whoopsie . . .

I see that November is taking after October and sneaking up on me!  And we're already a third of the way through it, to boot!  I guess it's time for the ol' monthly stash report update . . .

Used/donated this month: 1.0 yards

Used/donated year-to-date: 36.25 yards

Purchased/added this month: .75 yards

Purchased/added year-to-date: 86.5 yards

Net used/donated for 2013: -50.25 yards

To be honest, it took me a minute or two to figure out exactly what, if anything, I'd purchased in the way of fabric last month!  I added two fat quarters to do Ellie's superhero cape and got a great Alabama Crimson Tide fat quarter as gift wrap for my birthday!  Roll Tide!  That was my addition.  After cleaning up the bunk room -- AgAiN -- I have sworn off fabric buying for the rest of my life! the next decade! the year! a month or two.  Maybe.  *wink*

I also was given a bag of silk ties and some velvet remnants for crazy quilting.  I can't even begin to count it, so I'm not, but I wanted to be forthright in my posting (for posterity).  LOL!

And once again, I have a plethora (don't you just love that word??) of pictures because I'm so delinquent in posting (gotta love me!), so I'll do a pictorial post with comments, instead of paragraphs!

First up ... last Saturday we celebrated June's "One-ness"!

Kim set a beautiful spread!

I contributed my signature cream cheese mints!
 I'll be posting the recipe for these next week.

June is all tomboy...she quickly abandoned her princess wand for the sword!

Ps...unless she's captive, getting a front shot of this girl is *tough*!
But since the back is almost as cute as the front, who's complaining?!

Birthday cake:  a success!

Next up:  Sunday -- all smocked up for a paint day with my youth SS girls!

Everyone with their works of art -- what a fun afternoon we had together!

I did a Christmas tree -- I love it!  I'm in the spirit!

Monday, June and I had one-on-one time while mommy and Sawyer went to the dentist! 

Monday afternoon, Todd and I went tooling around the camp, enjoying the day.

Tuesday, I spent the whole day going through my mess in the back bunk room.
It was a complete disaster, but twelve hours later . . . 

A pan of it's organized neatness!  (Clicking will make it bigger.)  When creative
genius hits, it's easy for the room to get out of control.  Bahaha!

The Panters came by for a visit on Wednesday.  Sawyer was having
a ball playing in the leaves!  Constant motion --out of about twelve
pictures, this one was the least blurry! 

Thursday I got to spend with my darling Ellie!

She was a *big* help in making a batch of my Holiday Biscotti.
And she learned that she's quite fond of pistachios!

The aforementioned Holiday Biscotti.  Isn't it pretty??  And it's *so* yummy!!
I'll be guest posting at Sew Crafty Angel next week, sharing the recipe, in case anyone is interested.

Then last night (Friday), Kim, Sawyer, and I headed to downtown Fayetteville
for theopening night of the town's Host of Christmas Past event!  We got to see
the lighting of the Christmas tree, hear carols sung by the high school chorus
(in which three of my SS girls  sing), and have dinner out!  Sawyer was enchanted by all the pretty lights and decorations!

And finally, I'll wrap this up with some fabric creations!

Finished up my stitching course with the lined butterfly bag and pattern weights.

Kim brought me some fabric to turn into a Thanksgiving dress for June!
(But the fabric is Kim's, not mine, hence not included in my stash! Whew!)

Working on my next crayon tinting/stitchery project for my mini-stand!

And, worked up my blocks for our guild's Starstruck Block Lottery.
The theme this month is "Christmas".  These were *so* easy, I may make a
couple more, seeing as how they're not due for two weeks!

Okay, so that wraps up this week for me!  We've got a camp full of Cub Scouts, an AL vs. LSU game tonight, and then tomorrow I'm headed to watch Ellie while Joc and Jason take an overnight road trip to Atlanta.  I'll be back next week with the Cream Cheese Mints recipe as well as a link to the Holiday Biscotti post!

:)

turtle, turtle . . .

Generally, box turtles dig in and hibernate when the cooler temps arrive . . . but down here in the "Deep South", hibernation time happens a little later.  We're still having temps in the 70's (and sometimes close to the 80's) so we're still seeing turtles out and about in the sanctuary!  Wednesday was a gorgeous warm and sunny day and at one point there were sixteen (out of about twenty-something) walking around!  Thursday morning it was cooler and misty/rainy, but still we had turtles out!

Here's a panographic photo of the sanctuary . . .

Clicking on the photo will enlarge this one -- it's a really beautiful space.  We love to sit out in the screened room (on the left hand side) and have coffee and watch our turtle friends and just relax!

That Thursday morning we had one super-athlete turtle out and about.  When we first spotted him, he was doing laps in the pond . . .

When he climbed out, he climbed up the "beach" and headed straight up the rock waterfall.

You can do it!

BAM!

One of the things that I really love about the turtles is their ability to hide in plain sight.  Let me demonstrate:

Sometimes they're under ferns.

Sometimes their buried in leaves with their heads sticking up (watching me -- always watching me)!

Running the metal track.  Again . . . watching me.  Their necks are super long!

Under a log.  This is one their (and my) favorite spots!!

Under a limb . . . but if you look closely, you'll see he's really not *that* far in!

On *top* of a pile of leaves!  Really, I walked by this guy two or three times before I realized he was there!

Aren't they fun??  Daytime temps are supposed to stay mild through the next week, so I imagine we'll continue to see them out and about.  

Maybe they've got one more story in 'em before hibernation time!  This is one of our sweet little females -- she likes to be petted!  The males' eyes are strikingly red (go back up and look at our athlete turtle), while the females tend to have browner or duller eye color.  There was a lot of *activity* out in the sanctuary before things got really chilly, so maybe we'll have baby turtles next spring/summer??!!  And just so everyone knows, these are turtles, not tortoises.  The difference between the two is the turtle is a water critter and tortoises are land critters.  Box turtles are actually related to the water critters (hence our swimmer at the beginning of the post)!

Fear the Turtle!  (Reference??)

:)

the pumpkin issue (part 2) . . .

Last week I *really* got my pumpkin craftiness on!  Along with a couple of other things . . . acorns and cauldrons!

It started with pumpkins and a visit to Ellie.  She was quite taken with the pumpkin mat I was stitching.  She studied it very intently . . .

She was bound and determined to take a stitch!

She did it!  She listened very carefully to me as I explained the process.  She was very pleased with her first stitch, too!  

I finished it up yesterday . . . (Slow Stitching Sunday!!) . . . and I did leave in Ellie's first stitch.  In fact, I think she owns this one--as a memorial.  It's only fitting, right?!?

We shook things up with a bit of acorn baking (again).  This time it was a recipe from the current issue of Tea Time Magazine for mini orange bundt cakes!

They were so yummy and turned out so prettily!

Then it was back to pumpkins as we grabbed this fun photo opportunity out in her front yard:

Isn't she just precious???!

From her house that night, I headed to Decatur and the Princess Theater.  I'd won tickets to see Menopause the Musical and took my quilty-friend, Kari, along with me to see it . . .

We had a marvelous time and the production was seriously hilarious!

The next day, I got a little Sawyer and June loving in.

Story time!!  And sweet grandbaby love!!

On Thursday I diverted one more time from pumpkins to do a little Halloween craftiness for my Sunday school girls . . .

I handed them out yesterday . . . they really enjoyed them (they were filled with treats)!  Not to mention my own handiwork on the poem (based on the good Word, of course).

Friday and Saturday, though, it was back to pumpkins!!!  I did three . . . two painted and one carved.  This year, I centered a whole theme around football and the Alabama Crimson Tide!

Ah, can you feel the pumpkin/football love???!

And when pumpkins are carved, there are pumpkin seeds to roast, too!

Todd and I made quick work of these while we were watching the football game (Alabama vs. Tennessee) . . . they were better than popcorn!  Ha!  I told Todd we may need to carve another pumpkin, just so we can get some more seeds!

My favorite moment, though, was turning on the lights for my display at dusk:

Happy, happy, joy, joy!

My design wall is not blank . . . know I've got one more pumpkin-y surprise up my sleeve for the last week of October!  But I hate to spoil the surprise . . .

I'll share the above (for now)!  For some real design wall eye-openers, head over to Design Wall Monday at Patchwork Times.  And . . .

Have a marvelous week!

:)