A Christmas "Crafternoon" with Family!

We finally did it - the girls in my family that live here in the Houston area have been talking about doing a crafting afternoon (or "crafternoon" as we call it) at my house for a long time now, and this past Sunday afternoon we did just that!  I gathered a lot of my fabric and trim stash as well as a few goodies...

...and we got busy crafting...

We made cute Christmas tags using regular shipping tags, fabrics, trims, buttons, yo yos, pom poms, and assorted Christmas trinkets and baubles. Mom and I made these for inspiration...

...and here's what everyone made...

Super Cute!!  

My cousins, niece, Aunt, and 2 sisters-in-law and Mom and I had a blast - we're already looking forward to the next crafternoon...wonder what we'll make then??!!

I will try to put together a little easy tutorial on some of these tags I made - they were really easy...and fun!

Oh, and one additional nice benefit from having everyone over to my house - it lights a fire under me to finish certain decorating projects!  (is anyone else like that??)  Here are a few shots of my almost finished dining room...

Finally finished the repurposed desk hutch - sweet hubby added the "quilt rack" at the bottom of the orphaned hutch using a closet rod and holders from Home Depot and I trimmed the cutter quilt down to fit on the rack...

(oops, still need to paint over the screws on the back)

I LOVE the way the hutch turned out! One of the reasons I wanted a hutch/shelves like this instead of the traditional hutch I already have with a normal base is that this one allows so much more space for chairs on the back side if the table. When I had the full hutch there before, it was very hard to sit on that side of the table without knocking into to hutch...

It was also great to gather all my favorite china and pretties together to fill the shelves of the hutch as well as the newly painted corner shelves (salvaged from an old entertainment center I once had)...

I love it when it all starts to come together! It's turned into a happy room and a great gathering spot!

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Hope you guys have a wonderful Thanksgiving! I have so very much to be thankful for, and your friendship is very high on the list!

"I thank my God every time I remember you." 

Philippians 1:3

Where's Becky Been?

I looked at my last blog post and saw that it was just over a month old - my goodness gracious, what a blog slacker!

But folks, I have to say it - I just don't feel like blogging about all the things going on in my life these days...and there is a lot going on. (mostly all good too, but some quite sad)  I rarely even carry my camera around much any more. I guess I've been taking a hiatus without even realizing it...perhaps I've even lost my mojo a bit for now...

I will say for certain though that I will keep blogging, because even though I don't always feel like it, I want to keep an honest visual and written record of my life.  But because my life is filled with peaks and valleys, so too will my blog...

So here is a brief recap of the past 6 weeks or so, including some things that began before that but I never mentioned here....

Mom and Johnny, Easter 2008

• My sweet mother-in-law passed away on October 8th, on my husband's birthday. She was 85. It wasn't unexpected as she was under hospice care for a while, but it was still a blow to the family.  Her suffering is now over and she is in a MUCH better place...
  
• My nephew and his wife had an early arrival on September 22, precious Presley Kate, who came a month early and only weighed 3 lbs. 12 oz. On October 9th, her Mommy's birthday, she finally left the hospital and is now more than double her birth weight and doing great! Life goes on...

• I took a part time job as a painting instructor at Pinot's Palette in the Woodlands, a "Paint and Sip" studio where the painters bring their own wine and goodies and paint a 16 x 20 acrylic painting. It is a truly fun job and I am loving it, but it was an adjustment to head off to work outside my home, and mostly nights at that. But it is a great part time job, pays really well, and I have met THE nicest people at our paint parties. I wish you could all come - we would have a blast!!

• I attended the Quilt Market right here in Houston at the end of October and was in "hog heaven" as we say around here. My-oh-my the fabric and quilts and yumminess was just almost too much!! This was a trade show for fabric and trim companies, quilt pattern vendors, sewing and quilting machine manufacturers and more. And no, I did not take one single photo. I was under the impression that photography was not allowed, and although that is true at some booths, plenty of folks were taking plenty of photos...  Oh well. But I picked up a lot of business cards from some wonderful people at various fabric manufacturers' booths and even got to show my portfolio, so it was time well spent!  (You can check out True Up's blog and see a series of reports on the this quilt market with tons of photos, plus many other similar markets and a lot of other fun fabric-related goodness)
• In preparation for the Quilt Market I created many new coordinated fabric design sets using existing and new images to add to my portfolio. Here's a little sampler of some of my latest work...

• We had a "Grandma Shower" at my house for my sister-in-law a few weeks ago - her dear friend coordinated all the details and Mom and I got my house ready and provided many of the goodies and flowers. It was a great success - so fun! (have you ever heard of/been to a Grandma Shower?  It's all about making sure the new Grandma has a good supply of baby stuff for when her sweet grandbaby comes to visit - fun!) Once again, I didn't take any photos with my camera (slacker), but I got copies from others. This is a shot of the dining room. You can see my cool metal floral chandy ($10 garage sale find), and the wall shelves that are actually a hutch from an old desk that I picked up at a thrift store - it was orphaned from its desk and was pretty cheap. (see before photo below) It's hard to see in the photo, but the hutch has a soft pink back. We have since made more modifications to the hutch (added a quilt rack at the bottom), and we also added 2 corner cabinets to the room, plus the rest of my china collections that were still at my other house - so I WILL take photos of the newly completed/accessorized room very soon and share here on the blog...

• We've added 4 Christmas Inspiration kits to our Just Bee 'n Me Boutique on Etsy, and we'll soon be adding one more Christmas kit plus a fun vintage sewing notions kit with a ton of cute, sweet goodies...

(coming soon - Vintage Notions Inspiration Kit!)

• I'm working toward opening a Zazzle shop...soon!!

Cute "Wise Woman" journal - just one of the many things in the works for the Zazzle shop...

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Well, I think that's enough of a recap for now - I'm getting tired of writing and I'm sure you're getting tired of reading...

I can't thank you enough for coming by to see if I'll ever post anything again! I really appreciate your support and love, caring and encouragement!

Have a fabulous week friends!!  HUGS and much love!