We're getting all settled in here with the summer vacation thing. The kids are finally realizing that it's not my fault that they're bored -- I'm not the cruise director. We have swings and bikes and millions of toys outside that they can make use of and books and art supplies and computer games and -- well -- millions of toys inside too. And with all the stuff here, you'd think there would be plenty for them to all play with. Unfortunately, you'd be wrong. An argument usually breaks out every thirty minutes or so. But unless someone is physically fighting (which is extremely rare -- my kids are pretty good about that), I usually let them work it out themselves. Earlier this week they were actually all clean and stopped fighting long enough to take the annual "Girls by the Roses" picture. I started taking these annual pictures when Brooke was a baby and so was the rose bush. (We didn't have the roses when Katelyn was little, but since Katelyn is the oldest, she has pictures with everything! You know how it is with the first one -- "Oh look -- there's a ladybug! Take her picture with it!" or "Oh, we don't have a picture of her with those shoes on yet!" The next kids are lucky if they get their yearly portraits taken!) So anyway, the girls and the rose bush have grown considerably.

And since we're in the garden, I'll share these pictures that were taken along my sidewalk between the house and the garage. I have a shade garden on one side and a pink and purple garden on the other. This is a great, soft color combination I found in the shade garden this week....

This week I took my night-time hours and finished up two small quilts. My first one is called "Tree Study" and is another of my garden series that I'm working on using the Jane Davila book. I used a twig from my yard and some beads and wire to hang it with. I was a little concerned about using something from the outside for my quilt because I've had a bad experience before when combining art and nature. A few years ago my mom and I saw the cutest little fall wreath -- I think it was by Martha Stewart -- either on TV or in a magazine. It was made by painting a bunch of acorns with gold paint and then attaching them to a wreath form. Heck, we could do that! So I collected some of the bazillion acorns I had in the backyard and sprayed them all gold. They were really pretty! Then I hot-glued them onto the wreath and layed it on the table to dry overnight. Well, here's where it went bad. Later that night, I looked over at my pretty little wreath and saw a bunch of awful white worms crawling all over it! Ewwww! I didn't even want to know what they were! The whole thing got put into a garbage bag and it was gone. Thinking about it still makes my skin crawl! So far so good with the twig. I inspected it thoroughly before I used it! So here's what I ended up with. The first photo is the original picture which inspired the piece. I cropped and altered one leaf from the corner of the picture.

It also has charms, stamping and beading. I just love Lumiere paint and made good use out of the gold for this quilt! I stamped with it, I painted the formerly silver leaf charms with it, and I even used it for binding! I learned a great binding option for these smaller quilts from the book. You just stitch along the edges, cut it close to the stitching line and then paint over the three layers along the edges with the paint! It's like a sealer! I didn't want to "cut off" the bottom stripes with a solid color binding and just couldn't decide what color to use anyway so this was a great option. The whole piece is pretty different anyway so the oddball edging is fine with me.

And since I'm having so much fun with this printed fabric thing, I decided to do another small quilt with that technique. This one incorporated more thread painting. After seeing Ritzy's postcard she made me (Thank you again!), I decided to try that. (It was a happy mail day for me the other day! I got the quilted pin I ordered from Mickey and Ritzy's postcard on the same day!)

I printed up the photo I took of Brooke's bouquet she gave me on a single sheet of fabric -- I altered it a little to give it more definition. I had bought some dandelion fabric and used that for the border. Then I layered it with cotton batting and a dark purple batting. I used matching bobbin thread and just started following the picture! Too fun! Actually, I kinda feel like a cheater! So I ended up with a cute little picture quilt on one side and some neat thread painted designs on the other side. I thought it was done and even put the pictures up on Webshots but then yesterday I decided it still needed something. So I went and got some rick-rack and buttons (that were on sale for half-off!) and now it looks finished. It will hang in Brooke and Morgan's room.

I guess I should go update my Webshots album while I'm thinking about it!

Have a great week everyone!