Getting ready for a New Year!

I hope everyone's holiday season gave you happy memories to last a lifetime.  Ours was beyond amazing, due of course to our newest family member.  My grandson, James, was born on December 16th and he is as cute as can be.  Both mother and son came through wonderfully.  Pictures will follow, when I get them on this computer.

One of the gifts of the season was a new computer!  My husband and I gave it to each other, but it lives near my chair so guess who uses it most?   It's an all-in-one with a touch screen and I love it.  My embroidery software looks so much nicer on the 20 -inch screen as opposed to the 11-inch screen I had been using!   But I haven't put any of my photos on here yet, so will have to add them at a future date.

I made many of the gifts we gave this year, on my embroidery machine.  Photos, again, will follow.

My mother gave me a waffle iron, my first ever!  Sunday morning we had waffles and bacon for breakfast and it was wonderful.  One neat thing about this waffle iron is that you can adjust the darkness.  VERY cool.  I had a sparkly new waffle iron, so I decided a new blender was in order since my old was was about 30 years old.  It still worked fine, so I donated that one to the Bibles for Missions Thrift Store near our house and bought THIS ONE:

The Ninjas get wonderful reviews and are very powerful.  Hopefully it will last for the next 30 years.

I was shopping with my brother, a confirmed Apple fan, and ended up buying my very first Apple product.  I got the iPod Touch (32GB, blue) and have spent the last few days setting it up.  Happy birthday to ME!  Now I'm on strict spending restriction.  LOL!  Anyway, this thing is so cool!  It's much lighter than my old Zune, and does a lot more.

Enough rambling, I'm off to watch a little TV.  My husband is off with family tonight and won't be home until tomorrow so instead of a New Year kiss I expect a New Year phone call.  If I'm still awake.  Otherwise a New Year voice mail.  =D

Have a safe New Year's Eve.  Drive carefully if you're out there tonight.

May we all be blessed in this new year with health, happiness, prosperity and PEACE.

Good grief!

Has it really been 7 months since I posted?!  Obviously blogging is not my strong point.  Sorry!

So much has been going on!  My darling daughter is FINALLY going to make me a grandmother.  The baby is due in early December and we are on pins and needles.  This little boy is already very loved, and a lot of people can't wait to meet him.  After THAT news everything else is minor.

I had carpal tunnel surgery in September and was out of work for 8 weeks.  I took advantage of the time off to spend 10 days with my sister at her house in San Jose, CA.  We had a day in Monterey and one in  San Francisco, and spent one weekend in the Calistoga mountains camping with horses.  All in all a perfect get-away.  Here are some pictures I took while I was there:

Calistoga:

The view from my sister's front yard:

 Monterey:

 Alcatraz:

I've finished making my Christmas cards and am going to get them in the mail next week.  Maybe.  I wish there were a way to print labels from my Google Contacts.  If anyone knows how please leave the instructions in the comments!

There has been some jewelry made, and some embroidery done.  Getting ready for Christmas, and trying to CREATE some of the gifts that will be given this year.

That's about it!  What have YOU been up to?

Caftan and Fleece Jacket

Almost a month ago I promised photos of my finished projects.  Here they finally are!

The caftan material is navy blue satin with a floral print.

The fleece is a tie-dyed blue, and the edging is blue cotton and silver stars.  It's warm and toasty!

So, there you go!  Sorry it took so long.  Guess who likes blue?!  LOL!

Starla and I did a 3-day crop at Archivers a week ago.  I'll post pictures of the cards I finished... after I've sent/used them!

Not much else to report, so I'll see you later!

I HAD to share this!

Two posts in two days... what's the deal, right?  I had to share the coolest EASY dessert idea I found on Pintrest:

Individual 1-2-3 cake!

Can't wait to make one!


As long as I'm here, I did a little more sewing last night and finished the valances I all-but-finished in November.  It's so nice to have them DONE!  Of course I had to hang one of them immediately and take a picture, so here is one small part of one of the valances:

I still need to buy the blinds for the window directly to the right of this one (they meet in the corner of the rear entry to our house), then I can hang the valance.  I like it!

Hello, my VERY patient friends!

I've been lazy and not blogging.  If it makes you feel any better I've ALWAYS been awful at keeping a journal.  Even as a young girl my diary had a lot of blank pages.  But I keep trying!

Let me catch you up...

January - not much to talk about.  Minnesota.  Winter.  Cold.

My husband and I celebrated our six-year anniversary.  No... wait... SEVEN year anniversary.  I think.  Now it's going to drive me nuts until I go check.  BRB.   Yep, seven years. The day after that was my birthday so we usually celebrate both at the same time.  Dinner at Red Lobster.  YUM!

I did some sewing, finished my fleece jacket and will post a picture as soon as my model comes over.  I was quite happy with how it turned out, but would make the sleeves an inch or so longer next time.  Then I took a quilting class and made a quilt square:

I took the picture with my Xoom so it's not the greatest.  The dark purple is beautious! You'll just have to take my word for it.

After that class I took another quilting class, to make a lap quilt and matching pillow.  This one I finished in February so let's move on...


February -   More sewing!  Starla and I went on a crafting retreat.  My wonderful brother-in-law, Tom, and his fabulous fiancee, Mary, let us use their farm for 4 days and it was PERFECT!  My friend Kathleen came with us, but had to leave early because she wasn't feeling well.  It had nothing to do with the roast I made the night before, I SWEAR!  =D  Here is me with Kathleen:

 And me with Starla:

Posting these took courage... you have NO idea!

Anyway, I finished the quilt and pillow I mentioned earlier while at the retreat, and here they are!

 This picture lets you see the purple fabric a bit better.  I love the Kokopelli design!

Here are a couple of shots showing my work area, and the caftan I've been working on and JUST FINISHED TODAY!!:

 and my sewing machine (the one I got in November wasn't working right so I returned it and got this one.)

Starla was working at the table you see in the background at the right edge of the picture.

We left some gifts from the heart for our hosts:

Starla and I got them a candle display, Kathleen made quilted coasters, and I made them a card.  We added some Hershey's kisses too, just because.

The retreat was a BLAST and we hope to be able to do it again.

On Valentines Day my sweet husband brought me some flowers, so I had to get a picture of them:

Pretty, no?  I took these pictures a week after he brought them home, I wanted the roses to have opened. They are STILL looking good, almost a month later.

Also, my Silhouette group on Yahoo is having a swap.  Only seven of us signed up, and after making my swap item I'm SO GLAD there weren't more!  LOL!  I underestimated how long it would take to cut and assemble the cards I made.  There were a TON of teeny pieces!  This is my project:

Isn't he just the cutest thing?

Okay, that's all I have for this installment of CRAFTING WITH VICKI.  Tune in next time for pictures of the finished fleece jacket and caftan!

Some pictures

I made the Thank You cards, they'll go out in the mail tomorrow.  Here's a picture, although they're better in person...

 The ribbon at the bottom was made with a StampinUp! punch, the paisley embellishments were made with a Creative Memories punch.  Cute, right?  The paper is a beautiful blue and I sprayed it with Perfect Pearls.  I love that stuff!!  The stamp and the scallop punch are both from StampinUp!  I colored the butterfly with Spica markers.

There was some frustration while I was making this card...  We all have and love our Xyron sticker makers, right?  The ones that look like an "X" and the larger ones as well.  So I was fairly confident when I bought Xyron's Mega Runner tape dispenser.  I despise this thing.  The tape doesn't dispense properly, a lot of it ends up wasted.  It's one of the few products I can't WAIT to use up.  I just hope I didn't get too many refills while it was on sale.

Okay, back to the fun stuff!

This was the card I made for my husband.  The front says Merry Christmas to the one I love

 This is the interior.  LOL! 

The sentiments were created in Word and printed out.  The snowflakes were cut on my Silhouette.  I don't remember who made the paper, but it was perfect!

On the jewelry front:

A few weeks before Christmas a friend contacted me and asked me to make a necklace and earrings for his wife.  I made a couple of sets so he would have a choice, and this is what I came up with:

 The beads on this one are acrylic, and they feel wonderful.  I love how they almost glow!  I added a heart toggle clasp because it seemed appropriate.

This set was made with glass black beads and AB crystal and deep red Swarovski crystals.  It's a shorter length necklace, and dainty, so I used a smaller toggle clasp with a bamboo style.  The photo does not do the set justice, it's VERY sparkly!

When Gordy came to make his choice he ended up buying both sets.  One for his wife, one for his daughter.  I hope they enjoy them!

That's about it for today, time to have a bite and relax a bit.

Happy New Year once again!