Yesterday was spent doing a bit of laundry, reading blogs, and adding bakers twine to some of the gift tags…. A low key but good day.

Then last night I had my horseback riding class, which went pretty good except for one little part. When I went to pick the horse’s feet, the horse decided he didn’t want me to so he kicked my knee. I am totally okay, save for the nice bruise I have now. I was standing close like you are supposed to, so he couldn’t get much force in his kick but I suppose a bruise is to be expected anyways since he was quite a bit bigger than me:) Oh and I asked someone else to finish picking his feet after that! :)

I listed the above three sets of tags in my etsy shop if anyone is interested….

This morning I bought some scrapbooking paper and a bit of cardstock. The results…

It was actually sort of fun to punch all of these out. Well, until my hand starting hurting from pushing the punch:) The ones on the far right are some old piano music that I glued to cardstock. I wasn’t sure if those tags would turn out, but I like the results. Now I just need some etsy orders or something so I can use a couple of these tags:)

Oh and I can show the swap package I had been working on since my partner got it in the mail today…. (more pictures of the contents on my flickr page.)

I think I know what my next couple of projects are going to be, and I am fairly excited… Hopefully the projects will turn out the way I plan:)

Finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I wasn’t crazy enough to go to the bookstore at midnight, but I did go the next morning at 8am. (I also forced myself not to read the whole book in one sitting, although I did carry it pretty much everywhere I went until I finished it:)

Made another purse set for my etsy shop… This one includes a zippered pouch along with the tissue pouch and keychain.

Contemplating what project I want to start next…

Pretending I have a coupon at the craft store, when I really don’t so as to get a discount. (Karyn suggested it first!) I bought a tag punch, but I don’t have any paper to use it on yet… (I wasn’t going to buy the punch unless I got the discount, so I didn’t want to get anything else just in case.)

Finishing up and mailing out my swap package….

Taking photos of the cats….

My Brown + Blue photo for a Year of Color 2…

Axel laying in his basket with his favorite blanket.

My wireless internet connection isn’t working that great this afternoon and I can’t switch to non-wireless because the switch on my computer is broken…. So you get to see a photo that is already on my flickr page and just a very short entry to tell everyone that all the wonderful post ideas I had are not going to happen today… Now I think I am going to go use Ben’s computer to write a few emails and read some blogs:)

I didn’t do much sewing today, just a little bit. Most of my day was spent cleaning and a bit of it reading blogs. I also wasted a bunch of time with my camera trying to take some photos of what I sewed today… The natural lighting in our house is terrible so awhile back I had made a lightbox, but I threw it out a few weeks ago because I hated how much photoshopping it required of pictures afterwards. Anyways….

I made two tissue pouch/keychain sets this afternoon….

Both are made out of the exact same fabric, so I didn’t bother photographing both sets. (I don’t even want to think of the headache that would have caused…) I am going to keep one set for myself, and the other set I already put in my etsy shop.

My blog apparently suffered from a bit of neglect last week and the week before… So I am going to try to post again once a day this week.

Yesterday, Ben and I went to a quilt show in a neighboring town… He was sweet enough to go with, since I really wanted to go and didn’t feel like going by myself. It definitely was inspiring to see all of those quilts and read a bit about all the work it took to make them! I can’t imagine hand-quilting something, I am definitely a bit short on patience:) Although I do want to make a quilt now even more than before (although I definitely plan on machine quilting it!).

(Picture is of only part of the quilt because the rows of quilts were too close together to get it all in. A wide angle lens would solve that… Although I sort of want a macro lens before a wide angle one:)

I also decided to join in on “A Year of Color 2” (for more info see link to flickr group). This weeks colors… pink + green

I have no idea what this flower is, but it looked fascinating. I wasn’t brave enough to touch it, but the texture looked fairly soft and fuzzy.

I am working on a couple of projects, but can’t share yet since it is part of a swap I am participating in. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some other crafting stuff that isn’t swap related to show:)

My first attempt at quilt making, a cat sized quilt….

Okay so it might be a bit small for Axel (who just happens to be one of the longest cats I have ever seen!), the binding does match his eyes though:)

After two failed clothing projects this afternoon, I decided I needed a really simple sewing project. Since I have been wanting to try quilting for awhile now, I thought making a miniature quilt would be a good way to start. Of course you probably shouldn’t look too closely since I did get a bit lazy with the binding:) (I didn’t feel like making bias binding since it isn’t really going to be a quilt, so it is a bit messy…)

Pounce objected to being covered with the quilt and seemed to think that attacking it was much more fun!

So it definitely was not a perfect first attempt and I have no idea what I am going to do with it now, but I am still glad I made it. Now I just need to make a human sized quilt:)

Oh my, I think I just took an unintentional blog break last week! I had a good reason for it at least, since Ben & I took a little vacation to go visit our families. Our parents live in the same town, so it works out quite nicely when we want to go visit. Ben’s siblings all decided to go for a visit at the same time, so we got to see everyone on his side and my sister is also at my parents for the summer (for one last time before she starts her new job in the fall as an nurse).

It was quite a busy week…. We watched fireworks on the 4th of July…

Visited “The Farm” which is a historical museum to farming in the United States. There are even live animals to pet and play with at the farm!

This kitten wasn’t quite sure what to think of the goat that walked up when she was sitting on my lap!
Ate breakfast at a Swedish Restaurant where they happen to have goats on the roof…

Watched sailboats and enjoyed being near water… (I miss having water nearby!)

Met my brother-in-law and his wife’s new dachshunds, Oscar and Mayer…

I actually took 700 pictures during our week of vacation, if you don’t count the ones that I decided to just delete! Isn’t digital photography amazing:) More photos of our vacation on my flickr (I didn’t post all 700, just 49:), including some portraits of my sister. (Thanks Sari for letting me practice by taking your picture a bunch!)

Now I am going to go try to catch up on a few blogs and start thinking about stuff I need to get done this week!

Today Ben and I took a little photowalk around our city, where I took the above photo in a little park. It is actually an apple tree according to a sign in the park, and is so fascinating with all the different ways it branches off. Every different angle you look at it from makes it seem like a completely different tree…

I also managed to take this lovely photo…

I love butterfly’s, which is fairly amazing since they are a bug and I hate bugs:) They are just so beautiful (even the ordinary monarch ones)…

My creative mental block seems to have disappeared completely in both my photo taking and my sewing! :)

I decided that even if I couldn’t make a bag to hold my camera I at least wanted a new purse. So I made a little prototype first out of some muslin to see if I liked the shape I had in mind. That turned out so I decided to go ahead and cut up some linen and nice cotton fabrics…

I did actually pad the bag pretty well with fusible fleece, so it is padded enough to carry my camera for short periods of time… I think I will probably use it mostly as just a purse though.

Oh and look what I ordered off etsy the other day!

A beautiful print by MarmeeCraft! I haven’t framed it yet, but plan on doing so soon. I think I might have to put it over my desk so I can look at it often! I love the colors and the owls (which I seem to be obsessed with lately:)!