I meant to blog about this project way back in the beginning of July when I actually finished it, but totally forgot and then things just got busy (and our living room got messy and so I didn’t want to take a picture until it was nice and clean). So now the living room is clean, things are a little less crazy, and I finally remembered I never posted this. :)

It took me forever to decide how to arrange our living room furniture when we moved in and then when I finally decided I had this nice big empty wall/walkway a couple feet behind the couch (there is a door to the left of those photos that goes out to our patio so there sort of has to be a walkway there) that was perfect for a gallery display of photos. I didn’t actually come up with the idea for this photo wall, I saw it on Tara’s blog and she actually got the idea from Erin’s blog… It was just perfect though for the space we have and it is so much fun to have my own photos on our wall instead of some art from Ikea or something! :)

Details: The frames are 19 3/4 x 19 3/4 Ikea clips frames. I added the white borders in photoshop and then had the photos printed through a pro lab. (I actually had one photo printed with borders & without and decided I really liked the borders so when I ordered the rest I included borders.)

I hope everyone has a good weekend! I have really enjoyed posting these last 3 days in a row, so I will be back on Monday for sure to post some more! :)

I think I can feel summer slowly winding down, mostly because I have actually managed to fit a bit of cleaning and sewing in this week… I am a little sad to see summer go, but at the same time I am looking forward to the next season in anticipation of what it might bring. Living in a new place always makes each season feel fresh and new in some ways.

I had planned on sewing a bit more this summer and trying to make my summer tops, but the summer just got away from me too quickly. Before summer ended completely I decided I needed to make another Simplicity 3835 top though. Fortunately I can wear these through the fall, by just layering a long sleeved t-shirt underneath. (Oh and yay for an H&M in the Seattle area finally, so I have somewhere to buy tops for layering!)

Excuse the terrible lighting/not so great photo on this shot… That is what happens when you decide to take a picture of yourself in the bathroom mirror at 10:30 at night.

A few notes about the top: I didn’t add the elastic to the sleeves this time around, which makes it so much better! (Seriously I love it without the elastic in the sleeves!) I also brought in the sides a bit (I was too lazy to add darts) and lengthened it a bit since I am tall. (Really if you are thinking about trying this top, making it to fit your body type properly does make a huge difference.) I have to say I am pretty happy with this version, although I wish the gingham was 100% cotton instead of a cotton/poly blend… I also wish I had used black thread instead of white, so maybe I will have to make this same exact top again using a cotton gingham and black thread? I could always hang this one on the wall of my studio as decoration since it matches the chair in my studio perfectly (totally kidding about the decoration idea, although it does match…) :)

Wow, thanks for all your lovely comments on my new little venture! I am still catching up on emails, but I do plan on emailing each of you individually to thank you for your comments. I did go ahead and draw 2 names (actually the random number generator online picked 2 numbers), and the winners of the fat quarter stacks are commenters #4 Julie B. and #43 Carrie. Ladies, if you will go ahead and email me your addresses I will get those sent out in the mail to you this week…

So Saturday we had our little Pacific Northwest Craft Blog Meet-up. There ended up just being four of us, since it was a fairly busy weekend for most people, but we had so much fun. Of course who wouldn’t have fun hanging out with these lovely ladies… I totally spaced and forgot to bring my camera with so I don’t have any photos, but it was great to just get to chat. I think this is definitely something we will have to do again in the near future… Maybe next time a few more of you can join us even for a bit of coffee & chatting :)

Oh and I know it is already the middle of the week really, but I think I am going to post every day the rest of this week. I have been missing blogging a little bit, so I thought I might jump back into it. :)

Quite the title! :) I just have so much stuff to talk about since I seem to have taken a little blogging break (again). I had such good intentions of blogging regularly this summer, but summer really took over and we have been trying to enjoy our new city as much as possible :) (Oh and that giveaway I mentioned in the title, well you will just have to read the whole post to find it all the way at the bottom :)

In between everything going on I haven’t found much time for crafting, but I did manage to finish Meg’s One Quilt block for the month of August…

I love the fabrics she chose (so jealous of that grey linen from Britex, I think I need a few yards of that one!) She wanted a little texture to her blocks, so I added some pintucks in the center of the block. (I am just loving pintucks right now… I think I might need to make a bag or something with some pintucks added as a detail.)

I have also been pretty busy lately working on a little something that I have had in the works for awhile… I was going to wait to mention it on my blog after I got my portfolio up and running, but I just couldn’t wait :) I have been working on starting my own portrait photography business. In fact I just did a Senior Portrait Session the other day and I thought I would share a few of my favorites from that… This session was so much fun, we laughed quite a bit! :)

If you are in the Seattle area and interested in an individual or family portrait session, feel free to email me at photography(at)charamichele(dot)com for more info. (Or if you know someone who might be interested, feel free to pass along my email :)

Now about that giveaway that I mentioned :) I just wanted to say thanks for all your lovely comments on my 300th post. I am so grateful to have this little space to blog and I am also thankful for all the wonderful friends I have met through blogging, including the ones I now know in person and those of you who live too far away for us to get together for a cup of coffee. As a little thank you, I have 2 stacks of 10 fat quarters in each stack to give away. Just leave a comment on this post by 10am Monday morning 10am Tuesday morning (extended because my Monday is starting to look like it is going to be a bit crazy busy) and I will draw 2 random names.

*Edited to say: The drawing is now closed. Thanks for all your lovely comments!*

I can hardly believe it but this is actually my 300th blog post! I had sort of planned that I would do something special for this post, but between family coming to visit and everything else going on this summer I haven’t had time to plan anything. So instead I am going to post a bunch of photos from the day trip we took over to Bainbridge Island on Friday. I am sure there will be a giveaway or something in the near future though to celebrate 300 posts, but just not today :)

If you ever get the chance to visit Bainbridge Island, visiting Esther’s Fabrics is an absolute must! :) Of course I didn’t get to spend nearly enough time here (I could have spent all day in this shop), so I think I might have to go back sometime in the near future…

After doing a little shopping, we walked around the town a little bit…

Friday was actually a pretty hot day for around this area, so we ended up at one of the beaches on Bainbride Island… It was a gorgeous spot for photo taking.

Looking in the window of a house for sale on the beach…

The outside of the house…

It is a very beautiful house in a beautiful location, it makes me wonder why anyone would want to sell it! I would just love to live in that house (well if it wasn’t totally impractical:)

After a bit of walking around on the beach, Ben and I set up a blanket overlooking the water and just sat for awhile while his family walked around some more… It was a great view, well until the waves crashed in and got our blanket soaked (luckily I grabbed my camera off the blanket just in time!). The spot & the view before…

Taking the ferry ride back to Seattle after a beautiful day on the island…

I am sure that anyone who lives around here has probably around made this day trip, but if you haven’t you should since it is just a beautiful place to visit. :)

Totally unrelated, but I wanted to say hi to anyone who is visiting from Molly’s post over at Momformation. Also if you have emailed me lately about the blog meet up or anything else, I am a bit behind on my emails (only about 100 unread emails in my inbox) & plan on getting back to you very soon! :) (I am also totally behind on replying to comments, but hope to catch up soon. In the meantime I should say that I do read every comment & appreciate every single one!)