Happy New Years!

Oh how I love this little Dozers of ours! She makes us smile with her witty sense of humor, her fierce loyalty & her tender & kind heart. She's fearless. A little tomboy who would much rather be playing Princess Pirates than Princess dress up. We're encouraging her to be herself with the added "Girls can be anything boys can be". The hope that she'll grow up to be a strong & fearless girl. Yes, Zoe it's okay to be a little different. How boring the world would be if all us girls just wanted to wear pink. 

I'm thinking this year is going to be a good one. I'll make it one no matter what. My New Years goals are simple.

To laugh more

love more

listen a little better

smile a little more

pray with more sincerity

take care of myself & the ones I love

& to keep following my dreams.

Don't see how I can go wrong or fail with any of these goals. They are all attainable for every single one of us. Hope you all have a Happy New Year's Eve. Here's to 2012!!!!

Christmas Aftermath

Table runners in progress

I'm getting ready to tackle a huge pile of laundry. I'm pretty sure half of the clothes in our house are in it. How does that even happen? Later today I'll continue organizing the girls rooms. I bought a dozen clear colored bins to store their toys in. Needless to say I'll have to buy a few dozen more before the whole process is through. It's crazy how many wonderful toys these kids have. They added a pirate ship & a few princess & mermaid sets to their ever growing Playmobil village. Not to mention their new obsession with Little Woodsies. My mom bought them every single family for Christmas & I bought the last of the furniture sets so now they have a whole little village. Little Woodsies look a lot like the Calico Critters from when I was a little girl but they are a fraction of the price. My girls love them & play with them for hours. Santa brought Aris some more sets of furniture for her Fisher-Price dollhouse. She almost has everything for it. I'm kind of obsessed with sets. I hate having random toys. I have found that when you have sets of toys for the kids to play with they do just that, play with them more. I know I'm a little weird but it works.  Zoe got an awesome trick bike & Sloan's favorite gift (other than the 19" flat screen Santa brought her) was her gently used but new to her Barbie dream house. I couldn't find a new one & looked on Craigslist in desperation. I found one! It came with a bunch of really great Barbies, 2 cars, furniture & some clothes for $40. Sloan was so happy. I wasn't going to get her one, she's almost 12 & I know she probably won't want to play with it for much longer. Then it hit me......she won't want to play with dolls for much longer...........insert sad face here. Kids grow up so quickly these days. Might as well let her play with them as long as she wants. Especially since she wants me to teach her how to shave her legs. Did I mention the stocking full of makeup Santa brought per her request? I Also realized this is the last Christmas we'll have a baby in the house........insert sniff sniff here. 

I loved this Christmas. Even though we didn't get to celebrate with our families we had a fun time with our little family. Dean came to church with us, we had the missionaries over for dinner on Christmas day, and Grandmas & Grandpas spoiled us from afar. The only thing I'd do differently next year is to make gifts for family and friends. I should probably start now. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. I'll be back in the new year with a ton of new tutorials & hopefully a new look to this blog. Oh I have big things in store for my little Artfulife!!!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! 

Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas! See you in the new year!!!!

Owl Mini Quilt

I started this little mini quilt while I was at the Sewing Summit. I love birds & have done quite a few illustrations of owls so I thought it would be fun to make a fabric illustration of sorts & this is what I came up with. It was inspired by the class I took from the talented Miss McPork Chop. She is amazingly talented & it was so much fun to meet her & listen to her creative process. Amanda's class was very informative too. I left it looking at sewing in a whole new way. With 4 kids and a busy day to day schedule, making mini quilts just made sense to me. It is far easier for me to put together a smaller  project than a large one. I don't know why I felt that only bigger quilts were acceptable as finished projects. Since then I have totally changed the way I look at quilting in general. Basically anything that's smallish & quilted can be considered a mini quilt. How wonderful is that!?! I feel it really makes quilting more accessible to anyone. Even if you don't feel you could do quilting on a large scale, starting with a mini may just tickle your fancy & open up the door for bigger & more complex quilting projects later down the road.  Take a look at my Pinterest board for some serious quilting inspiration.

Since I'm new at this whole quilting thing I find myself making a ton of mistakes. With each mistake I learn so much. Take the mistake in the above photo. I didn't baste before I started quilting. Now I know why basting is so important. Silly me, I thought I could quilt without it! Like I knew better than all ya'll seasoned quilters......Ha! Now I know better.

I didn't want to scrap it so I cam up with a plan. I decided to cut out the puckered part of the owl & then add a square to cover the now bare part that I cut away.

Even though you can still see my boo boo I feel it looks a whole lot better than before.

It even gives the back of this quilt a little bit of a modern feel. I love how the pink looks against the grey fabric. I used Dana's tutorial for the binding. Her tutorial is a perfect reminder to look at (I've bookmarked it by the way) since I have only bound one other thing. Hopefully I'll get to the point where I'm making so many quilts I can bind with my eyes closed ;)

There were several fabrics I used while making this. The darling green flower, pink flower & hopscotch fabric are all from the talented Sarah Jane's new fabric line Kid's at Play. The solid fabrics are from the Kona sample pack we received in our goody bags while at the Sewing Summit. I used my Babylock's decorative stitches to attach the solid fabrics together & I love the result. The plaids & gingham's are from an older Moda line but I honestly don't remember the name I've had them for so long. I'm really glad I finally had a project to use them on. 

I love my new Babylock that I purchased while at the Summit. It runs smoother than butter & she & I are becoming fast friends. I find it super easy to use & super quiet. Dean & I can actually watch movies now while I sew. Couldn't do that when using my other machine. If you are in the market for a new machine I highly recommend considering a Babylock.

Here she is totally finished!

I had so much fun making this little mini, & I can't wait to get started on another "tiny" project very soon. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this project. I'm in the process of making a pattern & I'm wondering if it's something anyone would be interested in. Thanks for stopping by & I hope you are having a happy holiday!

It's Not Easy Being Green

Is there anything cuter than a boy & his frog?

I didn't think so ;)

Family Wedding

Well folks it only took me 6 months to edit all the photos from this totally AWESOME wedding! I should be hiding my head in shame. If it weren't for the fact that the lovely bride was none other than my beautiful cousin Brooke, I very well could have been run out of town! lol. All joking aside it was a deplorable thing for me to do. They were my wedding gift to her & I hope she will enjoy them for years to come. Maybe, just maybe if I'm lucky she'll let me take pictures of her little family as it grows (no hints here, just sayin ;) I love you Brookie! Thanks so much for letting me be a part of your special day. This was one of the happiest weddings I've been to. Everything was beautiful & perfect right down to the homemade treats. I'm so happy for you & Colby!