Braided table runner

I love my new table runner and I loved it when I first saw it in the book Livin Large by Heather Mulder Peterson.  In fact, there are quite a few quilts in that book that I'm planning on making. The table runner was very easy to make and the directions were great. I'm also now a fan of Heather Mulder Peterson's blog, you ought to check it out.

The braiding is actually laid over a solid piece of fabric and is raw edge.

Watches for the girls

I got together with a group of friends to make these watches. We ordered our watch faces from a fun website ewatchwholesale.com, then picked out beads to attach. I ended up making 3 watches, one for each of my daughters for Christmas. I wrapped them in cute boxes so they would know they were a little special. Sometimes there's so many little gifts laid out on Christmas that nothing looks very special. The girls loved them and they fit perfectly on each one. Even though the beads are threaded onto a stretchy cord, you have to be at least close to the right size of wrist. I chose each girl's favorite color for her watch, so they were thrilled and have worn them just about every day. They were so easy to make, I may have to put one together for myself now.

Menu planner

While making watches for my daughters at a friend's house (pictures to come later), I noticed a cute menu planner on her wall in the kitchen. I took a quick picture of it with my phone and she said she'd send me a template for it. Sometimes you just see something and become driven to make it or have it. Well, that's what happened with me. I knew I wanted to make it, but I put my own twist on it.

Her dinner options attached with velcro, but I decided to make mine magnetic. Her background was fixed, but I decided I wanted to change my background each month. So here's what I came up with. I had fun picking out cute papers for my backgrounds, but my kids have loved this. They can easily see what's for dinner and what's coming up for dinner in the next few days. They also get pretty excited to help me pick the menu. I can always add new menu items, but as a family we tried to pick out the general favorites.




I made sure to add one called "new recipe night" which gives me the option of trying anything. I also added "leftovers" and "girls cook" which my daughters loved. I have the templates for the calendar and the menu items if anyone's interested.