welcome home!

The fella comes home tonight - it's been a very long three weeks for both of us!  he was in California visiting a good friend, and even though he had a great time, he's ready for home!  I made him this banner to greet him when he walks in the door!  It's just a paper, glue, a sharpie, and a pair of fancy edged scissors kind of project, but it'll do the trick!

And this afternoon I'll be baking a welcome home cake - Duncan Hines has a french vanilla cake mix that's really great!  Even Julia Child said she always used a cake mix - so don't hate on me!

This morning I finished 2 more project bags.  This time, at the fantastic suggestion of English Emily (not sure if she realizes we call her that back in Ohio!  She met a dreamy Englishman and moved there to start a family with him - now her life feels to me like some kind of wonderful PBS drama!  Yet she pines for Taco Bell - i can't understand it!  sorry Emily, but I can't! :)  I used whole coffee beans inside the secret scent pouches.  She used to knit with us at a local coffee house and she said her knitting always smelled like coffee when she got home so she suggested I use coffee beans instead of lavender in the pouches - I love it!  and the scent automatically refreshes as the beans knock into each other when the bag moves.  Thanks Emily!

I eyeballed the size for the overall bag - kind of based on the embroidered piece, and kind of based on laziness - and just by sheer luck some are the perfect size to slip a magazine into - and because both projects I've been working on lately are from magazines, it's just right!

Let the pictures flow!

Get this - i won a new camera at work today!!!  i never win anything!  even better is the fact that I've been camera-less for a week because the fella went to California to visit a friend and i was like "sure - take the camera!  i can totally survive without it for a few weeks!"  but it turns out that i cannot!  everywhere i turn, there's something i need to take a picture of.  Like this little gal that I finished up this week:

I don't know who she's going to, but I just had to make her!  The drawing was part of the Battle of the Businesses thing that we do every year, but it's sporty and i'm not sporty, so i gave money instead and got raffle tickets.  and won.  It's a Nikon coolpix s4300 and it's a tiny little thing, but it takes smashing pictures!  i couldn't believe the detail it got on this, my third Swoon quilt block, that I made over the weekend: