Floss Organized!

Ok, it's all done. I started organizing my crazy bags of floss a few weeks ago or more. And I'm done. They aren't pretty, but they are organized.

Box one starts at # 209 and box three ends with #3827..... with some blanks at the end. You know the floss where the number tag has fallen off and you have no clue what # it is. :o)

I had lots of duplicates and triplicates, I got rid of a lot, but some colors that I love (like brown) I just couldn't part with even if I had three.

These eleven aren't in the boxes because they are for my next project.... which I'll reveal on a later post. Ohhhh the suspense. :o)

Here is the 'get rid of' bag. What was left over, all the doubles, triples, and unwanted floss. The floss I just didn't care for because of the color so I wasn't going to waste my time wrapping them. This bag will be going to the Goodwill soon.

I also bought a basket this week (40% off , always love that) for organizing the whole bunch of stitching things that sit on my hope-chest in our bedroom. Now it isn't two piles of patterns, books, fabrics, floss boxes, etc. It's all in this one basket nice and neat!

Color Me Mine ( photo heavy)

About once a year or once every two years we go paint pottery. My son and I went this time over Holiday break. I didn't take my daughter because the plan was for me to make her a birthday gift. ( Her birthday was this January) The place we do this at is called "Color Me Mine". There are all kinds of things to paint, my son picked out a lizard / gecko this time.

He has a real gecko at home named "Geico", so he wanted to be able to hang this up on his wall.

Here is painted Geico drying. :o) I ended up make a Christmas ornament for our tree. This isn't the first time I've done this. And a light switch plate for my daughter's room.

On one side I put our names and the year, on the other side I put "Let's camp" with our bus.

I brought with me a game cover so I could copy Wall-E on the light switch cover. Here he and Eve are in progress

I even added the tiny cockroach in the bottom right hand corner. If you've seen this movie you know about the cute cockroach. So when you are done painting your masterpiece, you leave it there so they can bake it in the kiln. You have to wait a whole week to get your masterpiece back. The waiting kills me. lol

The end results..... here is my sons gecko hanging on his wall....next to his skull/bone collection. He has 4 shelves full of skulls and bones by the way.

Wall-E , Eve and the cockroach turned out pretty cute and my daughter loves them. They are now on her wall!

And my Christmas ornament! I love how it turned out. The tree and snowman (back) ornament are from years pasted. The tree ornament in 2001 was our first year married and our first Christmas together. LOVE!

And here are the fronts of the ornaments. They are all packed away now waiting for next season to come. They are some of my favorite ornaments we own! I sort of wish I had made one every year. Maybe I'll start. :o)

My pirate is coming together.

Here is what he is looking like now.

The lettering and outlining need to be added.

Colors for me next project.... or a project that is in the future. I have found a few patterns I'd like to stitch.

TUSAL for January

Here are my ORTs ( old ratting threads) for January. I am in the TUSAL ( Totally Useless Stitch A-Long) over at 'It's DaffyCat's'. I found another jar, a bigger one, to put my threads in but then ended up using that one for pasta. So I still need to find a bigger jar for my ORTs.

What I've been up to.....

I have been stitching a bit while watching movies with the hubs ( see last picture below). Made a little prOgress on my skull pirate.

I've been reading and answering lab questions for my Mirco class.

I've been cooking dinner a lot. One of my New Year's resolutions was to have the family eat at the dinner table more often. :o) I got this recipe off of Pinterest and it is yummy, I've made it twice now...... Cheese & Bacon Potato Rounds

4 baking potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch slices

1/2 Cup melted butter

8 slices bacon ~cooked and crumbled

8 oz shredded Cheddar Cheese

1/2 Cup chopped green onion

Preheat 400 degrees, Brush both sides of potato slices with butter and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 30-40 mins or until lightly browned on both sides, turning once. When done ~ top with bacon, cheese, green onion.....then cont' to bake till the cheese if melted. So easy and so yummy, they are like mini baked potatoes.

I've been watching "The Tuskegee Airmen". What a wonderful movie, it will make you cry. The hubs and I are excited to see the new movie coming out by George Lucas, "Red Tails". Both movies are based on the true story of the 332nd fighter squadron from WWII. Both have Cuba Gooding, Jr. in them also. I love his acting. Anyway, it is an amazing story and I highly recommend it. And I am quite sure that George Lucas' movie will be just as good.

Stitching is Therapy

Remember my son's little ammonite he stitched? I found a tiny frame for it. It now lives up on a shelf next to his microscope in his room. I also found a frame for my 'mad scientist' and he is living on a self in my bedroom for right now.

I'd like to find some more cute scientist / lab cross stitch patterns and have a bunch hanging of a wall together. But no luck finding anymore so far.

I finished up the stitching on my second Christmas ornament, but am still too scared to make it into an actual ornament. I need some kind of tutorial showing me exactly how to do it so I don't mess it up. If anyone knows of one please let me know.

My new start is another Christmas pattern called "Pirates Love Christmas" by Sue Hillis Designs. Our neighbors who do sooo much for us, love pirates. Their whole house is decorated in them, so I am making this for them for Christmas 2012. :o)

In school news.... here are my books. I am taking three classes this semester. And it is a bit overwhelming. I've been having some health issues too, so my stress level is through the roof. I believe I will be withdrawing from my Clinical Chemistry class and taking it another semester. In just that class alone I have 3 chapters to read , a test on laboratory reference values and tubes next week and a three page paper with presentation due next Tuesday..... and that is just in one class.

Stitching is my relaxation and thearpy so hopefully I can find more time to stitch. ~amy

A couple of Finishes

I finished my 'mad scientist'..... which is really " The Guest House, Secret Lair" by Bent Creek. Putting a frog in place of the pumpkin so I could hang it year round and I think every scientist needs a frog in their lab.

I'm really excited about him and can't wait to find a frame. I went out today to try to find one , but no luck yet. Also on the finished list is my 'Winter Squirrel'...I have finished the stitching up but still need to make it into an ornament. The pattern came from the 'Just CrossStitch Christmas Ornaments' Issue 2011. Don't you just love his tiny acorn he is holding?! The pattern called for tiny red buttons to go around the greenery, but I put 3 colonial knots instead to look like berries. Really, I just didn't want to go out on a hunt for tiny red buttons. :o)

Another finish is my son's ammonite. He worked so hard on it and it only took him 3 sits ( 3 different days sitting to work on it) to finish it. Each time he went to stitch on it I could tell he had improved a bit. He was bringing up the needle from the back much easier and following the pattern much better. This little guy will be framed and hung in his room soon. Pattern from the book 'Not Lame! Makoto's Cross-Stitch Super Collection'.

Onto some 'starts'... I started another ornament out of the same 'Just CrossStitch' magazine. This time I'm stitching a cute little snowman around trees. And if you look real close you can see the sweet tiny cardinals. I love birds.

Another start.... the 4th HocusPocusVille block. I will post progress with pictures on my HocusPocusVille blocks another time. School will be starting in T-minus 2 days so that means no time to stitch after that..... that will be a good time to post it.

Two posts in One

I've been up to so much lately...because my school is still out. Next week school starts back and I'm sure I'll have my nose buried in books again with no time to do anything else but study and eat. Today I have two posts in one, the first is about stitching and the second is about my organizing craze I've been going through.
In stitching news....I finished all but the pumpkin ( which I'm not going to stitch) on my 'mad scientist' stitchery. The name of this pattern is actually "Secret Lair" and it's by Bent Creek. I wanted to be able to hang it up year-round so instead of the pumpkin, I'm stitching a frog. (one of my favorite animals)


I've started a new pattern out of the magazine "Just Cross Stitch" Christmas issue 2011. I want to make some cross stitched ornaments for Christmas 2012. This one pictured below was so cute and small , I figured it would be a good one to tackle before school started and I could actually get it done.


I spent ALL last Thursday at my local quilt shop, Quilting Adventures. They hosted a sewing retreat. So from 10am-5pm we had uninterrupted sewing time! I got 3 of my Farmer's Wife blocks sewn. The top row, last 3 blocks to the right are the ones I made that day.

My organizing craziness: From my floss post the other day..... I am still winding up floss, but have probably only gotten 10 more done.

I wanted a way to display my children's good grade papers and art work, so I made the hubs hang some curtain rods for me. I've got some of my mini quilt swap quilts hang up right now, but the snow flake art was made by my son right before school closed for Holiday.

And this sweet picture was drawn by my son. He drew me a frog with a fly. I can't wait to hang the children's paper's up there so they can see how proud I am of them.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to get my recipes organized. I have recipes on all kinds of paper stuffed everywhere. I don't really use much of them because I don't know what I have or where I'd even find it to make it. So , I pulled them all out and I'm going to get these things straight.

I was searching on e-bay for a recipe box, but then went to one of my favorite shops ~ Through The Garden Gate and found this one. For $4.

I'm hoping to get maybe 2 written a week. I think that's a good goal. That will be do-able. This will lead me to make dinner more and us eating at the dinner table more together.

Organizing Floss

Or trying to. I decided to wind my floss on little floss cards to get more organized. So I could see which colors I have or how many of a color I have. Or just to be more organized. Well, I didn't know what I was getting into. I have way more floss then I thought I had.

I really thought I was down to one bag of floss and one box of already wound floss before I started this organizational task. I've been winding for 3 days now. Not the whole 3 days. :o) Just here and there for 3 days.

I've now filled one more box. So I have the box that was full to begin with and a newly filled box.... but wait there's more....

I opened a drawer in my bedroom and found another bag full of floss today! I haven't even finished winding the first bag of floss. I thought I was getting close to being done with winding floss, the bag on the right in the one I've been working on. The one on the left is the bag I found today. Oh holy moly, what have I started?! I will need to go buy another container or 2 to hold all this.

PS~ I haven't even started to put these cute little floss wound cards in order yet.

PSS~ I think I'll just go stitch some. :o)