WINNERS & CPF: Naked at the Airport

Howdy Hon,

Well, it's been a full week since we last talk.   I hope that you have had a great week.  

We're just going to jump right in this week's Color Play Friday.  Shhhhhh, there's other stuff to talk about.

First things first, Color Play Friday was created by Lorinda over at Laurel, Poppy, and Pine and her good friend Trina over at In An Otter Life.  They opened it for others to join the fun every week and here I am today, A Color Play Friday Girl, teehee.  If you'd like to get more details on CPF and how you can join the fun please contact the ladies at colorplayfriday@gmail.com.  They'll give you all the details, including next week's photo.

This week's photo is really good, and the play on words just as cool.  I was feeling really funky with colors/bundles this week.  I wanted to do another wild palette, but I think it's somewhere in the middle, LOL.  After I found the fist fabric I gave up my wild idea, because I knew I wanted this to be about some very special ladies.  I wanted to dedicate this bundle to my new loves, my chickens.  I love those young ladies so much, not just because they give me fresh eggs.  But they are so funny.  They each have a unique personality and I just enjoy hanging out in the yard with them.  So this bundle choice is all about "Who's in the Hen House?".  Pearl (my favorite, she was brave a chick and always first to test the boundary), Minnie, Beatrice, Lola, Honey, and Lunar.  Is it wild enough?  At all?

Color Play Friday - Naked at the Airport, gasp!

If you would like to know a little about my bundle choices you can follow the links to the places where I found them below: 

GardeningCarrot Chickens

Carrot Chickens in the Gardening Collection

by Dinara Mirtalipova for Windham Fabrics

Hearts 2 You on Rich Red

From Mombie Designs on Etsy

 Bumble Cotton Candy Cloud in Sprout

by Tula Pink for Free Spirit

Color Union in Royal Blue

by Robert Kaufman Fabrics

King of the Ranch

from Moda Fabrics

Les Fleurs Queen Anne Peach

Designed by Rifle Paper Co.

for Cotton + Steel

I used Moda Fabrics Palette Builder 2.1 Powered by Playcrafts to decide on my color palette for the photos.  The builder gives me a selection of Moda Bella Solids, Aurifil Threads and Hex Values for each of the photos.   Then I change them at will and play around until I found that wacky pallet that suits my mood.   I then use those selections to search for my fabric bundles.  I like finding "different" styles of fabrics.  Yes, sometimes wild, but hey, that's the beauty of loving fabric!  I'll also be using their hashtag #modapalettebuilder, per their request.  It's the least I can do to say thank you for providing a great tool.

There you have it hon!  Now please go check out the other ladies who are playing this week.  It's exciting to see the same picture from different perspectives.  If you would like to join us (that would be so awesome!) you can contact Lorinda and Trina @ colorplayfriday@gmail.com for all the details and next week's photo.

This week's players for ColorPlayFriday are:  

             Steph @ Shimmy and More (thank you so much for stopping by) 

                     Lorinda @ Laurel, Poppy, and Pine

                               Trina @ In An Otter Life

                                        Sarah S. @ 123 Quilt 

                                                   Jennifer on Flickr

You can also do a social media check for our palettes by using the hashtag #ColorPlayFriday.  You can check out my previous Color Play Friday posts here!

I bet you thought I forgot it didn't you.  Who are the winners of the GIVEAWAY?  LOL, I did for a split second I was signing out.  But I got you!  

The winners are: 

Gift #1 goes to 

Gift #2 goes to 

I will get your winnings out to you on Monday!  Meanwhile I will be contacting you for your email address!  Congratulations and thank you so much for joining me in this little birthday giveaway.  Again, I just wanted to say and show in some way that I appreciate the opportunity to join in with CPF and I appreciate everyone who stops by my little blog to check out any of the content!

Love and Shimmies,

Happy Birthday to CPF! But, the gift is for YOU!

Howdy Hon,

Long time no hear from, right?  Life kind of happened over the summer.  Our youngest son had surgery, both his top and bottom jaw were broken to set them into alignment.  DH had a couple of job situation changes, anniversary cruise, Zumba convention, family trip, family issues, Toastmasters, new chickens, building coop, blah blah blah...  You get the idea, it was a busy time.

But sometimes you just have to live life, and wait for the chance to write about it later.  

I have not done much sewing either during this time.  BUT, dh decided I needed a bigger sewing room!  Soooooooo we did some major room swaps to get me into a bigger room.  Then our son decided while all these rooms were being swapped he too wanted to swap rooms.  Our home is still full of boxes of library books and what-nots that need to be unpacked and put away in their new locations.  I am all set up in my new sewing room studio.  I love being able to move around.  However, after I got it all set up and ready to work in dh suggested a different layout.  Here we go again!  Now I have to pack half the stuff up, again, so we can try the new arrangement.  It sounds like it will work better.  It doesn't matter though, I am NOT packing that stuff up again for a long time.  

That's a little update on what's been happening in the my world.  You did notice the badge in the right column, "Slow Blogger".  Yep, that was me this summer.  Now the fall is coming and I'm going back to the path to school.  As I settle into managing my time the post should follow the original schedule again.  I'm so excited about all the things I have been collecting to blog about and all the new things coming up.  Life does in deed get busy.  Busy can be crazy, but I discovered it's a kind of crazy I enjoy.  Most of the time that is.

Anyhoo........This is indeed a special CPF and the perfect one for me to come back on!  It's our BIRTHDAY!  So please join me in celebrating a whole year since CPF began.  Even better is that it is still going.  I love how no one is obligated to participate every week, because we know life happens.  We all have responsibilities to our families, church, work, friends, and so forth.  But we all enjoy posting and sharing on our blogs.  We also take on that responsibility.  I love the community that on-line environment can foster.  It's a wonderful opportunity to talk with people I would never have had the opportunity to before.  And since I didn't get out much it was a blessed way of communicating with others.  I don't have many comments, but I have enjoyed learning that others have stopped by and checked out the blog, as well as those who have left comments.

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to share parts of my world including CPF with other viewers.  My small way of saying, "Thank y'all for stopping by" is to share a birthday gift with you!  I guess you can also call it a giveaway.  After all, isn't that what we do for birthdays.  We give gifts to make others happy.  I'd like to think and hope that is what my little blog does, 'make others happy'.  Even if it's just learning from my mistakes while laughing until they turn shades of purple.  LOL.  

What do I have to share?!  Check it out:

 Birthday gift #1:

Several CPF's back I did a post on color wheels, charts and so
forth.  You can see that post here.  Thanks to Lorinda I learned
about a large color map by Spoonflower.  I ordered
 it and loved it.  I also order this Color Guide (and a Swatch
Book, but that's for me).  I have added from one of my
QuiltyBox's a retractable tape measure from a box curated
by The Tattooed Quilter.  Later on I ordered spools of the
beloved Aurifil thread, so I added one of those too.

Birthday gift #2:

While visiting my sons in Ohio they took me to this cute
little quilt shop.  I bought several quilting cotton fat quarters
that just screamed out to me with their yummy, vibrant colors.
This one was so bright, yet I have not found a cause to use it.
I think it's so perky and fun and happy, maybe you can do
something special with it.  Again I added a retractable tape
measure and Aurifil thread to match.  

Feeling lucky are you?  More on those later.  ****Ooops, I forgot to add to original post that I will be including with each gift a "Friends of a  Feather" by indygo junction pin cushion (I will be making the pin cushion and including it, not the pattern.)

Let's talk color!  Again, Color Play Friday was created by Lorinda over at Laurel, Poppy, and Pine and her good friend Trina over at In An Otter Life.  They opened it for others to join the fun every week and here I am today, A Color Play Friday Girl, teehee.  If you'd like to get more details on CPF and how you can join the fun please contact the ladies at colorplayfriday@gmail.com.  They'll give you all the details, including next week's photo.

This week's CPF is very appropriate for the occasion!  It's a Birthday Bash!

Join us in singing, 'Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Color Play Friday!
Happy Birthday to Youuuuuuuuuu!  And many morrrrrrrre.'

See a fabric that you like, well you can find them at these links below:

LakeHouse - Floral with Text on Aqua, Garden Aqua by Pam Kitty

Cloud 9 - Organic Bells Blue, Water Land by Jessica Nielson

AGF Studio– Khaki, FloralElements

 Cloud 9 - Organic Lime Looped Lines

Art Gallery - Honey House Sunflower, SWEET AS HONEY by Bonnie Christine

AGF Studio - Tangerine Tango, Oval Elements

I used Moda Fabrics Palette Builder 2.1 Powered by Playcrafts to decide on my color palette for the photos.  The builder gives me a selection of Moda Bella Solids, Aurifil Threads and Hex Values for each of the photos.   Then I change them at will and play around until I found that wacky pallet that suits my mood.   I then use those selections to search for my fabric bundles.  I like finding "different" styles of fabrics.  Yes, sometimes wild, but hey, that's the beauty of loving fabric!  I'll also be using their hashtag #modapalettebuilder, per their request.  It's the least I can do to say thank you for providing a great tool.

Now the Birthday gifts I am giving away!  

The giveaway rules are as follows:

1. This giveaway is open to US participants 18 years and older (sorry if you’re outside the US, but thank you for stopping by)
2. There will be two winners chosen from the comments on this post using Random.org
3. This giveaway will be open until Wednesday, September 14^th, at midnight central standard time. 

• The first name selected will receive Birthday gift #1.
• The second name selected will receive Birthday gift #2.
• Winners will be announced on next Friday’s CPF post on September 16^th.
• You only need to comment/enter once; duplicate entries will not be used.

This is how you enter:

1. Simply leave me a comment on this blog post!  About what?  Whatever you want me to know or any request for future blog post, your favorite post, your favorite color, what you would do with it if you won, special plans…anything you want.

• You also want to ensure that I will be able to get in contact with you should you win.  If your contact information is blocked you may want to post your email address in your post or send it to me through the contract form, AFTER you make your post.
• If you win and I have no way to contact you a new winner will be selected.

Guess who else is doing birthday giveaways this week, Lorinda and Trina.  They are giving away bigger prizes to celebrate their success with CPF, so be sure to stop by for their rules and entries!  

There you have it hon!  Now please go check out the other participants who are playing this week.  It's exciting to see the same picture from different perspectives.  If you would like to join us (that would be so awesome!) you can contact Lorinda and Trina @ colorplayfriday@gmail.com for all the details and next week's photo.

This week's players for ColorPlayFriday are:  

             Steph @ Shimmy and More (thank you so much for stopping by) 

                     Lorinda @ Laurel, Poppy, and Pine

                               Trina @ In An Otter Life

                                       Sarah G. @ http://www.goer.org

                                                   Sarah S. @ 123 Quilt 

                                                                                                                         

You can also do a social media check for our palettes by using the hashtag #ColorPlayFriday.  You can check out my previous Color Play Friday posts here!


Love and Shimmies,

Worthy thought to share

Happiness never decreases by being shared. https://market.android.com/details?id=com.bmt

June Wrap Up #1

Good Morning Hon,

It's June!  It's officially the midway point in the year.  All the time I thought I had is quickly disappearing.  But it's an exciting time with our anniversary and a Zumba convention coming up, back to back I might add!  I am super stoked!

I was able to replace my camera card although many of the items done in the photo shoots for the blog have already gone out to their intended.  Guess I'll have to make more of them.  Oh, poor me, force to go back in my favorite place (my sewing room, after temples that is) and do what I love to do (sew things, make thing and create memories).  Such a hard life I live, zeesh.  LOL.  Really, I do love to create, but I did work hard setting up my first little photo shoots that will never get to be seen.  It is really disappointing.  But such is life, ups and downs, right?  I just have to suck it up and put on my big girl panties!

So, with that being said welcome to the next session of Wrap It Wednesday.

This is a black pashmina I ordered from ebay a few years ago.  I uses a thin narrow little animal print accent scarf, I think I bought this at Wal-Mart also a couple of years ago.  That add  a bit of sass and pop, plus it matched my awesome full maxi skirt.

The little leaf hanging on the side is actually a part of an earring project that I had not started yet.  I have found that many things hand beautifully from my scarves.  I used a matching pin to hold it in place and it worked great.  You'll see in future post how many different things I use.

 Thanks for popping in, the next installment is on the 22nd.  Hope to see you then.

Love and Shimmies,

Color Play Friday: Smore Cookie Goodness

Howdy Hon,

It's Friday!  Time to play with some color.  I'm so glad that with my camera card issue I did not have to take any pictures for this post.  Whew, want a relief that was.  But it is a yummy looking photo taken by Trina over at In An Otter Life, one of our lovely hostesses.

So let's talk color!  Color Play Friday was created by Lorinda over at Laurel, Poppy, and Pine and her good friend Trina over at In An Otter Life.  They opened it for others to join the fun every week and here I am today, A Color Play Friday Girl, teehee.  If you'd like to get more details on CPF and how you can join the fun please contact the ladies at colorplayfriday@gmail.com.  They'll give you all the details, including next week's photo.

It's funny that I originally started my bundle choices with the thought of being woodland type creatures and camping.  Ummm, I think I got off that focus somewhere along the way.  But I like the choices I made and I like them together.  I love that pop of color at the end.  

Presenting this weeks ColorPlayFriday - Smore Cookie Goodness:

This photo belongs to Trina and the cookie was from Snohomish Pie Company.  Yummy, look how big it is.  I see how that could be considered a splurge.  She enjoyed half this big boy while sitting next to the river on a cool summer afternoon during her lunch break.  Sounds perfect doesn't it?

If you would like to check out where I found these fabrics here's where:

Foxes 

Babes in the Woods Collection

for Timeless Treasures

Paisley Cobblestone

Larkspur Collection by 3 Sisters

for Moda Fabrics

Birdsong Feather

Larkspur Collection by 3 Sisters

for Moda Fabrics

Garden Memories 

Rue 36 Collection

for Benatex Fabrics

Metallic Pine Cone

Country Christmas Collection

for Timeless Treasures 

Sea Otters 

by Michael Searle

for Timeless Treasures

(ummm, does this remind you of anyone)

I used Moda Fabrics Palette Builder 2.1 Powered by Playcrafts to decide on my color palette for the photos.  The builder gives me a selection of Moda Bella Solids, Aurifil Threads and Hex Values for each of the photos.  Then I change them at will and play around until I find that wacky palette that suits my mood.  I then use those selections to search for my fabric bundles.  I like finding "different" styles of fabrics.  Yes, sometimes wild, but hey, that's the beauty of loving fabric!  I'll also be using their hashtag #modapalettebuilder, per their request.  It's the least I can do to say thank you for providing a great tool.

There you have it hon!  Now please go check out the other ladies who are playing this week.  It's exciting to see the same picture from different perspectives.  If you would like to join us (that would be so awesome!) you can contact Lorinda and Trina @ colorplayfriday@gmail.com for all the details and next week's photo.

This week's players for ColorPlayFriday are:  

             Steph @ Shimmy and More (thank you so much for stopping by) 

                     Lorinda @ Laurel, Poppy, and Pine

                                      Trina @ In An Otter Life

                                                  Bethany @ Sew Not Perfect

                                                                   Sarah S. @ 123 Quilt 

                                                                                                                         

You can also do a social media check for our palettes by using the hashtag #ColorPlayFriday.  You can check out my previous Color Play Friday posts here!


Love and Shimmies,

Monday Mock-Up or Muck-up: When?

Howdy Hon,

Welcome Monday, yeahhhh, << ducking >>.  I'm trying to change the way I look at Monday's.  After all it's an opportunity to start over, fresh.  Do a better job than last week.

I used to make first Monday's post titled "Madness", because we all kind of hated Mondays.  It meant the end of the weekend, the beginning of the work week or school week, and the reality of appointments to come throughout the week.  But I didn't want to feel that way about Mondays anymore.  So I changed my focus for the first Mondays from "Madness" to "Mock-Up or Muck-up".

As I was thinking about some of the new products we've been trying, sometimes I thought how great it would have been if I had known certain things BEFORE I bought the product.  Naturally I figured I'd share my experiences, in case someone else was wondering the same things I was.  Since I am buying these with my own money I can be completely honest about how I feel about the product.  If I like it and it's great I'll rate it a Mock-Up, because I believe it's definitely worth having it on the market.  Hopefully others will be able to give it a try.  If I dislike the product and discover that it fail to deliver the quality I needed I will rate it as a Muck-Up, meaning it's a complete failure in my book.  This is a product I believe should be taken off the market.  Of maybe I just add my unsolicited two cents as to what would the product worthymy little coins.

The first product I decided to share on "Mock-Up or Muck-Up" plays a VERY important role in life.  There are so many of them to meet so many needs, but I needed find the right one to fit my needs.  I must have a PLANNER in my life.  Why, because I am a planner type of girl.  I warn people all the time when they what to schedule me for something.  If you don't see my planner in my hand when you give me a date to be someplace one of two things are going to happen.  Either one, I'm going to forget, I promise you I will forget. Or two, I will double, sometimes triple, book myself and you risk me not being where you want me to be because I was already promised out to two or three other places.   

Last year I had the Passion Planner.  It's a great planner and great idea. but I did not use it to it's fullest potential.  I found this planner through Kick Starter.  It was a very interesting story of how the young lady Angelina Trinidad decided to create this planner and why.  I wanted to help support her dream.  I thought the calendar was great for helping someone find direction in their thoughts and goals.  You can find the one I chose here.  The year before that I had a zipped leather day planner, I used the heck out of that thing.  I love the zipper closure, the business card slips in the carrier, note pad, built in pockets, and I could easily add the new year.  Of course of had an address book section which I never used, but it was there.  I used it for at least 2 years, I like that it also had different themes for each yearly updated inserts.  But I still wasn't quite feeling it, you know.  Not too bad on price, the initial startup being a lot more costly, but the refills were really affordable (I still have a packet of unopened notes, anyone want them?).  The year before that one I had a favorite, Betty Boop theme, spiral planner.  This is cheap compared to the others, it was also a gift from a friend who knew me well.  Ooop-oop-a-doop.  Now you know I loved that, however, it was not as efficient for daily use once my life increased in plans, ideas, assignments and so forth.  Before that I was a Stampin' Up consultant for a little while; so I had their little consultant notebook calendar, which I liked.  I was actually going to use that mini notebook to create my own calendar for 2016 (I later discovered that Target actually had a little system of small notebooks and necessities for you to create your own mini notebook calendar).  But I didn't have to, something better came into my life.  

I ordered my planner through the company website.  After it arrived I took it out of the envelope to drool over it almost every night.  I received it back in November.  It would take too much time and space to photograph all the awesome things I love about it.  Therefore I'll take the quicker and easier way out and do a short YouTube review and post it below or you can find it on my YouTube channel here.  You will get to see first hand why I am in LOVE with this planner!  If you are looking for a planner I'd say check these out!  Especially for the Passion Planner or the planner I actually chose to go with for 2016.  I have already stuffed it with stickers, bought and made (I love making my own calendar stickers, I tailor them to my needs), washi tape and place markers.  I have been enjoying this calendar for the last few months.  I love marking it and flipping through it.  I love just looking at it and it addresses ALL my needs!  That's the super cool thing about it.

Update:  So frustrating, I had these post typed and ready for pictures to be added.  Including the pictures I just took in the wee hours of Sunday morning.  I took the card out of the camera and put it into my computer and I got the stupid crazy blasted error:

Wow, are you kidding me, it's like, "No Steph can't do a post on time with all the information!"  I am so furious, what crappy timing.  All my pictures and videos are on this card.  Now I have to re-shoot everything.   Some of the things I can't because I have already given them away.  Oh my gosh, I just wanna roll up in the fetal position and disappear.  Ugh.  

I am publishing the post non the less.  You can click on the links to see that items I have reference.  I guess tomorrow I have to buy new camera card to re-shoot everything.  I will post the video next Monday.  

Oh and the calendar I ended up using for this year can be found here, the actual one I have can be found here, I have to second cover from the right on the first row.  If you place your cursor over that box a window will open to show you the cover that I have.  I added cute little lady bug stickers and flowers to my cover to personalize it more.  Please check out all it's features if you are looking for a good calendar.  You can get the full overview of the calendar on their website here, they have full pictures of the pages there.  Although you are free to re-purpose any page to suit your needs, they also offer non-religious ones too, like this one.  I got these stickers (and made my own, they are soooo cute and functional) and took advantage of these free downloads.  

Both these planners are a definite MOCK-UP!  The second one just fits my needs better at this time.

Thank you for your patience!!

Love and Shimmies,