Photo Card

Picture Joy Christmas

Click here to browse our Christmas photo card designs.

View the entire collection of cards.

The start of Christmas Projects

These are only a couple of projects I've been working on for Christmas gifts. These are the only ones I can post right now (in case the recipient would look on here)

The first one is a bear I made for Bailey for her birthday. She loves dolls and stuffed animals so I thought it would be fun to make up a pattern and I crocheted it out of some yarn I got from Grandma Brown.

It's not fabulous but I think it'll be fun for her.

This is a pattern I found and loved. The only problem is I picked horrible colors. I love the pattern though and it was so easy to make. I'll probably use this pattern again.

Projects in Gabriel's Room

I have been working on some projects for Gabriel's room. Last year for his first birthday, I made him a scrapbook birthday frame. I used the theme from his birthday party and his party invitation to decorate these 12x12 wood frames. I loved it and so I just finished (er, 99.8% finished) his 2nd birthday frame. The Hobby Lobby and the Michaels here don't have the numbers that I used for his last frame :( I don't know where to find one. Keep your eyes out for a wooden 2 for me!

I hung them up on his bedroom wall.

Pat the Bunny 1st birthday.
It's hard to see but I stamped blue polka dots on the peach paper, like the book.

Lightening McQueen 2nd birthday.
I made felt lightning keychains as party favors for the kids. I took off the keyring for this one and attached it.

 Gabriel's room is a space themed room with an outer space bed set, solar system paintings, planetarium nightlight, etc... I found this embroidery pattern online. It was perfect! It was simple to do and very cute. Then I put together a little wall hanging with these fat quarters on clearance at Joann's for 50cents! They are the perfect colors of his room and I thought they worked together great. 

Sorry for the bad lighting! It was bedtime :)

Left column: Moon, Earth, Mars
Middle: comet, star, Saturn
Right: Jupiter, Pluto (with a tear in his eye)

Left column: Mercury, Venus
Middle: Sun
Right: Neptune or Uranus... can't ever remember who is who!

 Then I made this bean bag chair for him. I made a basic bean bag out of durable upholstery fabric, stuffed it will packing peanuts, and then put the cute slipcover over it. His room is a work in progress but I'm really liking the progress :)

Woodland Bloom Quilt

Finally made this quilt out of the Woodland Bloom line of fabric by Lila Tueller:

A shot of the quilting

I absolutely love the pink damask fabric on the border and backing.

Glad it's finally done since I got the fabric before Jocelyn was born and now she's 3. :)

Kids slipcovered chair

Last year, I bought this Pottery Barn Kids rocking chair at a garage sale for $1.  You can see why it was only $1.

I made a slipcover for it, but never got around to putting the skirt on until this morning.  But I am so happy it's finally done.

Hairpin Lace Afghan

I'm in love with Hairpin lace now. On Ravelry I saw a few things that looked so cool and I had never heard of it before, so I did some research, got me a loom (mine was $5 at a craft store) and started off.

There are lots of ways to make your own loom too but I was lazy. Someday Tyson is going to make me an AWESOME one out of wood with some designs in it...someday.

This is the first and only thing I have made so far. It's a baby blanket for my SIL's new baby girl.

I would do a tutorial but there are much better ones out there than I could do Like the one here I used.

I really messed upon the first blanket. I read the directions to connect them wrong and so it ended being completely diagonal. So I started over. Luckily these are easy to do and they work up quickly

The end result with fringes. I could have crocheted a border but I decided this was easier.

I really loved doing this and I can't wait to do more. I want to do some bookmarks too. Those are really pretty.

Repurposed shirt quilt

I finally made something!!!!  Remember how I used to make lots of things?   It is a distant memory at this point, but I did do something!

I made this baby boy quilt from his Daddy's old button up plaid shirts.

 I cut up the back piece into the biggest rectangle I could make and then cut it in half lengthwise.  Then each was cut up into 3.5" strips and sewn together to make the columns.  The sashing and backing was from a white sheet that we don't use anymore.  The sashing was also 3.5".  I machine quilted it with a walking foot-just a simple stitch in the ditch.  For the binding, I pieced together different lengths of 3.5" width shirt fabric.  If you cut up the very top of the back, right underneath the collar, the fabric is doubled, so you only have to cut once to get 2 pieces.

Pretty simple, but with lots of significance for me and it was nice that it didn't cost anything :).  I can't wait to use it when he gets here!

Newborn Hanging Nest

My SIL Celeste made a request that we figure out how to make these hanging hammocks and "potato sacs" that are SO DARLING in newborn shoots. Seriously, if you haven't seen them before google newborn hammock photo shoot or something cause they are the cutest!

Anyway, so while we were in Boise with them, Celeste and I made up a pattern. The hammock didn't work out so well (I'm going to try again when I have more time) but the potato sac turned out good I thought. But to us it looked more like one of those round hanging bird's nests, so that what it's called.

Here's the pattern I wrote out. It's my first pattern ever so if it doesn't make sense I'm sorry. Let me know what to fix so I can get better.

I'm extrememly sad we didn't have an actual newborn to try this out on cause I'm not positive on the sizing but it's easy to make bigger if needs be.

And it's really more fun to do photo shoots with a real baby instead of your two-year-old's baby doll.

So I thought it turned out fun and I want to do more designs with different stitches. And maybe embellish it with a ribbon or flower or something cute like that.

Go Cubs

I made this for Jason for his Birthday. He's a big Cubs fan. it's made of small granny squares sewn together. I wasn't super impressed with how it turned out but it was the first chart I made of anything so I guess I can live with it. I have the chart here.

The "b" is kind of fat

I sewed on some fleece to the back so you couldn't see all the ties and strings.

PS. on a previous post I had a link on how to do a "Magic Loop" after re-sewing at least 20 little squares, I advise you to beware if you use this stitch! Maybe it was the yarn I used but most of the loops came undone. I was so frustrated. So from now on, I'm not going to use it.

Whale Tale

I bought this CUTE cotton print while on vacation in Baltimore/North Carolina. I didn't know what I was going to make with it, but I had to have it so I just bought a yard. Then I got home to discover Gabe's grandma bought him a little table and chair from IKEA. So darling, but white, and he likes to eat at the table so it gets messy quick. It hit me then, a wipe down tablecloth! So I bought some 8 gauge vinyl at Joanns and made 2 fitted tablecloths. I made one of the cotton and one of the vinyl so that I can make more cotton tablecloths in the future and switch them out. I'm thinking about a tablecloth for every holiday... ambitious, I know. SO easy and so cute, if I say so myself :)

Kindle Cover

I made Lexie a Kindle cover for her house-warming/going on tour/birthday present. I kind of just made the actual case up so I didn't have instructions. I embroidered the VanGuard symbol on it. It was a fun/frustrating project. It was fun doing it but it was frustrating it didn't turn out like I wanted. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

Blessing Dress

since I have no other projects to post at the moment I thought I'd post full pictures of the dress.

They're not the best pictures but oh well

Blue Knit Kimono

Poor, neglected Mini Frippery! I will post on you! 

I love crocheting and I'm pretty good at it. But I have always wanted to be able to knit. I think it looks more professional and intricate. Well, welcome to my first every knitting project! It's a little blue kimono, just in time for it to get hot again in Tucson 

>:P

It's funny, I started this about 6 months ago, came to a wall, where I COULD NOT understand what the pattern was saying, so I put it away. I brought it out a week or two ago and Voila! Miraculously, I understood. Once I got past that little bump in the road, this was a fairly easy project. I'm quite pleased with the way it turned out for a beginner. I spend hours on Lion Brand yarn's website, pouring over patterns. It is very addicting. It's where I get most of my projects from. Check it out!