My Sweet Charli Quilt

< NOTE> I had a wonderfully long post all written and everything, and then blogger crapped out on me and I really hate hate hate repeating myself, so this will be short 

Remember this little lady?

Well, Chris and I were recently asked to be her Godparents. Lucky us! Mommy and baby will be visiting us at our new house for almost 2 whole weeks soon (note to self - baby can walk now, so clean the house!)

I was trying to think of what to get Miss Charli as our first Godparent gift. I asked Tricia if she had picked out a twin bed set yet, and if not, could I make her one. She happily obliged! I sent her over to Hawthorne Threads to pick out any fabric she wanted.  She picked the Parisville Collection by Tula Pink in the Pomeranate Palette. Conveniently, I already had one fat quarter at home. Woohoo.

So, here is my plan. I have been in love this Flea Market Fancy Quilt made by one of my favorite bloggers, Angela @ Fussy Cut ever since the moment I saw it. I mentioned my love for that quilt to another blogger friend, and she said that Angela actually has a free tutorial on the quilt. I said Say Whaaaaaaaaat? I had no idea. I am a pretty regular blog stalker, I have no idea how I missed this tutorial. 

What do you think about that quilt with all of these gorgeous fabrics? 

 All cut up according to the tutorial instructions:

This is the OTHER stack of fabric I bought. You see, I have grand plans of making a twin bed SET. Meaning, 2 matching pillow cases and a pillow sham. So I bought all of these coordinating prints. 
 

(Don't you LOVE LOVE LOVE the backing fabric?)

(This should say Pillow Case No. 1)

 (Now that I look at pillow case #2, i think that the fabrics should be reversed. What do you think?)

As noted below, I really have no idea what I bought this fabric for. Hmm....I wonder what else I could make for little Charli's bedroom. 

 

What do you think of the plan? Do you like it?

Holler!

Ball Jar Goodness

I feel all flustered with excitement. 

Two of my good friends got married in September. They had an outdoors-y themed wedding, up in the Adirondacks (mountains in New York). It was a the most gorgeous day in September and I didn't think that they day could have been any more perfect. 


Until I walk from the ceremony into the reception hall and the tables are covered with..... you guessed it..... ball jars!

How pretty! I was in total Heaven. I've expressed my love for canning jars in previous posts. In my wildly inappropriate nature, I immediately went up to the bride and politely told her that I would be buying those jars from her after the wedding. To my delight, she agreed (as if she had an option).

I stopped by their house on Sunday to sift through all of her jars. I left with the most perfect jars ever. I left with 2 sizes. 1 Quart (shown below) and 1 pint (shown below below).

 (12 1 Quart jars (I actually ended up with 18 total 1Q jars, wooohoo!)

  (16 1 Pint jars)

These are a sample of each type of jar I obtained.  For the pint jars, I have 2 varieties. The Ball Eclipse Wide Mouth jars (left) and the ATLAS Wholefruit Jar (right).

I don't know why, but I totally love this Wholefruit Jar. I love the font and everything. Wicked cute.

For the 1 Quart jars I actually had 4 different varieties. From left to right... Ball IDEAL, Ball Eclipse Widemouth, ATLAS E-Z Seal, & ATLAS WHOLEFRUIT.

 

My two favorites were...

I am soo sooo sooooo pumped to have these beauties. Oh, did I mention that my friend sold them to me for $1 each! Wooohoo! I might have hubby box some up and put them under the tree for me. Haha. 

I do already have plans for these babies. These are NOT for my craft room. I really am desperate for the blue ball jars for the craft room because I am painting the wooden bookshelves an antique white color, so those blue ball jars are SO NECESSARY. 

However, these will be put to good use. Chris (hubby) and I make a lot of spice blends and keep them in very very very miniature containers which therefore are exhausted quickly. I can't wait to use a few pint sized jars for our spice blending. We blend a great steak/burger mix, pumpkin spice, a black & red pepper blend, etc. I also want to make some lotions and body scrubs and these jars will be perfect. I also plan on canning! Duh. I have been blog stalking and am obsessed with this blog...Food in Jars... everything she makes looks sooooooo amazing! She has a page on her blog with what seems like hundreds of recipes, and they all sound sooooo yummy.

Can you share some of your very favorite canning recipes with me?

Holler!