You all know our mom is totally amazing. She made the most colorful and tedious quilt for my Christmas gift, and I have to share it with you! I have 17 chickens and a big garden, so she made me a chicken quilt. She stitched a bunch of different chicken blocks, then put them all together to fit the guest bed in my house. My favorite block is the rooster. She topped the whole thing off with a garden gate border. Each flower is beautifully folded like origami and hand stitched into place. If ALL of that wasn't enough work, she hand quilted the whole thing by herself. The woman has endurance like a terminator.
You may remember the awesome animal puzzle my mom made for all her grandkids last Christmas.
This year she did it again, with the 2nd edition.
The puzzle designer is Enzo Mari, a famous Italian furniture designer.
This particular puzzle is his Pesci Animal Puzzle.
You can purchase an official Enzo Mari puzzle here.
My mom hacked out her own knock-off version for our family with her mad scroll-saw skills and we love it!
My mom made three of these puzzles!
I think I was more excited than my kids.
The pieces fit in the puzzle frame, and my mom burned the outline in the bottom so we can figure out how to put it together.
My dad's favorite is the chubby piranha.
Our favorite is the octopus.
We pretend the missing 2 legs are behind him out of sight.
The pieces are 2" thick and stack really well.
This puzzle design is easier to stack, as you have the huge fat whale as the base.
These are really cool toys that kids and adults enjoy.
They live permanently on our coffee table.
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On another note, we are sending out our first newsletter coming up, and it's going to be awesome if you want to check it out!
The newsletter is content we never blog about, so it's not an ad or blog vomit...it's just fun stuff going on, what we're doing and what we're eating.
We think it's worth getting one more email in your inbox!
Actually, I'm pretty sure if you use gmail it will show up in your promotions box.
You will get an email that you respond to that verifies you actually want our newsletter.
Just a quick post:
First, thanks for all the support I've received on the baby bedtime bag pattern!
I really appreciate all those who have purchased it and hope to see some of your versions in the flickr group so I can check them out!
Next, I also enjoyed all the comments on RJ's sharpie t-shirt.
I'm glad I decided to document it really fast.
As I was reading your nice comments, it reminded me of something my mom did for me when I was little.
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Here's my dad's all time favorite picture of my mom.
I was number three and not born yet, looking at this now makes me realize RJ kind of looks like my oldest brother.
STORY:
So I don't know how old I was, but pretty little.
I drew my family on a paper, and at that time humans to me were circles with arms and legs coming out of the head.
NOTE: I grew up with a "fun" mom.
She'd jump on the trampoline, build snow slides in the front yard, freeze us an ice skating rink over the garden in the winter, and even check us out of school to go see girly movies like Swan Princess and Little Women.
So anyway, this occasion she was impressed with my drawing of our family and decided to put it on a sweatshirt.
Which made me think I was amazing.
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| baby Jess around age 2 |
I remember she was using black puff paint (late 80s) on a peach Hanes generic sweatshirt.
The sweatshirt was laying flat on a couch that had brown, blue, grayish huge flower things on it.
Hideous couch looking back. It was the kind of print as a kid I'd stare at and see all sorts of fish or monsters in what I assume were flowers.
Hideous couch looking back. It was the kind of print as a kid I'd stare at and see all sorts of fish or monsters in what I assume were flowers.
Anyway, my memory is standing by her watching her study my drawing, then puff paint the heads with limbs on the sweatshirt for an exact replica in my mind.
I assume it made a lasting memory so young because I was obviously so proud at how clearly awesome I was.
My mom apparently LOVED my drawing of our family so much she was painting it on a sweatshirt!
I assume it made a lasting memory so young because I was obviously so proud at how clearly awesome I was.
My mom apparently LOVED my drawing of our family so much she was painting it on a sweatshirt!
For her it was mainly a work shirt, but I do remember her wearing it once in a while and again just thinking how great I was.
I was great, and my art was great.
I was great, and my art was great.
I don't know what happened to that peach sweatshirt, but I wished I'd stolen it from her to have it now!
So pretty much I had an awesome mom and I wish I was more like her.
Hopefully remembering that piece of childhood will help me give my kids more opportunities to feel their creativity is....(and makes them) amazing!
I just wanted to share something awesome and handmade my kids got for Christmas.
My mom has been knocking out tons of cool things with her scroll saw lately,
like the nativity puzzle and doll house windows.
The puzzle is designed by Enzo Mari, an Italian artist and furniture designer.
His official Animali puzzles can be purchased here.
He also has a really cool ocean animal puzzle he designed--Pesci Animal Puzzle.
*maybe next year mom??
So my mom made her own knock off puzzles for our family.
She couldn't find nice wood 2" thick so she had to glue and clamp pieces of 1" thick together.
The animals are really simple designs, but creative shapes as well.
Here are my favorites: hippo, polar bear, fox and pig.

The puzzle pieces fit together in really creative ways and are perfectly cut to fit tightly.
Luckily for us, my mom burned the outline in the bottom of the frame so we could figure out how to put them together.
She also "signed" the puzzles with the year which makes them even more sentimental.
Here are my favorites: hippo, polar bear, fox and pig.

The puzzle pieces fit together in really creative ways and are perfectly cut to fit tightly.
Luckily for us, my mom burned the outline in the bottom of the frame so we could figure out how to put them together.
She also "signed" the puzzles with the year which makes them even more sentimental.
The best part is stacking them in vertical puzzles.
I think I've been playing with it as much as the kids!
It's meant for the kids, but I plan to leave it on the coffee table year round.
It's a cool, unique, artistic puzzle that appeals to both kids and adults.
So another slam dunk gift from Grandma, and hopefully the pieces are so thick my kids won't ever break one!
Another project from my mom.
She made a few of these Christmas Tree wall hangings for us from a load of junk jewelry.
She bought basic canvases and hot glued fabric around them for a darker background.
Then used hot glue to attach all the jewelry.
There are quite a few broaches, like the tree topper.
It's fun to see the different objects hidden in there, like the "J" she did for me that must have been a charm or something.
You can also see she outlined the tree with a chain.
Mine is mostly silver and red, with touches of blue to match the rest of our holiday decor at my house.
Notice another charm with the fish?
A unique, cheap, glam tree.
So now you can raid granny's jewelry junk box for a tree of your own!
I've been making stuff, but the Thanksgiving holiday last week put me behind,
in addition to my sewing machine breaking and needing to go to the repair shop.
So in the mean time, I wanted to brag about my awesome mom who made these nativity puzzles for each family.
She has a pattern from the 1980s when she made one for our family growing up.
Pattern INfo:
Tole Temptations Pattern # 40-45439 by Nancy Farrow from Provo Craft Publications
Pattern INfo:
Tole Temptations Pattern # 40-45439 by Nancy Farrow from Provo Craft Publications
Basically it's two pieces of 1x12 pine. One layer you use a scroll saw to cut out all the shapes, then glue the barn frame to the backing piece of 1x12.
She stains the shapes then toll paints them all.
Each piece is 3/4" thick so they stand on their own for a tabletop nativity scene.
RJ has really loved this puzzle the last few days.
It's fun to use as a puzzle and to stack and play with the pieces.
It's nice that it can't break being wood hunks as well.
You can check out my mom's other huge stuffed nativity she made me last year:
For those that follow my blog or my little sister's clothing blog, you probably get a sense how family is a big inspiration for us, and our family is close and a big part of our lives.
Well like any family, our mom is the bomb and such a big influence in our lives.
She taught us to sew and showed us girls can do anything, like use power tools or chop down trees.
My mom is uber talented, and I'm pretty sure if we got in a fight she could totally kick my butt despite being near the senior citizen meal discounts.
So I just want to brag about her and share her latest quilt, which she made for my niece, Katie.
My niece (her oldest grandchild) turns 8 next month and on a visit asked Grandma to make her a silky quilt for her bed. So my mom went over the top and made her the coolest quilt.
Katie loves the Tinkerbell / fairy shows and my mom made this quilt and all those details are mostly 3D fabric folding off the surface of the quilt. The flowers are mostly manipulated ribbon and the whole scene is just incredible in person.
My mom made my son his airplane quilt, which you might remember a few years ago.
I stole some of her pictures from our family blog to show you:
My mom had some stickers she printed to use as a template for the fairies. All the details of their faces and wings are all sewn by machine and are so precise. My free motion sewing is like the Grinch's sewing compared to my mom.
Just really great, I hope it blows Katie's little 8-year-old mind.
The whole back is satin, per her "silky" request.






























