Shower photos, Stitching and RIP Sophie

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Today is my day off and so far I've been pretty productive.  It's probably going to be all downhill from here though.  I seem to lose steam after about an hour, get distracted by the computer, a good book, a craft project or stitching and then nothing else gets done.  But I did get a lot done in that hour and a half that I was productive so I don't plan to feel too bad if nothing else constructive gets accomplished today.

Lots I could tell you about since my last post.  The shower/reception for Adam and Marcia went well I think. They seemed to be happy with it anyway.  It was a kitchen themed shower and their wedding colors are teal and tangerine with a lovebird theme.  

 Everyone was asked to bring a favorite recipe to put in the happy couple's recipe book.

There were a few hiccups along the way.  Dan forgot to take the sandwich buns out of the freezer the night before when he was asked to do it and I assumed it was done so the buns were frozen up until about an hour before the shower.  Luckily it was really hot out and they thawed pretty quickly in the car.  I won't bore you with every little detail.  I'll let the pictures do the talking for me.

Centerpieces

I borrowed the vintage canning jars from everyone I could think of.  In order to make sure that everyone got their own jars back, we wrote on the reverse side of the love bird tags whose jar it was and how many they donated.  Connie did all the hand writing as she has beautiful penmanship and she tied all the bows because I can't tie a decent bow to save my soul.

The jars on the table with the nuts and M & M's

The favors.  My friend and neighbor Margaret
 crocheted all 40 of the dish cloths

The favor basket

the gift table

gift table

Recipe for Love 

Cupcake table

another angle

tower up close 

Abby made the mints with my sister and mother's help

The guests of honor

Wearing their estrogen and
testosterone aprons that
Connie gave them. 

I want to thank Connie for co-hosting the event with me and for all the time and effort she put into it.  THANK YOU CONNIE!  I couldn't have done it without you.  Thanks also to Margaret, Nancy, Jan, Lynn, Carole and Connie for the use of their canning jars.

Now that the shower is over I need to get the craft room all clean and shiny.  Adam is coming back the end of this month for his Bachelor Party.  Part of that celebration will take place in my craft room.  The guys want to come back to the house after their other activities and do some old fashioned gaming and Adam has decided the craft room is where they will do it since the Christmas Village takes up the rest of the basement these days.  The craft room is currently a train wreck so I'll be spending some time down there today and see what I can do.  Dan and I worked for a couple of hours on Sunday and went through a bunch of boxes of old school plan lessons of Dans.  I decided if we were going to clean we were going to CLEAN.  He had some seriously old crap in those boxes.  Most of it hasn't been used in 15-20 years but he still kept saying, he'd be in trouble if he ever had to teach it again.  Me?  I'm thinking if he hasn't needed it in the last decade he probably isn't going to need it anytime in the next decade.  And it would be extremely outdated anyway so most likely not usable at that point.

Dan and I celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary on August 2nd.  It was very low key as we are trying to save as much money as possible for the wedding expenses.  If you all remember last year, the man gave me an onion keeper.  This is what I received this year.  Gotta love a man that knows exactly what a girl needs!

I've been doing some work on our Spring Retreat.  Got the theme nailed down, am working on various goody bag ideas and I've found a designer willing to design our project.  I can't say who it is until we announce registration but I think it's going to be an awesome collaboration.

Mary Ann, Connie and I are heading to St. Charles for market in 2 weeks.  From the list of exhibitors it seems like the vast majority will be needlepoint designers.  While I love to look at needlepoint, we don't carry it in our shop as there are plenty of other stores that do in our area. I'm sure we'll find some wonderful treasures to bring home but I wish more cross stitch designers were attending.  I've said it before and I'll say it again...everyone needs to attend, shops and designers alike or this wonderful resource will disappear forever.  So if you have an LNS near you or know a designer, please encourage them to attend.

Been stitching every chance I get.  Some I can share with you and some I can't.  I can't show you my ornament/pin pillow for our retreat exchange.  That will have to wait until after fall retreat.  And I have another project I'm not ready to share yet.  But I can show you my progress on Heritage Sampler by the Nebby Needle.   It won't be long till she's done.

 And I have put a bit of time into Midnight Watch too.

I'm feeling a bit manic about my stitching right now.  I have so much I want to work on and there doesn't seem to be enough time in the day to do it all.   I need to remember to take a picture of my Cinnamon Christmas all framed up.  I'll share that next time as it is at the shop.

Dan, Connie and I took a little road trip this past weekend to an antique shop in a small town about 25 minutes from Omaha that also carries rug hooking supplies.  I needed some wool for a craft project I'm working on and couldn't find anything in town.  The shop was in an outbuilding on a farm.  It was so nice to be out in the country.  The barn cat came out to greet me and there were horses nearby.  I was in heaven.  The shop was nice too.  They were having first Saturday of the month open rug hooking.   Pretty interesting stuff but not something I would like to do.  Connie thought she might like to try it though.  Did you know they call their "orts" snippets?  They need much larger ort containers than we cross stitcher's do!  

My mom's dog of 14 years passed away last night.  Sophie didn't have much of a personality, mostly she just sat there and blinked, we always suspected she had brain damage.  She was much more accurate at predicting when there was going to be a bad storm than the weather guys.  And she had a stuffed rabbit that she nursed on every morning like clockwork. Mom has had to fix that nasty thing a million times over the last 14 years.  But mom adored her and is devastated at her loss.  Rest in Peace Sophie.  You will be missed.

And with that you are now pretty much caught up with the doings around here.  I need to get this posted, throw the sheets in the dryer and head downstairs.  I hope you all have a great Wednesday and take care till next time!

Julie