Sara and her Daddy

More pages of Sara

I love to take photos of my youngest granddaughter because she is so darn cute. Sara hates the camera and because of that she doesn't like me. I'm the big bad lady with the camera that hurts her eyes. We only see her a few times a year as we don't live in the same state.

ATC Art Journal

Linda on one of my YahooGroups said she was going to do her art journal using ATC's. I, like Linda have tried many ways to do a journal and have given them up after a few days. One of the things I love about ATC's is their small format. Looking at a 2.5" x 3.5" blank card is soooo much better than an 8.5" x 11" blank paper. Linda I believe is doing doodling on her cards. I plan to use my many rubber stamp images as well as stickers, embellishments and some doodling. I also like to write about my day using one or two words. Here is my first week. The card in the bottom right corner is suppose to be horizonal but the cards only fit one way. It is the card enclosure from a Christmas gift from my oldest son and his family. It is a photo of lawn furniture covered with snow.

I am working on the book covers. More about that next time.

More Digital Scrapbook Pages

I did these pages on my grandkids. I tried to get some more pictures of Sara this weekend but she is very camera shy. Fortunately the other kids don't mind being photographed.

Second Page

Here is the second page

I have always wanted to do a scrapbook spread on Lee growing his tomatoes.

First Page of Election 2008

I was trying to get as much information on this page as possible. Pictures are great but it's necessary to tell the facts (as I see them). The photos are off the internet and not as clear as I would like.

Election Scrapbook Page

This is the first page of a two page spread of the 2008 Election. I saw these words written on the Internet and knew I had to do a spread.

Second Page of two Page spread of Krista

Oldest Grandchild's Passion

I wanted to share my oldest granddaughter's newest passion, horseback riding. She is 14 years old and a freshman in high school. She lives in Minnesota and joined 4-H. Besides horseback riding she is doing photography and cat. The gramma in the bottom right corner is me watching over her.

Another Digital Page

I spent a lot of time on the internet surfing digital scrapbooking sites. I am amazed at what is available. I found lots of free stuff and downloaded lots of paper, embellishments and alphabets.

Here is another page I did. I did six pages this weekend.

I Love Digital Scrapbooking

I picked up my digital scrapbook pages from Costco. They turned out awesome. I had them done in an 8x10 format. They will also do 12x12. I always do the lustre finish and the colors and photos are crisp and clear. Here is one on did about my newest granddaughter Sara.

She is soooo cute.

Digital Scrapbooking

Today I watched QVC's Paper Crafting all day long. They featured a digital scrapbook system called FotoFusion. I checked online before I purchased the one from QVC and discovered that the one I found is a larger version. I played with it all evening and I am hooked. I have sent two pages to Costco to be printed. I will pick them up tomorrow. I loved the way they turned out. I completed one more but will wait until I have a few more before I upload them to Costco.

Another card

I have been busy organizing my acrylic stamp collection. I purchased a square Sarabinder and the pages. I cut out cardstock to stamp the images on and will adhere them to the lined Sarabinder pages. I already have all my acrylic stamps in CD cases. I already have my mounted stamps cataloged in a three-ring binder. I need to update it with my latest purchases.

Here is a card I made using transparency. It's rather difficult to get a good photo.

One more Christmas Card for our troops

These are Hero Arts Christmas trees from a few years ago. I think they are so cute.

Making Cards for our troops

I have been in the card making mood. I am getting ready to send a large box of cards for our wounded troops. I then need to get busy making my own Christmas cards. I like to have them ready to go by the middle of October.

Inchie Card

I had some chipboard inchies and the image from Impressions Plus. I found the background paper when I was going thru my stash. I love fall, the colors, the smells and the crisp cool air.

New Card

Last night I went thru my drawer of scraps and found some of my handmade paper and some mulberry cards. It's amazing what you can find it you start looking for stuff to play with from your stash.

I made this card from the watercolor paper I painted and stamped and put in on the mulberry card which I stamps with silver, gold and yellow.

Organizing

My most favorite thing in the world is organizing my stuff. I have two studios, one for papercrafts and the other for quilting. I am doing the quilting studio. I have finally defined my quilting style and tastes and have been purging the things I will never use. I am also working on some of my UFO's and hopefully will get them done.
It was fun finding stuff I forgot I had. We really need to have a sale and get rid of this stuff. After 43 years the stuff just keeps mounting up. I am pretty good about purging but now I plan NOT to add to my stash unless it is for a specific project. No more random buying of fat quarters.

I have been on a month long hiatis from buying any papercrafts or rubber stamps and I am half way into the month without any slips. The worst part is not getting little packages in the mail that I have ordered online. This too shall pass!!

Quilt for my Granddaughter

I finally got Sara's quilt completed. I gave it to her for her second birthday. She isn't fond of any covers but as she gets older I am hoping she will. I made the quilt using a Moda jelly roll. I machine pieced and machine quilted the item.

Card Made for OQC

This is one of the cards I made for Operation Quiet Comfort. I try to make five or six of the same design. I stamp the images and then sit and color them. This stamp I just bought recently. It is from Magenta and I like it lots. The background paper is from Basic Grey and I cut the tag using my Nestabilities. The get well soon stamp is from Hero Arts.

More quilts

These four quilts were made in the last year. The top left was a quilt I made to give to my sister because she hosted the Sanborn Family Reunion last year. Each attendee signed the quilt.

The top right is a strings quilt I made and donated to Project Linus.

The bottom left I made as Christmas quilt for my daughter-in-law Stacey. I also made a table runner.

The bottom right is made from a bundle of fat quarters I purchased after getting out of the hospital. I fell in love with the colors and made this lap quilt.

Four of my Quilts

I hand quilted all four of these quilts within the last eight years. The one with all the flowers I made for my granddaughter. It is all hand done, appliqued, pieced and quilted. I won a ribbon at our local quilt show.

The one with the funky flowers and background was made as a challenge quilt and I used one of my hand drawn ATC's as inspiration for the quilt. It is hand appliqued and hand quilted. I also won a ribbon for this quilt.

The yellow and red quilt is made with fabrics my friend gave me that she purchased in Paris,France. I had it ready to quilt and when I went to the hospital ER with chest pains I worked on the quilt while I was waiting to be admitted. I had triple by-pass surgery two days later. After the surgery this was the only thing I could work on.

The card trick quilt was made as an Advent Mystery quilt on a site on the Internet. This is handquilted also.

Hand Quilted Placemats

I made these placemats with leftover fabric. I decided to hand quilt them as I love to do this and doing it on small projects are great take alongs. I just finished them this month, July 2008 and we use them every day.

Kathy's Triple Irish Chain

I machine quilted this quilt for my friend Kathy. She made the top in 1989 and didn't know how to quilt it. It had some damage and I had to replace three squares. It was my first time doing this and I was surprised at how well I did.

As you can see Kathy loves the quilt.

I Won a Ribbon

At the quilt show this past week-end I won best of the miniature catagory for "French Country Stars". This quilt is hand pieced and hand quilted. I made it in 2001. I purchased the fabric from Fabric Town in Apple Valley MN while visiting my son and his family. I made a larger flying geese quilt and used some of the leftover fabrics for the miniature.

Quilt Show this Week-end

This week-end is our local quilt show and I entered five quilts plus two for Project Linus. I did a demonstration this morning called "Flying Geese the Eleanor Burns Way". I had several folks watch my demo. This is one of my quilts hanging in the show.

After the demo I toured the show and shopped the vendors. I bought some awesome hand-dyed fabrics that I plan to use to make Ricky Timms' Fractured Courthouse Steps. He used 16 different fabrics. I am anxious to get started.

I'm A Winner

I forgot to mention that I was one of the winner's yesterday from the Hero Arts Blog Bird Challenge. If you go to http://www.heroarts.com/ and click on their blog I am the last card that was selected. Here is the card:

I love the new tree stamp from Hero Arts. It totally fills an A2 size card.

I Have to Begin Sometime so Here Goes

I had another blog of sorts on LiveJournal but did not keep it up. I focused more on my personal life rather than my creative life. I plan to make this my creative endeavor because when all is said and done only my friends, family and myself care about my personal life.

I have been sorting out my studios, yes I have two, one for fiber and one for paper and trying to narrow down my "hobbies". I can honestly say I have tried many over the course of my 61 years. Remember crewel embroidery? How about macrame? Fabric flowers? Counted cross stitch? Needlepoint?

Here is what I a going to narrow my stuff to:

1. Quilting, my absolute passion
2. Rubber stamping/card making
3. Scrapbooking
4. ATC's
5. Knitting

I have done chunky books and other altered art pieces but my heart really is not in it. I like the simple style and find the collage technique too cluttered.

So now you know a bit about me and my creative style I hope to share some of my artwork with you.