Some Finishes and Flowers

Happy Friday everyone!! I hope you all have had a great week. Mine was busy, busy, busy. I had to work all week this week, but I have the week end off. Yippee!! Too bad it's supposed to rain. I didn't get much finished this week. I had Scout related meetings 2 nights this week. One night I worked. Another night I helped Cody get his invitations addressed & mailed out for his Eagle Ceremony. Tonight I will be baking cookies for a Scout campout. Stephen, the younger of my two boys will be going on a campout next week end & I'm the cookie mom. It's cool here today, so I'll do the baking & freeze the cookies until next week. I'm baking while it is cool. You never know what Wisconsin weather will bring~it may be in the 80's next week & I don't want to be making cookies when it's hot.

I did manage to get some stitching done this week. First up is a prim stitched Spring picture. I stitched it using a freebie pattern from primitivebettys . I used 18 count Aida and various colors of Valdani pearl cotton. The frame is painted soldier blue with a basecoat of burgandy. I rubbed some Colonial Walnut Minwax stain on it to prim it up a little. It is hanging in my downstairs powder room for the Spring season.

I'm loving those fabric covered boxes that I'm seeing on everyone's blogs so I decided to make one for myself. I covered a paper mache box with a nice blue fabric & stitched up the same freebie design. This time I made my tulip red instead of blue. I stained the finished piece & mounted it to the top of my box. Love how this turned out.

Picture of finished goodies on the wall in my powder room.

This pinkeep was stitched from another freebie from Betty over at primitive bettys. This comes from her May Day freebie.

Another pinkeep.

The last of the projects I want to show you is this Eagle ornament I made for Cody's Eagle Scout ceremony. I adapted a pattern that I already had to make this little eagle. He is made of painted and primmed up muslin and mounted on an old clothespin. His banner has Cody's name and date he became an Eagle Scout. I'm going to make a bunch of them for table decorations & then the guests can take them home as a keepsake. What do you think? Is this a good idea?

Because the sun was out today and it was fairly warm when I got home from work, I decided to walk around my yard and show some pics of my Spring flowers.

 First up are some daffodils.

Next up are the tulips. We have tons of tulips. They are Tim's favorites.

My lilacs are just starting to bloom. I can't wait for these. They smell SO good!!

Violets.

Bleeding hearts.

Hope you enjoyed the little flower tour. Please let me know what you think of the Eagles. Have a wonderful week end!!

Hugs~Becky

Happy Wednesday

Good morning all~

I hope your Wednesday is starting off on a good note. Mine is. It's supposed to be sunny & in the 70's & I have the day off. I have a lot planned today, but thought I'd do a quick update while my lasagna sauce is simmering. 

I'd like to show you the quilt my mom made for Cody. It is beautiful (of course my pics don't do it justice~too much morning sun to take a good pic). It is a bear paw quilt with a flying geese border. It is mostly navy & burgandy with lots of different colors making up the bear paw blocks & flying geese blocks. The first pic is a close up of one of the blocks with the border.

  

This is the whole quilt. As you can see, the sun is out today. It's pouring in the windows!! Love it, but it's hard to take a decent pic.

I have a few minutes left before I have to assemble my lasagna, so I'm off to check out some favorite blogs before my busy & fun filled day.

Enjoy the day~Becky

Look What The Mailman Brought Me

 I get home from work today and find a package on my porch. I could see it as I pulled up to my house. I jumped out of my truck & ran up the steps to grab the package. I just knew it was for me & knew what was in it. Got in the door and was greeted by Zoey (my little beagle baby) who of course wanted a treat for being a good little girl while Mommy was working. I took a minute to give her a pat on the head & a treat before ripping into the box.

 

This is what I found in the box. I ordered this perfectly prim America sign from Mary . Isn't it wonderful? I just love it!! You have to check out her blog. She makes some wonderful things and I love the way she decorates. She also just started a selling blog, so go over & support her wonderful work.

 

I also bought this wonderfully prim Welcome sign from her. She was kind enough to sell me her sign. She gave me a choice of her sign or a new one. When she told me hers was made from barn wood, I had to have hers. It's perfect!! I already have it on my porch to Welcome visitors. I just need the weather to warm up a little more so I can add flowers to my display.

Well, I'm off to try to finish up some projects. I was supposed to work tomorrow, but my company is way over their budget, so my hours got cut. No work tomorrow for me. Yippee!! I say that now, but won't be so happy when I get the paycheck. It's supposed to be in the 70's tomorrow, so I'll probably spend part of the day outside.

Enjoy the day~Becky

Geocaching Anyone?

Happy Sunday everyone. I hope you all had a week end filled with fun & family. We had beautiful weather here in Southern Wisconsin. I did some Spring cleaning & it was wonderful to be able to open the windows & let the warm Spring breeze in. Laundry was hung on the clothesline and we also did some painting. 

The boys and I took off today & did some geocaching. Geocaching is like a high tech treasure hunt. People hide caches & post coordinates on http://www.geocaching.com/ . You pick a cache you would like to find (we pick caches close to our home), enter the coordinates in a handheld GPS unit & off you go. The boys love it, I get some much needed exercise, and it also gets them away from the video games. Zoey, our little doggie girl, usually gets to go along too.  It was a wonderful day to geocache. We found 3 caches and toured a local park we didn't know about. Here is a picture of Cody & Stephen checking out our second cache. They didn't find anything they wanted to trade for in the cache, so we just signed the log book.

Hope you have a wonderful week. We have rain showers forecasted for most of the week. I'm working every day this week so the rain won't bother me.

Hugs~Becky

Busy Week

Thought I would post a quick update of what I've been working on this week. First up is this sunflower table mat. It is made from my collection of hand dyed wools. I just love how this turned out. The pattern for this wonderful mat came from the book Autumn Gatherings by Lisa Bongean of Primitive Gatherings. If you are a fan of Fall, you will love this book. It has many wonderful projects.

Next up is this wallhanging. I completed the top yesterday. It is red & brown (hard to see in the picture) and is another of my favorites. Now I just need to quilt it.

This next project is something I've been working on in the evenings when the household quiets down. It is a nice way to finish the day. Cross stitch is my new addiction. The pattern for this is a freebie. Betty  is a kind soul who offers freebies to anyone who wishes to use them. I'm not sure how I want to finish this yet. Any ideas?

It has been a dark and dreary week here. We've had 2 days of rain and woke up to snow yesterday. Today we have the sun and it is wonderful.

 Tuesday was a day off & I decided to make a trip to the local (only 30 minute drive) antique mall. I found this old quilt & just had to have it. It has some stains & rips, but I love blue & white, so it came home with me. It will make a nice display piece.

I am off this whole week end and I am so looking forward to it.

Here's to a great week end!!

Becky

Happy Easter

Have a wonderful Easter Sunday!

Blessings~Becky

Wonderful Day Out....

I just have to tell you all what a wonderful time I had yesterday with my girlfriends. The weather was beautiful and the company was even better. We went out to lunch at a little coffee shop in town called The Perc Place. Their food is wonderful and the coffee is even better (or so I'm told~I'm not a coffee fan). Linda and I had a baked cod sandwhich and Wendy had a roma tomato wrap. I wish I had taken pictures, but I was too busy having a good time to remember to take pictures. When we were done eating and ready to go, our waitress informed us that our check had been paid for by someone who wished us a good day & didn't want to be named. We have no idea who this person was but we were very thankful for the wonderful gift. So~a big Thank You goes out to our very generous "friend".

These flowers were my gift from Linda. The pic didn't turn out very well, but the flowers are beautiful & smell wonderful.

The chocolates are my gift from Wendy. She said they are her favorite chocolates. I got them both chocolates too.

Here is a picture of us after lunch. Wendy is on the left~Linda in the middle~and I'm on the right.

Yesterday we went by my parent's house to celebrate Easter. We had a wonderful dinner and the kids searched for hidden eggs & baskets. My two boys had the most fun helping their cousins searching the house for eggs. They think they are too old to hunt, so we had them helping their younger cousins.

Today we go by Tim's family to celebrate. It will be a loud gathering. There will be 2 parents, 4 brothers, 3 wives, 11 grandkids, 2 girlfriends, & 1 great grandson in a tiny little house. We are hoping for nice weather so we can spend a lot of our time outside (forecast is rain today).

Tomorrow will be my day to do whatever I want. Yeah!! I will have a nice relaxing Easter Sunday/Birthday.

Have a great day & enjoy your Easter with family & friends.

Becky

Look What I Won

Happy Friday! I just had to show you what I won. I entered a Blog giveaway from Blackbird Designs and Won! Yipppee!!! I received this awesome 2011 Calendar called Threads of Time. The pictures in it are just beautiful. It's so pretty I don't want to use it (but I will). Alma Allen even signed it. I just LOVE it!!

The weather here has been awesome. We hit a record high yesterday of 82. I'm so glad I had the day off. I worked in the yard all day cleaning up. It was wonderful picking up the leaves and finding lots of green poking up looking for the sun. I'm still patiently waiting for tulips & daffodils to bloom. We still have Stephen's ponds to clean out, but we'll be doing that next week on Spring break if the weather holds out.

We're looking at another day in the low 80's today. It will be a good day today. I'm going to lunch with 2 girlfriends. We all have April 4th in common. My friend Linda & I share this day as our Birthday and my friend Wendy's anniversary is on this date. We're celebrating early by going to lunch at a wonderful little coffee shop in town.

Have a great day~Becky