I have so much to share about my experience from Sewing Summit last weekend, but before I do, a few other bloggers had a little side project to swap posting about each other.  It was a fun way to get to know people and so here's Veronica!

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WINNER HAS BEEN SELECTED AND NOTIFIED. THANKS!

I got the chance to review a new craft book!

I am just starting to learn embroidery, and was thrilled to get to try out Stitched Blooms, that will be available next month.

Early August was my 10 Year High School Reunion.

Mixed Feelings....

excited to see old friends, nervous seeing the popular kids will make me feel like an insecure 16 year old again, feeling old that I've been an adult an entire decade.

Luckily it was a really fun night.  

A lot of my friends were able to go and in the end I felt like I didn't have time to chat with everyone I wanted.

I bought this fabric months ago so it was good to have an event or deadline to actually make this dress.

When I volunteered to decorate my husband's office, we talked about a theme for what went on the walls.

I was really surprised when he wanted to use our county as the inspiration.

We live in the desert.

You look at the landscape and see dusty flat land with tumble weeds.  

What the crap Rhett?

But he loves the desert (he grew up here) and wanted to stay loyal I guess to the area.

I guess as an outsider I"ve always thought it was so ugly.

So he assigned me the our county and it has been a challenge.

Not only to find something you'd want to look at while you wait, but try to take rural, farming, hunting, outdoor recreation and not have a log cabin or hunting lodge in the end.

So I tried to take the theme and do something cool and try to mix an element of modern into the rustic.

First off, the white sage frames.

To pay tribute to the sagebrush tumble weeds everywhere, we call them "grease woods", 

I spray painted sage brush chunks white and backed them with the three accent colors.

I just painted the backing with the left over paint they used on the walls and put them in gray ikea frames.

They hang in the small vestibule right as you walk in before entering the waiting room.

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The next project went in the hallway.

Rhett had taken some photographs from the surrounding mountain in our valley a few years ago.

The desert does have some cool landscapes.

I think for my husband there's a lot of sentiment in the land he was raised around.

His dad loved the land out in the west desert and as part of his business gave tours out there.

These photographs were taken on an outing Rhett took with his dad out on the desert right before his dad passed away suddenly two years ago.

When I look at these photographs, I think of my father-in-law and thought it was a subtle way to have a memory of his dad at his workplace.

Obviously to any one else they're just photos of the west desert.

The actual project is really affordable.

Frames get so pricey when they get larger than 8x10.

So I built the wood frame and stained them with Minwax provincial.

The photographs are stapled to the back of the wood frame, so there's no glass over the print.

They could obviously get ruined really easily, but I thought people don't usually stop and poke hall art so hopefully they'll last.

But if not, they were under $10.