Crayons for a Cure!

As part of my fundraising efforts for the Nike Women's Half Marathon with Team in Training to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, I am recycling old crayons.

For a $5.00 donation, you can purchase a bag of recycled crayons in a variety of shapes, including:

"Little People" 

"Large Hearts" 

"Small Hearts"

"Flowers"

"Assorted Shapes"

They make great back to school gifts, give away or raffle prizes, or even stocking stuffers!  

Please send me an email at oglesbmc@yahoo.com or leave a comment and let me know if you'd like to place an order.  You can also donate directly to my fundraising page at: http://pages.teamintraining.org/va/nikesf12/moglesbhcr

For an additional $5.00, I will ship your order, but please remember it is summer and hot, and the crayons are made of wax.  

Please help me to raise $3,000.00 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society!  Every little bit (and little bag of crayons) helps!  Thanks for your donation! 

Another finish

After babysitting this morning, I came home to work on another little drawstring bag, in hopes of perfecting the technique a little bit more.  The last one I made a few months ago definitely had some flaws, so I tried to be more careful with this one.  

I started this bag back in March or April, and due to to time constraints or moving, it never got finished.  I had it cut out and ready to go, but today I finally finished this little guy!  

Here he is all flattened out.  I made the main bag and drawstrings out of the same fabric.  I also used contrasting orange thread for the string slots, in hopes of making it a little bit more funky.  

Here it is all cinched together, and I think it turned out pretty well!  

I've been hoarding this fabric for a few years now, and I'm so glad I finally found a good use for it!  I'm definitely going to be making more little bags with it, as the pattern is the perfect size!  

Hopefully I can also make more of these in an attempt to raise more funds for my TNT LLS race in a few months!  I'll most more about that as I have time to whip more of them up!  

(Hopefully very very soon!) 

From PhD to FINISHED!!

So this summer, I seem to have found myself mostly unemployed.  I've done a little bit of babysitting here and there, and I've had a few other opportunities... but I've gotten quite used to my free time.  And honestly, I think the first few weeks of summer were spent just recovering from the school year.  But last Friday, I finally got my butt in gear!  I bought a GroupOn for the Fabric Hut, and AMAZING fabric store in Norfolk, and I bought a new cutting mat, that's a whopping 43x36"!! My old 18x24" Olfa mat was ruined in the move somehow (water and sunlight warped it, apparently).  Then I finished buying fabric to make the baby blankets for C&J's babies, and even some fabric to get started on some pillows!

So... this was my goal, and finally on Monday I FINISHED the baby blankets!!

Here are two photos of the finished blankets!  They are made with the same fabric, but arranged slightly differently.  They measure about 28x26", so they are a little smaller than I wanted, but not too bad for my first attempt at baby blankets!  I wanted to take some photos of the progress, but it was slow but steady going, so I didn't want to stop and distract myself any further.  

 The basic technique was the same as for a pillow.  I stitched the edges (as seen in an example at Quilting Adventures), to make sort of a binding.

This is the back and front of one blanket.  The back is made with minky, the softest stuff around!  I want a blanket with minky! 

Here's a close up of the back and front again... sooooo soft.... 

Here they are, folded and ready to go!  I can't wait to give them the blankets!  I didn't have them ready for the shower, since we had JUST moved, but at least they are finished now!  The babies arrived early, but I still have them ready before their due date.  Maybe I can post some pictures of the babies and mom and dad with the blankets too!  

Alright, on to my next project, which is some new pillows for our new-used couches.  I tried to find some pillows that I liked that weren't too expensive or frilly, and that seemed impossible.  So I'm going to make four pillows, using THIS TUTORIAL.  So far I have planned to use a set of greens, blues, and oranges, and then I need one more.  I bought a bunch of Kona solids, so hopefully I can get started on that later today or Monday.  I can't wait to post more pictures, and more posts, since I'm actually making more stuff!  Woo hoo!