A craft blast from the past!

I know, it seems like this is becoming a craft blog. I assure you its not. I am just trying to go through and document all of the crafting I have done in the past two years, plus the quilts that I had done previous to blogging. Although my life isn't all about crafting, it is something that I truly love to do! The hubs may have been a little frustrated with it at first, now he understands my need to stay busy, and I think truly appreciates all the things that I create! While updating my All Things Crafty tab up top I realized that I missed some really cute and fun quilts that I had made some years ago, as well as a camera strap cover that I did last year, and a Bachelorette party menu also! While the quilts and the menu don't have a tutorial to go with them, I still thought that I would share them with you to see some of the other things I have done. Also I will post a link for the camera strap to the tutorial that I used! Enjoy!

This is the one and only quilt I have made for myself. It came as a kit that I bought at a quilt show with my mom in Ontario. We went for the day and perused all the fabrics that were to be seen. I also got fabrics for the first quilt I ever made for our dear friends The Anthony's wedding in April of 2008. Since then there has been a little disaster with this quilt as our puppy, when she was a puppy thought that it was a chew toy and gnawed a nice hole in the borders. It's really fun and funky with little kittens riding scooters and Eiffle Towers with brown and pink graphic prints! I still love it. Hopefully I can fix it! My mom also made me a tote bag out of the left over fabrics too! Oh and those little tootsies at the bottom are D's!

This quilt was made for our other dear friends the Roben's for their wedding in June of 2009. It's a little throw quilt and it was made entirely out of scrap fabric. I made it in one day with my mom's help and when it was done it had a little Americana feel to it! Again the toes belong to D! Haha

This one is another wedding quilt. For our friends the Ransdall's in May of 2010. This one was also made out of scrap fabrics and it went really well in their Tuscan inspired home with the warm reds and golds!

Please excuse the poor photo. I took this with my blackberry, when I had one, since my nice camera was the subject of the photo! I made this really cute camera strap cover. Priddy Creations had a wonderful tutorial on how to make this simple slip cover for your camera strap to show it a little personality. There was some errors in cutting that made me have to create more than one of these babies, but it was still fun and super simple! Not the most masculine of fabrics as the hubby uses this camera too, but he doesn't mind!

And finally something not sewing related. For a friends bachelorette party I whipped up some cute menu's in Photoshop, glued them to some black card stock and added a little bling bling! The idea was to make all the names be wedding related. These babies went on the table at the restaurant where we ate in San Luis Obispo. We had a great weekend dressed in purple attire, ate great food, wine tasted and all around shenanigans were had!!

Things I learned in SLO

So my good friend, Mrs. B to be, had her bachelorette party up at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo California. It's a well know inn and every room is themed. We stayed in the Harvard Square room, which coincidentally had purple carpet, to fit our purple weekend, and 3 bedrooms to hold all 9 ladies. The intent was to go wine tasting at 3 vineyards and to have dinner and just be silly girls. Although we had some arrival issues.....one lady missed her connecting flight into CA so she had to be connected into the teeny airport in SLO and take a taxi to meet us at the second winery. Out of all the wineries we stopped at, one stood out above the rest. However off the top of my head I cannot think of the name....that's what happens after the first stop! ;-) Even though it rained a little in the morning, we were still able to enjoy our time and celebrate Mrs. B to be's last girls night out as a single lady. Here are a couple of things I learned over the weekend.

10. Nine girls in a dimly lit hotel room with 2 bathrooms equals a lot of interesting makeup looks. We all kinda looked like we over did it a bit!

9. Pea Soup Anderson's has the best split pea soup in the world, however just because it's bottomless, most people can only take the first bowl. Well that's at least for me. Also, pea's provide an unsettling feeling in your stomach....if you catch my drift.

8. Not every winery is as good as the next. I truly only enjoyed one place.....probably because they poured the biggest tastings and their wine was by far superior to the other two.

7. Purple feather boas - not the best idea on the planet. Not only do they shed like crazy looking like a molted bird flew through, but they also leave your hands, necks, and any other part of your skin looking so purple that you look like you got into a MXA fight.

6. It is almost a given that a group of white girls will either break into dancing or singing at any given moment....both of these happened here.

5. The 22 year old guy sitting with his parents (who also has a girlfriend) has no intention of being flattered by a loud obnoxious group of mostly married women. He will stare at you and give you akward looks.

4. No object with a dog or puppy on it is safe with our group. Just saying

3. Things will stay "tight".....(this will stay an inside joke)

2. Contrary to popular belief.....penis straws all come in one size but numerous colors. And while may not be friendly for all ages they certainly are fun for all sex's. Male and female. Also its very difficult to drink a Pina Colada (or any other frozen beverage) out of one. The mechanics just don't work.

And the number one thing I learned in SLO........

1. 2011 Songs have an obsession with whistling in them. In the 3 hour car ride to and from, most of the songs on the radio had some form of whistling in them. Current titles are as follows (not a complete list):

"Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People
"Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5
"Good Life" by One Republic
"I Wanna Go" by Britney Spears

I am sure I missed a bunch but those are the ones off the top of my head!

Carmaggedon & Bachelor Parties!

As I am sure that you heard we had a dramatic weekend in Los Angeles recently. It cause such a fuss and even coined it's own name "Carmageddon!" Caltrans workers shut down a major artery into L.A. from 8PM Friday the 15th evening to 10AM Sunday the 17th. They made this big fuss about everyone saying off the road and doing things at home. They had $8 chartered flights from JetBlue to take you from Burbank Airport to LAX and even were giving discounted helicopter rides. Everyone was expecting the worst.

However, before we even knew about it we had planned a Bachelor/Bachelorette party that Saturday, July 16th for my sister-in-law and soon to be brother-in-law. I was also preparing for the worst. There was no way I was sitting in traffic! I let the best man know our plan b options, which was to go to dinner and dancing in Santa Barbara. Saturday came around and what would you know. Everybody listened to the media and all stayed home. The bridal party got dolled up and hopped into the Esclade limo. First stop, dinner at The Yard House. Yummy eats and "Cadillac Margarita's" were on the menu. We had the best time toasting and chatting. We all then jumped back in the limo and headed to The Crocker Club. A unique nightclub in the heart of Downtown Los Angeles. It is decorated like a bank vault. We danced and had a wonderful time! Alas, as the clock struck midnight we remembered that our limo was going to turn into a pumpkin is we didn't head back. So we all jumped back in the limo and partied it up until we return back to reality.

It was a great night, and we had a blast! I mean anything to do with dancing and I am there! We made the best out of a not so pleasant, that turned out to be pleasant, situation. Beside's I got to see a new side to my brother-in-law! Dancing fool! I know who I am calling the next time I wanna go dancing! Please enjoy the very limited photo's from the evening!

The Happy Couple

The girlies at The Yardhouse

The Fella's (Yardhouse)

Inside the L.I.M.O.

The Crocker Club