Friday, April 30, 2010

Spring Flowers Give Away Winners!


Thank you to everyone who participated and entered the Spring Flowers Give Away! I always love hearing from you and I am so happy to share some of my projects and patterns. It warmed my heart to see my button on your blogs or to see a posting about this give away. Thank you so much!

I gave everyone a number according to the order of their comments and the other information they supplied, such as being a follower or posting about this give-away, etc. Here is the pool I drew from over at Random.org ...


And our winner for the Spring Flowers Pillow was (drum roll please....) number 9, Carol!


Congratulations! I will be in touch with you so I can send this out to you as soon as possible!

As for the Spring Flowers pattern and embroidery files, there were just a handful of you that expressed interest in either of them, so it is your lucky day! All of you who commented on either a pattern or an embroidery file will be getting one in your email inboxes! Congratulations to Diane H., Rainy Day Farms, Debbie B. (Debbie, will you please contact me--I have no email address or access to you! Thanks!), Simple Southern Happiness, and Shirley C. Thank you for joining in on the fun!

Have a great day, and happy stitching!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Spring Flowers...Three Items Up for Grabs in a Spring Home Decor Give-Away!!


You know that little thing called "life"? Sometimes it gets in the way of my blogging! I have missed you, but boy, has it been a whirl-wind of excitement around here...family get-aways, brushes with fame, "Lightning" victories, and contest results. Yes, pretty exciting on all accounts, but that will all have to wait for my next posting, so don't go away for too long. I can't wait to share it with you!

For today I am featuring one of my favorite patterns and designs, "Spring Flowers." One of the reasons I am so fond of it is because it represents that new life and rejuvenation that we so look forward to (and desperately need) this time of year (can you believe it snowed here this morning?). Is there anything more hopeful and gorgeous than witnessing those first blossoms of spring that poke up through the snow and the hardened ground? Don't you just love the "popcorn" trees with their tufts of pinks and white? They are my favorite! These are a few of the sights my lens found over the last week...



Anyhoo...the "Spring Flowers" design is available in a downloadable e-book format for hand embroidery, which provides step by step instructions for appliqueing the fabric flowers, as well as detailed directions for completing the pillow as shown.



This design is also available in two styles of digitized files for machine embroidery.




In addition, if you are interested in a fabulous tutorial for learning how to sew a pillow for any design, my sweet friend Kris has created a terrific one using my design here on her blog. Didn't she do a beautiful job?


And the final bit of great news? In celebration of spring, I am giving away three items to three of you lucky readers! The first is this cheery and completed "Spring Flowers" home decor pillow--no assembly required!


I'm also giving away one free hand-embroidery pattern in e-book form, and one digitized version for machine embroidery.

To enter, simply leave me an individual comment for each item you would be interested in winning. I will later group all those interested in the pillow together, all those who would like the hand-embroidery pattern together, and those interested in the digitized version together for three separate drawings.

For extra entries:
1. Become a new follower on my sidebar or continue being one of my great followers!
2. Post about this give-away and provide me with a link, or
3. Grab a button and place it on your site with a link to where I can find it.
4. Be sure to leave me an additional comment for each extra entry above with mention of the item you are hoping for. Whew! I hope that's not too confusing!

And please don't throw tomatoes, but the pillow give-away is limited to USA only for shipping purposes (I know, BOO!), however, the pattern and digitized versions are available to anyone as they will be sent via email.

You have until midnight (Mountain Standard Time - USA) on Wednesday, April 28, 2010 to enter. Winners will be announced on Thursday and items will be sent out shortly after!!!

Good luck, and Happy Spring!

Friday, April 9, 2010

A Little Something for the Easter Archives...


So it's a bit late (okay--alot late!) for this year, but I was given the yummiest Easter recipe the day before Easter, and it was so delightful, I just had to share it, along with another of my favorites for you to keep in your archives for next year.

The first recipe is for Easter Morning Rolls (don't they look delicious in that photo? My own photos didn't do the recipe justice). What is so fun about them is that after baking, you open them up and they are hollow and empty---just like the tomb was empty after Christ's resurrection. What a great object lesson for the kiddos. It's a wonderfully delicious recipe that you can put together the night before, then pop into the oven on Easter Morning. Ya gotta love those!

The recipe was given to me by my friend Sandee which she found at The Sisters' Cafe: a blog of five sisters that share their wealth of delicious-looking recipes! I can't wait to try more. Needless to say, these Easter Rolls were a hit at our house, and will be a new Easter tradition for our family. Click here to see the recipe and their yummy food photos!

The second recipe is one that my friend Lara gave me years ago called the Ultimate Conference Casserole. It's another make-the-night-before recipe that I love, (and sorry that I don't have a good photo to show you how enticing it is). Combined with the Easter Morning Rolls, our breakfast was simple and stress-free, yet so delicious and enjoyable for everyone. I hope you give them a try!

Ultimate Conference Casserole

16 oz. frozen shredded hash browns
1 c. grated cheddar cheese
12 eggs
1 c. milk
1/2 lb. bacon
1/2 lb. ground sausage
1/4 c. green onion
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Substitutions: mushrooms, ham, chives, peppers, etc.

1. Brown sausage and cook bacon. Save drippings and sauté onions.
2. In a bowl, beat eggs and milk together.
3. Add potatoes, cheese, sausage, bacon, and onions
4. Pour mixture into a 9 x 13 pan.
5. Refrigerate for the next morning's breakfast, or go straight to the oven.
6. Cook at 350 for 1 hour. Serve with ketchup or salsa if desired.

On a final Easter note, our family has a fun tradition that I remember enjoying as a child. Rather than festive Easter Egg Hunts out in the yard or mountains of candy mysteriously delivered by the Easter Bunny, I grew up with jelly bean hunts inside the house. I don't know why my mother began this tradition, but this is what I knew and loved. When she was still alive, she would always hide jelly beans in her house for my kids, which created a tradition that they looked forward to each Easter. So now, they ask every year when we are going to have the jelly bean hunt. I've expanded it to include peanut M & M's, Robin Eggs, and a myriad of additional Easter candy, but we never go a year without it. I think I'd have a mutiny on my hands if I did!


I simply hide the goodies in the nooks and crannies of our kitchen, living, and family rooms. The rules are that anything above your waist is fair game, except for the littlest people--they get to put anything in their baskets they can get their hands on! After a while, all candy is free game for everyone. Yes, my pillows and cushions get knocked off the couches, and picture frames and books get nudged out of place during the frenzy, but it's all pretty innocuous and delightfully fun.


And inevitably at some point in the year when someone does some REALLY good dusting, or pulls a book off of a shelf, or searches through the piano bench for a particular book, they are rewarded with a treat or two that was overlooked at Easter {eew}.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter with your families! What Easter traditions did you enjoy?

Monday, April 5, 2010

Scattering Sunshine...


I hope all of you had a great Easter weekend! It has been a busy time at our house with birthday parties, Easter, family activities, and a new spring project I'll be letting you in on a little later. And...we all have a terrible case of Spring Fever, but it has been chilly! I'm hoping the week will bring some sunshine.

Speaking of sunshine, I received the sweetest message a bit ago, and because of the craziness at our house, have not been able to blog about it until now. But on a particularly gloomy day for me, my friend Belinda from Blue Ribbon Designs sent me the Sunshine Blogger Award. That sweet gesture totally brightened an otherwise dreary and sluggish day, and I am so appreciative to her for her kindness! Thank you, Belinda!

I've mentioned Belinda before, but in case you are new to my blog, you must check out her work. She is uber-talented in the field of design and creativity. Her cross-stitch designs are stunning works of art, she is a talented seamstress, and I'm so happy to know her! We have joked that if only we lived next door to each other, we would be the best of friends, and I think it may be possible that we would be hooked at the stitching elbows. She is one of those gems in life that I'm so happy to have had come my way.

So in the tradition of receiving this award, I get to pass this award along to other bloggers who inspire others with positivity and creativity. The rules for accepting the award are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or within your post.
2. Pass the award to 12 bloggers.
3. Link the nominees within your post.
4. Let them know they received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.


So here are my 12 public blogger nominees in alphabetical order (only a few of many I could have chosen!). All have helped me or inspired me in some way, are creative and positive in their posting, have made me laugh out loud, or have somehow brought sunshine into my world:

1. A Little Tipsy
2. Huffaker Happenings
3. JesseKate Designs
4. Kesler Krew
5. Micki's Menagerie
6. No Telling Where We've Been
7. Pied Piper Photography
8. Rainy Day Farm
9. Sneaky Momma Blog Design
10. Susan Heim on Parenting
11. Three Pumpkins Little
12. Twin Stitchers

It's so wonderful to have so many friends in the Blogosphere! Thank you!


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