Cover a Cook Book

Ages and ages ago I covered two cook books in paper. These "____ for Dummies" series are pretty ugly so they had to be covered don't you think? I used the inside of a Piperlime bag and I'm happy with how they turned out. I might change it out someday to something that matches better but I just wanted it done asap and the bags were sitting on the counter at that moment...

And the wrapping paper is from Joann's! I brought it back from the States when we visited in December. I'm just now blogging about it which won't help anyone who wants to go out and buy it. Maybe Ebay?
*
Photos from the other night. The light coming across the fields out in front of our house is just gorgeous right before sundown if it's not raining which it does every other minute. We have barely had a summer. Maybe August will be horribly hot and I will be wishing for June/July weather:)

 

 Ava showing off her new peacock shirt. The girls love the Katy Perry song called Peacock. Love that song! although it's ummm.... not for kids. No bad words but it's not a kids song. That and Banana Phone from Raffi are the most requested songs in the car. Other songs they love are Tonight Tonight by Hot Chelle Rae, Drive By by Train, Everything at Once by Lenka, California Girls and Hot and Cold by Katy Perry. I LOVE to hear the girls sing and they are the only people on this earth I will sing as loud as I can and whole-heartedly in front of. They don't judge:)

Pure again

Another Pure quilt but this time for my friend Jenny B. This is the same info I posted for the one I made my sister:  The fabric is Pure by Sweetwater for Moda. The quilt pattern is Flowers in the Garden by Sweet Jane on Etsy with (from what I remember) a 2" border then a 7" border. The size is 102"x102" (roughly a king size ** but my bed pictured here is a queen). The shams are extra fabric left over from the quilt with some borders added to make it a standard size sham. I also added piping and the back of each sham is a flap with ties.

I sent 4 quilts to be "long-armed" plus I actually free-motioned quilted one of my own so I have 4 more quilts to show you! 

The quilting was done by a quilter in Montana (the same one I always use). She used variegated thread.

Two shams with piping.

The back of the sham and the back of the quilt.

Here is a picture of it hung up on the cabinets in my sewing room. 

I had to use the fish-eye lens to get it all to fit in the frame!

Seven

Emily turned (not turns) 7!! I'll talk about her birthday in a minute. 1st do you see the Happy Birthday sign and lots of butterflies on the wall and ceiling? All made with my Silhouette Cameo of course and made with the help of Emily. All made from card stock and scrapbook paper I've had forever. The idea is from this blog post by danamadeit.com.

Back to the party. We had my friend Connie, her daughters Lily & Cheyenne and her friend Sabine come down from Regensburg and that's it. No other party guests. We made hot dogs and chili dip and all kinds of other bad-for-you foods. It was really nice. The cake was chocolate with peanut butter frosting of course:) No Emily didn't have any but she appreciated the dinosaurs on it! The cake pan is the Pampered Chef batter bowl you typically see Barbies cakes made from.

Ava LOVES to try and put every single hair clip in her hair.I had to stop her at 5.

 Ava's botched eyebrow removal.

The trampoline bought because every yard has one in our little area and kids were being mean about Emily & Ava using theirs. This was the bestest buy ever! When it's not raining they're on it all day. Ava should weigh significantly less by end of summer:) That is Cheyenne and Lily paying on it too.

One of Emily's birthday presents is this Top Model T-shirt Designer given to her by Mary A and Nicolas (love you Mary!) She loves it! It's so perfect for her and one reason for showing it to you is...see the mushroom, fox and squirrel? That's my girl:)

Monster Blocks

Monster paper-pieced quilt blocks made MANY MANY months ago (back in February).

These are Monsters who's mom's wished they had girls. 

There are only 5 monsters and I think that's an odd amount for a quilt so I'm anxiously awaiting the other ones the creater of these patterns has yet to put out. I think she has Bride of Frankenstein coming out someday and I can't remember what else. I went ahead and made Frank into a mini quilt while I wait...

The Frankenstein on the right (below) is the 1st one I made but I somehow made him too small and messed up on his mouth (should have been black). The werewolf is my favorite. He is what made me want to make these blocks.

Hot Mess

I hope you noticed the eyebrows. Pretty huh? Only Ava. Scabby neck (tick bite) scabby lip (cold sore) scabby nose and between the eyes (her just scratching) and now messed up eyebrows. Wow she's a mess. I wanted to post this because it's just too funny not too. I'm fascinated by it and how she got one brow so thin and almost adult like. I found out she had done this by finding a long Ava-colored hair in Jon's razor right before I went to bed last night. She was still awake so I asked her where she cut hair from (not knowing she did her eyebrows too). She tentatively touched her head (allover) while looking wild-eyed and nervous and I knew more than that long piece was cut. It took me a few seconds to notice the eyebrows. I still haven't found where the long hair came from though..

Vinyl Door Art

Have you seen this door art (for lack of a better name) idea floating around pinterest and other blogs and even Amazon? When I saw it I had to have it. It was on my Silhouette Cameo list of things to make when I got one and then it was on my list of things to make when we move and now I can check it off! I debated to have it say Hallo (you know, because we're in Germany) but Jon liked Hello. I don't like the look of capitals so i went with lower case. The font is my favorite; Century Gothic and the green vinyl is the one that comes in the Vinyl starter kit (don't know the name of it).

*

I want to explain the black tape over the door with letters and numbers on it. I found it fascinating and never ever saw it (meaning I never noticed it if it was there) in Stuttgart but it was on every house in our little town of Geldersheim in Schweinfurt and now I see it everywhere here.

Here is an explanation I found online.

The custom in Germany is that of the childrens' festival between January 1-6 (Three Kings Day). After a service at the churches the children go from house to house to gather offerings for poor children in poor countries. They are dressed as the three kings and carry sticks with stars on the top. At the homes they sing songs and recite messages of Christmas. At each house they paint the letters "20+C+M+B+10" which are for the Latin Christus Mansionem Benedicat (Christ bless this house). At the same time the letters are the first letters of the names of the wise men: Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. — Christmas Stories from German Culture. *the 20 at the front and 11 at the end is the year it was blessed. Ours wasn't blessed this year:)

And then of course (of course!) I had to have it say goodbye in German on the way out! It's one of my favorite German words. In case you want to say it too, it's pronounced "chewss" or you can say "chewssy". And I'm just guessing on the phonetic spelling. I see someone phonetically spelled it like this "Ch-eeuus" on the internet.

Want one too? I will gladly take special orders:) 

Email me what you want (any wording) and I'll give you a price.

parrishplatz (at) hotmail (dot) com

Mädchen

Aren't they adorable? We got them Dirndls yesterday in Regensburg. They are lined, very well made and only about 54 Euro each. The other girl is my friend Connie's daughter, Cheyenne. We went shopping in Regensburg and stopped in a fabric store! But it was so expensive. The knits were averaging $23 euro a meter (so about $28 a yard and a 1/4). But they did have a really cool book on making Dirndls (in German of course). I didn't get it but I would like to make my own.. I've seen patterns out there so maybe one day.

 We visited Connie in her hometown of Meßnerskreith (she is waiting on her Visa before her and her kids move to the states). Her dad owns a couple of tractors and took the girls on rides. they loved it! Her father also fixed my Phil & Teds Stroller and made my month! Someone had pushed our stroller down the stairs when we lived in Stuttgart (they were pissed we parked it where we did. I just realized that was karma for something I did. dammit!) and it messed up one of the back wheels bad. Still drive-able but any day now it was going to pop off. Anyway, he fixed it! 

State Art

Have you seen these State art things before? I keep seeing them all over the internet. The 1st time I saw one I immediately thought of my sister and her husband. He's from New York and she's from Southern California. I'm not sure how it would look for me and Jon both being from Southern California...anyway, Their anniversary was recently (actually a month ago but i couldn't post this till my sister sent a photo of it in her house and then we moved and I had no internet...) and this is what I made for them . . I love it! The photos of it I don't love but I just could not get better. I used textured card stock but Jon didn't like it so for the States I turned the paper over to the less texture-y side.  I used my Silhouette Cameo of course:) I think all the States are available on their site. The banner is from the site too but that I had to print out and cut myself. I used those 3-D sticky things to raise everything off the blue paper. 

And here it is below in her house! I used a store bought frame and the mat that came with it. 

The picture opening is 5x7.