Welcome, December!!

a few snapshots from around here... 

Decorating for Christmas

Creating/planning all the advent calendar activities

Enjoying the Christmas lights

Wearing my favorite scarf & loving my new makeup

Best coat purchase ever!

X met the official Macy's Santa, epic!

and we also met "Virginia"

in love with the Afterglow App (find it and get it because it rocks!)

Decorated tree *red, green and natural is the theme on our tree this year

X got to decorate his own little tree this year

Holiday cross-stitch ***so in love with it and hope to finish it in the next few weeks, mainly because my schedule is a little packed for the holiday season ;)

Rocking a lot of red & green

Attempting to run a mile a day *yesterday I managed to go the fastest I have in months, that's some real progress!

All in all, the last week as been awesome and I have huge plans for this week (some sewing, crafting, and actually doing some blogging...) I am planning on making the last month of 2012 as awesome and jam packed full of fun as I possibly can! 

Valentine's day projects...

Were a little on the slow side this year (as in I just couldn't it together), but the little man and I managed to make this little guy that now lives happily on the fridge:


And we managed to capture the valentine photo the day before heart day:


Some flowers are blooming in the kitchen (amaryllis are lovely):


And now I really need to find some time for sewing (fingers crossed for this weekend) hope everyone had an awesome "love" day! :)

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Attempting to get a few random things finished up...

this week, especially trying to get a few things off of my 27 things to do before I turn 28 list (my birthday is next week). Luckily, I have the day off from my day job tomorrow and I plan on spending most of it in my studio (cleaning it) maybe a little sewing, but mostly getting it ready for all the holiday projects I am planning. Today is going to be filled with a few tasks:

•Cleaning my office area:

•Finding the stuff for my Halloween costume

•Planning out the rest of the holiday cookie baking:

•Cooking enchiladas & making margaritas

•Watching Criminal Minds (my favorite series that is on tv right now)

•And maybe a little knitting:

So, I am already planning...

for the holiday season. I know super early but it will be here before you know it. My usual routine is to make some sort of game plan with projects and gifts that need to be made along with all the cookies for the cookie boxes that are mailed out in December. One of the new additions to the cookie box is a handmade Christmas ornament, here are the beginning stages:

mostly just the organized beginnings. Somehow I managed to also get the quilt for my mom's classroom, all pieced together and quilted yesterday (big shout out to Kristen for helping by keeping me company and sorting out my fabric stash!).

Now all that is left is the binding which I am hoping to get on there after I squeeze in a workout. Have you already been making a holiday game plan?

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all the best in the holiday season and here's to a new year of fun! Thank you all for reading! Tons of love, 

Kaysie & X

Spent the last few days

-at work
-sewing (yes, actually sewing, a couple of last minute christmas gifts)
-finishing up christmas shopping
-enjoying holiday music
-wrapping presents
-making a list of things to finish up in January
-going to bed super early
-doing laundry
-going to the dentist
-crossing several things of my to-do list
-deciding on the upcoming class schedule
-spending lots of time with my family
-knitting
and last but not least enjoying what's left of the holiday season.

I hope you all are enjoying your holiday season and expect a holiday cookie recap post in the next couple of days.

Let it Snow series: The Holiday Decor

All the decorations are a mix of things of my mom's, my grandma's and a few things I have made plus a few things my friends have given to me. I don't always put everything up that we have, as to try and change it up each year. This year I tried to make little "display zones" of all kinds of holiday goodness. *we are also light on snowmen themed items since we put those up in January.

The Holiday Party for the Magic Valley Modern Quilt Guild

Friday night was our Meeting/Sewing Night/Holiday party at quilt guild. I had a great evening, it was a lively party filled with lots of laughter, yummy food, and lots of sewing. I managed to start on X's holiday tie (I might redo it because it seems a little short on him):

and I finally got my wonky star quilt top together (I think I am still going to add a scrappy border around it):

All in all it was a really fun evening and I am excited for our next sewing night (in January) hopefully I can get this quilt finished up!

The tree...

 is finally up! I spent the day decorating the house (I am almost finished), baking cookies (cookie recap coming later this week), doing laundry, answering emails, and catching up on my blog reading. I am still hoping to fit in some sewing before watching Criminal Minds...

Dear Santa,

Here is what I am hoping for: 

I am hoping for a great next year and want everyone around be to be happy and have great things happy for them in 2011. As for items on my list it is fairly simple-

image from sephora

I wanted this last year but it sold out asap (*so awesome) details here

Either this shoe in teal suede:

image from jessica simpson colletion 

details here

or this one in black satin.

a barnes & noble gift card would be awesome 

some new jeans

image from anna maria horner web store

and finally a bunch of this fabric (velveteen especially) and this pattern, this one,

this one, and this one.

image from amazon

Clover Pom-Pom makers in all the sizes

and if I could have anything these would be it:

an ipad (the 64GB wi-fi model) would be awesome and would be so loved!

 image from erin jane designs

this ring from erin jane designs (have been in love with this since April)

XOXO, kz

Last week & happy halloween!

last week was insanely busy plus I am still dealing with my crazy allergies (I finally went to the doctor today). Anyways last week I was busy teaching two lovely classes and I attended a Mixology class that was a blast on Thursday night. Friday I went to a halloween party with X. Here he is in his costume:

*sorry its sideways- I have no idea why blogger keeps rotating them the wrong way...

This week is going to be another busy one: I have a class on Tuesday and on Saturday (which I still need to do the prep for both), my birthday is on Wednesday, and I am hoping to fit in some more sewing and do some more blogging (I will be finishing up my 26 things to do before I turn 27 on Tuesday). Plus I have my regular job as well. This holiday season is proving to be fairly fast paced and I am going to attempt to do my annual free holiday projects starting the second or third week of November. How is your holiday season shaping up?

A finish...

every year for Halloween I try and make a new Halloween decoration to add to my always growing stash. Here's this year's new addition: 

I used up a bunch of the Halloween fabric, I started accumulating this year and broke out the pom-pom maker to create the spider. I also used DMC Perle size 8 thread to hand quilt the web design. The binding was made from the leftovers from cutting. 

In other exciting news, my little man turned 3 on Monday and he ended up having a wonderful day. I also have one more almost finished up that I am going to share with you tomorrow! Plus I have to catch up on all of my magazine reading for the month...How is your week going?

Saturday night...

spending time watching a movie (Runaway Jury), sipping hot tea, and catching up on my blog reading (so far behind, ugh, I hate when that happens and I feel so out of the loop on things). My schedule still has me a little scattered and hopefully in another week I will be back into a better routine. Fall is one of my favorite times of year and I am packing my weekends with as many fun activities as possible. Today, I got a haircut and my hair went back to its original color (just kidding, its back to dark black-purple, totally not my real hair color, but I like to pretend it is), a trip to the local Halloween city (a little man has been desperately needing to go there all week- I have no idea why my almost 3 year old is so excited about Halloween, but he is OBSESSED with it), and then part of the afternoon was spent decorating the house for Halloween! I love, love, love it! 

Tomorrow, I have a lot of random things to cross off my lists and I need to finish drafting/grading another pattern for a class on Tuesday. (My class that I taught on Thursday night was a ton of fun!) Plus, I need to prep for the busy week ahead including work, teaching two classes, illustrating and a ton of sewing! Alright, I am off to try and stay up and finish this movie while doing a little hand sewing on a quilt...

A long post...

First of all, Happy Memorial Day! I hope your weekend has been wonderful. On Saturday, I went on a little road trip to see some family and make a stop at the Joann's Superstore to pick up a few things. Sunday was mostly spent working on a few projects and cleaning/organizing my office area (a task I loathe but am glad that I got almost everything sorted, filed, and into a system that will hopefully keep me fairly organized). I also came up with the new logo for my business and have plans to get it finished up sometime this week. 

Since today is the last day of May, it is time to recap my 26 things to do before I turn 27 list. Overall, I am making great progress and since there are only 5 more months to cross off most of these things, I better get to work on them. (items in blue are the status of each goal, I want to make sure that I keep up with them) 

1. Practice yoga 3 times a week (I did this about once a week, I have been lacking in the exercise area, however, I have been eating a lot healthier and practicing a lot of portion control. I recently read Naturally Thin by Bethenny Frankel and loved, loved, loved it. The recipes are great and I actually have been feeling so much better since trying to follow her 10 rules. I have already lost some weight and plan to follow this lifestyle. Now, I need to get her next book.) 
2. Start my own business (reworking my business plan, working on branding, and logo ideas. I actually made spent a bunch of time working on business cards and other branding material, but I wasn't in love with it. It just didn't feel like me or what I was aiming for. Finally the other night around 2:00 in the morning, I finally had a brain wave and have designed a logo that is exactly what I was going for.)
3. Illustrate 5 days a week (This has been happening quite often and I love it!!!)
4. Read 1 book a month (8 books and counting...)
5. Conquer Iced sugar cookies
6. Wear high heels several times a week (this has actually been happening when the weather is nice!)
7. Sew 1 quilt at least full sized (I actually conquered this a couple weeks ago and is out being machine quilted, then I just have to attach the binding. It turned out really cute and is going to be in the window display at The Quilt Barn.)
8. Make more of my own clothes (I made a dress for me *it is going to be one of my first women's wear, there is fabric waiting to be cut for a second prototype and then I will start working digitizing and grading the pattern.) 
9. Eat more fresh food (I really have focused on this and so far so good!)  
10. Drink only 1-2 pops a month until zero 11. Have a nightly ritual (like tea, cookie, and sketching)Tea won!!
12. Clean out my studio and simplify (just organized my downstairs office area, which is really going to help me find things and not just find them in piles all around my desk.)  
13. Build a website (I have the plan & did the illustrations for it) 14. Plant another garden (my dad has really been helping me with this and things seem to be growing really well, but some little critters are attacking a few cucumber and bell pepper plants.)
15. Bake more (3 times a week this month)
16. Scrapbook at least twice a month (so far this hasn't been happening, but I have been sorting through all the computers on my computer and deleting unnecessary photos. I went from 6500 to around 4000 and I still have 2 years of photos to go through.)
17. Improve my photography (trying to keep interesting shots (different perspectives, light sources, time of day, etc.) and think about the composition before taking them.) 
18. Keep up my relationships (I am really finding great security of being my own person and deciding which relationships are positive, loving, supportive and which are just negative and may not be worth the amount of effort that I have been putting into them. I am realizing that over the course of one's life relationships really change, grow, and evolve into different places. I have met some new people and think that some of these are going to blossom into great friendships.) 
19. Organize my "library" 
20. Back up my computer frequently (I still need to get something to back it up on) 
21. Take time to be present in the moment (I am trying to really focus on this. One of my favorite times during the day is when Xavier and I read stories, just the two of us for about a half hour everyday. It is a lot of fun!) 
22. Have a booth at a craft fair
23. Quilt Market (have a booth at ) (probably won't happen until next year, but I am working on it)
24. Design my own fabric line (I have been busy practicing my pattern repeat skills by designing backgrounds for my blog)
25. Have a girl's night out once a month (this is pretty much attending quilt guild meetings which is a ton of fun) 
26. Go on a solo weekend adventure 

Now if you have actually read or scrolled through all of that here is a peak of the table runner I have been working on:

The pattern is from the Spring 2010 Stitch magazine. All the pattern details will be up once I get it finished (I am actually in the process of quilting it right now and if I am lucky it will be done today). The whole thing really came together and is very fun to look at I have to admit! Alright, I am off to get some more quilting done and watch It's Complicated since I just rented it last night... 

Waiting for spring to get here and stay...

I woke up to snow this morning, luckily, it melted quite awhile ago. I am really hoping to get up in the studio to finish my dress tonight. Here is a peak of how it is turning out so far:

Today, Xavier and I made my mom a little surprise Mother's Day gift from this tutorial via Holidash by not martha; 

I really loved this tutorial and found these flowers a lot of fun to make. The only thing I changed was during the final parts of assembly, I used some hot glue to make it go a little faster. I am hoping to make one, not quite as big to add to a hair band or head band. These could be quite addicting and really help me work through some of my felt stash. 

Happy Easter!

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend, mine was tons of fun and I finally was able to see X enjoy his new toys...

 Here was his basket. The lamb was a last minute addition; the tutorial was found at the purl bee. The only things I changed were that I just used regular felt, machine stitched the ears on (since x is super tough on things), and it only took about 20 minutes for me to whip up the other night.

and here was the finished bunny bowling (tutorial from the long thread). X loves them and has played with them quite a lot already. I am planning on making a little mat  (like a bowling lane) so it is easier for him to play.

I really loved how these turned out and the tutorial was really good. I did change a few things: first I ran a zig-zag stitch in the seam allowance (to reinforce it) and then instead of just pouring the rice in loose, I put the rice in a plastic bag and then stuffed it into the base. Both of these were precautions against the hard wear that they are probably going to go through, since x is super hard on toys, I could just picture loose rice all over the living room. The only other change that I would make (if I made them ever again) would be to make them slightly larger. 

Today, I also made a little progress on a few more projects that I am hoping to get done this week. What do you have planned?