Birthday Cards: The Cute, The Funny & The Obscure

I love finding cards in the mailbox, especially birthday cards.  It’s so much fun to see who sent them and what kind of card they sent.  Some are cute, some are funny and some are so bizarre I just don’t even know how to explain it.

Jamie’s card is sweet & sentimental

 

The cards from Jacob & my Mom are cute & funny

 

Jamie’s Grandpa sends a nice card each year

 

My Nephew’s gave me a homemade card, aren’t they sweet?!?

 

These next ones are from my friends and are the ones I especially look forward to.

My quasi-sister-in-law gave me this sassy one

 

Becky sent this one which fits us to a tee… the inside says it’s from my “110 pound friend”.  Don’t worry Becky, you just had twins after all!

 

Chris sent me this one which foretells our future, I just hope I’m the one on the left, I like the yellow swim cap.

 

And then there’s Jenny’s card.  I don’t know where she found this, but there aren’t really words for this one.  The inside has a letter from the girl in the picture:

“This is one of my 1988 dance recital portraits.  I was twelve years old and obviously at the stage where I had no idea what to do with my body.  Everything was out of proportion; my glasses were too big, my tights were too big, and I could never get my bangs right.  The photographer posed us, and for me there was really no other option than the jazz hands.”

I think her bangs are the least of her worries.

 

Thank you so much to all my family and friends, I am so honored to have you all in my life.  You make me laugh and cry and sometimes at the same time.  May you continue to fill my mailbox and my heart full of your sentiments and humor.

OFA

This past weekend I was in Columbus, Ohio for the annual meeting of Horticultural Professionals otherwise known as OFA.  I am not a huge fan of this meeting mainly because it starts on 8 am on Saturday morning.  One of the reasons I like the meeting though is the amazing and overwhelming amount of flowers. 

There are flowers before you enter the conference center.

 

There are flowers immediately when you enter.

 

There are flowers and displays everywhere you walk.

 

There were even Christmas trees and holiday displays. I just love the poinsettia Christmas “tree”.  I can’t even imagine how much this would cost a consumer.

 

There was a merchandising area for retailers and live competitions on displaying merchandise.

 

There was even a fresh cut flower display and competition.

 

There are also hundreds of new varieties of flowers on display, but the one that caught my eye was this hydrangea called Evolution.  The flowers change color throughout the year.

 

So, although I was stuck inside a convention center all weekend long, all these flowers and the thousands others not shown here made it a bit more bearable.

Faux Quilting

A co-worker is having a baby so for her shower I decided to make another of cute and cuddly owl and a matching changing pad.  I have this cute pink and brown fabric in both fleece and poly/cotton blend.  The fleece makes a super soft owl.

For the changing pad I wanted to use a brown fleece for this inside, but it was a bit boring.  I have a fun pink dotted fleece, but it’s pretty pricy and decided to try and pretty up the brown fleece first. So I decided to stitch a faux quilt pattern with pink thread.

Starting at a corner, I marked a line at a 45 degree angle and continued every 4” making a diamond pattern. Then I stitched a single straight long stitch along the lines.

Back side:

Front side:

Here is the finished product and I just love how it turned out.

T-shirt to tank top

I recently pinned a tutorial on how to turn a t-shirt into a tank top.  And since it’s going to be 95-100 degrees today at the Brewer game I decided to turn one of my Brewer t-shirts into a tank top.

The original tutorial is here but I made a few modifications.

I made three of these shirts before attempting the Brewer shirt above. The tutorial says to cut off the bottom hem and then make another cut for the drawstring.  I liked the lengths of my t-shirts, so I instead cut off bottom strip but left the hem.

Then I folded over the hem and stitched it from that point.  This way I only lost about 1” from the bottom of the shirt.  For the Brewer one above, I actually used a drawstring from one of my other shirts since I didn’t want to cut the hem at all.

The easiest way to get the drawstring through the front and back is to attach it to a safety pin and then use that to work it through the fabric.

I love this shirt and I’m sure it will help keep me cool today at the game.  I have lots more t-shirts in my drawer from various charities and vacations that I can’t wait to turn into more tanks.  These might also look cute on a little girl as a dress too.