Shopping Bag

Okay, I got this really awesome shopping bag from 'WidgetWorm' aka - my sister - her blog is listed on my site(one that takes the place of a plastic shopping bag - you know - the new 'green' bags), AND...well, I love it. So I thought I would try making a 'shopping' bag myself. I actually used my neighbor's 'green' bag that she brought over hot peppers in - for a pattern. I had blue jean material left over from the quilt I made and gave it a try. When I went to make the handles and turn them right side out after sewing them I decided I liked the looks of the 'inside-out with pressed seam' better than right side out. I think if gives the bag character. I stuck cardboard in the bottom for reinforcement. My next try will be to make a bag like my sister gave me.

Blue Jean Quilt

I had a lot of old blue jeans and decided to use some of them to make my boyfriend a quilt to take with him in the truck (usually a semi with a huge cement pump or cement tanks on the back - they cement gas wells and sometimes are on site for 6 to like 24 hrs. if they have to wait for the well drillers to finish). I thought it would be cool to use the back of the waist band for some of the quilt.

Me and Raggedy Ann Quilt

I picked up this cute - looks like new raggedy ann at a flea market this summer and thought it would be cute to make a toddler blanket with Raggedy Ann having a blanket just like it that snaps on to the toddler blanket. I love how it turned out. :)

Fire Starters

Got this great idea to make fire starters and basket them. I used rolled up newspaper, wrapped twine around each roll with four little twigs, then dunked each end in wax. I added wax dipped pinecone firestarters too. For decoration I waxed some autumn leaves. (not shown - for lack of energy to find them on my computer - a red basket and a silver basket)

Fun Kids Rack

Okay, I absolutely love this fun kid's hat/coat rack. I actually took the idea of the circles from one of my scrapbooking idea pages. :) Did I mention that I love it!!!! lol

Steampunk Stuff

Thought I would try a bit of Steampunk Stuff, I had some items laying around that looked like they would fit the bill, and wah-lah! I made a decorative book and redid an old wood item hanger 'tree'.

Wood Chimes

I had a bunch of dowels laying around and have been finding crafts to do with them. I made one set of John Deere wood chimes and 2 sets of IH wood chimes. One of the IH sets we will have on our porch, I have to finish putting our strings on ours.

wood & fabric wallhanging

For the sake of finishing this project started awhile ago, I did not put the outer wood edging on it that I had originally planned. It still turned out pretty neat with the wood blocks on it though.

Barnboard Rack

I found this great piece of barnboard that I thought had great ends on it - and it inspired me to take a few of the ceramic insulators and original fence nails to make this great coat/hat rack. I had found the old hindges in the grainery that we don't use anymore and thought that they would go with the rustic theme of the rack.

Update - long overdue

Okay, wow, it's been busy. I'm tryin to button up some of my smaller projects, aka: brick/cement bbq(2 rows high now), my wood and fabric quilt wall hanging(on etsy now), my daughter has inspired me to pull my guitar back out and work on some songs - she is way ahead of me on this and she actually plays and sings in public places, have another porch swing to do, doing training at home for medical transcription, planning a kick butt awesome 3-D tractor cake for my boyfriend's b-day coming in Oct., just had an interview with Grizzly Industrial and waiting to hear if they want me (I think I'm one of the 20 being hired but it's a waiting game now), my boyfriend had double hernia surgery and is going back to work full time next week, we've had another calf born, we had a get together not to long ago and Keith's(my boyfriend) boss passed out and had to be life flighted to the hospital from our house, I joined the toy tractor site Keith belongs to and I'm refurbishing a 1/16 scale combine, been tryin to keep up with my baking and chores, and oh, yeah, fun...I've almost got our horseshoe pits done, got 3 ringers the last game we played and 5 the game before that - can't wait to get ours finished. The garden is almost ready for harvest - another chore! Canning and freezing to be done. My oldest and his wife are settled in California and working on their masters, my 19 yr. old is coming down from NY to live with us, and my 16 yr. old just got started in his junior year in highschool -says he loves it(probably because he is participating in a half day program this year and next called boces and his class there is all focused on diesel mechanics. Um, probably much more than that - oh, yeah, we watched a bobcat the other night about 300 yards from the front porch - he got a ground hog while we watched. Kinda cool but scary he was that close to the house and not bothered we were out there with the dogs watching him.

Tractor Scene Items

Okay, My boyfriend refurbishes 1/16th scale toy tractors and has never had scenery to use behind his tractors when he takes his pics for ebay or his toy tractor site...soooo, I started painting this pic(by the way-it is my first painted pic). I still have shadows to do and a bit of farm machinery to add and I will glue real dirt onto the field so it will blend with the bottom board I add that will have real dirt glued on.

Okay, this is the next item I am making him, a 1/16th scale workshop, I put lights in the roof and am making cool items for it that will make it seem like a real workshop. I have made everything except the 5 small tools(hammer, wrench, etc.) The lubricant spray bottle still needs the label. On this wall you can see the snap on tool box I carved out of wood, the workbench that I put a peg board back on by drilling each little hole in the thin wood for it, the paper 'gasket' scaled to the tractors.

I this pic you can see the welder(which has welding stick too made partly with hook earings), air compressor(made with empty 35mm film case, moveable eyes, rubber pencil grip, and much more), butane torch, napa box, radio, socket set(the sockets are necklace hooks - that have the threads for the other part to screw into :) and another workbench. I have more items to make and add and I will be adding what will look like internal and external 120 v. and 220 v. outlets. I will post more pics when totally finished and he'll probably have a tractor in front of them. :)

Rustic Barnboard Creations

I started working with some of the century old barnboards we have laying around. :) So far I have made two of the flower pot benches and one end table.

General Store Birdhouse

My latest birdhouse is a General Store. I cut the side slats out of a scrap 2 x 4, cut all the little roof tiles from the same, added a curtained window on one side, a store sign on the other side, a barrel I painted on the front porch, a crate, and a dog. It turned out pretty cute - I made it for my boyfriend's sister and gave it to her yesterday.

New life on the farm at the moment :)

Here are the two litters of kittens that I do know about out in the calf barn. Cute, cute, cute.

Inspired creativeness!

Update: here is the point I am at now. Between Fencing, building birdhouses, sewing the blue jean quilt I'm workin' on, I haven't been able to get to far yet -
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Beginning:

Okay, here is where I'm at so far on my inspired creativeness during my sew mama sew travels. AND I love that the idea was from my own head, I haven't ever seen anything like this yet. This will be a wall hanging when I am finished. I have to spend hours today putting up fence wire so unfortunately I won't get much time to work on it today...maybe tonight, or I can pray we get the rain we 'might' get, but then again, fence has to get up, so for now, here is what I have. I cut my blocks, drill them, stained them, got my fabric pieces done and slid threw the holes and wah-lah - here I am.

WOW!!!! I'm So Impressed!!

Okay, this was my first SewMamaSew Contest trip and WOW, what an impression, so overwhelming with trying to visit so many web sites, checking a little something on each one to decide whether or not to follow it, what inspiration...I actually was inspired to do a cool wall hanging - AND it feels soooo good because it was my own creativeness that spurred it. I really didn't see any quilt wall hangings on my journey through creative blog land but it did make me start thinking creatively - WAIT till you see this wall hanging - I will tell you it has to do with wood - yes - wood and fabric! :) There were way too many sites for me to get to even half of them this time around as we have been working hard on putting in fence post and 4 strands of wire around 7-8 acres of pasture for our beef cow mama's and babies that are coming as soon as the fence is ready. Since my boyfriend works off farm 70-90 hrs. a week a lot of that is on me to do alone(well, me, the skidsteer, the shovel, tamper, and our two blue heelers - and yeah, their a lot of help - they sit in the shade and watch me :) I was also inspired to put together some more of my quilt squares for the bluejean quilt I started a month and a half ago - yesterday - until the needle loosened up and fell out of my machine, then I jumped to another project for awhile - painting on one of my current-in-progress birdhouses. Had a funeral today to attend so I missed the last 12 hrs. of the contest but am happy and excited to get checking out the sites I have chose to follow. Happy day to you.

IH Quillow

Here is one of my latest quillows. I have made many over the years, some I have pics somewhere of and others not. I just made a John Deere one that I let escape without pics of. :( For those of you who don't know, a quillow is a quilt that folds up into a pillow. The pocket is on the back of the quilt that makes the pillow cover, usually blends right in with the fabric of the backing as you can see in the last pic.

Recycled pop can

My boyfriend is all about IH farm equipment. Just for a cool 'man cave' decoration I took an empty pop can, taped off some of the items on it and painted the rest IH red. I then painted a sticker the IH white and with IH symbol and stuck it on(got it slightly crooked though), then used scrapbooking stickers to put the word 'cola' on it. Turned out pretty neat.

Drawing/Painting

This first pic is my very first chalk drawing. For the most part I copied it off of a picture of my me and my boyfriend. It's not perfect but trying my hand at chalk drawing.
The next 4 pics are paint or colored pencil artwork.

Here is a pencil drawing I did on 8.5 x 11 from a pic off a vhs cover of John Wayne.

Below is a snow tiger I started to draw.

Okay, these next two colored pencil drawings are my try to touch base with what my kids were drawing at the time...anime. I like being involoved in my kids life and sometimes that means taking interest in what they are doing.

This last pencil drawing is one I did for thank you notes. I wanted something personal. I copied this onto card stock and printed them off giving me a tender thank you to send out for other's kindnesses to me and my family.