One Extra Long Blog Post Coming Right Up!

Yes, I've been slacking on the blogging. It's practically the only resolution I made that's been difficult for me to follow through on. However, I have been working on lots of fun, creative projects so it all equals out, right?

First up is the Valentine's Day wreath I made (which will continue to decorate our door until March 1st). I made a bargain with Brandon that I will clean out my Christmas decorations after I make wreaths for the door for each season/holiday I wanted. So here's the first!

Before I found the little extras that I liked.

Forgive the poorly made bow-it was a first for me.

The mini V-day ornaments that I used. Super cute!

It didn't take much time, or money for that matter, and I really like how it looks. I used a simple foam wreath that I happened to have and then wrapped it in Fun Fur. I bought the ribbon & ornaments at JoAnn Fabric for 1/2 off and before you know it, it was finished. I'm really looking forward to making one for March with a St. Patrick's Day theme. It's fun because our last name is Patrick. :)

Next up, I've been making rag quilts like crazy. I love making them and really want to try to sell them. So if you know anyone who might be interested, send them my way! ;) I want to keep making them, but we really don't need all these quilts laying around! Here are some pics of the Cherry Blossom rag quilt I made. 

These are some of my favorite fabric designs. All lightweight cotton and super cute.

Laid out and ready to go!

Back side of the rag quilt. I absolutely love these prints.

Front side. I tried a different blocking pattern this time. It really worked for these colors.

So that's the first finished quilt I'll be selling. It's 48in x 41in (roughly 4ft x 3.4ft), which is a great size for a blanky/lovey for a little girl. Fun colors, unique & one of a kind. :)

I've also been working on a scallop tote for my mom so she can carry her iPad around with her throughout the day while she's working. A great, free tutorial can be found here : Scallop Tote 

I found this through Pinterest (of course!) and decided to try it out. I did make a few changes (only one strap, extra long, so it will be a cross-body bag). It's been tough, but lots of fun! I'm hoping to finish it up today at some point (after all the laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc is finished. Sigh. A woman's work is never done). Here are a couple of pics featuring the fabric my mom picked out.

We went for a french/country type color/print scheme.

The layout. Ignore the messiness. The scallops still need pressed!

Now that the scallops are done (the hardest part, in my opinion) I need to press them, sew them to the outer layer of the tote, trim them down and then sew the outer layer & lining together. I'm really tempted to make myself a large tote/attache type bag of this design. We'll see how that goes!

Currently, I'm finishing up the Robot rag quilt (which mi padre has already claimed-he even paid me for it ;). All I have left to do is rag the edges, but it takes forever! At least, it seems to take forever. Here are the current pics so far.

I used a lot of different textures. Bumpy & soft, heavy cotton & lightweight cotton.

Laid out and ready to be pinned. Took me much longer since I opted to do varying sizes of blocks.

The back side of the finished quilt. I'll post a finished pic of the ragging once it done and been through the washer. :)

Finally, thanks to Pinterest yet again, I found an amazing way to clean the grimy inner door of the oven! Simply using baking soda & water (mixed until it's slightly runny paste), rubbing it on the door and letting it set for 20 minutes worked wonders! Now, our stove was here when we moved in to our home. Our home was built circa 1971. You do the math. I couldn't not get the door clean-it was so gross and kind of sticky. You know, the build up of grease sticky. So I took some pictures to document, in case it turned out as well as I had hoped.

Before: Who knows how many years of grimy, nastiness that is.

It started working as soon as I started scrubbing. Look how nasty that paste is!

After: It looks so much better!

I'm not going to lie. I opened the door and admired the clean surface several times that day. And I'm hoping that once a week treatments will keep it this way. I love cheap & easy cleaning solutions. Now I just need one for cleaning the microwave. :)

So, I apologize for the uber-long blog post. But I figured it was better than going overboard with a lot of different posts. Hope you all enjoyed!