Fabric bundle Giveaway at the Little Pink Rose

Marcia at The Little Pink Rose is having a giveaway on her blog.  There are many different ways to enter, and you could win a  Chevron Fat Quarter Bundle from Riley Blake Designs with 24 Fat Quarters.  Go and enter to win!!!   Giveaway closes at Midnight on November 23.  Good luck :)  

Fall Wreath & an update on past holiday wreaths

Wow, I have to salute all those dedicated bloggers out there who produce quality posts week after week.  It's just too easy to miss a few posts and before you know it, you haven't blogged in weeks or months.  I have been creating fun and pretty things for my family and for others, but I've neglected blogging about them :(  So now, a tiny update on my holiday wreaths.

I love making new wreaths for my apartment's front door.  It's one of the only things that I'm allowed to do to the exterior of my home, so I really enjoy changing them out every month/season.  Here are a few of the wreaths that I've made over the last few months starting from the most recent.

This is my Fall/Thanksgiving wreath.  My family collected tons of acorns for a project last month, and I reused the acorn caps to make this wreath.  I also re-used the Chinese lanterns that were part of a Halloween flower arrangement too.  I love getting two uses out of supplies.

      
To make this wreath, I first wrapped the form in garden twine.  Then I hot glued each cap on.  It took hours longer than I anticipated, but I really like the finished product.  I thought about adding a neat olive green ribbon at the top and not putting the lanterns on for a more modern look, but my craft store was sold out of all the nice fall colors so used a scrap of fabric that was in my stash and the color came from the lanterns.

Last months wreath was for Halloween.  I wanted to make something spooky for the kids.  So I wrapped the form in purple yarn and cut out a haunted house with a graveyard and bats from black paper and accented it with a cheap skeleton from the $1 bin.  I also had to add just a bit of sparkle with the silver ribbon.  It was a big hit with the kids and neighbors.

The last wreath that I going to share with you today is our back to school wreath made from crayons and paper.  I'm sure that many of you have seen crayon wreaths on Pinterest.  Instead of just choosing the crayons randomly I grouped them by color and then did a gradient pattern around the wreath.  I had the kids color and cut out some school themed coloring pages and my oldest made a kid chain portrait.  We glued it all on for a fun and fab September wreath.  Sorry about the picture quality on the crayon wreath, but in truth the carpet color is no worse than my door color.

I'm going to try to do some more updates on past projects in the near future and maybe post a few things that I'm working on for the winter holidays.  Wish me luck. :)

Jam and Jelly Time

This has to be my favorite time of year in Germany. The roadside stands are full of fresh local produce. My favorite are the cherries, but my middle child loves the fresh strawberries. He eats them by the bowl full. It's also the time of year to put some of this fruit by for the winter. Thus, I've been making some jams and jelly for us to have during the year, but I mainly can for friends and family. I love to make fresh bread to go along with the jams as Christmas gifts.
My first batch of jam this year was strawberry. It's nice to start off with a classic. We went out to the strawberry field behind our house and picked 2kgs of strawberries. I'm not sure what type of strawberry these are, but they were beautiful and very sweet.

I've never seen such blood red strawberries before this. They were that same true red all the way through the fruit.

So far I've done Peach and Strawberry fruit jams. I want to do some apricot, maybe blueberry, and some cherry pie filling too.

My favorite though has got to be the Jalapeno Jelly that I did yesterday. Love it! I found the best recipe from the Texas homestead blog. It is the best Jalapeno jelly that I have ever made. This recipe is a true jalapeno jelly and not one that is mostly bell pepper with just one token jalapeno. You can find the recipe at the Texas Homesteader site.

The only changes that I made were to use powdered pectin and half of a finely chopped red bell pepper (just for some added color). I added the bell pepper half way through the cooking process so that the small chunks wouldn't disintegrate. I also did not add any food color (really, I think the natural color is so pretty that it doesn't need any food color, but to each his own.

 This jelly goes great with meat like pork chops or chicken; It's also nice on a meat sandwich. I also serve it as an appetizer with cream cheese and jelly on crackers. Yum!!!

4th of July Wreath& wreath form tutorial

Happy 4th of July!!!

So today I found myself inspired by the many patriotic wreaths that I've seen on Pinterest lately.  I wanted to make something patriotic and fun for my apartment door to celebrate Independence day, but I didn't have a wreath form or any of the things that easily convert into a wreath form (pool noodle, big tube, pipe insulation).  I tried to buy a wreath form at some of my local stores here in Germany, but everywhere I went they were out of the light cheap kind that I wanted, and there was no way I was dropping 10 Euro on a metal form that didn't suit my needs!  I'm not much into power shopping so I admit to giving up the search after two stores and some subtle hints from the kids that they weren't digging the wreath form hunt.

Then inspiration hit me! I could make my whole project out of stuff I already had.  Actually, I took it as a challenge.  I knew that I had all that I needed, and more, at my own house.  No wreath form; No problem!

So, here is a little tutorial on making a Plastic Bag Wreath Form, and then the patriotic sparkler wreath.

Plastic Bag Wreath Form Tutorial

What you need for the wreath form:

Plastic grocery bags (any supermarket style bag will do.  You know that you have a ton of these stashed somewhere :)
Wire Coat Hanger
Tape
Pliers or strong fingers  

1. Bend your hanger into a circle shape.  It doesn't need to be perfect, but get it as round as you can.  Then, bend the hook over to form a loop.  This makes a nice hanger at the back of the wreath when you're done.

2. Grab your shopping bag by the bottom and tape the end around the hanger.  Then, begin to twist the bag around the hanger.  You don't want to do it too loose or too tight.  Once the whole bag is twisted around the hanger, tape the end to the hanger.

3. Continue adding bags around the hanger.  Slightly overlap the ends when adding a new bag.  Tape at the ends and at spots that don't want to behave as you go.  Continue adding layers around until it reaches the thickness you desire.

4. When you reach the loop you made from the hanger hook weave the bags through it for the first few layers so that you can get your finger through it. If you continue to add layers, like I did, just go around the loop without covering it too much.

5. You should end up with the nice sturdy wreath form. If at this point you think it's not quite round, don't be afraid to tug it into shape or add a bag in a spot that is not quite thick enough.

You can see in the last photo that I've already started to add my crepe paper to the wreath.
To make this 4th of July wreath (or your own variation) continue on.

Supplies:
Wreath Form
Crepe paper party streamers in Red, White, and Blue (1 roll each)
Stiff Paper for the stars
White Glitter (or Sugar) *optional*
Glittery ribbon in silver and gold (mine is the kind used for wrapping presents)
Wood Skewers
Black paint and White paint 
Blue and red ribbon (or whatever you have) to make a bow
hot glue

You are going to cover your wreath using little crepe paper florets for this project.  It's cheap and its easy.  I found it was easier to make a whole big pile of each color and then glue them to the form, but you can make the florets as you go.

1. Make the florets by cutting two pieces of crepe paper and crossing them over the top of each other (1). Don't make the pieces too long or they will stick up too much.  They should only be cut a bit longer than they are wide.  Pinch the center (2), and then twist them together (3) to form a little point at the bottom (4).  It's that easy.

2. Glue the florets onto the form in a flag style pattern as seen in the photo.

 
3. Cut your star shapes from some stiff paper. Paint them with white glue or white paint and shake on some glitter for sparkle. I didn't have any glitter so I used sugar instead. It worked great and my four-year-old thought it was super cool. Glue them to the blue field on your wreath.

4. To make the sparklers, paint the wood skewers black and then cut your sparkle ribbon into about 3.5 inch pieces. fold them in half and glue them to the tip of the skewer. I just had mine going every-which-way so they would resemble real sparklers. Then glue them to the wreath at a few points along the stick and where they cross each other.

5. Make a bow with your blue and red ribbon and glue it over the sparklers where they cross. This gives it a nice finished look. Then just hang your wreath and enjoy your holiday.

 Now go out and have a BBQ and enjoy the fireworks while you celebrate the freedom that we are so fortunate to have.

Giveaway at Julie's

If you haven't yet, you should hop over to Having Fun Quilting for Julie's patriotic wall hanging quilt giveaway.  There are three ways to enter and you have a chance to win a Liberty Logs quilt kit.

 Isn't it pretty :) Now go sign-up!

Stash Report

I've been adding some new fabrics to my stash lately!  I totally fell in love with the Michael Miller children at play fabrics after buying the pink balloons fabric for the Novelty Squares exchange.  Luckily I order extra of that fabric because I knew I wanted some for myself too.  Now, I've added a few more fabrics from that line to my stash along with some others that I'm squirreling away for future projects. 

I'm so grateful to Cotton Blossom Farm for the quick and reasonable shipping and actually having all the fabrics that I was looking for (including some that I wasn't looking for but had to have after seeing them; funny how that happens.  It's like how chocolate magically jumps into my cart at the grocery store).  I'm always happy to discover fabric shops that carry everything I'm looking for in one place.  It saves on both hassle and shipping to order all at once.  It's also nice when an online store has such great customer service :-) I'm a very happy girl today!

 The "On Parade" border fabric might be my favorite.  I really want to make a birthday dress for my daughter out of this print.  Her birthday has already passed this year, but I wanted to order this fabric now because you never know when a line will become hard to find.  I looked at a lot of online fabric stores who were sold out already.

I also got some polka-dot fabric in yellow and blue, some American Jane "tickets in cream" and some little apples fabric in red that will make it into an I spy, and of course the children at play fabric.  I just love the little girls playing with their dolls and the boy chasing the airplane.

  I also broke down and ordered some flea market fancy fabric. I have got to admit that I now know why everyone seems to love this fabric.  It is beautiful.  I'm thinking that the bouquet in grey is going to end up as a little purse for me.  The blues and yellow are likely going to be in a quilt.  I also planted my window boxes yesterday.  I'm loving my new red geraniums.  It's finally starting to feel like spring here.

Quiltspiration: The Netherlands

I truly believe that inspiration can be found just about anywhere.  I've recently been to several places here in Europe that provided ample inspiration opportunities.  Today, I'm going to share a bit about our recent trip to Holland to see the Keukenhof  flower garden show and also share a bit of tulip inspired quiltspiration.

We went the first week that the show was open so not all of the millions of tulips, daffodils and hyacinths were blooming yet, but it was still an incredible site.  It was pretty cold for spring when we visited, but as we drove in we could see that the big tulip fields where already full of color. 

I wanted to design a simple and modern quilt that reflected the look of the tulip fields in full bloom when you see them from above. I wish I had a photo to share of the fields but you can Google them and the images are really incredible. 

This is honestly a straight forward little quilt. To make it you can use a jelly roll of various flower colored solids or blenders (or 2.5inch strips) and a honey bun (1.5inch strips) of a dark brown-green color for in between the rows. Using the whole length of the strip, join the same colors together following the picture. On strips where the color breaks at some point on the strip Just join the ends and place the strip where you want the color to break for the row. There is really no reason to worry about being exact. Then just add your brown-green strip between the flower colors. I think that this would come together really quickly. I'd finish it off with a fun print for the binding to give it a bit of zing, but to each his own :)

We had a great time, and saw some really beautiful flowers. Here are a few more images of our trip just for fun, and maybe they will inspire you in some way too.

Can you tell it was cold. My daughter is wearing my husbands hat and coat.

I'd never seen tulips with fuzzy edges before this.

They also had a special exhibit of orchids too. So beautiful.