Faded Paper Figures

There are a lot of fun and exciting things to do in LA and one of the most recent exciting events was being able to go see our friends Heather and Kale perform with their band, FADED PAPER FIGURES, live at Spaceland this past Thursday night. We had so much fun and got to meet up with some of our other friends there to see the show. I really love their albums and they've actually had 3 or 4 or their songs play on some previous episodes of Grey's Anatomy. Heather does an amazing job singing and Kael rocks out on the Guitar.

If anyone is interested they are touring right now and are going to be playing in Logan, Utah and Provo as well, in the next couple of weeks. Check them out! They are really great!

Kimber, me and Brit in front of the marquis

Book Club

So, a few girls that I am friends with in my ward were talking about how fun it would be to start up a book club. I love to read and think it would be a great chance to get together with some of the girls in the ward and talk about some really great novels and/or memoirs, etc. I'm wondering if anyone has some great suggestions for books to read that are "church" appropriate and also interesting and entertaining to read. If you have any suggestions, let me know please! We're hoping to get something started in September. :) Thanks for your help!

Baby Blankets

As promised, I am sharing with you a couple of the baby blankets I have made for some of my friends here in LA. Like I said, we have about 1 to 2 babies born into our ward each month so I have been very busy making blankets and unfortunately have not been able to take pictures of each and every one that I make, but at least I got some pictures of my favorites so far.

This one was for little baby Beck and I absolutely love the way it came out!

I think this one that I made for little baby Blackburn has probably been my favorite so far and I think it turned out great! I was afraid that the polka dot theme was going to be a little much (the light pink fabric is even polka dot!) but I love the finished product. :)

In all the blankets only take me about 6-7 hours to make a piece with the cutting taking the most time! Oh, how I love my rotary cutter and self-healing mat. My squares are measured at 5.5 inches and the rows are 7x7 to make the full quilt.

Well, I have my fabric picked out for the next few blankets that I'm going to make, here's hoping that I get to actually make one for me in the future!

Sewing Sensation

For my birthday last year Michael went with me to pick out my present from Target, a brand new Brother Sewing Machine. I had never really sewed in the past other than in 7th grade Home Ec when I made a pillow, or the very few times my mother tried to teach me, but I have recently developed a lot of interest in learning how to sew.

I have to say that now that I have the hang of it, I absolutely love it! I really enjoy making baby blankets, and since there are about 1-2 babies born in my ward each month (yes, each MONTH) I've kept myself pretty busy, and I hope to get pictures on here of some of the blankets I have made in the past.

I was inspired by my friend Tiffani, and ideally what I wanted to do was work on a project each week, not only sewing but all sorts of projects, and post about them on my blog. Unfortunately my computer is not happy with my crafty ambitions and no longer lets me upload pictures unless I copy from a CD. This means that I have to take a trip to CVS, but I am able to make it there only every so often. I wish I didn't have close to 800 pictures waiting to be put on CD!

Anyway, here is one of my first attempts using a pattern and it was very frustrated but I love making purses now. If anyone is interested this is Simplicity Pattern #2685.

Work in Progress

Finished Project

In all the purse took me about 5-6 hours and only cost me $8.00 thanks to some really great coupons from Joann Fabrics. I have to say that my first attempt at sewing was a success even though it had it's many frustrating moments.

Who Says You Can't Teach Creativity?

If one of my students was this funny and creative I just might have to give them an A! Just another reason why I love failblog.org and teaching. You never know that those kids are going to come up with.

Hair today, gone tomorrow...

So, I chopped off about 8" of hair a couple of months ago and I am just now getting around to blogging about it. After 4 years of growing my hair out non-stop, ever since I had a horror story involving a stylist who thought a bob would be more suiting on me than the picture of the adorable shoulder-length do I gave them, I finally pulled myself together and cut some serious inches of my hair and dyed it a rich chocolate brown to boot. I love the new style. It makes me feel like one less blonde in California and I love being able to use a lot less shampoo and conditioner than I did before now. I'm so glad I have a great hair-stylist friend in my church ward here in LA. Thanks Kelli!

The before, this picture was taken when I went to Burbank to visit with an old friend Rachelle from Cincinnati and was taken around May.

The after, just a few weeks ago at my 'lil brother's wedding. Pardon the cookie, but this was the only picture could get to load. :)