Grandma Stierwalt's Present for her Cottage

Georgie's Hat

I know I already Emailed this to you, but I wanted to post it for my own memory. Becky, please post a pic of Georgiana in it when it arrives.

Christmas prep

I call this an ode to Spanglers
Forgot to grease the cookie sheet.

Our yearly barn in progress.

Apple Turn Overs. These were awesome. If anyone ever comes to my house, I will make you these. They don't travel well. Meaning, that I would probably eat them all in the car before I make it to your house.

Lately-Becky.

I made Georgie and Dash nukie straps. Dash's was orange, blue and brown.

This t-shirt is for a new baby in my mom's club named Leo.

This is a bad shot of Henry's birthday party cake. Chocolate ice cream topped with chocolate graham crackers, hot fudge, and birthday cake ice cream, then smeared with whipped cream.

Birthday cupcakes for school.

Leftover cake batter used to make a birthday pancake for at home.

After making 4 cakes, I wanted to make something for Christmas but was tired of cookies and cakes. So I made peppermint bark with 3 layers (white, dark, and white chocolate) and these Salted Caramel-Pecan bars - courtesy of Southern Living. I topped them with dark chocolate. They are awesome. I also made Chili Chocolate, but the chocolate burned when I tried to melt it down. I don't know why that one went wrong after I had already melted 4 other pots of chocolate. Maybe it was for the best because Brandon tried some and it was SPICY. I might try it again, but with mess pepper flakes and some whipping cream.

More hats

Made this hat for Shlee. She promises that she will wear it all winter. Yeah, right.

Hats

Erica mentioned to me that Elle needed a hat for winter. I had made her this purple one as a newborn hat but when I finished it, it was gigantic, so I stuck it back in the box. So I pulled it out again and put some purple flowers on it. It fits great. Although you could put a brown paper bag on this kid and she would still be adorable.
And then I was invited to a baby shower for Evie's kindergarten teacher. Not wanting to go out and spend the money on an outfit, I just hit the yarn box and made this. It was from a pattern for 0-3 months, but I enlarged it. Probably made it too big, becuase I was able to jam it on the Shlee. Oh well, she can grow into it. Mrs Johnson and her baby, ANNABELLE, liked it.

Natalie's creation

Sunday steals!

Check out these totals, Uncle Kevin!

Grouped together from CVS and RiteAid:

Rite Aid:

Product Total: $55.97

Less: Wellness+ Savings: $14.98

Coupons: $15,25

Mail-in Rebate: $10

UP+ Rewards: : $10

Total Out of Pocket: $5.74

CVS:

Product Total: $22.66

Less: CVS Savings: $9.80

Coupons: $5.50

Extra Care Bucks: $5.80

Total Out of Pocket: 2.56

And to reward myself: a fuzzy, out of focus caramel Frappe $2.29

Less coupon: $2.29

FREE

All products: $80.92

Paid: 8.30

Savings: 89.76%

Jelly

Since the kids eat PB&J every day, I decided to supply them with some homemade freezer jam. We have already gone through about 4 big containers already. The best part was half the fruit was given to us.

Rhubarb, sweet cherry, peach, strawberry, grape.

It took 41 weeks to finish this one...

...and now I can't get it to turn off at night.

CVS and Walgreens Deals

Total retail cost: $23.98

Less coupons: $9.00

Register Rewards or Extra Care Bucks: $11.99

Total Cost: $2.99

Deal of the Day

My coupon game results

$34.54: Retail cost

$21.36: With Rite Aid Wellness Card:

$5.74: Cash out of pocket

$3.29: Mail in Rebates

$2.45 Total cost

The last project is finished.

Here's the finished quilt for baby Dash.

Front.

Back.

Now I've got nothing to do but wait for this baby to come.

Links

I added a few links to the sidebar of crafting and quilting blogs I like to check. I especially like One Pretty Thing. It's a blog that collects and posts different crafts and art that other people have created and posted on their blog.

Feel free to add any blogs you check.

Lego mania

So I'm reading this book called: LEGO A love story all about this guy rediscovering his childhood LEGO bricks and finding out all the crazy stuff that grown ups do with LEGO Bricks (also, you aren't supposed to call them LEGOs because there is no such thing. yOu must call the LEGO bricks.) The guy is trying to become a good builder and talks about creating MOC's which stand for MY OWN CREATIONS. Here are my MOC's. I'm one step away from attending the GenCom (for loser trekkie fans and other comic book stuff) convention in town this weekend. Anyway, I think these are pretty good.

I'm totally going to do this.

How cool will my kids be with their 8 o'clock coffee lunch bags?

http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/coffee-bag-sandwich-wrap-895357/

The t-shirts are done!

The end is in sight! Hopefully, people stop having babies, because I can't keep with all of these little t-shirts.

I finished the A for Amalia. This is for Holly's baby, Gabriella.

Megan's little Lillie turned one, so she got a dino shirt.

These t-shirt made the one letter a piece of cake, but I needed the kids to have these shirts.

That's a lot of zig-zagging.

This one took me two episodes of highlander.

Now all I have left to do is finish the two baby quilts and then I can have this baby.

Dash's quilt.

Here's the front of Dash's quilt. I have it all sewn together. I'm going to add a white border and a blue border, then bind it with the striped fabric.

New Curtains

My non craft projects

Its summer and I don't have a lot of time for crafty projects. I have to live off the land to make my family food for the upcoming hard winter. And drink beer and go to the pool.

I made a bunch of jam. And drank a beer. It was good, but got warm quickly because the kitchen was hot. Note to self--use a cozy.

I made stuffed eggplant tonight which only 3/4 of us ate without crying.

Some of my jam. Try to look surprised at Christmas. I made 10 more pints today. Putting the canner away for a while now.

Nesting much?

Here's a sampling of what I've done this week.

Here's the finished front of quilt.

And the finished back. I've already got it quilted too.

Our friends had a baby names Josiah. Here's a t-shirt I'm making him.

And the detail.

Here's one for baby Alaina. I also need to make one for baby Amalia. But I accidentally scorched hers with the iron.

I needed more mattress pads for Henry and June's room. I got mad that they charge $14 for two small ones in the kids section, so I just bought a big queen sized one for $15 and cut it up into 3 big pieces. And I used some left over to make these little burp clothes for the baby.

I still need to clip all the string, but I think they are pretty cute.

Here's the fabric for baby Dash's quilt. It's going to be a bunch of blocks with every other block this checkerboard pattern. Hopefully I can get it done before Dash is born.

Remember I crocheted a rug out of t-shirts in the kitchen? It was getting stretched out and Henry unraveled a part and stuck his leg through it. So during a crazy spell, I tore the whole thing apart and am now using the strips to weave a new rug. You can see that it's a much tighter weave.

Here's how far I've gotten. Now that we have cable, Brandon doesn't always let me sit in front of the tv with my loud sewing machine. So this is a nice, quiet project to work on.

Aunt Jenni, show this to Kevin. This is $45 worth of stuff that I got for $15. And $8 of it (medicine and coke) wasn't part of my awesome deals. I just bought it because I had extra CVS bucks to use. Normally, I save them for my good deals next week, but I'm not sure if I'll be up to going to CVS next week. So really it's $37 worth of stuff for $7. Score.