A Graduation, a Reunion & a Marriage

 Trysten Reynolds (with Kerali) and Stephanie Rosenhan (with Garth and Janice)

Since Serena and Kerali would be here for the graduations, Deren decided it was a good time to have a family reunion. 

Left to right: Kendra Halterman, Marenda Brown, Kerali Reynolds, Shanda Hickman, Deren Hansen, Trina Harding, Thayne Hansen, Serena Rosenhan.

 

 The same people with us added

 The whole group who were able to attend.

Then on top of everything else, we had the marriage of Stephanie Rosenhan and Max Outsen in the Draper Temple

Serena did most of the decorations and she called me some time before the wedding and ask about making some "Golden Garlands".  She was trying to find two sided gold paper and it was creating a problem.  I suggested we spray some cardstock gold on both sides and punch out the circles.  I ended up making around 400 feet of these for decorations

AND I helped put the cake together and finish the decorating on it at the reception.

By the way, the gold dots were made of edible gum paste and sprayed with edible gold paint.  

Some of the things I've made

For Nyah Brown's 4th birthday I made her a She-rah costume

For Talia Hickman's  7th birthday I made her a FROZEN costume

For Eve Harding's 4th birthday I helped Trina by sewing up this dress for Eve. 

Then I made her the butterfly towel.

I made this temple dress for Garth's niece's daughter-in-law to be.

This is the baby quilt I have yet to finish quilting for Kendra's newest baby - due July 1st.

For Marcus Harding's birthday I made a hoodie into this awesome "armor" jacket.

I made the quilt for Stephanie Rosenhan and Max's wedding gift -from felt scraps that I had from making Christmas pajamas. I decided to do it in rainbow colors.

AND for little Soren Brown's 1 year old birthday, I made him a Superman cape. 

Other projects I did, I didn't get pictures of - 16 ties for the wedding, Addie's Rapunzel dress, Lola's birthday banner - etc.

Children's furniture for the Browns

Sam and Marenda decided they wanted some child size furniture for their 4 children so he did some research and built 2 chairs, a couch and an Ottoman  out of wood.

Marenda wanted to help with covering them and she and I did the first step which was to put the padding on the arms and cover them. 

 When she wasn't able to come back and help me for a week or two, I decided to go ahead and finish them up.

Chip board was used to form the seat and the back and they were covered with padding and foam and then fabric.

For the sides and the back, pieces of chip board had nails pounded into them then they were covered with foam and  fabric then carefully pounded into the other wood to finish these areas off.

For the Ottoman, I covered the outside and inside with batting.  I then made a cover that would fit inside, go around the top and go down the outsides.

AND HERE IS THE FINISHED PRODUCT

WITH 4 BEAUTIFUL GRANDCHILDREN ENJOYING THEM!

Left - Nyah,  Center- Addie and Soren, and Right- Kasen.

Our bedroom closet remodeling

Being in a house with ordinary closets we found we had may too many clothes and our shoes were all over the floor.  After a lot of planning and thinking, Garth raised the one shelf up, built a shoe tower in the middle and raised the rod then put in a second rod half way down.


AND THIS IS WHAT WE GOT! It is working wonderfully for us.  

Carpet Dogs

Now why would anyone in their right mind attempt to make dogs out of carpet?

BECAUSE I was asked by my daughter & son-in-law to make them to help Preston with  his new carpet business!

This is the first dog that I tried from a pattern that I had.  He's cute, BUT they wanted one that was sitting up and larger.

 SO I had my granddaughter, Kalen, draw me a picture of a dog sitting on his hanches.  I then had the picture blown up to be 36 inches tall.

I soon discovered with the carpet that it would pull out in the sewing so I had to glue around the edges before I cut out the pieces.

I sewed up the side pieces with the haunch separate

In order to be able to sew the pieces, I had to trim the carpet fibers back on all of the seams

Sewing was a challenge but my Bernina sewing machine handled most of the sewing with a lot of arm work from me.

The dogs were finally ready to stuff and do the final sewing up on.

AND THEY WERE FINALLY FINISHED . . . 

Here they were anxiously waiting for their trip to Colorado Springs to meet their new "master" - my son-in-law.

I said goodbye to the dogs and they left.  Frankly, I wasn't sure I could pull this one off, but was so happy that I was able to do it.

Christmas jammies 2013

As soon as Halloween is over, I send out an e-mail to all of my children for pajama requests.  This year I added that since some are getting to where they don't need/want pajamas each year, we told them they could have pajamas, money or an alternate sewing project.  Out of our 31 grandchildren, I made up 21 pair of pajamas, 4 alternate sewing projects, and 6 opted for money.

Perhaps the most unique was the request from Marenda and Sam that I make "prisoner pajamas" for their 4 children.  Sam has been trying to get them to have these kind for several years.  Well, it took some searching around in the
various stores but we finally found a good quality

black and white stripe knit and I was able to get
four sets out as well as a pair of pants for Sam. The "prison ID #" on the front is each of their birthdays and on the back they read - Brown # 1, Brown # 2, Brown # 3 and Brown # 4 

 These are for the Halterman grandchildren in Phoenix.  Left to right - two Ninja pajamas for the boys - Alec and Trenton, purple pajamas for Kira and Unicorn pajamas for Tessa

When the request came in from Kendra's 2nd daughter, Tessa - age 7, for a unicorn, I made up a one piece jump suit for the pajamas then make the hood, wings and tail separately. They can be attached with velcro loops.

Kira - age 12- just wanted something soft, purple and with polka dots on

Alec - age 3 - and Trenton - age 9 - decided the coolest thing would be to have ninja pajamas.  They each have their "sign" on their pajamas and an appropriate hood to cover their faces.  Alec woke his parents on Christmas morning with a Ninja chop instead of a loving hug.

Drake - age 14 - decided this year to just have some "cool" plaid pajama bottoms.  I might add that because I didn't plan for the narrow width of the cloth and didn't get enough the first time, it took me three trips to Hobby Lobby to get these made.  From the time I bought the first fabric to when I went back for more, a fresh bolt had come in with a little different pattern in the plaid which I didn't notice until I got it home and started to cut them out.  Needless to say, we made a third trip and got enough more that the two sides would look alike

I didn't get individual pictures of the Hickman pajamas but the two on the left were for Lola -6 mo. and Talia -age 7 - and the request was to have kangaroos on.  I put a kangaroo on the front and a pocket to carry a little stuffed kangaroo that I made on Talia's.
Next comes Jasper - age 3- with Handy Manny PJ's, Milo'- age 5- has a dragon on the front and back and Gavin' - 14 - has a Dr. Who motif - something our older grandsons are into big. 

Since I have been making pajamas for many years and Kerali's are some of our oldest grandchildren, the 4 oldest opted for money but the two youngest - Owen and Taren - made up for it. 

Owen  - age 10 -asked for the Gryffindor motif from Harry Potter.  His mother sent me a picture and I was able to recreate it with fabric and a lot of sewing.

Taren - age 7 -is a girl but you would hardly know it from her requests. This year she wanted fox pajamas with a tail and a hood (with eyes to look through)  I understand she wears her hood to bed.

This group of pajamas were for the Hardings.  Sheridan decided he had outgrown pajamas but the 4 younger had some "fun" requests -

Eve - age 4 - wanted pink with dogs.  Since I couldn't find any pink flannel with dogs, I had Kalen draw me these two - Kalen's pug, Mei Mei and Hardings' dog, Henry.

Mitchell - age 6 - requested the map of the US to be on the front of his pajama top.  This one took some work as every state had to be cut out of a
different piece of cloth then ironed on then sewed on

Caleb - age 10 - like Owen - is into Harry Potter but Caleb wanted Ravenclaw on his pajama top and he wanted a scarf to match

Marcus - age 13 -ask for the Dr. Who telephone booth to be reproduced on his pajama top. 

 

We traditionally have everyone in the area over for Christmas Eve and after having a buffet, a short program and the Nativity story, the children open their pajamas.  It was gratifying to find that everyone was quite happy this year.