This month is my Sister-in-Law's birthday month.  I'm pretty sure she has super powers.  She is a full time Mom and wife, a lot-of-the-time labor and delivery nurse, and the owner and creator of all things at Love Deliveries.  She can do pretty much everything...and she can do it well.  I tell her she is crazy quite often.  But she is crazy in the most wonderful way.

You should check out Love Deliveries for some fun gems like this crazy cute tie bib.  I love these!

Or this beautiful quilt.

Or this sweet cupcake shaped oven mitt.  Isn't it darling?

We celebrated Becky's birthday over the weekend. 

A fabulous girl needs a fabulous card!

I created an envelope for the top flap so that I could tuck in a card that had extra space for a personal message.

The squirrel was cut with my Cricut (an amazing gift from Becky!).  The flower and heart shapes on the miniature gifts, and the rounded corners were cut with punches.  All of the other details were cut and shaped by hand.

Thank you for visiting.  Come back tomorrow, and we'll talk about dessert!

I'm learning how to quilt.

Kind of.

It's something that I have always wanted to do.

When I found out that my Sister-in-Law quilts, and my Mother-in-Law quilts, and that they are both connected to a whole network of quilters, I was really excited.

For the past three years, I have been attending an annual quilt day at my church and a quilt retreat that is held close to the middle of nowhere.  In that three years, I have finished hand-piecing the front of a wall hanging, and machine sewing the top of a table runner.  My Mother always picks on me for hanging out with quilters all the time but having no finished projects.

The thing is, quilters are REALLY nice people.  They love having show and tell sessions, and are always so supportive and encouraging.  My first quilt day, all I had to share was a little nine-patch square, and the quilters cheered for me as though I had finished a king size quilt.  Every six months, the quilters gather again, see my additional couple squares and cheer as though I finished another king size quilt.  It's really quite lovely.  You can only imagine what it's like when someone really does share a king size quilt! 

Tom and Madge are two of our quilt mentors that attend the quilt day and the quilt retreat.  They are the cutest couple.  They are kind, hilarious, encouraging, generous, and God-centered.  Madge always has fun activities planned that include prizes.  Lots of prizes.  Madge also likes to plant encouraging little notes by everyone's seat when they aren't paying attention.  During our gatherings, Tom will service anyone's sewing machine.  For free.  He is skilled with all types of machine problems and user defects.  If you're interested in quilting, and you don't have a machine, Tom and Madge will make sure you get one.  It will either be free or an insanely amazing price depending on the machine and the circumstance.  They are always full of energy and filled with ideas. 

This week, Tom turned 70. 

Madge threw him a big open house style party.

Tom has many other interests, so it was a "Trains, Planes, & Automobiles" themed party.

The cake was tasty!

There were several cute stations around the yard with fun things to see or do.
I thought this mini car show was so adorable.

Here is Tom's train set.  They had wooden house forms available for kids of all ages to decorate and add to the scene.  Tom made the bridge out of a bed frame!

Here is a photo of one of Madge's quilts.  Isn't it darling?  I just kept staring at it and getting excited about all the fun little details.

It was a privilege to be able to celebrate such a special day with such a fun couple!

p.s. the bunny from the card was cut with my Cricut, using the "Give a Hoot" cartridge.

As promised, here is the experimental card I made on Friday!
Hubby's friend recently bought a new house.  To celebrate, he had the guys over for a poker night. 

I have always wanted to try my hand at an exploding box greeting card.  A quick search and you will find tons of fun examples.  (Jinky's Crafts is probably the queen of exploding box cards.  Her cards are unreal!) 

I knew that Hubby's friend would be the perfect guinea pig for my first experiment.  Making a box seemed easy enough for me.  The tricky part was that this was a card to celebrate a new HOUSE.  I wanted a roof on my box.  I needed to do math... The horror.

Somehow, a roof was created and adorned with poker chips.

And then?

A FULL HOUSE!

It is so much fun to be a dork.  :)

The card was far from perfect.  And apparently, the playing cards were accidentally detached shortly after the card was received.  However, I had a blast making it, and I now have tons of notes so all future attempts will only get better! 

Come back tomorrow to see another exploding box card!  It's not bigger, but it just might be better.



Before you leave... since we're on the topic of FULL HOUSE.  Have you seen this gem?