Book Debut

Just a reminder that my daughter's best friend, Kiersten White's Book "Paranormalcy" DEBUTS TODAY!!! You can find it HERE on AMAZON or at your local Barnes & Noble and lots of other bookstores near you. I recently finished Kiersten's book and I can highly recommend it to young and old alike. It is fresh, exciting and captivatingly romantic and funny. You will love Evie's voice in the book. I'm not going to tell you anything because I don't want to give anything away. Just know that you will love it.

We are SUPER EXCITED for Kiersten and we've recently heard news that she just signed a Movie Deal for film rights to her book. That is really cool news!!! You can read more about the excitement at Kiersten's Blog.

If you're a writer my daughter is having a Paranormalcy Party and is giving away a FULL Manuscript Critique on her blog. Go HERE to read more about the Party. Her contest will end September 7th. Kiersten is also having a contest and giveaway that will end September 12th so run HERE and enter her contest.

For those of you who would like to meet her in person and have her sign your copy of her book you can go HERE for TOUR information. A few other author's will be traveling with Kiersten.

Kiersten will be here in Salt Lake City, Utah at King's English Bookstore on September 11th at 2pm for a book signing. If you come look for me and say HI. I just may have something for you if you tell me you read this on my blog. I'd love to see you there!!!

Dreams Do Come True. . .

Of all my children, Ariel, is the most outgoing and ready to jump at the chance to travel anywhere in this world. I remember last year when Aunt Claudia (my mom's sister) came over from New Zealand for several weeks and it was right then that she decided that she was going to fly to New Zealand and see the country, visit her relatives, and be able to experience, first hand, her Maori Heritage. . . another link

Her DREAM finally came TRUE!!!

We took her to the Salt Lake City Airport this past Friday evening to board a plane to fly to the Los Angeles Airport and from there fly to Auckland, New Zealand. . .

Notice the Double Rainbow!?

The Rainbow was certainly a serendipitous sight as we approached the airport.
(meaning: unexpected and unforseen)

It brought smiles to our faces and warmed my heart.

I was comforted and knew that I could let her go.
I knew also, that she would be in very good hands along the way.

It's hard to say goodbye but with all of the technology that keeps us connected it will be fun to keep in contact with her. It's funny but, we've actually talked more with her in the last 3 days than we have in the last few weeks. She's been really busy finishing up at work, getting ready for school (that she'll be doing online from NZ), buying school books, packing, cleaning, organizing, taking care of last minute doctor appointments, banking details, and saying goodbye to friends, and family.

Here she is saying goodbye and getting ready to go through security. We watched as she walked away from us toward her new adventure!!! Wow! I can't hardly believe she's in another country. We are so excited for her and know she will grow in so many ways and have lots of wonderful experiences.


Nothing like waiting until the very last minute but it was just a few days before Ariel left that she asked me to make her a camera case and a case for her new iPod Touch.

So, here it is. . .

Ariel's Quilted & Zippered Tech Pouch. . .

I found a 4" zipper at JoAnn's and made this Tech Pouch to protect her iPod Touch and her digital camera. If I had taken a picture of the inside of the pouch you would see a quilted divider seperating and protecting both the camera and the iPod Touch.


The smaller pouch you see is a craft fail in the sense that the zipper was too small and prevented the camera fitting in lengthwise. I should have made it a 1/2" wider to accommodate the camera so, now it's a pouch to hold makeup, money, or any other small item you want to carry in your purse.


I also wanted to make an identification tag for her Tech Pouch too, so I used my metal stamps to stamp her name on a metal blank. Then I added the zipper pull clip and a swarovski heart and small bear charm. It was a fun touch to finish it off.

Will Work for Fabric

Yesterday, was officially my last day of summer and at 8am this morning we started a new school year which I'm really excited about but I am going to miss my free time. I'll still have time. . . just not as much. . . you know how it is, right? Anyway, I had a blast yesterday with one of my dear friends Diana. We met at Material Girls and had fun shopping and we each even made a second purchase. Do you ever do that? Amongst all of my quilting friends I think 3's the max. lol. You can correct me if I'm off a bit. Sometimes you see something that you didn't see when you came in the store or a friend shows you something you need right after you made your purchase. I'm sure you've all experienced this before. Right? I hope I'm not the only one.

Don't you just love the sign that says "Will Work For Fabric" (as seen in the picture below). I told Diana I will really "Have to Work for Fabric" after all of the shopping I've enjoyed lately. It's time for me to get back to work. Thanks to one of the girls in the shop for taking our picture. I really appreciate it!


After shopping we headed across the parking lot to "The Pie" it's a great pizza placeand the first restaurant originated at the University of Utah.



Here's a look at our HUGE $3 a slice pizza. I got the Chicken Ranch Pie and Diana got the Tomato Pie. It was really good and the salad was really yummy.

I liked this picture!
I held the camera and Diana pressed the button.
What a team!

After lunch we headed to JoAnn's.

I needed to pick up a few notions for a secret project and Diana picked up a couple rulers. While Diana looked at ribbon I started looking around and found myself a sewing basket. It wasn't too long ago that I bought my youngest daughter a sewing basket. I started using her basket and realized. . . Hey, I want one too. I especially fell in love with Lori's House Sewing Basket when I first saw it at our American Quilting Quilt Retreat Earlier this year.


She's the proud owner of a Cath Kidston House Sewing Basket. It was not long after that that I started looking around for a sewing basket too. . . Thanks for inspiring me, Lori!

Yesterday, at JoAnn's I found it! Yeah!

I've seen Alexander Henry's Sew Now Sew WOW! fabric around blogland and most recently on Jodie's blog post about her Creating Space and it reminded me how much I love this fabric but sometimes, I often get behind on things and thought I might have totally missed this fabric but recently found some yardage online. This is one fabric that I hope they reprint. . . it's so cute.

Anyway, when I saw this sewing basket done in Sew Now Sew WOW. . . I just had to have it!! I didn't care that I had used my coupon the previous day. I loved it so much I was willing to pay full price for it. You should have seen my excitement when it came up on sale. Yippee!! I've already filled it with all sorts of notions along with my Hexie's. So fun!!!


Since, it was my last day before school my oldest daughter and my grandkids were coming over at 2pm but I was 40 minutes late due to over shopping (lol) and traffic. I got a bit antsy having to follow this very large piece of farm equipment (since I couldn't see beyond it) through a very big construction zone but, I took a few pictures of it while I was waiting, especially since I had my camera sitting right next to me.

Utah is known for their endless construction projects and the one I passed through to get home is one that should be avoided at certain times of the day. It happens to be a MAJOR thoroughfare and it will be really nice when they finish it next year.

Circle-y Granny Squares

I found this new Circle-y Granny Square Tutorial by Jellywares. Thanks to Natalie from Cinderberry Stitches for her post a few days ago and the link she then gave to Amanda's blog that linked to Jellywares Blog. Sometimes the chains to different blogs are difficult to keep track of but here you have it. I documented it while I remembered and while I could still easily find the links. I almost forgot you have to go to Carina's Craft Blog too for some other great crochet tutorials like this and this and we can't forget this one either.

I fell in love with the Circle-y Granny Squares and just had to post about them. I knew you would love them too. The patten was easy enough for me to follow along and I actually made one in about 15 minutes. Wow!! It's so cool to finally be able to follow crochet instructions as long as they aren't too complicated.

Here are several pictures of the Circle-y Granny Squares I've made so far.

Have fun with the links. . .

Fabric World

On Monday of last week we drove up to the Portland area hoping to see Jodi of Pleasant Home and to visit a few Universities for my daughter's graduate school. Because of unforseen circumstances we were unable to meet up but she recommended that I go here but they are closed on Mondays so we ended up at Fabric World instead.

Before you scroll down to look at the pictures let me just explain how we found ourselves at Fabric World. I've never been in the Portland area before so I was anxious to find a quilt shop to visit and since I couldn't visit the one Jodi recommended and I couldn't get a hold of Jodi to get another recommendation I turned to our car's fancy GPS system. It had a list of sewing/fabric stores that you could scroll through based on distance. The title of the store and the proximity of the shop to where we were headed helped us decide on FABRIC WORLD.

Sounded good. . .Right? Wrong!!!

It was definitely NOT what I was hoping for. . . but we had fun anyway and found a few treasures while we were there.



I wasn't totally disappointed but with all of the quilt shops I could have visited I had to laugh when I walked in and saw the place. It felt more like a thrift store than a quilt shop. They even had clothing, shoes, notions, and other assorted Knic Knacs.

There was even some VINTAGE clothing there.
I thought these pants might look snazzy on my husband.
Maybe he meant them for me. lol.

My daughters found these matching dresses with added trim on the blue one.

These are the old metal zippers that I bought to make Kenna a few zipper flowers. Click on the picture to see the great price I paid for them.

I also bought these cute RED snaps.
I couldn't resist them!

We will all remember Fabric World and the fun we had looking around for something to buy.

Family Reunion

What a blast we had joining with our dear family and enjoying the afternoon with great food, great company, and lots of wonderful pictures and memories to take home with us.

My kids have never met most of my husband's extended family on his mother's side of the family so, it was especially wonderful for them to visit and get to know their aunts, uncles, and cousins. We were also lucky to have my mother-in-law Carole, my brother-in-law Mike, and my husband's cousin Kim and her husband Gary at the reunion. They all drove up from Northern California.

Warning: We are going to be picture heavy in this post and I will keep the reading to a minimum.

The Family Group Picture...

Silly Version...

Another Silly One...

The Cousins...

Uncle Mike
(husband's brother)

Uncle Dan
(husband's mother's brother)

Arriving at Uncle Dan and Pat's house...

Cousins

Uncle Bill
(husband's mother's youngest brother)

Grandma Carole
(husband's mother on the right)

Visiting and enjoying the view of the river.

Reunion Location... Front of House...

Back of House...

Aunt Pat's beautiful Gardens.

The men visiting and cooking.

Chatting by the River...How cool is that?

The following are some of my favorite pictures that I took...

:-) Kenna took this one of me...

My very most favorite picture of Kenna and her Dad.

Don't you just love Chandler's expression?
I had to convince him to let me take his picture.

Building a little Dam in the River to create a small pool.

It wouldn't be a Successful Reunion
without a Marshmallow Roast, now would it?

Oh... before I end. Here's a silly video that I couldn't resist taking. No one knew that my fancy camera also took video. It was fun to see everyone in action and no one was the wiser. lol. Therefore it was painless and totally off the cuff.

If you got to this point in my post I want to thank you for hanging in there.

I hope you enjoyed it...

I know we did!! :-)