Adorable "Medical" Christmas Wreaths

I wish I could take credit for the wreaths that I saw today at the lab while I was waiting for some blood work to be done but alas I can't.  I also wish I didn't look like the CRAZY lady taking pictures of Christmas decorations in a waiting room but I just couldn't help it - they were so cute!!

When I commented on the decorations to the lab tech, she said that they were given the go-ahead to decorate the lab BUT they couldn't spend any money, and all supplies they used either had to be previously used or expired.  I think they made some amazing things with some discarded laboratory supplies!

I noticed this one right away - they are the used 'orange drink' containers from the Glucose fasting test you have to take at 35 weeks of pregnancy - I remember that horrible tasting drink well! 

This one was paper cups and blood vials.

This last one was my favourite - those are pee jars!!  How genius!  

There were a bunch more decorations on the walls but I had already gotten some seriously strange looks taking the first three pictures and didn't want to encourage any more weird stares especially since I wasn't sure how long I was going to be waiting in the waiting room for.

Its nice to see that even in a really busy lab, they were able to take the time to decorate for the holidays and it looked fantastic.  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Another Top Almost Quilted!

After last nights Drunk Monkey sewing fiasco I figured I needed to continue the finishing (because even though I hate the stitching - the Eye Spy quilt top is DONE!) and so I ran upstairs and grabbed the Party Monster Quilt that I need to finish the quilting on and got to work on that.  Thankfully this quilt is super easy 'stitch in the ditch' machine quilting and will be done in the next few nights!

Its a small crib sized quilt and fits through my machine SO MUCH EASIER than the Eye Spy quilt did - plus I used the dream cotton batting and what a difference in manoeuvrability!  

Hopefully I can get this quilt top done in the next few days and then I can do both bindings for both Eye Spy and the Party Monster Quilt done by the new year!  Whoot whoot!  Hooray for finishes.

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Drunk Monkey Sewing - Take 2!

After a few weeks of sickness, more sickness and a few kids Christmas Concerts I finally got up the energy to work on the Eye Spy Quilt or as I like to call it 'the Drunk Monkey quilt'.  I refer to it as the Drunk Monkey quilt because my machine quilting is SO horrible on this quilt it looks as though a monkey could have sewn it after a few alcoholic beverages.

From far away it doesn't look to bad:

The backing isn't too bad either:

But when you get real close - you can see the 'magic' of the Drunk Monkey in action:

There is nary a straight line to be seen......

That being said, I have learned MANY a lesson working on this quilt:

• My accuracy has improved over the course of the past year and a half that I have been working on this quilt.  Some seams are fantastic (my later work) and some aren't (the blocks that I did at the beginning of the quilt.  I need to take my time and continue to improve on my accuracy with piecing.  
• I will NEVER.EVER.NEVER.EVER purchase and use poly batting.  E-V-E-R.  I made the mistake of getting talked into it since the the quilt store did not have the cotton batting I wanted and I wanted to work on the quilt so bad that I just grabbed what was available.  
• I need to pull my quilt tighter when I am making the quilt sandwich - I think my top was a little too loose so I got some puckering when I quilted the top. 
• I need to lighten up on myself - every quilt is able to teach me a lesson or two (this one more than a few lessons were taught!) and I am a very occasional quilter.  Practice makes perfect and if I want to get better I need to put in some extra time and I will get better.  

Drunk Monkey sewing aside, I know the girls are going to LOVE the quilt when I get the binding on in the next few days (going to try to machine the binding on which should be interesting!).  

Thanks for stopping by!  See you tomorrow.

Finished Wings

Miss S's Winter Concert is tomorrow and I finished her costume tonight.  Its really nothing too special, since I didn't want to wreck a perfectly good (brand new) red long sleeved shirt - especially right before Christmas by sewing big circles on it!  So I did the oh so classy route of safety pinning the felt circles to her shirt.  She decided on circle placement - not me!!

The wings in the above picture were the 'spares' just in case the spray painted ones were too stinky.  

Below is the finished wings!  

Miss S didn't get to see the finished product before she went to bed so she is going to be very excited in the morning.  The concert should be cute tomorrow - she has one 'performance' at 9:10 that the family is going to and then another one at 6:30 that the grandparents and I are going to.  I figured the evening show would be way too busy for Mr C. to be running around and Miss L has been downright inconsolable past 6:00 most nights lately because shes so tired.  I believe in situational behaviours and if I put two very overtired kids in a room full of 300 parents they are going to freak out and I'd rather that not happen!  

I'll post pictures of the concert tomorrow!  

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.  

Sickness, Christmas Tree and Ladybug Wings

Its that time of year again - Christmas you say?!  NO - that other time of the year; when everyone gets sick!  NOT my most favourite time of the year at all to say the very least.  Thankfully after most of us getting sick over the past week I'm hopeful to think the worst is behind us.

We did manage to put up our tree this week - sorry for the horrible picture but all I could find was my iPhone.  The girls did most of the decorating and they did a fantastic job.  I made sure that all of the breakable/good ornaments were out of Mr. C's reach since he thinks the tree is awesome and wants to redecorate all the time!!!

I have a few favourite ornaments but I'll post more about those another day when I have the good camera out and I can get way better detail.

Miss S has her Winter Concert this week at school - she is so excited.  Its about Bugs and I've been privy to a few of the songs she gets to sing.  Its going to be adorable!  They are allowed to chose the type of bug they want to be so Miss S decided she wanted to be a lady bug and I needed to figure out some kind of costume.

She didn't have a plain red shirt so off to Walmart we went today and scored one for $6!  Next up was dots and wings.  We had black felt that I figured I could cut dots out of and we had pink wings leftover from Halloween.  I've seen tonnes of people spray paint stuff on blogs so I figured I could just spray paint the wings and be done - which worked GREAT except for the smell!!  How do I get the spray-paint smell off the wings by Wednesday?!?!  If the paint smell doesn't come off by tomorrow I'll see if I can pick up another pair of wings and we can just put the black dots on the new wings and they'll be just as cute.

Sorry for the sideways picture - I tried to take this picture three times and each time blogger made it go sideways and I have no idea how to flip it so sideways it will be!!

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow!

Christmas Table Runner - A Finish!!

I'm finally making some sweet progress on my Out Of Control UFO's that I posted about a while back. This table runner was fully quilted on top (I just stitched in the ditch of all the seams), had the binding sewn on I just hadn't hand sewn the binding down - and it had been that way for the past year!  I'm so bad for getting a quilt to a certain stage and abandoning it for a fun new project!

I don't have the energy to get all creative with my photo of my table runner tonight - so I give you an iPhone picture complete with my foot so you can admire my handiwork!  ;)

I really need to bust out my camera and my finished quilts outside on a nice day and get some really nice pictures of them rather than my late and night, dark and dingy pictures.  Oh well, a finish is a finish and I'll take it!!

Thanks for stopping by - see you tomorrow.