Garage Sale Saturday!

My men's table... up front to pull them in!

View from the front!

My Ladies/Decor table

View from the back... and my neighbor's sale across the street!

It's been a long, slow, Saturday morning. I've had only five or six lookers and no purchasers. I'm hoping it picks up.

Hey I just made my first sale! $12.50! WooHoo! And more people are coming now! I can hope!

Show and Tell Friday

Yesterday we cleaned out our garage! I found treasures I hadn't seen for three years. (Since we moved from Texas to Michigan). Two of my favorite quilt books. One big (see above).

One small!

Both are filled with beautiful pictures of quilts, as well as quotes about quilts and quilting history. I'm glad to have re-discovered these treasures.

For more Show and Tell Fridays go to http://kellishouse.blogspot.com

Whew! What a busy week!

Of course, being the END OF MAY we are still having frost warnings! Sigh.

A trip to the local nursery to replace my dead tomato plants

So much color... I could have spent soooo... much $$$

Practical purchases

Andi learning to plant- "Mom, why can't we just go to the store and buy our food?"

A look at my itty bitty little garden... it's a start!

My neighbors told me Tuesday night that they were doing a garage sale this weekend (Thurs., Fri., Sat.) so if I wanted to put anything out/have my own, it would be a good time. Sigh... I was no where near ready. I had some stuff put aside but I knew I had so much more to find and pull out. To make it more stressfull... I absolutely had to weed and plant in my vege garden on Wed. Finally about 4:00 on Wed. I was ready to start cleaning out the garage (which was where a good portion of garage sale items would come from). Luckily the neighborhood kids love a good garage cleaning. (I actually just think they are curious to see other people's stuff.) I had lots of helpers. I was able to get a good start on it and find enough stuff to make setting up a sale worthwhile.


On Thursday we set up and since my DH had the day off, he continued cleaning the garage while I manned the sale. He would bring out boxes to me and I would go through them to find more sale items. It worked well and we have a much nicer looking garage. Unfortunately, today it is raining so I don't know if the sale will happen today, but we'll be back at it tomorrow.

Not exactly what we were going for!

This was the beautiful layout of cupcakes in the May 2008 issue of Country Living that inspired us to try decorating. We made a from scratch lemon cake (very yummy!) from the book; Cake Decorating For The First Time by Jaynie Maxfield (Sterling Publishing, 2004). We made the Almost Homemade Buttercream frosting that was given in the article (pg. 162). It was wonderful tasting but I don't think we got the consistancy right because this is what we ended up with...

Now, I know that perfection comes with time and practice but I think our main problem was the texture of the frosting. It was not as smooth and firm as what I hoped for.

None the less, the kids had fun and we ended up with great tasting (although not particularly professional looking) cupcakes.

We give Reagan one knifeful of frosting and one cupcake. It keeps her busy. She tends to be a knife licker and I can't handle a licked knife going back into the bowl of frosting. LOL!

I'm seriously considering purchasing Teaching Good Thing's cake decorating DVD. ( www.teachinggoodthings.com ) Does anyone have any experience with this DVD or with cake decorating? Any tips you can share?

The Ant Whisperer

The Horse Whisperer hit the big screen. Cable t.v. has a dog whisperer. Coming soon... The Ant Whisperer! Starring Reagan! She absolutly loves ants. She will talk to them, let them crawl on her and then she will pet them. She gets upset if anyone in the family steps on one and she really gets mad if I spray them with Raid. The older kids want to get her an ant farm. Personally our whole back yard is an ant farm. She will be in for a shocker if we move back to Texas. One does not "whisper" red ants.

Show and Tell Friday!

Baby Blocks, Drunkard's Path, Triangles, Grandmother's Fan (bottom left, counter-clockwise)

Rose of Sharon (in progress), Trip Around the World, Rail Fence, Maple Leaf (Bottom left, counter-clockwise)

Rail Fence, Trip Around the World (Again), Strip Rail, Card Trick (Top Left, counter-clockwise)

Spider's Web, Court House Steps (Bottom to top)

Log Cabin, Dresden Plate (Bottom to top)

Hi everyone,

It's been a while since I've participated in show and tell, but since I've gotten back into the quilting I thought I would show off my quilt blocks. They aren't perfect but I'm just a beginner and I'm okay with that. I hope to improve with time. I have 14 1/2 blocks made and have 6 1/2 to go before I can start to assemble the quilt and then quilt it. I'm using Lynne Edwards' Making A Sampler Quilt book, published by Reader's Digest (1996). The directions are easy to follow and I've been quite thrilled with my progress. I actually prefer hand stitching to machine work and I love applique!

For more Show and Tell Fridays go to http://kellishouse.blogspot.com

Think you don't have room?

Stacy, at http://www.yoursacredcalling.blogspot.com/ , has a great video post up. It is about a family in the L.A. area who grow all their own food on 1/10th of an acre. (Their suburban lot.) Very inspiring! They even have chickens, ducks and goats! If they can do all that in L.A. then what excuse do most of us have. It definately changed my mind about needing a lot of land. Check out Stacy's blog and then go to http://www.pathtofreedom.com/ . I don't believe the family has a Christian mindset, probably more of a "mother earth" mindset but it is very motivating. (I won't be giving up my washing machine any time soon, though.)

Update on my garden: We have peas and spinach coming up as well as yesterday's lettuce!