Photography: Flashback

Wuerzburg Germany, Aug 15, 2005

The Story: Our apartment building was the tallest in the city. 18 stories, if I remember right. We went up to the top to watch the sun set one night. The balcony by the stairs had this wire covering the opening, and it was an interesting  mask to the sunset. I took this with my old 35mm film SLR. I love it.

Oh so Yummy recipe(s)! :)

I have a love hate relationship with food. I really like it, but boy does it ever make life difficult! haha. I do like to cook, but when I haven't planned what we're going to have for dinner in advance, then I really hate cooking dinner. If a miracle happens, and I get a meal plan made for a week or two, and get all the shopping done, then cooking is my favorite thing! :)

One thing that always makes this difficult is figuring out what to have for dinner. Quite a while ago my SIL and I discussed putting a blog together where we can share all of our good recipes. I invited all of our sisters and a few other people, and it has turned into quite the nice collection. I still haven't tried all the recipes, but there are a few that have definitely turned into favorites. :)

One that looks, and probably sounds really weird, is Barbecups. But boy are they ever oh so good!!! :)

You can find the recipe at Delicious Beans and Things.

I am always searching for more good recipes! Do you have any you would like to share? You can either leave a link to your blog if you have them posted, or you can leave them as a comment, or email them to dbByDesign@gmail.com, and I will share them with everyone. :)

Bloggity Blogs: Cluck Cluck Sew

There are a few blogs that I've found in my time of blogging that I think I will be loyal readers of forever. My next couple of bloggity blogs will be for them. :)

Since I've been aching to quilt lately, it only seems right to start with this one!

Blog: Cluck Cluck Sew!

Just about everything on her blog has ended up on my To-Do List. I have even made a few already and started another.

Here's what I've made and love love!

I am so in love with this quilt. Especially the colors and fabrics she used. The backing is great too! :) She has the tutorial here. It is SO easy and so fast!

I really like this one too. I started making it, but couldn't finish it with the other two quilts while my hubby was gone for the weekend with the boys (that was a great weekend! :) except for being sick of course.) ;)

This is a new (for me) pattern she has for sale! I know I said I love the other quilt, but I love this one too. :) Especially the gray she uses with the color. I might have to get this one for Christmas! ;)

Allison also has other tutorials and projects besides quilts. Like this one:

Another project for my to-do list! :)

And this pillow that her mom made. :)

Allison is definitely AMAZING at what she does!! I love her color combinations, her patterns, her tutorials. Pretty much she's a well rounded awesome gal! :) I even want to try her schedule! ;) haha.

Thank you Allison!! :)

Grab a featured button at the bottom of my sidebar! :)

Picture Links:

Disappearing 9-Patch: http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2010/05/nicey-jane-disappearing-9-patch.html

(Tutorial: http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2008/10/disappearing-nine-patch.html)

Circle Quilt: http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2009/12/raw-edge-circle-quilt-tutorial.html

Applique Pillow: http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2009/10/tutorial-scrap-buster-fall-pillow.html

Chain Reaction Quilt: http://www.cluckclucksewpatterns.com/2010/09/chain-reaction.html

scrappy pillow: http://www.cluckclucksew.com/2010/08/scrappy-rose-pillow.html

Made It: Market Bag

If you didn't notice, I am posting two Made It projects today. Missy, over at Missy's Home and Garden Improvements posted some art and asked to see other people's art. So I wanted to share some! So go check out my previous post, and then go visit Missy! :)

Yes, I could have just stuck with that post. But I made something last week that I am dyeing to share with you! I'm so excited! :)

Have you seen these super cute market bags? I love them! And I love to crochet. So I finally took a wild jump and attempted to make my own. To my surprise... I love it! :) I think it turned out alright. So, I had to share it right away! :) haha.

If I knew everything small that I put in it wouldn't fall out I would use it for my every day bag! (Plus, I don't know if I would want everyone to be able to see the random things I carry in my purse. haha. Guess I'll have to figure something out. ;) What do you think?

I just made up the pattern, eyeing the other bags that I've found around. If you want me to share, let me know and I'll try my hand at putting together a crochet pattern (that is one thing I can say that I've never done). But I'm sure it won't be too hard.

Made It: Flashback

***I'm posting two Made It projects today. Make sure to check out my other one and let me know what you think as well! :)

Missy, over at Missy's Home & Garden Improvements posted a crayon art piece she did (go check it out here!) and asked what medium other people like to use. It got me thinking of all the fun art projects I did in High School and College, and even before that. (That is one thing that I miss about school. When you have art homework, it makes you do art. Now that I don't 'have homework' I don't do nearly as much as I would like. One day I'll go back!) :)

Anyway, so I thought I would do an Art Flashback! And show off a couple of my pieces from before! :)

Looking through my pictures I found this Yarn Tree that I made in elementary school! I totally remember making it and how much fun it was! :) Such an easy project, but the possibilities are endless of what you could do! (I should do this with my boys! They'd love it! Sweet! I'm so glad I found this one.)

Next we'll go to middle school. Here is my watercolor piece. I really like mixed medium, here I drew the lines with something and then went over them with glue. it kind of raised the lines, but also protected them from the water color. You can also first draw a picture with crayon and then watercolor it. It has the same effect.

Here is jr. high. 7th grade maybe?. I moved when I was 12. Thus the middle school AND jr. high. :) So glad you know that aren't you?! haha. ;) (I'm tired.)

A simple chalk on black paper. Always a nice effect.

And to finish off for today, a few from high school. They are all pretty random. But I remember them fondly. ;) Oh the days when criticism wasn't even a thought in the mind and creativity came so freely and openly. :) Ok, it's still like that I guess. (Though when you're trying to be successful at something and make it matter, sometimes it's a little more difficult to feel so relaxed at it. Guess I should remember to not try and make things for others and just make them for me.) :) ...just one of those realizing moments. :) Thanks. :)

Just a sketch during English class. It was a Shakespeare class... and sometimes it was a little too easy to get distracted in. Can you guess who this is??? :)

a still life

I used water color pencils for the detailed lines. Water color for the chair and dried reeds/flowers. And I think I used chalk pastels for the background, but used it on wet paper. I remember it giving it such a fun texture to work with.

another still life.

For this project I used chalk pastels. The assignment was to color by distance. The closer the object was the warmer it was supposed to be. The farther away it was the cooler it was supposed to be. I think had there been something else there besides the mower thing I would have really liked this a lot more. :) I guess I could just crop it a little more.

This one was supposed to be about us. We drew a picture and somehow transferred it onto transfer paper (I don't remember exactly what we did). But then we rubbed the picture onto a poster board and painted it with tempera paints. I wish I could remember how we got all the black in there. We either rubbed it before or after with something. I don't know.

Do any of you know??

If you are wondering about the waves with the mouth and the big tear, I almost drowned when I was little. And every time we drive by the house where it was at I always tell my hubby, "I almost drowned there." lol.

Somehow I won first place in the school art show with this. I don't know how, but I was pretty excited! :) (I totally would have gone with another girls though. I can still see it. It was so cute with the back of a girl swinging on one of those wooden board swings from a tree.)

Anyway, thank you for sharing that walk down memory lane with me! :)

If you want to post old art work I would LOVE Love lovE to see it! :)

I'll have to do this again some other time.

I still have a lot of artwork from college!

Sharing The Love, again! :)

Yippy! I was given another award! I'm so excited!! :)

This one was given to me by Courtney over at Scraps and Scribbles

Isn't that nice?!! :) 

You guys seriously make my day, and my week! :)

Thank you!

Here are the rules:

1. Accept the award. Post it on your blog with the name of the person who has granted the award and his or her blog link.
2. Pay it forward to 15 other bloggers that you have newly discovered.
3. Contact those blog owners and let them know they've been chosen.


So, without further delay, here are 15 wonderful blogs that I would LOVE to share with you! :)
(in no particular order) They are a mix of fabric, quilting, scrapbooking, awesome art, food, crafts, photos and whatever else. Don't miss any of them!

1. Someday Crafts
2. Land of the Misfit Toyz
3. Cozy. Cottage. Cute.
4. Nap Time Journal
5. katie jo designs
6. Creating Cupcakes
7. The Village
8. a quilt is nice
9. Going Sew Crazy
10. 30 days
11. Bloesem
12. My Chaos My Bliss
13. the long thread
14. Ali Edwards
15. Orangette

Make sure to stop by all these great blogs and say hi! :)

Don't forget to grab a "featured  button" at the bottom of my sidebar!

Fab Finds: Halloween

I really love Halloween. My hubby is not so excited about dressing up and celebrating. But I drag him along and we always have a lot of fun. I think he's starting to enjoy it more! :)

Last year I found so many cute Halloween decorations and ways to decorate your pumpkins. Here are my pictures from last year. (and the link to the original post: ok, it's to all the Holiday ideas that I had on dbByDesign. So there is some Christmas stuff and even a few Father's Day ideas. Nothing wrong with starting early right?! haha)

Pumpkin, Pumpkins and Pumpkins

    

and a few more...

  

an up close view of the quilt idea - so clever:

Cute Halloween Cupcakes

  

They have plenty more ideas plus directions and how-to's on their site. ClickHERE to check them out!

  

I LOVE looking at all the photos. I've started putting a collection together from this years finds, it's not quite as complete yet, but I'm getting so excited for Halloween already!

Stay tuned for this years photos. I'll wait until I get a few more to put together. Otherwise I'm not sure how impressive it will be compared to all of these. ;)

As much as I love looking at all of these, and the many more that are out there, I am so lame when it comes to decorating. (Hopefully that will change when we actually have a house to decorate. Right now there just isn't a whole lot of extra space). :) 

What are your favorite Halloween decorations? or activities?

Picture Links:

If you want to find the links to all (most) of the photos. Simply go to the original post of these and click on the pictures. Most of these I found from the BHG Holiday emails. :) 

Thank You! :)

Have you been over to Suzy's Artsy-Craftsy Sitcom? On Thursday's she has a Promote Yourself Linky Party! It's fantastic! :) I found her site last week and linked up, and guess what?

Today she featured my shop on her page!!! :) Awesome! :)

My day is officially good now. ;)

Thank you Suzy!!!

Her site is really fun. So go check it out and don't forget to link up your shop or website!! :)

Photography: Flashback

I really want to get out more and take more pictures with my camera, as well as get some more practice with the new camera. But let's face it. I don't have all the time in the world to do everything that I want to do. Sometimes I regrettably waste all my time on the computer. ;) So, I was thinking that if I posted some old photos that I've taken, it would get me excited to 'use my time more wisely'. And not waste it so much. :) So, hopefully I'll fit in some new photos here and there, but until then, stay tuned for some old ones. :)

We'll start with this one:

Yellowstone Park, Aug 19, 2006

My Story:
I went to Yellowstone with my mom, it was about a week after I got home from Europe for the summer doing Study Abroad. It was so nice to have a nice weekend after getting home. :)
We had a great time camping out, and riding all around the park. I really love this shot! How the sun is coming through the clouds, and the reflection off the water and how it illuminates the steam. Yellowstone really is a beautiful place!

I am linking up at My Chaos My Bliss for Photo Story Friday. :)

This photo was taken by me. Please DO NOT COPY, SAVE OR USE in any way. Please contact me if you are interested in obtaining a copy of this photo. All rights are forever retained by me. :) Thanks for understanding and honoring my request so that I can continue to share my photos with you. ;)

BOO Magnets winner

Sorry, first thing this morning turned into late this evening. I don't have any excuses though... So, I'll just go ahead and hopefully make someone's day! :)

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:6Powered by RANDOM.ORG

and the 6th comment was:

Lacey said...

I'm a new follower :) your stuff is super cute! I would love to have a set of these magnets on my fridge :)

Congrats Lacey!

I'll send you an email so I can get your address and send these off to you! :)

Thanks everyone who left a comment! And everyone for stopping by! :) You make my day! :)

Bloggity Blogs: Project Naptime

There have been a couple of projects I've seen on the linky parties that have taken me to this awesome blog!! I couldn't wait to feature it any longer!

Blog: Project Naptime

This is definitely a recent favorite. I'm sure you may have seen it already... I know I'm not the only one that likes it! :)

Halloween Advent Calendar

Super cute bow tie! I would love to make this for my little boys to wear to church! :)

I've seen these every where before, but for some reason when I saw hers, and her super easy directions, I just really wanted one! :)

Just over a year ago I started to make a quiet book. Boy are they a lot of work. I still have yet to finish it. haha. ;) She has some really great pages that she's put together and I love them! :) Maybe one day I'll finish that book... and add some more fun pages.

Thanks for the great blog!! :)

Don't forget to grab your "featured button" from the bottom of the sidebar!

Picture Links:

Halloween Advent Calendar: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/09/pottery-barn-knock-off.html

Key Leash: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/07/key-leash.html

Quiet Book Pages: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/07/quiet-book-pages.html

Bow Tie: http://projectnaptime.blogspot.com/2010/05/easy-bow-tie-tutorial.html

Made It: Halloween "BOO" Blocks and a quick tutorial

Did you see the BOO Magnets I made last week? (check them out. I have an extra set that I'm giving away, so leave a comment if you want them!) Well, I had first tried to use my cricut to cut them out of fabric, and was struggling horribly, but I just couldn't give it up. Finally I simplified the design a little and got it to work alright. I ended up with these giant BOO blocks! These kind of turned out ho-hum, though I do think they're cute, just not as much so as I had hoped, and they were fun anyway! And my boys really like them! Hike can kick them clear across the room, and throw them pretty far too, it's kind of funny. :) Maybe they'll be useful for a fun game at a Halloween party or something. Maybe I could paint the words and the owls and bat with glow in the dark paint! That might make them more interesting!

"BAT" + "OWL" + "OWL" = BOO
honestly, I'm a little disappointed with how hard they are to see.
Tip: either use a solid fabric for your applique, or a solid piece for the background fabric. The mixture of two designs is too distracting!! (At least I think so now that I'm done).
A skill I will have to work on to master. ;)

These were super easy to make! You can easily make your own, even if you don't have a cricut (or can't get it to work the way you want it to) :). Figure out the design you want, I made mine using Make the Cut, or draw it on paper (Make sure they are all the same size). Trace it onto the fabric and cut out (or simply cut it with your cricut. You can find the tutorial I use to cut fabric here.) Once your applique piece is cut out, cut square blocks about 1 inch larger than your design (6 per block).
After you cut out all of your fabric, figure out which one you want your applique piece to be on and you can either sew it on now, or after you sew all the green arrows together (see below. If you sew it on after, make sure your fabric doesn't get pulled under what you are sewing or you will have to undo it. I know) ;}

Here is how I sewed them: (this is an all inclusive block piecing diagram. If it doesn't make sense, let me know and I will do a more detailed description of how I piece it together.)
***It is really important that you start and stop your seams 1/4 inch from each end, or it will make it difficult to sew the other edges of each square together. An easy way to make sure you don't forget is to simply cut out a 1/4 inch square from each corner of your piece.



After finishing these I REALLY wanted to make a quilt!!! But alas, there are still other projects I need to finish first. Do you ever get like that? When something doesn't turn out as great as you'd hoped and you can hardly stop yourself from making more things until you get something you're really proud of?!! I think instant gratification is a huge reward and motivator when it comes to creating things! LOL! :) Other times I just tell myself to "finish it already" so I can stop thinking about it. ;) haha.

Thanks for stopping by!
I love to hear from you!!!
Leave a comment and I will love to visit you too! :)

Have a great week! :)
I'll be linking up to most if not all the linkies on my side bar. :)

Made It: Boo Magnets & Freebies

For the last two days my SIL has been coming over and I've been helping her cut out some stuff on the cricut. It's been a lot of fun, and what we were doing got me really excited to try some other things with the Make The Cut program. I am loving it!!!

Since the project for the week over at CSI is fall, I decided to make some BOO magnets! :)
(Of course I always think the linky is open all day Thursday, and it never is. And with early morning doctors oppointments, I totally missed posting these over there. Oh well. Hopefully next week I'll remember to make something on Wednesday! But go check out all the cute stuff anyway!) :)

These magnets are pretty big, just over 4.5" by 4.5". But it's been fun! I don't use my cricut nearly enough!!

BOO

"B is for BAT" and "O is for OWL"

I cut them out, ran them through my xyron creative station, turning them into permanent stickers. Cut out the background and glued it all onto magnet sheets and cut out the magnet just around the paper. Then I am going to cover them with modpodge to help keep them all together! :) I love how they turned out!

I do have to do a shout out to all you scapbookers though! It's tough figuring out how to layer the paper so they look good, and are readable! I need to add some extra outlines with my pen to make some of them more readable. I guess I'm still learning! ;) (I am DEFINITELY not a scapbooker.)

When I first thought of these, I couldn't decide how to display them! I thought of cutting them out of fabric and making them appliques on a little quilt or wall hanging, or modpodge fabric and these onto a canvas board. I also thought about framing them, or even making some fabric blocks and putting them on one side of each block. (That's actually what I tried first, but I was having difficulties). That way my boys could play with them, and I would have to figure out where to hang them on our lack of wall space. You could also put them on wooden blocks, and that would be cute too. The possibilities are endless! The magnets are fun though, and Hike already played with them a little bit.

And guess what! While cutting the paper I had extra squares and decided to make an extra set!

Do you want it???

*** A new home has already been found for this lovely set ***

Make sure you are a follower of this blog, and leave a comment with your email (or you can email me at dbByDesign@gmail.com if you don't want to leave your email) so I can contact you, and I will randomly pick a winner first thing Wednesday! :)

Happy Halloween! and Happy Fall!!! :)

Do you want to make your own? I used fonts from Lettering Delights. You can get there by clicking on the button on my sidebar.
Font is LD Typeset, The bat and owl are DB Boo Ya. So cute! And right now they are only $1! :)
You can check out Make the Cut from my button too. It's a fantastic program if you have a cricut! Easy to use and you don't ever have to buy another cartridge!