfly Embroidery
  7. Caterpillar Embroidery
  8. Work on Advent Calendar
  9. Order Christmas Cards
  10. Quilt Diamond Quilt

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Halloween!

Y’all. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. And I’m so sad that it’s so weird this year. No pumpkin patch, no trick or treating, ugh. It sucks. BUT!!! I decided that I had to find a way to make it fun for the kids anyway.

I felt like a massive slacker, but I didn’t have it in me to make costumes this year. My plan was for the kids to just dress up from their dress up bin, but then earlier this week that made me really sad so I ordered some costumes as a surprise for the twins. They were huge hits with my Frozen obsessed Mia and ninja obsessed Xander. 🙂 Kate didn’t want to dress up until this morning, lol, but luckily she was able to dig out last year’s costume.

I was looking through my pinterest board to see if anything looked fun and I found this pumpkin balloon activity I had pinned years ago. Luckily, RaptorDad is ever indulgent with my crazy ideas so he tracked down some balloons and helped me make this.

We shoved a piece of candy in each balloon as we were blowing them up and then taped them together into a pumpkin shape. Then the kids took turns popping the balloons and finding the candy. It was a ton of fun. 🙂

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October is Here!

I love October! It’s the first month where it’s cool enough to start enjoying the outdoors here in Texas. And I get to decorate for Halloween! Pumpkin crafts!

How did I do in September?

  1. Staff Development. I made some serious progress this month! I’ve got 60 hours done, 90 to go.
  2. Project Life. Well, I caught up on August, but I haven’t done anything for September. lol. Hoping to make some serious progress this weekend. 🙂
  3. Scrapbook. I’m caught up with the covid pages! Still have a massive gap to chip away at, but I’ll get there eventually.
  4. Caterpillar Quilt. Well I got 1 1/2 caterpillars done. Then I just had to put it away and work on something else.
  5. Butterfly Quilt. Got all of the applique and 9 patches done! Next stop, embroidery.
  6. Bind and Label Pixilated Heart Quilt. Done! And I am so happy with it!
  7. Journal with Kate. ::sigh:: I need to do better with this.
  8. Drink more water. I did better! I didn’t track it, but hey.
  9. 10k Steps a Day. Nope. lol. But I did start tracking my food again and it’s making a big difference.
  10. Maintain Sanity. Hanging on by a thread. lol.

Goals for October!

  1. September 2020 Project Life.
  2. November 2019 Project Life.
  3. 5 Old Scrapbook Layouts.
  4. Halloween Costumes.
  5. NaNoCraftMo Plan. Blog?
  6. Check Progress on Advent Calendar. Make a plan to finish.
  7. Design and Complete Teal Fruit Block.
  8. Fall Break Plans.
  9. 4 Blocks for Bee Yourself (formerly Texas Forever) Quilt.
  10. Deep Clean 1 Area a Day!

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Pixilated Heart Quilt

You guys! I finished a quilt! I kept seeing this amazing pixilated heart quilt on Instagram and I figured, how hard can it be?

So I printed off some graph paper and sketched out a plan. To make it manageable, I drew lines to show where the 4 patches would be. That told me how many low volume squares I needed and where each of the different color squares went.

Here’s a big pile of low volume deliciousness. I love low volume prints! Especially ones that I can fussy cut!

I was starting to think that I had this machine sewing thing down, but then my bobbin put me in my place. lol.

I had to make use of my “design floor” to keep track of it. Seeing as how this is also my living room floor, I was motivated to finish it quickly!

Once I had all of the 4 patches together, I laid them all out and sewed them into 16 patches.

Then into rows and finally an actual quilt top!

This is quite a long post already, so check back in a few days and I’ll try to put up a separate post about quilting it. 🙂

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We Survived August!

Barely, but we made it. lol. And we’ve made it through 3 weeks of virtual schooling. It’s been, um, an adventure. Maybe I should make that a separate blog post. lol.

Let’s take a look at the August goals.

  1. Project Life. Well. I did manage to finish July Project Life, but I’ve only managed to get 1/2 of August done. I’m hoping to put some time in on this this weekend.
  2. Scrapbooking. Same as Project Life. I managed to finish July, but I’ve done very little on August. I did make some background pages though, so I’m hoping that I’ll be able to finish August quickly once I start.
  3. 10K steps a day. hahahahahahahaha. I did good for about a week before I gave up.
  4. Caterpillar Quilt. Sort of a situation of 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I did get the grapes done, and I even managed to trim down and assemble all but the last row. But, well, more about this in the butterfly quilt update.
  5. I got all of the embroidery done, trimmed down all of the blocks and got them all sewn together. Then I started really looking at it and it’s much closer to a square than a bed shape. lol. So I did some more sketches and decided to add some more rows. I’ll do a post with pics this week, but the Reader’s Digest version is that I still have a long way to go. lol.
  6. Montessori Trays. Since Mis is my main consumer of the trays and she’s also got calls pretty much all day, I’ve decided to hold off for now. I might make up some new trays once a month, but not every week.
  7. Virtual school systems. We’re getting there. I ordered How to Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and I’m planning to work through this book with Xander while Mia is on her extra calls. I’ve also got a pretty good spot set up to hold all of their supplies and stuff.
  8. Quilt Pixilated Heart Quilt. Done! And I got the binding done! (Read: my grandmother made the binding for me. lol.) I even got the binding sewn on, but now I’m stuck on how to connect the two ends. lol.
  9. Weekly Adventure. Does taking Mia for a Covid test count? ::sigh:: She’s having minor surgery and had to have a Covid test before hand. As for fun adventures, we did try school outside one day with mixed results. We were able to access the free city wifi, but the landscaping crew arrived right after us and it was loud. Then Kate ran out of battery for her laptop. Still, it was a good experience and we learned a lot! We will for sure try it again, especially if it every ends up cooling down around here.
  10. Maintain Sanity. hahahahahahaha.

September Goals?

  1. I decided to dust off my staff development spreadsheet and see where I stood. Um, it’s not good. I have something like 120 hours left to earn by March. ::sigh:: So this month, I’d like to try to earn 30 hours.
  2. Project Life. Sounds like a broken record, but I’d like to complete August and keep up with September.
  3. Scrapbook. See Project Life. lol.
  4. Caterpillar Quilt. I’d like to applique the navy caterpillars and figure out a plan for the teal and navy fruit.
  5. Butterfly Quilt. I’d like to applique the butterflies and finish up the 9 patches.
  6. Bind and Label Pixilated Heart. I’m so close!
  7. Journal with Kate. Kate and I decided to start a Bible Journaling project, but we only made it 2 days. lol. I’d like to make this a daily activity with her.
  8. Drink more water. I want to start tracking this again.
  9. 10 k steps a day. lol.
  10. Maintain Sanity.

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August Goals

I can’t believe that it’s already August. This summer has seemed to fly by and crawl by all at the same time. July update time!

  1. Windchime block number 8. Not only did I get 8 done, I also got 9 done! And then I liked the way it looked so much that I decided to trim down and sew together the 9 blocks and call it good. 🙂 I still need to add the applique flowers at the intersections, but I’m super thrilled with the progress I made!

2. Hexagons. I didn’t finish 4 more blocks, but I did finish 1. Progress not perfection.

3. Keep current on Project Life. ::sigh:: I fell behind on this one, but I plan to catch up today. I did close up the 2020 gap though, so now I’m just need to finish up the past few months of 2019 and I will be totally caught up!

4. Keep current on scrapbook. Well, I fell behind on this one as well, but I did order the year 11 binders so I’m cautiously optimistic that I can get back on track this week.

5. I didn’t end up ordering the print package, but I did work a bit more on editing. While I was doing Feb 2020 Project Life, I went ahead and edited the pics I want to scrap and added them to my Print Order Folder.

6. Get rid of crap! I actually took a trunk load of toys and clothes to Goodwill! I was so sad to be getting rid of the babies’ doll house, but I finally had to admit that they didn’t ever play with it anymore.

7. Homeschool plans. We did K is for Kite, L is for Lava, M is for Moon, and N is for Nocturnal Animals. Mia has really been enjoying the Montessori trays!

8. Order school stuff. Done! Turns out that they actually don’t need uniforms for the first few weeks of school while everyone is distance learning, but I know we’ll need them eventually so I went ahead and ordered them.

9. Swim. This one hasn’t happened so much. We need to air the pool back up, but with RaptorDad’s broken finger that just hasn’t happened.

10. Maintain Sanity. Jury is still out!

August Goals:

  1. Project Life. Do July 2020 and then stay current with August 2020.
  2. Scrapbooking. Do July 2020 and then stay current with August 2020. lol.
  3. 10K steps a day. I’m writing this on the 2nd and I already failed yesterday, but I want to start trying to get 10K steps a day again. It’s hard because here on the surface of the sun it’s way too hot to walk outside, but I’m going to try to get the steps in anyway.
  4. Caterpillar Quilt. I finally got the olives done! Now I just need to do the grape block and then 2 more blue blocks. I really want to finish these blocks this month.
  5. Butterfly Quilt. I need to get the embroidery done once and for all!
  6. Montessori Trays. I really want to keep making these.
  7. Virtual School systems. The kids officially start school on the 10th, and my the end of the month I’d like to have a good schedule/ organizational strategy in place.
  8. Quilt Pixilated Heart quilt. I finally got this bad boy basted! Now I just need to figure out how to put on the walking foot and actually quilt it.
  9. Weekly adventure. I want to make time for at least one weekly adventure with the kids.
  10. Maintain sanity. Keeping this one around a bit longer. lol.

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Corona Academy

It’s back to school time! Of course, for us this is pretty much more of the same since we’ll be doing virtual school this year. After talking with the kids’ pediatrician and Mia’s cardiologist, we decided that virtual school was the safest choice for our family at this time. Luckily, the school that we’re at seems to be really on top of things so I’m cautiously optimistic that it will be ok.

I’ve been brainstorming ways to make this ok for the kids. Kate was really looking forward to decorating a locker, having lunch with her friends, and being more independent with her school work. To facilitate independence, she decided to move her main work area from the office to her room. She currently has a lofted bed with her desk underneath, so I let her decorate her desk with some fun new desk organizer stuff, and she clipped a sheet to hang off of her bed and give her a fun background for her zoom calls. Here she is trying the set up out during a week of virtual girl scout camp.

As for lunch, I think the plan is for her to have a zoom lunch chat with her 2 besties a few times a week. All 3 of them opted for virtual school. 🙂

I’m curious to see what kindergarten will look like for the twins. And by curious, I mean terrified. lol. I do not feel at all confident about teaching them. But, it’s all going to be ok. For the first week, I’m going to go ahead and prep the letter a week/ Montessori trays for them and then I’ll see how it goes. Maybe it’s awesome and they get used during downtime. Maybe we stick with each letter for 2 or 3 weeks instead of 1. Maybe we chuck it out the window. I’m trying to cultivate my inner (currently nonexistent) flexible persona. lol.

No, it’s not perfect, but we’re all practicing making the best out of our limited options. That said, I’m anxious to see how the first week goes. One awesome thing is that the kids all still get early release days on Wednesdays so we went ahead and sprung for the Garey Park membership. Who knows, once we find out how long Kate really has to be logged on for every day, we might bust out my phone’s hotspot and try school from the park. lol.