242 innocent crush fat quarter giveaway!

The belated giveaway to celebrate my first year of blogging at Bijou Lovely is finally here! I apologize for it being so late. Things have been a little busy around here lately :)

I'm sure you're all familiar with Anna Maria Horner's latest collection, Innocent Crush. I am in love with the color palette and couldn't resist buying some while I was having sewing withdrawals. I picked up a little for you as well to show how grateful I am for you sticking with me while I've been absent around here!  

I'm giving away an entire fat quarter set of the cotton prints in the Innocent Crush collection. Just look at all of those gorgeous prints!

To enter, simply leave me a comment telling me what you want more or less of on this blog. You know... what you like, what you hate, some new idea you have for a series. I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts! As usual, loyal readers get an extra chance to win so leave a separate comment telling me that you're a follower! And please don't forget to leave a way for me to contact you if you win!

The giveaway will end on Monday, December 6th at 10 pm CST. I'll announce the winner on Tuesday, December 7th. Good luck!!

22 finally homeowners.

We finally closed on our first house this past Friday!  Of course the entire weekend was spent hauling boxes and furniture and we still have a ton of things left to unpack, but it feels so great to have our own place to call home.

This weekend was filled with lots of ups and downs including:

-UP:  The UPS man bringing my new computer, complete with Illustrator and PHOTOSHOP!  No more editing pictures in Microsoft Picture Editor.
-UP:   Eating Thanksgiving dinner with friends and family at The White House, and playing with my niece and nephews.
-DOWN:  Tie down straps getting caught in the trailer tire and breaking the frame of my favorite white chair.
-UP:  Lots of fun visits from friends and family in our new house.
-DOWN:  Discovering that our beautiful pots and pans that we got as wedding gifts last year don't work on our induction stove!  Any pan recommendations or sales you want to share?
-UP:  Sleeping in my own bed for the first time in a month and half.
-DOWN:  Finding a puddle in the basement after a seal broke on the downstairs toilet within the first 24 hours of owning our house (all fixed now thanks to my husband).
-DOWN:  Getting to the back of the storage unit only to find the one row of boxes that fell over were marked "fragile" (and yes, I am too afraid to open them).
-UP:  Finding a link to my market tote in Sew, Mama, Sew's Handmade Holiday series! (If you are stopping by from over there, welcome!)
-UP:  Having a place to cut fabric for my giveaway tomorrow!  Make sure to come back, I don't think you'll want to miss this one.

5 snow.

It's feeling a lot like winter around here lately.  I woke up to snow on the ground this morning!  Thankfully it all melted by the end of the day.  I'm not sure I'm ready for the freezing cold weather and snow just yet.  What happened to fall anyway?

4 happy 1 year and swatch 2.0.

It's been a whole year since I started this blog!  Time has sure flown by.  I'll be having a little giveaway next week to celebrate, but in the meantime I wanted to share another lovely color swatch.

photo via sfgirlbybay.

Thank you for all of your continued support and your sweet comments.  They mean the world to me!

8 a little embroidery.

If I can't use my sewing machine, at least I can still do a little stitching by hand.

Today was not such a good day.  We found out we won't be closing on our house until the 29th, after being told for the past two weeks that it would be the 15th.  It's no fun being at the bottom of the totem pole.

8 office/sewing room inspiration.

Making the switch to telecommuting for my job everyday means that while we haven't even closed on our house yet, I really needed to start planning so the transition once we finally move in will be as smooth as possible.  With a four bedroom house and only two of us to live in it at the moment, I get to turn one of the bedrooms into my very own office/sewing room combo.  I am so excited for this room to come together.  I did some online shopping to figure out what type of furniture I wanted, first without any sort of budget in mind. I find it easiest to pick out the things I like first and then figure out what I can scale back, what I can make, and if I can find something comparable at a cheaper price to save money.

I first fell in love with the idea of a white desk, something simple with clean lines that had a few drawers to store my office supplies in because I don't really like to clutter my work surface with all of that stuff.  This one from Crate & Barrel fit my parameters perfectly.

I also need a filing cabinet.  I don't have a ton of files for work, but I have enough to know that I need a place to put them all.  The first place I looked was in the same line of furniture at C&B, where I found this credenza that matched nicely with the Spotlight Desk (on the left in this photo).

Great.  Next (and most importantly) I need a place to put my fabric.  This is my sewing room too remember!  After looking at the picture above, I noticed the bookcases that also match the desk and credenza.  Perfect, minus the price since I want to line them all along one whole wall.

Then of course, I need a place to sit.  Something that I can adjust the height on is ideal, since I want to use the same chair at my desk and when using my sewing/cutting table which is much higher than a desk.  I thought this one looked nice and also seems comfortable enough to sit in for 8+ hours every day.

Okay, so I have a bunch of white furniture, a black sewing table that I already own, and I'm planning to paint the entire room in some shade of gray, which happens to be my favorite color (or non-color?).  Now I need to figure out how I could add some pops of color to the room so it wouldn't look like a black and white film.  After looking at so many pictures from C&B of this furniture combo, the lemongrass and plum combination seemed like a clear choice for the room.  

Color scheme complete.  The other major element I want for the room is a place for my visitors to sit, in case my husband feels like coming to talk to me while I'm cutting fabric or sewing.  The storage ottomans shown in all of the pictures of the office furniture were calling my name, especially in the lemongrass color.  And bonus -- they can be used as extra seating, a place to put my feet up, and for storage.

All that's left is adding a little pop of plum in the room, and what better way to do that than with a pretty wool rug?

 

I drew out a little estimated version of the way the furniture would look in the room in Illustrator so I could see it to scale.  I made sure to add the prices as a way to remind myself that this exact room will never happen!

So now you know where my office inspiration came from.  Thank you Crate & Barrel.  If only I could afford to buy everything in the store!  Not to worry, I did come back to reality (we do have other rooms we need to furnish, not just my office/sewing room and I do not plan on spending a fortune on this room).  We did a little office shopping this weekend so I'll be giving you another update on this room soon!  

8 blogger's quilt festival: fall 2010.

Happy Friday everyone!  Here I am, waiting until the last minute to post my entry for the Blogger's Quilt Festival.  I have to go with my Nicey Jane patchwork quilt this time...simply because of all the lovely Nicey Jane.    

This was my first time making a patchwork quilt, and it was so fun to pick all of the coordinating Kona solids to add in.  The colors in this quilt are my favorite part.  The dark pink, yellow, and gray make it really come to life when mixed with all of those pastels.

 I had no real plans for the back and just improvised with a few HSTs and some leftover pink and white. 

I believe this will be the first of many patchwork quilts that I'll be making, I love how they really allow the fabrics and colors to become the main focus of the design.

Don't forget to check out the rest of the quilts in the Blogger's Quilt Festival, there are so many beautiful quilts to look through!  If you are visiting from Amy's blog, thank you for stopping by!

11 hello michigan.

We've successfully packed up all of our belongings and moved a few hundred miles north to Iron Mountain, MI. We'll be staying with our parents for another week or two until we close on our house!  We're hoping to close on the 15th and I am so excited about having our own home.  I've also been getting used to working full-time out of my house (well, my parents' house at the moment) and I must say I love it so far.  I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it even more when I have a pretty new office to spend time in every day.

Here are a couple pictures of one person I've been spending a lot of time with lately, my super sweet little sister Gaby.  It's so nice to see her pretty face all the time now.

I guess you could say things are changing around here!  New state, new house, new job for my husband and a new experience of telecommuting for me.  I wish I had some crafty things to show you but unfortunately it's hard to be creative when you are living out of a suitcase.  Actually, not even a suitcase.  I'm living out of a laundry basket.  My sewing machine is currently spending some quality time in our storage unit, which hurts my heart a little.  I miss blogging just as much as I miss sewing, so I think I will start posting more often even if I don't have any craftiness to show.  You would be okay with that, right?  I miss reading and responding to all of your lovely comments!