My Weakness...

Yes.  It is true I have a weakness.  I do great grocery shopping.   I make a meal plan and then a list and buy pretty much just what I need.  I do even more awesome REAL shopping.  You know... the kind where you get to buy shoes and clothes.  You see...  I don't!  Unless I happen to be with my mommy and sisters on vacation and then...  yeah.  I am married with kids and a spoiled brat!  My parents still love me!  The only time I seem to do real shopping is if my kids need clothes or shoes and then I always hit the Consignment shop in base first!  I figure...  I will abuse the privilege before my kids are old enough to care what brand they wear.

Anyways...  It seems that every person has a shopping weakness.  That one thing that, even though you don't need it, you HAVE to buy.  I wish I could say that my shopping weakness is shoes.  But alas...  it is much more strange than that.

My name is Jessica.  And I am a sandwich cutter addict.

I admit.  The collection above seems small.  But...  my collection is ever more vast than this.  You see...  when putting our things in storage I was worried about keeping out the basics.  Clothes, shoes, and favorite blankets.  A sandwich cutter is a neglected thing.  I feel bad for storing them.  Picture above are the dolphin, star, butterfly, and puzzle cutters I have bought just since we moved here to florida.  My true collection includes:

Dolphin

Star

Butterfly

Puzzle

Elephants

Penguin

Dinosaur

Heart

Circle

and Simple Square Crust Remover!

Yes.  I have 10 Sandwich cutters.  Why?  Besides the fact that I have 3 kids and a habit of creating fun random shaped lunches?  Because they are fun! Plus, they are always cheap so I never feel guilty picking them up!

Here are the kids sandwiches from lunch!  See...  so much fun!  They never know what shape they will get!

Will I ever beat this habit?  Probably not for a while.  But it could be a worse habit!

Right?

So.  Here is a question for you.  What is your shopping weakness?

Death of a Nail Polish Caddy... or Not?

I know this isn't crafty, but... Deal with it! I have something important to tell you!

I have need to inform you of the departing of a long time companion of mine. She has been with me through some "pedi" spills, holding things together. While sad at this announcement I am also filled with a sense of peace.  I know she has fulfilled her purpose in life and moved on to more exciting things!

Since I am sure you read the title of my post, you already know who it is that has moved on.  My beloved nail polish caddy has been with me for about 13 years. I got her as a gift for being in a friends play when I was a junior in high school!.

Upon giving her a face lift to match the walls a entire ceiling of my room... She sat upon my desk and held many things. (You can see her original wrapping inside in the pic below.)

It's amazing she has held on so long! She is really just a cardboard container decoupaged once with scary flowery paper and another time by me with magazine cutouts. I put her in the tiny trash in my bathroom where she was once again rescued by my 7 year old daughter! (Do your kids rescue things from the trash too?)  I wonder what she will be holding now!

Perhaps you are asking yourselves why I would part with such a cherished item. Well... for Christmas I got gorgeous!  I guess I should say  Gorgeous, the Victoria Secret perfume.  I personally am ALWAYS gorgeous!  LOL  I decided it was time to give my nail polish collection a chance to grow.  The old caddy had no more room!  As you can see below I can now add a few bottles!  I had to use my contact boxes to fill the void for now.

So much more grown up right!  My new friend even has a Gorgeous lid!  Since My new box is flatter and larger AND has a lid I can...

Set some other junk on top of it!  Although...  It does appear as though I need a better method for storing those items..  But this bathroom has NO storage!  What you see is the storage I have and the other side is holding towels and the mouth wash that snuck into the picture!  Evil mouth wash!

HoopSisters Mystery Quilt

Drum roll please................  TADAAAA!!!

My HoopSister Mystery Quilt for 2011 is finally complete.  I must say that for my first mystery quilt I an OVERLY satisfied!  There is no way at all I would have had the patience or vision to create a quilt like this on my own using traditional methods.  It makes me feel so fancy!

Perhaps I should first explain a little more what a mystery quilt is.  The HoopSisters provided the pattern to start along with a list saying we would need 5 shades of one color and 2 shades of another.  They also told us the yardage we would need.  We then numbered our shades and through out the pattern when they said to use fabric 2 or 7....  that was the one I used!  Each week they emailed a set of patterns to download to your machine, along with instructions for about 8 different blocks.

Qan't Quit Quilting!!

Ok..  I'm sure most of you have notice a pretty long absence in my blogging.  This has been for several lazy reasons!  We moved to Texas while my hubby is in a training in Florida, I visited Idaho with my parents for about 2 weeks for 2 different weddings, then I visited my hubby in Florida, then my parents decided to move while we are here living with them and when I have free time I have been taking care of kids and working for my dad doing some of his billing!  LOL  (Free time... taking care of kids...  I am hilarious...)  Anyways...  I took a few snaps to let you know I haven't been completely out of my crafting mind.

For some ridiculous reason I decided I needed to create a scrappy hexagon quilt.  For those of you who may not know.... you hand stitch the entire quilt.  So... I decided to shoe you first the quilt that will be finished last!

 Then, my mom, sister and I have decided to participate in the first annual Quilt Across Texas!  Moda has created a beautiful line of Texas fabric for the event.  There are prizes for visiting a certain amount of shops in each region.  I decided to collect a half yard of 2 30-40's reproductions at each store.  Above is a picture of my loot!  I may have to collect something different for the next several stores.

 My mom and I also discovered QuiltingBoard.com.  We have joined a few fabric swaps.  You send in fabric and they trade it with others so you get lots of different ones back.  Pictured above left is some of the loot from a "Blue" Swap...  I sent in about 12 squares of 6 different blue fabrics and got them all traded out for different ones!  Pictured left is my choice for a "Food Fabric" swap.  I have had an idea for a couple different I Spy quilts so the swapping is PERFECT for that! 

 Here is some fabric I chose for a Stack-N-Whack Quilt.

 After seeing this pattern in a swap on the Quilting Board my mom, 3 of my Aunts, my sister and I decided we should make it and swap between ourselves!  We started a facebook group for the few of us to share ideas and above is my first of three in our Leave Sisters Swap.  They will each get one of this!

 This is what I have been spending alot of my sewing time on.  Before you get to impressed...  It is the HoopSister's Mystery quilt.  HoopSister's create "In The Hoop" Quilts.  Pretty much you just lay your fabric under the machine and it quilts and sews the fabric right to the batting and backing!  They are soooo easy and amazing!  If you have an machine that does embroidery to I highly recommend their stuff.  Geniuses the women. HERE is a video of what their stuff does in action.

Here is the back of the quilt...  It is ALMOST finished.  I ran out of light yellow for binding, but...  it's just that and then the border and DONE!  I will post a picture soon!

On My List {Part 2}

Sorry it took me so long to post {Part 2}!  I'm hoping when you read on you will see why!  This is an area WAY out of my comfort zone.  I felt the research I did could potentially help others who are as clueless in this area as I am!

So...  The big question...  

"What is the other thing On My List for Christmas this year?"  

Glad you asked!

Imagination Library

Ok... perhaps I'm a little behind the times with this, but I AM BLONDE! (How long before I can no longer use that excuse?)

I have just discovered Dolly Parton's Imagination Library (Thank you Kylie)! In a nutshell it's one free book an month until you kiddo is 5! We LOVE the library! And we LOVE books at our house. We are totally book nerds, so this program is PERFECT for us! I just signed up my 2 little boys and I can't wait to get their first books! I will let you know how it goes!

To read their story click here!

To sign up for Imagination Library online click here!

To find out how to become more involved with their program click here!