Celebrating Birthdays at Work

My company does a great job of celebrating co-workers birthdays. A card is sent around a few days early for everyone to sign and when it's delivered it contains a Cold Stone gift card. We decorate the desk of the birthday person with streamers, balloons and other fun things. We also bring munchies and sweets for the celebration. In March I took a cake for a team members birthday and ended up doing one for everyone else through the rest of year. I got photos of a lot but not all.

Winnie the Pooh was actually for a baby shower. We like celebrating new babies too.

Side note on this one, I "convinced" them the chocolate cake crumbs caught in the white frosting was done on purpose, so the ball looked like it had some dirt on it :)

Christmas Time

As has become a tradition of sorts, I made the gifts I gave to my siblings families for Christmas again this year. This is a project I have been wanting to do for ages but was unable to until this year.

When we were young our Mother crocheted a Nativity, or Creche for us to play with. When my parents were getting the their house ready (ie moving their stuff to a new location in the house so my Sister would have room for her things) to leave on their Mission to Paraguay I came across the pattern and snagged it. It was a photocopy from a magazine, and kind of difficult to follow so I decided to re-type it into an easier version for me to read. I still couldn't read "crochet" though.

After my Parents moved to California for their mission there I would take the pattern and supplies with me on visits in the hope my Mother could help me get started. Things never really worked out with that so after they returned home this Summer I "made" her sit down and help me. Here is the results -

This one is for my Sister and her Family


And this one is for my Brother and his family.
My mother often mentioned she needed a baby Jesus for each of us, so we wouldn't fight (she also said this of my sister, meaning she needed twins so my brother and I each had a baby sister to play with ;) ). Because of this I decided to make a baby Jesus for each of my nieces and nephews, so for my sister's family this meant two more and for my brother this meant 5 more. I also made a manger and filled it with yarn hay for each baby.

There was not any pattern for a "stable" so I grabbed some plastic canvas, florist wire, Tacky Glue, thread, yarn, and felt and "threw" these together. My Sister's was first and after finishing I found out it was 1.5" to tall for any box to be found, so with my brother's I adjusted the height and added the star to the wall. My sister has a star as well it's just detachable. I lucked out and a co-worker sent my team a HUGE can of popcorn, leaving a box perfect to ship her nativity to Washington!

I am happy with how they turned out, and so happy they are finished. I was literally finishing the last details as my brother and his family drove up the driveway :)

So - It has been awhile . . .

Much longer than I realized! So much has been going on I quite literally did not have a moment to post an update until just now!  Since February, Spring arrived and with it much house and yard work to do.  I taught 10 Cake Decorating Classes, and attended a training seminar for Wilton instructors in the area.  Worked my regular 8-5 job each week, with several hours of overtime thrown in there.  Participated and performed in my local Church's production of "Women at the Well".  Decorated many cakes (some of which were for hire!) and welcomed my parents home after a four year stint in the Mission Field.  Since their return in July, the house has been turned inside out with redecorating and remodeling, moving things about and settling in, planning for a "Homecoming" party that included over a hundred guests and a week long trip to the Pacific Northwest.


I'm working on posts with photos from these activities and will hopefully be able to post them soon.  Until then here's a little taste of what is to come.

One of my Patriotic Cakes

PARADISE!!!!

The end of Christmas

The following two were done for my siblings and their spouses. They are very different and challenged me in different ways. The first was for the Murris. It's called Blackwork (for obviously reasons) but I cheated a bit and added burgundy colored beads instead of black. They're room is white, black and red so that's why I decided to do this one for them.

This was for the Westergards. It's inspired from a Thomas Kincade original, who they really enjoy. It used some metallic threads that made the lights look sparkly.

Ornaments Galore

I made an ornament for each of my family members from Parents to still in-utero (at the time) nieces.
For Papa #1

For Mama #1

For Brother #1

For Brother-in-Law #1

For Sister-in-Law #1

For Sister #1



For Nephew #1

For Niece #1

For Nephew #2

For Niece #2

For Nephew #3

For Niece #3

For Niece #4

Christmas Day Collection

This year I spent the holiday with the Borg Family - Dad, Mom, 4 Children, 2 Children-In-Law, and new Puppy. I was able to create and finish them all with supplies I mostly already had, I just had to get a couple of small things.

First up are the Parents. A Christmas tree of snowflakes, different types of fibers and beads. Fun and quite pretty I think.

Next up is Child #4. The hat and scarf are made from granny squares, an experiment that could not have turned out better. I had no idea about size and was worried it would be too big or too small, it was neither, it was perfect! Also and little cross-stitch ornament.



Child #1's gift can be seen in my previous post.

What's this, you ask? Another successful experiment.


A crochet Checkerboard and Checkers :)

This one was for Child #2 and spouse, red and blue being the favorite colors. I also made one for Child #3 and spouse, this time green and purple. It got away before I remembered to take a photo. Understandable since I was pretty much working on it up until it was unwrapped. I also made an ornament for each of the the couples.

Long Over Due Update

In August/September 2010 I moved back to Logan, mainly to become the care taker of the family home while my Parents finish their mission. It took a couple of months, but I finally procured full time employment the week of Thanksgiving. I'm now working for a company called Conservice, they are a third party utility billing company, I'm a member of the Transition Team. It's kind of hard explaining what we do, but you can find more about them here. As mention is a previous post I'm also teaching cake decorating classes. So far I've just taught one, which went really well. I hope to teach more in the future as well.

Besides a continual job search, and going to several interviews, I found other ways to entertain myself during my unemployment stage. First off my ward asked me to participate in several activities/callings. I am the pianist for the Ward Choir, teaching Relief Society, and a Visiting Teaching Supervisor. I was also asked to help plan the Relief Society Christmas party. At home I kept myself busy puttering around the house and yard, and doing oodles and oodles of projects, most of which ended up as Christmas Gifts. One of my claims to fame in 2010 is that every project I had previous begun and started in 2010 I finished by the end of the year! Now that the holidays have past and gifts have been given I can share some of those projects that kept me busy.

First up is one for me. I found this pattern years ago and wanted to make it immediately, the specialty beads are fairly pricey so I didn't get around to it until this year. The pattern called for far more than the few birds and snowflake I got, but I'm happy with the results. I procured the supplies in early 2010 and worked on it through the year. It's not an awesome framing job, just done by me, and all the beading made it quite bumpy, later on I plan to smooth it out and make the finished look better.



Next up is an afghan I made for my friend Katie. When I first started this project I was knitting, but as I got into it I basically detested it and just left it idle for a couple of years. I decided I still wanted to do it, just differently, so I pulled apart all the knitting, and started anew with a crochet hook. The undoing doing a while since I'd already knit through a couple of skeins of yarn, but it was actually quite enjoyable! Once I was finished I started making granny squares. I enjoyed working on the reinvented project and am happy with the results. First up is a photo of an overall view, then a close up of the granny squares (I did three different ones), and last is a close up of the edging.





A few straggler projects have not yet reached their recipients, once they have I'll share more details. I don't want to spoil the surprise even though I am quite tardy in getting them delivered.