Out and about...

So yesterday Kinsasa and I were out and about town at a couple different shops. I had very good intentions and put the camera in my bag. Well I was so excited to go to this new to me shop, that I forgot to take any pictures. Its that wonderful memory that I have, NOT!!! I was so disappointed that I forgot.

Well here is the scoop on the shop we went to, Chester County Quilting, here is the link http://www.chestercountyquilting.com/. It is a totally wonderful shop!!! While we were there Kins got some help finishing off her binding, the lady working (again that memory, I forgot to get her name) helped her out and made it so simple. She has the steps on the website to show how to finish off the binding in a totally easy way that hides the end and eliminate the bulk (http://www.chestercountyquilting.com/FAQsReviewsFiles/Binding.html. It was so easy once she showed us. So NICE and helpful!! They also have the best selection of Moda fabric charms packs around. There was a whole deep window area with rows and rows of them. I LOVE me some Moda charms!!! I did come home with one, only one. It was so hard choosing, I'd pick up one and carry it around awhile, put it back, pick up another, well you get the picture. It was very hard deciding which one to give a new home. I picked up some blue fabric to use for the handles on my MIL birthday present (which is what is on my table for today) So sorry that I forgot to take pictures, I'll try to do better next time, promise!! Over all Chester Co. is a wonderful little shop and a delightful place to go, check it out if you are ever in the area.

After lunch and brief stop at Wally World (Wal-Mart) I convinced Kins that we had enough time to stop at new little shop here in our hometown called "Remnantz"!! Wonderful shop!! Oh yeah I remembered to take pictures!! Go Me!!! The girls (Laurie and Cristine) and "Bruno" are wonderful!! They are just starting out, been opened about two months or so and are still building up their following and stock. They are on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Douglassville-PA/Remnantz/275993534237 . They also have an etsy shop for those of you that are not local, http://www.etsy.com/people/Remnantz.

They are so nice there, they have a wonderful selection of yarns. Now one thing I am not is a knitter nor can I crochet. It is something I have always envy in other people. I have tried, T can tell you she tried to teach me, but I just can't make my hands and mind work that way. My mother and Grandmother crocheted beautiful blankets, sweaters, and afghans, they are some of my treasures. But I just can't do it, but if I was a one I would be at this store fondling the yarns and going home with a bag full. Now I did fondle the yarn while I was there, the camel yarn was so soft. (BTW that Kins in the picture, see all the lovely yarn behind her) They also have a wonderful selection of Amy Butler fabrics. Some of that yardage went home with me to be made into some lovely bags.

They girls are so sweet there, they also have buttons and some vintage fabrics also. Laurie and Cristine are really, really nice and the shop is a wonderful asset to our community. I hope you girls are around for a long time. Thanks for letting me talk about you and share your shop here. So if you are in the area, go by and give Bruno a tickle under his chin, fondle some yarn, and take home some for your creative table. Have a wonderful day and I'm off to my table to do a little sewing today along with a little of that thing that called housework. See ya.

This is Bruno, isn't he adorable!!

A bit about Creative Table....

Now that I got that first post out of the way, the butterflies have settled and told you bit about me, let me tell you about Creative Table. Creative Table is a collaboration with a friend, Kinsasa, that gives us a creative outlet. We both are quilters (I always smile when I say that, it is impossible not to smile when you say that you are a quilter and I finally feel like I can say that in all honesty)and crafters. We complement each other very nicely I think. Once we get this all figured out, she will come on and post with me. So we will have what is on each of our creative tables. We have all kinds of grand plans for this blog and for other adventures, so sit down, have a cup and hang out with Kinsasa and Lala and get creative.

Tomorrow Kinsasa and I are going to a local Quilt Shop, so who knows what might come home with us. I'll take my camera and let ya see if I can.

Looking in my window....

This little bit of craftiness has been sitting behind my hutch for almost a year. I got it at my local scrapbook store (LSS) with plans to create it soon there after. Well it got tucked away, then it got put on the "list". The "list" is my project list, it is were I list out projects that I either want to accomplish and have the stuff acquired to complete. I am embarrassed how long some things have been on the list. One of my goals this year was to complete the "list" before I add more to the "list". I have done well, I have marked off a few things and yesterday I got to mark this one off. BUT that is not to say that things haven't been added to the "list" this year!

Well what is it you ask, its not a layout, but something to hang on the wall. I have my family's' pictures all over our house, I have my extended family's pictures all over our house and I have my husbands family's picture all over the house. What I do not have is my kids school pictures up ANY where in our house, not one year! Every year I say that I am going to get frames and put them up and every year it does not happen. So this is my solution, I put them in this...

I am in love with it!!! (is that bad to say about ones own work?) I got this old window frame at the LSS and re-worked it. I had to take the glass out and sand it all down. YEAH POWER TOOLS!!!! I love my little mouse palm sander, it is so fun to use. I also used the drimmel to get in those tight spots. I was scared that I was going to break the glass panes, I did end up breaking the corner on one but no one knows where it is but me. This is what it looked like after the sanding...

I forgot to take a picture of the real before. Then it went downstairs where the fun began. I got out the paints and as my dad would say "went to town". Coated it with a beigey/tan color and then swiped over with some dark blue. I had gotten the papers on clearance (love that word, clearance, especially in a scrapbook section!) , the words came out of the $1 bin at Michael's. The big D I cut on my handy, dandy Cricuit. Now that is a wonderful machine!! Inked up everything. I think that is one of my favorite tools, ink. Spritzed on some Glimmer Mist(my carpet will never be the same, oops)

Now the flowers have history, well at least the big ones. They came from my wedding bouquet. My wedding was wonderful, but the flowers were not all that I had envisioned them to be. But these hydrangeas and roses were wonderful. I don't think I have every seen such pretty silk roses. So at Christmas when we opened this random box out of our attic from our move up here from GA 14 years ago, I was trilled to find my bouquet, but the greenery was all breaking up, the lily's were not so great, so what to do with it. At our house in GA I had it as a swag over a doorway, but that did not fit the house here, so hence it never got unpacked. Everything else in that random box got throw out BTW. These flowers have sit around until I had a light bulb moment about three weeks ago that they would fit the colors I was planning for my window. I love it when things fit together like that.

So now I have a taped, glued, spritzed, inked, and marked it off my list. I have my kids school pictures up and I can change them out each year easily (no more have to go get a frame excuse) and my wall gets an update!! Woo HOO what a feeling of completion and now it is on W to do list to get hung up in the living room. I post a picture of it when it is up. Until then, thanks for stopping my our creative table. See ya later!!

The 1st Post.....

ITS MY FIRST POST EVER!!!! Sorry for the shouting but I'm excited! I have wanted to try this for the longest time, now I am taking the plunge. It is bound to be an adventure, who's with me?

I'm LaLa, I am a wife to W, mom to son C age 11 and daughter K age 9. Some days I'm not sure if I will make it their adulthood but this time is fleeting, so smile, nod and breath, right? I am a crafter, there I have said it. Hello my name is LaLa and I am a crafter. I have always been a crafter, I grew up with a crafter (we went through silk flower making, ceramics, tole painting, quilling, a few others that I can't remember and there was always sewing/quilting) and I love it. I am lucky to have a husband that supports me and my hobbies (and there have been a few of them). I even made the center pieces for our wedding reception (I have a picture of the blister to prove it, love that glue gun!!)

I love to play with cake decorating, scrapbook/paper crafting, quilting (I do not sew clothes, could never get the sizing right, that was one session of home economics that I do not want to remember), and I have started to dabble in beading. I would also love to get into mix media art, I still find that alittle intimidating.

I have scrapbooked for the last 11 years. I do it to so that my family has more than just memories, so they have something that they can look at and relive those memories, so that I can have a creative outlet and its plain FUN. This is a canvas that I created for MIL (who does not fit the typical MIL role, I absolutely love that woman). It shows my husband, W, and my son, C, at the same age in their hockey uniforms, I also did one that showed my BIL and my nephew. There is so much you can do, say, express with scrapbooking. It is a wonderful outlet.

I have decorated cakes since college (not very well then, learned alot since then). Really got into that after our son was born, that first Winnie the Pooh cake with the pink shirt still makes me smile. (I'll have to see if I can hunt up that picture, maybe ;) I just did this one last weekend for a friend daughter, it turned out quite well, it really shimmered in the sunlight, that never comes through on the pictures.

I have been quilting for good for the last year. Before that I was a wannabe quilter, I had a block of the month (BOM) that I had started over 5 years ago. I would do a block, get upset because all my points weren't just right (of course the they had to be just right, never mind that I was a newbie) and back in the trunk it would go. (that is the martha coming out in me, it also comes out when I am decorating cakes also and I have to walk away before I screw them up) Finishing a quilt was on my "things I want to do in my lifetime" list (I was told it was morbid to call it "my before I die list", go figure). So last summer I got off my butt and asked my mom, she is a fabulous quilter, to help me do a quilt top while I was home (I'm from KY originally, now in PA) and we did it. So then I came home and finished my BOM quilt top. Since them I have one for C, done several runners, and a couple wall hangings. This is one of my wall hangings that I made for Christmas. It is quite the addiction. I love to go to the fabric store and look at all the eye candy. It just crys to come home with me so I have to give some a new home, right?

So those are just some examples of the types of things you will find on my creative table. I look forward to this adventure. Sorry about the pictures, I did not prepare or correct these pictures. I wanted to get this first post out there before I lost my nerve. I know that this got to be quite the book but I hope you come hang with me at my creative table. See ya!!

P.S. I'm very new to this blogging thing (I read alot of them) so bear with me while I figure this out, thanks. lala

P.S.S. Stop by tomorrow to see what I have been up too at my table, here is a sneak peak of my table and hands during the process. Gotta love it when the hands get inky!!!