Birthday Girl Outfit

A couple weeks ago I made a birthday outfit for a friend's daughter.  She chose to have a Minnie Mouse birthday party so we had to have an outfit worthy of our little Mimi Mouse!  ;-)

Christmas Card Design

I can't bring myself to spend a lot of money on Christmas cards.  So usually I design a little something and get 4x6 or 5x7 prints to include with our Christmas letters.  This year I am using a Photoshop template that I downloaded for free from Beauty Divine Designs' facebook page.

It was originally intended to be a Save the Date Card but as you can see, I just made a few modifications (mostly just changing the colors and text) and now its our Christmas card.

If you are interested in a custom Christmas card design for your family pictures please contact me at wanibug (at) yahoo (dot) com for more information.  Thanks!

Early Family Holiday

Because one of my sisters lives out of state we ended up having to do our holidays last week because it was the only time that she and her husband could travel.  I sure had to hurry to get their gifts made!  ;-)  Our family has grown a lot since last year's holiday family photo!  We have had two weddings and two babies since then!  I'm the oldest of five kids and we now have six grandkids in the family!

After the "fun" photo part of the evening (in my cramped living room because we couldn't get everyone together until after dark) we were able to relax and enjoy spending the evening together.

What a blessing to be a part of a "big" family!  Looking forward to many more holidays together!

Another Family Wedding

My sister had some fun ideas for her wedding flowers.  She and I went back and forth pinning links on her Pinterest wedding board for awhile before we narrowed it down to what she really wanted.  She showed me this link and said she like the one on the upper right and the one on the bottom left.

 

That was a little daunting to me given its autumn and I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find such tropical flowers at this time of year.  However I was up for the task and I tackled JoAnn's, Hobby Lobby and Michael's looking for flowers that would fit the bill.

 I did her bouquet a little differently than I have others in the past.  I started with a premade bouquet from Hobby Lobby like this one and then added other complimentary flowers (from both JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby).  One thing I have found that I like about doing it this way is I felt like the whole thing was sturdier because it had the solid base of the premade stem.  Then I wrapped it all in satin ribbon (with the help of a little hot glue).

  I also used the satin ribbon to make a rolled rosette broach to go on her dress, a rolled rosette hairclip and a boutonniere for the groom.

 They make such a beautiful couple!  So blessed to have been able to share in their special day!

I'll be linking up to a few of these great blogs! 

A Couple of Cute Outfits!

 I got busy sewing a few weeks ago for the first time in many months...  I had fun making two outfits using some designer fabric I bought from Seamology on YardSeller.   

 I used a couple of girls shirts that I had bought on clearance and added appliques and made matching skirts and headbands.

 

Is she a cutie or what?  ;-) 

Fall...

Well, because of how busy we have been its ended up being an unusual fall for us.  Unusual in that we did not get a chance to do all of our typical fall activities that we have done in the past.  We didn't go picnic in Brown County... we didn't go to Waterman's Farm Market (where my parents work) for their fall festival... I didn't go with Isaac and the kids to our church's Fall Fun because I was on my girls trip so there are no pictures of the kids in costume or anything.  :-(

The only "fall" thing we were able to fit in was a trip to Tuttle Orchard and Pumpkin Patch with our awesome homeschool group.

 The kids got to hear about the life cycle of a honeybee and how important they are to our plants.  Nate is typically scared of bees but did really well during the presentation.

 And of course we got a hayride out to the pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkins.  Christine wasn't so sure about it.  Nate loved it though.  He picked out everyone's pumpkin for them.  ;-) 

 

Have I mentioned lately how much I love our homeschool group?  We have such a great group of families!  Its such a blessing to share this crazy homeschool thing with so many wonderful moms and kids.  Thanks for being such an important part of our homeschool experience!  Love you guys!

Girls Vacation!

I was blessed to spend the last week on the road with three of my favorite ladies!  My best friend, my mom and one of my aunts and I hit the road from our home in the Hoosier state and made our way to Florida for my cousin's wedding.  We spent a couple of days on the beach and then headed up to Georgia for a few days with my sister who just a baby last month.  What a good time with great ladies!  Here are a few of the highlights from our trip.

The first of many gas station stops... though may aunt's car got 40 mpg!  ;-)  whoohoo!

Our first day on the beach!  No, I'm not that short... there was an incline!  seriously.

We had used FlavortownUSA to find Diner, Drive-in and Dives in the areas we'd be traveling.  The closest one we found was the Alpine Steakhouse.  We tried alligator... it was cool to be able to say that we had it but we found it to be a bit chewy (my aunt said its been that way the other times she's tried it too), so we probably won't become big alligator junkies in the future. 

We did get the TurDucKen sandwich, which was like a thanksgiving dinner all wrapped up in a nice little bun.  Good stuff!

A few of us from my mom's side of the family all dressed up for the beach wedding.

It was a beautiful small ceremony on the beach with close friends and family.  What a blessing to be able to share their special day.

My uncle has always had a way with words and he brought a lot of us to tears with his toast. 

 

We got a little crafty while we stayed at my sister's house in Georgia.  She wanted to change the color scheme in her living room.  We made a trip to Goodwill and got the picture above.  Ugh!  But it was only $11 so we snatched it up.

We ModPodged old book paged onto it and let them dry.  Then we placed vinyl letters (though we had to stick them to the carpet once or twice to help them become slightly less sticky to avoid destroying the modpodged pages) to spell out their family name.  

My mom painted over the whole thing.  She used a wash technique so that you can still see the book pages a bit in places and you get a lot of texture throughout the piece.  My sis loves it and it brings a whole new color to the room!

My friend got a tattoo of "love & prayers" in her late grandma's handwriting.  Precious. 

We took a day to tour a couple of plantations north of Atlanta.  They were beautiful!

This one was the childhood home of Theodore Roosevelt's mother.

We tried to find another Diner, Drive-in and Dive place but it was only open for dinner and we were hungry girls. 

Thankfully a local turned us to Fat Matt's Rib Shack which was awesome!  The food was delicious (and between the four of us we tried a bit of nearly everything).  I even bought a bottle of their BBQ sauce to bring home for my hubs.  Can't wait to use it!

One day we spent the afternoon at the State Botanical Gardens with my cousin and her daughter.  It was a perfect day to spend wandering around the beautiful grounds!

I had a wonderful week with these ladies.  It was such a great break from reality.  What a blessing to have them in my life!  Love you guys!