Weekend round-up

Yes, it's February - already !!! With all the snow days and extremely cold weather we've been living with since Christmas, it's amazing so much time has gone by. I almost don't feel like we had Christmas holidays at all, even though they were pretty good. So ready or not, we are in month two of 2014 . . .

So on to the weekend accomplishments.

I'll start with a progress report on Bethlehem. Block one isn't done yet, but I feel like I'm making great progress.  This weekend moved me to the bottom half of the block and about a 1/3 of the way done with it.

I decided to do the turkey stitch on the bull's head of hair.  I used three strands of color - medium grey, sage green and medium dark brown. I'm pleased with the results.

Next up, these adorable "dress" book markers.

I matched embroidery thread for the blanket stitched edges, 

and satin ribbon for the loops.  Shared one of these with my sister today. She reads a lot and thought the markers were beautiful.  Here's your link for the tutorial.

My sister helped us out by keeping Newton over night so that we could go to a hockey game. The local farm team played. Honey Do and I had a night out that included dinner. We enjoy these outings. They don't come often enough. I, unfortunately, ate too much !!

Our local shopping mall is experiencing some growing pains. One of the stores is being demolished in an effort to update. It will be interesting to see what comes along and how soon. The whole shopping mall is getting a face-lift: parking lot has been resurfaced and re-landscaped.

And finally some projects for Vacation Bible School. This first one was meant to be a picture frame.  I think there is one suggested every year. At the very end of my craft book was this printout from 

1 Corinthians 13: 4-8. I mounted on cardboard and card stock, then colored it and decorated with the sea shells.  The theme this year is Treasure Island.

These are adorable if I may say so myself.  I cut them out of felt, stitched together using a blanket stitch and embroidery floss.  They are filled with rice and buttons sewn on. I work with age groups 1 through 6th grade. We are going to have the 5th and 6th graders, and possible 4th graders, work on community service projects during their craft time. So the crafts will be geared more toward the 1st through 3rd graders. Sewing could be an issue. It's still early in the planning stages, so we still have to work out all the kinks. The planning committee may have some suggestions to make projects more feasible for the ages.

Thanks for stopping by,

Wishing you a creative day.