a mission

My kids are each going to get only one gift this Christmas. I am on a mission for A. She has the fortune or misfortune to have a birthday a few days after the holidays fade away.

I always thought it was fortunate because she could get better gifts since everything is on sale when December ends.

She thinks she gets ripped off since it is just a kind of continuation of Christmas and then she has to wait another 11 months until anything big happens for her again. I have to say, having a summer time birthday myself, I do not know what it is like to be in her shoes- and some other reasons I could not fill her shoes...

A is in 7th grade and has always been in GATE (gifted and talented education) classes. She is on the quiz bowl team and has been past student council president for her class. She has gotten honor roll ribbons and certificates every year. This year she tutors other students. Before you bore of my bragging, let me tell you that I always joke that somewhere her REAL mother is

desperately searching for her!!

The thing is, this year is that special first official teenage birthday-thirteen- for A, so I came up with an idea that I hope will make this Christmas and birthday be extra special. It does involve the dreaded reality of combining the Christmas and birthday gift giving into one event though...if I can pull it off financially.

A is quite a photographer and she was chosen to be part of the yearbook staff at school. I have been allowing her to take my camera to school each day. I am lost without my camera, I must admit!! I bought her a memory card to have as her own so we keep swapping out her memory card for mine -back and forth. Have you ever thought about how easy it would be to lose that teeny tiny memory card that holds 800 photo images that cannot be replaced? It could be vacuumed up or dropped down the heating vent (ok, maybe not that extreme or drastic)...but for a genealogist the possibility -even being a farthest stretch of the imagination- can make me contemplate taking up nervous nail biting.

I feel like I am rambling. To make an already long explanation not too much longer I will now get to the point. Have you caught on to the foreshadowing clues along the way?
I hope to get A her very own camera for her Christmas and 13th birthday. It could be a ticket to a future of possibilities for her.
Talent + The proper tools = Opportunity and success!
Now for the mission part. As many of you know, running an Etsy shop can mean you maybe get money to add into the pool of paying household bills and maybe some extra fun stuff. I don't know about your situation but here we have less delegated "fun money" floating around than we would like to have . My mission is to make enough from my Etsy sales to fund the purchase of a camera for a very deserving hard working girl.

UPDATE: This item has sold and is going to live at a house just a stone's throw north of me. Thanks a million Gloria!!! I'm sure it can't hope to compare to the art you do so beautifully!!

I like...

My hand stitched confetti yo-yo quilt I made over many, many months. It hangs on the wall behind the bed. Many of the fabrics are clothing items that have been recycled.

I wrote a story last year about the making of the quilt. The picture that begins the quilt story is of N. sitting on my friend's Dad's lap. N. has a goofy looking grin on his face and his ears are sticking out after his fresh hair cut . N. has changed looks a lot since then (has grown up teeth in a toothy smile and has grown into his ears a little more!) and sadly, my friend's Dad has died since then. You can read about the making of the quilt here .

The thrifted globes that were found in the trash. This method works when you are not in a hurry to acquire a collection as it can take years and a lot of luck!!

The collection grows as countries change their names and people do not want those globes anymore...I adopt them and love them best! My kids enjoy comparing the globes.

Old ratty looking books. I mean really old...the older the better I say! I don't care if the binding is not sound or pages are torn. If it has a beautiful cover or wonderful pictures inside it is still a treasure to me. I think my oldest book is from the 1870's.

As with globes...free from the trash when people think they are good for nothing is when I love them best!!

Some of my very favorite books (though not old) in my library are my Russian books. These are just a few and I am crazy about them. You can read more about my fascination for the Romanov family and my Russian altered book I made- click here.

I enjoy thrifted paintings of houses on tree lined streets and red barns in the snow. These are 2 of my very favorites. I think I paid 25 cents for each of them. The top one is a paint by number; which seem to be more in demand now and pricier! To me over 25 cents is pricey. Haha!! It is a real shame to think of how many hours are put into these paintings and then they are sold for 25 cents. But the silver lining is they are with me now and I appreciate them every day.

What thrifty things do you love??

Things you can live without knowing

My handmade quilt and redwork embroidery.

More random facts about

this  author:

1. We had 5 living generations of males in my family until my Grandpa died in his late 90's.  * my dad's dad * my dad * my brother * my nephew * my great nephew

2. I liked these TV shows when I was growing up= The Flying Nun, That Girl, Ed Sullivan, The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, The Carol Burnett Show, Laugh-In, All In The Family.

3. I have tiny little Native American dolls from almost each time throughout my life that we vacationed in northern Michigan .

4. All three of our kids have my hair and eye color.

5. I always let my kids lick the spoon or mixer beaters, I know I am not supposed to, pretty sure no one died recently from it.

6. When I was about 6, I remember my dad telling me never to play with matches and I would be rewarded with a popsicle. I never played with matches. I received many popsicles through my life but I don't know if I ever received THAT popsicle!!

7. I drive a 5 speed stick shift car. Most of my cars have been stick shifts. I prefer them.

8. I enjoy watching classic dance like ballroom, ballet, Rockettes, Latin, tap... I used to be a dancer from age 3 until age 29. I long to dance and sew and not have the thousands of responsibilities that face me each year!

9. Among my family tree branches from long ago I have= a nun,  a priest, a grave digger, nurses, and a circus trapeze performer.

10. I can't stand the smell of the kind of coffee made in my house, but the smell any other place never bothers me. B drinks coffee from morning till night, it never keeps him awake that's for certain. I don't drink coffee, I have never made even one pot of coffee at my home.

Sewing and Genealogy

When ever I think of sewing I think of Grandma (Grandma Bubbles) and when ever I think of Grandma Bubbles I think of sewing!!!! You can find out why she is Grandma Bubbles when you click here. You can read about her super cool fabric stash (another one of my all time favorite posts) when you click here.

Of course I adore this side of the pillow that Grandma Bubbles made.

How could I resist....it's RED!!
I also really like the other side of the this pillow that she made.
I love the 1920/30s fabrics. The colors are just so yummy.
This is Grandma & Grandpa (my Mom's parents) on their honeymoon in Cincinnati, Oh. in November 1922.

Above is Grandma, my Mom, Grandpa,
and my Mom's little brother J.
My Mom's older sister, J., may have been the photographer.
I don't know why, but it appears the only happy ones in this photo
are the dog and Mom's little brother. Maybe they knew something the rest didn't?!
Anyway, I really like their clothes.

This is my Grandma, my Mom and my oldest brother.
I am told that this was the photo that appeared in the paper on my brother's 1st birthday in recognition of past Christmas babies. I love the baby buggy or pram as some of you out there call it.

Here is Grandma Bubbles happily surrounded by her first grandbabies. Many, many more would follow.The 2 standing at the left of Grandma are my 2 oldest brothers.
One grew up to become a firefighter (around the age of 44!!).
The other little ones are my Aunt J's kids.
I love Grandma's strappy shoes!

This is a photo of Grandma and Grandpa around 1980.
That's me in the background wearing the green top.

Bright Confetti

I have been working on a new quilt. Once again, it is from a collection of fabrics I have been hoarding in a basket, neatly folded for years. It was so much eye candy just idly sitting (collecting dust) that I didn't feel the need to rush into actually cutting it. It's so silly how one day, for no really good reason, the mood simply strikes and the colorful fabric is transformed into an actual project.

Now I am about half way done with the top. It will not be quilted in the traditional way but rather tied at the corners of the blocks. All the patterns that make up the confetti strips are also represented as a diamond somewhere else in the quilt. When it's done I will post a photo of the finished project so you can see more than a few squares. Click on the image to see better detail.

Crazy Quilt

Do you like the crazy quilt I made? This is only one portion of it. It is actually a table centerpiece quilt which measures about 14" x 14". I made it yesterday while watching my Dark Shadows videos.

(I love to go to a local resale game/movie store to buy their 99 cent videos!! No one else but me is still thrilled with videos instead of DVD's, I must be their best 99 cent customer. Each video has 4 or 5 episodes of my favorite blast from the past - Barnabas Collins, the vampire!)

Anyway,back to my quilt... I think I am going to do fancy top stitch embroidery along each seam as I have not yet put on the backing fabric. I bought the fabric last year but never got around to putting it together. I drew 10 different quilt pattern ideas and had each of the kids vote for their 3 favorites by placing an x next to their choices on the paper. It ended in a 3 way tie - so I was the tie breaker and put my x next to the crazy quilt idea.

It is in the middle of our Easter day table and our Easter tree complete with miniature ornaments (thrifted from our new local Goodwill) sits atop.

Our glazed spiral sliced ham smells very yummy so I have to go... until next post. Good-Bye and a JOYOUS EASTER to you.

Memories Are Threads That Join Generations

When I was a little girl I would skip down the basement stairs at Grandma Bubbles' house because there was always treasure waiting there for me. She had a small room where she kept a box of all of her fabric scraps! She was the definition of a recycler!!! More on that later.

I was allowed to take as much as I wanted from her "fabric stash"! This, to me, was better than red licorice laces, candy buttons, Mary Janes or black jacks! I was a fabricaholic even way back then. Is that hereditary! TeeHee!

I started making clothes for my dolls and stuffed animals. I would make mini patchwork quilts and pillows for my doll beds, too. I learned how to sew this way- trial and error. Although you couldn't tell me that any of my age 9 masterpieces were "error"! This quilt above is about 10"x 15" and I made it from Grandma Bubbles' scraps when I was about 10 or 11 years old. It has REAL 1930's fabric in it, not reproduction! I do love the reproduction 1930's fabric in the stores. Yes, I even have some. I plan to make a small quilt with it. Right now it is in a basket folded very precisely and color coded. It is fun to just look at it!! Like being back in Grandma Bubbles' basement. Of course she had all sorts of goodies in that box, but I was always drawn to the colors of the 1930's fabrics. You see, some of the scraps were actually from my mom and aunt's dresses and play clothes that Grandma made for them.

Grandma "harvested" everything to be reused, re-purposed or recycled. Things like lace and zippers and buttons and buckles. All sorts of fabric- dresses, shirts, sheets, etc. always found their way into a new life the second time around.

I inherited that trait too. One warm spring day last week found me sitting at the picnic table enthusiastically cutting up flannel shirts. To me, they were not worth wearing anymore. Too many holes. So I cut around the holes and they will be reborn as a quilt for a bed!! Very soft and warm for the next Ohio Fall to come...and many more after that.

Thank you Grandma Bubbles, for teaching me to see things with fresh eyes--the best way to recycle!

And YES, I replaced some of the many "harvested" shirts with a couple new ones from the clearance rack!!!