Cookbook

I got sick of looking through all my cookbooks and recipe cards for all the same recipes I use all the time.

So I made a cookbook from www.blurb.com to compile all my favorites so they are all together.

I have some cookbooks that I use maybe 1 or 2 recipes all the time and I had a binder full of new ones, so it was time to condense. I can clear out the binder and start a new one and maybe down the road make another cookbook containing all the good recipes between now and then.

The shipping is expensive, but blurb is easy to use and a great way to publish.

Wedding Farm Window

About a year ago, a friend gave me the heads up on a window on the curb for our town yearly spring cleaning. I snagged it and moved it 1200 miles last summer and it's sat for months but finally my project is done. It is a photo collage of my parents and grandparents' wedding photos and my husband's parent/grandparents' weddings. It turned out great I think. Some of the photos were owned my aunts and so some effort took digging them up, but I really like it all together.

So our kids can see their grand & great-grandparents on both sides.

I started by scraping the old paint/caulk off the best I could with a straight razor. I painted both sides with red floor paint. On the front I used a dry brush and painted black, leaving the red in the dents and worn places.

To attach the photos, I tape them on the glass from the back with electrical tape that I trim for a black border.

Each row is one side of the family:

<----parents of the groom

my in-laws

parents of the bride------->

My side:

My parents in the center.

My mom's parent's on the left.

My dad's parents on the right.

My paternal grandparents didn't have wedding photos, so the photo in the window was taken after they'd been married a while. I got this one of them in a backyard, but the original is so small to print an 8x10 is so blurry. Maybe I'll find another one of them early in their marriage or figure out how to make this with minimal blur huge.

Farm Windows can be hard to find, so a big frame/ collage would be great too. I just like the idea of having all the wedding photos from the different generations.

I love the flapper wedding gown from 1929. Classic. She kept her bouquet and shoes she wore at her wedding her entire life--she died at 96 two years ago.

Church Tag Book

Tag quilts are really popular for babies, and so I made one for our little guy. It is basically three ovals, sewn in a tripod shape. This makes 3 "pages".

I made the embellishments on each individual oval, then sewed them together, leaving 3 " gap in one page in order to flip the whole book right side out. I also cut a half oval of warm & natural batting in between each page to make it a little thicker. I sewed the batting to the right half of each oval as I added the embellishments.

Some of the details:

ROBOT

The red sections are sewn down, and the box body, but the limbs are off the page. Bead eyes.

BUTTONS: not too cute

JEWELS


BULLDOG

My parents call RJ "the bulldog" so I had to add one. I didn't sew down the ears or tail so they stand up off the book. Bead eyes. Nose and teeth were just embroidery thread.

CATERPILLAR

Button and bead eyes

NAME

TAGS

This was the first time I did applique. I'm sure there are many ways to do these (bulldog, caterpillar, name) but this is how I did it and it wasn't too bad.

APPLIQUE: I drew my design on a flattened coffee filter in pencil. I put it on top of the fabric and sewed around the edges. **Remember these are the opposite so any lettering will need to be sewn backwards at this point*** After it's sewn on, I trimmed the excess fabric and coffee filter so I had the little shape. Then to attach to the page, sew along the edge in a zigzag stitch. You could also zigzag the shape the first time and then just straight stitch the applique to the page.

To do multiple layers like the bulldog, I did the background dark blue fabric first, the put the next color on top of the dark blue. I trimmed the light blue individual shapes, then the whole dog.

Most of the beads were in a big random pack from Walmart that was $2.00

I top-stitched the borders of all the pages to help hold the ribbons flat, and also sewed down the center to make the three separate pages.

I don't know if my explanation makes sense, and I'm definitely a novice with these, but if you wanted to make one, they are pretty cheap and easy...just make sure you sew the beads, buttons, etc. on well or they could become a choking hazard.