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Epiphany Celebration!

I was envisioning more of a snowflake craft extravaganza when I thought about a January seasonal celebration, but then Epiphany! I usually try (and fail) to make a king cake for Mardi Gras. But when I was looking up ideas for epiphany this year, king cake kept coming up. Then it hit me, KING cake= 3 KINGS! Duh!

Usually my cake is tasty but ugly. My dough is just never right. But this year, I went straight to my favorite baking recipe site: King Arthur Flour. You guys, if you’re not using their recipes, you are missing out! They are so easy to follow and they never disappoint.

So this year I kneaded it waaaaaay longer than I normally do and it turned out so good! It rolled out into an actual rectangle JUST LIKE IT WAS SUPPOSED TO! And it was absolutely delicious. I didn’t roll it out quite big enough so it baked into a bit of a blob, but there was an actual spiral with filling inside. And it was soooooo good. I just need to remember to order some purple sugar sprinkles. My just-add-red-food-coloring-to-the-blue-sprinkles-plan didn’t ::quite:: work out the way I had planned, but the kids didn’t complain. 🙂

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Christmas Quilt

I was determined to finish my Christmas quilt before the new year so I spent New Year’s Eve sewing on the binding. 🙂 I’m usually such a scrappy quilter, but I just loved this Christmas line from Bonnie and Camille so much that I couldn’t resist making the whole quilt out of it. 🙂

I am just delighted with how it turned out. I started this quilt March 30, 2019 and finished the top in November of 2019. Then I packed it away for about a year to let it marinate. lol. My grandmother (who is a saint) sent it out to be quilted for me and then made and stitched on my binding. I got it back just in time to hand stitch the backside of the binding before the new year.

Which brings the grand total for 2020 to 3 quilts started and 2 quilts finished. I now have 8 quilts in progress and I’d like to keep it to roughly that number. Looks like I need to finish a few quilts!

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Happy New Year!!!

I love the new year! Everything always seems so fresh, shiny, new, and full of possibilities. 🙂 I’ve been doing some project updates this week, but for the sake of clarity I’m going to do a very brief recap of my 2020 goals.

  1. Project life. 16/20.
  2. Scrapbook. 9/20.
  3. Hexies Progress. Done!
  4. Kid Adventures. Done!
  5. Montessori Trays. Done!
  6. Girl Scouts. 13/20.
  7. Bee Yourself Quilt. 15/20.
  8. Blog posts. Done!
  9. Liturgical Living. 9/20.
  10. Home Projects. 17/20.
  11. Recipes. 4/20.
  12. Butterfly/ Caterpillar Progress. Done!
  13. Nine Patches. Done!
  14. Date Nights. 8/20.
  15. Plants. Done!
  16. Staff Development Progress. Done!
  17. Books. Done!
  18. Trash. 15/20.
  19. Caring Place. 12/20.
  20. Pounds. Well, I’m still up 5 pound from my pre-quarantine weight, but I am down 15 from my covid high, so a partial win? It’s finally moving in the right direction at any rate.

I have been trying to decide how I want to structure my goals for this year, but I just can’t choose! The time for dillydallying is past though so here goes. As much as I loved 20x20in2020, it was kind of a lot to keep track of and I felt like I was shoehorning in some goals that didn’t really fit the structure, so I’m changing it up this year. I’ve decided to pick 10 things to work on this year, and then I’ll probably still set smaller monthly goals.

  1. I want to finish my hexies! At least the center of the top. lol. That’s 14 more hexie blocks and then the assembly. Once it’s together, I’ll need to make some decisions about borders etc, but just getting the hexies together would be amazing. Since I finished 14 blocks this year, it feels achievable?
  2. Butterfly Quilt. I have the center assembled, just need to make some decisions about borders and finish the pinwheels. I’d love to have this completely finished by the end of the year, but a lot of that hangs on how I decide to quilt it. At minimum, I’d like to have the top completed.
  3. Caterpillar Quilt. Same except that I’m not as far along with this one. I have the top 8 rows assembled and all of the caterpillars appliqued. I need to finish the embroidery on 2 caterpillars, design and applique 5 blocks of fruit, and assemble the center. Also, so many pinwheels. lol.
  4. Project Life. I want to finish 2019 (3 layouts), 2020 (November and December), and keep current with 2021. I think there is zero chance that this happens, lol, but it’s good to have goals.
  5. Scrapbooks. I’d love to finish 2020 (6 months), keep current with 2021, and make some progress towards closing the gaps. Hmm… I’m so far behind it’s hard to know what to set as a goal. lol. You know what? I’m splitting this goal, so number 5 will be current scrapbooks: 2020 and 2021. I think this is actually doable. Which leads us to goal number 6…
  6. The dreaded scrapbook gap… I’m caught up through the end of October 2018. So maybe finish 2018 and then scrap every other month for 2019? No, better idea. I’m going to shoot for finishing the calendar layouts (which I hate doing) and then 2 additional layouts per month. That way at least something will be scrapped for each month and it’s seems more doable.
  7. Bucilla Advent Calendar. I’m adding this to my master list so that I will be reminded to work on it all year instead of waiting until mid November to pull it out. lol.
  8. Monthly Kid Adventures. I want to pick one bigger adventure each month. Something totally new. Current ideas include some local state parks.
  9. Monthly Seasonal Celebration. Pick a monthly theme and do something. lol.
  10. Homeschool. Take advantage of our Blossom and Root curriculum! Not sure how to make this measurable, but it’s a goal nonetheless.

So then I’m left with January goals…

  1. Thank you notes.
  2. December Daily.
  3. Project Life. Finish 2019 and November 2020. Work on January 2021.
  4. Scrapbooks. I’m focusing on Project Life this month, so just keeping current with January 2021.
  5. Kid Adventure. I want to take the kids to Mother Neff State Park. It seems like a totally doable day trip.
  6. Get organized for January homeschool.
  7. Finish teal and navy fruit blocks. This is high priority! I want to get the caterpillars to the same spot as the butterflies.
  8. Hexies. I’d like to finish 1 block.
  9. Seasonal Celebration. I’m sure I’ll come up with something? Maybe some new Montessori trays?
  10. Windchime. I’d like to prep and finish 1 block.

Whew! That was a long post, but it helps me to organize my thoughts and set goals. I’ll try to have some more posts with pictures soon!

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2020 Quilty Recap

I thought it might be good to do a little progress report on all of my quilts. One of my goals for 2020 is to actually ::finish:: some projects and I’m hoping this helps motivate me to accomplish that!

  1. Hexagons. The OG quilt. I started off the year with 11 of the 12 super hexies completed, 20 blocks total, and fully 1/3 of the quilt sewn together. I now have all 12 of the super hexies done, 34 out of 48 blocks completed, and 1/2 of the quilt assembled. Which sounds pretty impressive when I type it out! I basically got 14 blocks done this year and I have 14 to go. I’d really love to finish this top this year.
  2. Bee Yourself. This is the second oldest UFO quilt and I made some real progress this year! I started off the year with 21/ 63 blocks done and I’m ending with 36/ 63 done. That’s 15 new blocks done! Plus, I have a plan for most of the remaining blocks which is half the battle!
  3. The third oldest UFO quilt is my Christmas one. I started the year off with the top finished. I ended up sending it out to be quilted by a longarmer and it looks amazing! I’m about halfway done with the binding and then it will be finished. 🙂
  4. Next up is my Windchimes! I started the year with 3 blocks complete and now I have 9! I thought about stopping here and making a small wall hanging, but I love these blocks too much to quit. I’m thinking maybe 4×4? Or even the full 5×5!
  5. Then comes the Butterflies and Caterpillars. I started the year with 16 butterflies done and now I have all 39 finished! For the caterpillars, I started with 5 done and now I have all 11 done minus a teeny bit of embroidery on 2 of them. As for the fruit, I started the year with no fruit and I now have 12/ 17 done. I’ve also finished all of the 9 patches and I’m about 1/4 of the way through the pinwheels. 🙂
  6. Pixilated Heart Quilt! This one was so fun and easy that I’m considering making a second one. 🙂 I finished the top last year between Christmas and New Years, then I set it aside for a loooooong time. I actually quilted it myself and bound it this year. It’s a favorite to snuggle with on the couch!
  7. I started by 60* diamond wallhanging in April and it’s almost done! I’m hand quilting it so it’s taking a bit longer, but I’ve just got the border to go. 🙂
  8. In May I started a low volume log cabin quilt and I’ve now got 6 blocks done. I’m in no hurry with this one, but it’s been fun to play with low volume fabrics.
  9. And my final new project is my Ice Cream Soda Quilt! I love this one so much! I have 14 blocks done and a bunch more to go. I think there’s something like 68 in the finished quilt? They are so much fun! I’m not in any rush to finish this one; I’m just enjoying playing with all of the pretty fussy cuts. 🙂

All this to say that my big quilty goals this year are to finish the hexagon, butterfly, and caterpillar tops. 🙂

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Scrapping?

This year, I feel like I’ve made loads of progress on my quilts, decent progress on Project Life, and minimal progress on my scrapbooks. I’m considering a big push to get some scrapping done this week to avoid getting further behind. So some mini goals…

  1. Project Life. I was doing really great on this goal, but then the last 2 months I’ve done basically nothing. I’d really love to do the last 3 weeks of 2019 at minimum. If I could get November and December of 2020 done it would be a minor miracle. It would also mean that I would be completely caught up with Project Life! I was doing so well doing Project Life in real time and I’d like to continue with that trend in the new year. Which means I should really order a new album and page protectors. lol.
  2. Scrapbooking. ::le sigh:: Thus far, I’ve managed to get 9 months done which means that instead of catching up I’ve fallen further behind. I was loving working in real time, but then I fell off the bandwagon in September. Speaking of which, the only layout missing for September is the calendar layout. I’d like to get that done, plus 2 more months. That would mean that I’d have completed 12 months in the past 12 months. Going forward, I want to get back to scrapping in real time while working on closing the gaps. More on this later in the week. lol.
  3. December Daily. I’m keeping it super simple this year, so I’d really like to wrap it up this week. I made a point to simplify the design so that there’s only 1 pic per day and I tried to be intentional about making sure I had a pic for each day. Today I’m going to try to get all of the pics printed.

I’m currently debating if I want to try for another massive year long goals project. Maybe? I do like the idea of 20x21in2021. But some of my goals don’t really lend themselves to that format. So maybe set 21 project goals instead? I know that I will probably end up starting some new projects (lol) but I’d also really like to finish some projects. Like catching up with the scrapbooks. The butterfly and caterpillar quilts. The hexagon quilt. Still pondering.

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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. 🙂