The Spunky Diva

Cecily over at Craftopotamus is having a Quiltaway to celebrate reaching 100 followers!  She quilted this fabulous quilt using fabrics from her stash, and has a very moving post about the design.  Entries are open until Sunday (Sept 12th) at 6 p.m.  I love being a follower of hers, and checking out her new creations!  

I had so much fun this weekend!  Ms. Diva and I spent a lot of time in the pool.  My little bro made it to Texas for a two week vacation.  The music for church service went very smoothly, and we did Amazing Grace/House of the Rising Sun version (I play violin, and hubby plays guitar and sings on the Praise Team ).  I got some craft time in, and got both the Book Reviews I had pending posted and turned in ( Forgotten and Captured By Grace ).  Just in time, since I have three historical fictions on their way from Bethany House Publishers, LOL!  All in all a good weekend. Now, for the coincidence ( God's way of staying anonymous ) of the weekend.  My mom and I went to go shopping on Saturday.  I needed to get supplies to make more Stay-Put-Towels, and we stopped at the Super Wal-Mart completely by accident ( we did continue on and stop at Hobby Lobby, Sam's Club, and another Wal-Mart ).  They didn't have the item I was planning to buy there (...

The set of burp clothes for Kasey is in the mail.  I love how the package turned out.  I also added a Keyfob with Pocket to the order with Mom's initial.  Anything to help keep a mom's hands free when she has a new baby to juggle is helpful, LOL!

{I received a FREE copy of this book from NavPress Publishers in exchange for my fair and honest review.} ~ Seventeen and Homeless ~ What would you do if you and your mom moved to a new town, and then your mom skipped town leaving you alone to fend for yourself? That is the problem that faces the main character of this book. It shows us how many times we look at others with blinkers on. We want to see the pretty side to everything, and oftentimes we fail to see beneath the surface to the chaos. In this, the first book of her new series "Secrets", Melody does a very good job of taking us below the surface of Adele's life. This story begins with Adele's bi-polar mom getting a new job in a different town. She and Adele pack up everything and move hoping for a fresh start. Adele begins her Senior year of High School as part of the “in” crowd, and begins to live a life of fiction. Using the difficult situation that Adele faces, Melody explores the difficulties in main...

{I recieved a copy of this book from Thomas Nelson to read and review.  The opinions in this review are 100% my own.} “No One is beyond the reach of a loving God.” Dr. David Jeremiah compares the life journey's of Paul and John Newton in this book focused on the far reaching power of God's grace. If God can accept and extend His grace to a slave trader and a radical Jew intent on arresting professing Christians of the early church, what is keeping you from accepting this same grace? I recommend this book very, very highly to you. It was an engaging read that held my attention and my wandering mind (quite an accomplishment these days, LOL). There are so many interesting tidbits about Paul and John Newton, that it really helped to flesh out my understanding of their lives. It was also very interesting to see the influence of these mens' Christian walks on others, and how that affected the issues of their times. John Newton's conversion had a far reaching affect that ...

The ultimate in creating a personalized blog is having your own little image pop up next to your web-site address.  Instead of the "lovely" orange and white B.  Kelsey over at The Tip Junkie posted a wonderful tutorial under Blogging 101 that shows you how to create your own favicon .  All I did, to create the lovely little (tiny) purple specks you see by my web-site address, was to follow her directions.  I am not even going to pretend I could figure this out on my own, LOL!  One hint though - to create my little specks, I cropped down the image used for my signature to 15x15 using PhotoBucket.  Everytime I need to figure something out, PhotoBucket seems to be able to easily do the job for me.

{This post was originally a guest post for Sugar Bee } The idea for this tutu came after I found the leopard print chiffon at Hobby Lobby.  I had been wanting to use a feather boa as trim on a tutu for a while, and I felt that this fuzzy boa looked sturdier ( plus it was cheaper ) than the more extravagant feather boas available. Ingredients for Furry/Fuzzy Trim Tutu: 1 yard of chiffon or novelty fabric (tulle would be to "thin" to use for this project) 1 yard plus of coordinating 1.5" ribbon 2 yards of Fur trim (found with the Feather Boas) Fabric to make ribbon casing (1 yard by 4", this fabric can be pieced together if needed for length) First: Take your main fabric, unfold it, and match the selvage edges together right sides together (if you have questions about right versus wrong sides of fabric see description in the next step).   Sew with a zig-zag stitch through the selvage making sure to use reinforcing stitches at the start and end of your stitching....

When I went over to check out Tool Time Tuesday I found out that Karen is hosting a Giveaway at Sew Many Ways for a fabulous AccuQuilt Fabric Cutter!  She has several ways to enter, and entries are open until Sept. 1st.  Check out all the different things she has done with hers!  What a way to use this little machine, and to show off what it can do.  What would you do with one of these machines? {photo curtesy of AccuQuilt } I think I would love to start by making one of these Tumbler Table Runners .  Maybe in fall colors, or Christmas fabrics.

Where did this week go???  For that matter... where did August go?  Can you believe that next weekend is Labor Day?  Or, that Ms. Diva is already 10 months old? Ms. Diva aced her Well Child visit this week.  The doctor asked all these questions: Does she crawl?  Does she push things?  Is she interested in trying solid food? etc.  The answer to all the questions he asked was a resounding YES!  She crawls everywhere, she crawls faster when there is any type of door open (especially if you don't want her on the other side of it, LOL).  She pushes and pulls things to move them out of her way.  One of her favorite things is to put her hands on things, and then start to this crawl/slide thing across the floor kinda pushing her hands in front of her.  Solid food, are you kidding!  The child begs food with more talent than any pet I have ever seen!  When they did percentiles, she was over 100% on height, and only 50% of weight....

What if there was a place you could go and find blogs on a specific topic?  Maybe fine ones that you have never heard of through the blog hops you participate in.  Guess what!  There is a place, and it is called the Blog Guidebook !  You can list your blog with the Guidebook for free, and until August 30th they will include your button on the category page you select to list your blog under.  How cool is that?  I sent off my blog link to them this morning.  You should go check them out, and see what you think of them!

Kristi at The Speckled Dog is have a great giveaway for a copy of The Handmade Marketplace by Kari Chapin. Entries for this giveaway close on Sept. 3rd, and the winner will be announced later that Friday!  Kristi gives you the opportunity to enter 8 times.  I included how you can enter below.  Good luck! Be or become a follower of The Speckled Dog . This is worth 2 entries. Tweet about the giveaway. This is worth 1 entry. Post on your blog about my giveaway. This is worth 5 entries.   - Post your entry comments to this post : Giveaway!

Frugal Mom has a fun link party going today that lets you bring attention to your favorite post from the last week (or so). I am linking up my weekend wrap from this week, because I have received so many nice comments on it that I wanted to get a few more, LOL!  Actually, I love this post because I finally was able to get great photos that really represent these latest creations at their finest. I am also linking up with:  

Today I want to showcase The Pines Farm in Maple Valley, Washington.   This farm is owned by friends and, they produce some extraordinary wools and meat.  Lin has many different colors of roving available for you to order.  The roving I purchased was very clean, with just a few pieces of debris that were easy to remove while spinning.  You can also buy sheep and goats from them.  I got hooked on spinning after getting a couple lessons from Lin.  I loved spinning wool, but never could figure out what to do with it once I had it spun, LOL!  Neither knitting or crochet is my forte.  Plus, after moving to Texas working with wool seems a little pointless.  While working to thin out some of my craft paraphernalia, I sold my Ashford Kiwi Spinning Wheel using CraigsList .  I do miss spinning, but my embroidery machine sure makes up for it!   Here is a picture of some of the roving available at The Pines Farm.  If you know som...

I have been wanting to add to my favorite blogs list, but felt that the room the current list took up on the sidebar was already to long.  So, taking the advice of Design It Chic , I took all of my "favorite" buttons and created a separate page for them.  Now they don't take up precious "real estate" on my sidebar, and I can add more without increasing the loading time of my main page.  You can check out their new page at My Favorite Reads .

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Boost Mobile . All opinions are 100% mine. Who do you have your cell phone service with? I have AT&T as I am a hopeless iPhone addict, but... I have to say that after looking at what Boost Mobile  has to offer I am very tempted to try the Blackberry  Curve. At just $60 a month you get unlimited nationwide talk, text, web and e-mail. You can connect with up to 10 e-mail accounts ( including hotmail, something my iPhone won't do ), and all this is without a long-term contract. The BlackBerry Curve also gives you the option to expand it's memory ( another thing the iPhone can't claim ). Staying connected with friends on Facebook and Twitter is a breeze with this phone. If you don't yet have a phone that can do this I seriously recommend getting one. It is true that you can't miss something you don't have, but I absolutely adore being able to check out my facebook page while waiting for an appointment or dur...

~ 15 ~ Fifteen Keyfobs with Pocket are now complete!   I told you I wasn't sure how many I would end up with after a weekend alone with my new design from Five Star Fonts , LOL!  Here are pics.  Check out the new look.  I am working on getting a "better/more consistent" style to my finished product photos.  What do you think of how these photos turned out? {UT keyfob is for a friend, the "K" is to go with my purse set.} {The "B" is for a friend at work, "C" for Kasey's Mom, "K" is for a childhood friend} I just adore the swirl fabric of the "K" keyfob, but only found the one fat quarter.  I have a matching burp cloth that I may just keep for myself to use with this next bundle of joy. {"B" is for a friend, "S" is for my mom's friend} These next ones are up for grabs, and I will be posting them on my Artfire site shortly. Bloopers from the "photo shoot": I will be posting so...