WIP Wednesday-Chair DONE and Birthday Is Today

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY to my grand daughter Peyton today!
The rocking chair got done with time to spare for her birthday party on Sunday.
The first picture is taken inside after everyone was gone and the party was over. She had lost her hair bows and shoes by then, lol. 

Some of the pics are a bit blurry and the color is a bit wonky, but you can see how it went. She LOVES her rocking chair!
She's rocking away here.







  

Having a good time kicking and rocking.

And of course there's the traditional first birthday cake and having a good time getting all messy.

Daddy's holding her while she tells all of us "all gone!"

Happy baby clapping and having a good time, wearing her birthday tutu.

I'm on the run!
I don't think that child slowed down or stopped for a minute the whole time Sunday. It was hard to get good pictures because just about the time you thought you could snap her picture, off she went and you ended up snapping a pink blur.She most definitely is enjoying being able to walk and run. I know she wears her momma out by the end of the day! 

I know this is supposed to be a WIP Wednesday project, but this was a looooooong WIP and I just wanted to show the end results. Everyone thought the history book of the rocking chair was pretty cool, and I wrapped the chair with the purple crocheted bunny sitting in it.
All in all, the projects were a lot of fun and I would do it all again.

Let's go see what everyone else is working on this week! Click the link below to see.

WIP Wednesday - Rocking Chair THIS Close To Done

 Here is the infamous rocking chair for Peyton with the first coat of stain on it. I actually am working on the second coat now so it's coming right along.
I am using the MinWax One Step Stain and Finish on it.
I decided on using Pecan in a satin finish. Gives it a nice sheen without being glaringly glossy.

Just found out this afternoon the birthday party is Sunday afternoon so cutting it close here, lol. Just like I said it would be.
I have been working on this in the garage which is unheated. The temps at night have been dropping down into the low to mid 30's. I've had to wait until early afternoon for the garage to warm up to actually stain this , otherwise it's still just a bit too chilly in the garage for the stain to dry properly.

Also, I've had to do each coat in stages, because it has so many little nooks and crannies and I need to be able to hang onto some part of it that's still dry so that I can turn it where I need it to be to coat each area.
It's been a lot trickier little project than I ever thought it would be, but I'm really, really pleased with the way it's turning out.
If I have enough time, I'm going to put a third coat on it, just to make darn sure it's good a solidly coated. Hopefully that way it will make it through another 50 plus years!
Thanks for your patience following my many posts on the rocking chair, history book of it, and the purple rabbit.
Oh yeah, been working on the lap quilt and cushions in between waiting for coats of stain to dry. Lap quilt is done, both seat cushions are done, and working on the back cushions for the rocking chairs now. Too tired to take pictures of those right now, maybe I can get those posted later in the week.
What are all the rest of you working on this week?

Fall Saturday In The Midwest

What a beautiful sunny spectacular day it has been here in Iowa today. We made sure we took advantage of it because these kind of days are getting fewer and fewer.

Our grandsons spent Friday night with us because their dad had to be at work before the butt crack of dawn.So Dan and I got to spend some one on one time with each of them.
 The big story for today is that Grandpa Dan took our oldest grandson Chase (who is 10) on his first squirrel hunt. I'm not sure which one of them were more excited about that!
They got up at 2:00 A.M. so they could make the 4 hour drive to our property in Missouri. Chase was so excited he had a hard time getting to sleep and it was after 11:30 before he passed out, lol.
He was real good about getting up at 2:00 A.M. though for me.
It is now 7:00 P.M. and they are on their way back to Iowa. Last report I got was that they got 2 squirrels so I am glad about that for Chase. I bet grandpa forgot to take pics of Chase with the squirrels before they cleaned them.
The main thing is Grandpa and Chase got to go hunting together for the first time.

Well, that meant Landon had to stay home with Grandma. (He is 7 years old). I guess he didn't mind that cause we got to spend some one on one time together. Usually it's both boys together and we don't really get much individual time.
This worked out great though.

 




I told Landon since it was soooo very nice out I wanted to work on the yard. His first question was "Do you have a rake that's my size?" Well, by gosh I did, lol. Here it is. I originally bought this short adjustable rake to be able to get to the back of the flower gardens and under bushes, but it sure fit the bill for Landon to keep him happy raking leaves for me. He picked up all the twigs and branches first that had fallen from the maple trees then got to work raking while I broke the branches into smaller pieces.

 He was a really good helper, until Dad showed up to pick him up, darn it, lost my help too soon!






We got to spend a nice time outdoors together. When I thanked him he told "that's ok, that's what Boy Scouts do".

 And look who was sitting in the kitchen window supervising the whole outside operation.

WIP Wednesday Day Late

Wow, this week sure got away from me. So, I am a day late posting my Wednesday WIP. 

This is recycle week around here and I don't know about where you are, but during recycle week the garbage guys pick up other junk that you can't normally put in with your regular garbage. Once a month we get to put our other "junk" out on the curb with the regular garbage and the recycle stuff.
So, all week long, we have been working on scooping out the garage. Needless to say, I didn't get a lot of time in on much crafty stuff :( but the garage sure is looking better.It's not DONE, but it sure is a lot cleaner and much better organized. I REALLY wanted to get the garage straightened out before ......"shhh.snow" (yes, I said it) sets in, cause it's a whole lot easier to haul stuff out to the curb if you don't have to wade through the white stuff to get it out there. Since we can only do this once a month, by the time the next junk day rolls around, it will be the end of November, around Thanksgiving time, and you can just bet if I waited til then we would have snow up the wazoo and it would be a LOT of fun to do then. So that has been my week pretty much in a nutshell.
BUT, now that the garage is as done as it's going to get for now, I dug out a UFO and am working on it.
A LONG time ago, I started a quilt with the intention of making it for our queen sized bed. Well, we all know how good intentions go sometimes.
Here's how far I got on it:

 Right now it measures about 40" x 60". I'm going to add another row to the top of it and that will make it about 45" x 60". 
When I get that done, I am going to make a quilted throw to have on the love seat to use to cover up with on those cool night that are coming.

 Here is a closer look at the material in the squares.
I have a whole bunch of the flowery paisley type of material that is on the bottom right of each square, so I am going to use that material to make the backing.


I have a whole bunch of the squares all ready made up, just need to be put together. So.....I have another project in mind for those :)

We have a pair of these really nice wooden rocking chairs. I got them as a retirement gift from my fellow employees and my boss when I quit working five years ago. 
(If you look close, can you see Rocky taking a nap underneath the back of the rocker?) He HAS to be in the middle of anything I am doing.

Until now, one of these beauties has been in my bedroom, and the other one was in storage because I just didn't have room for it anywhere in the house.
Well, I have room now because I got rid of the old ugly beaten up couch. These babies are going in the living room so they can actually be USED! ('Bout time).
The extra squares that I have left over from the not ever finished quilt are going to be made into seat cushions and backs for the rocking chairs! So the covers on the rocking chairs and the lap quilt on the love seat will match.

Update on Peyton's rocking chair:
The first coat of stain is on, ready to be sanded so I can get the second coat on. Really got to get cracking on it, her birthday is the 27th, so time is slipping away on me! Too many projects, too little time. Like I've said, I will probably be putting the finishing touches on the rocking chair in the wee hours of the morning the day before the birthday party. I WILL have it done!

WIP Wednesday-The Book Is DONE!

I have the book done!!! Wooohooo!! Well, all but one page, lol. The page with the picture of the finished rocking chair, because the CHAIR isn't done yet.
So, this will be a long post with lots of graphics due to scanning all of the pages and taking pictures of the cover that I made for the three ring binder.

My indoor pictures just aren't turning out as clear as I'd like so bear with me please, but at least you get the general idea. 
I'm really happy with the sage green flowery fabric with the sage green braid added to it.
I ended up sewing my seams a tad too much, so......I had to hand sew the outer seams for the cover to the binder. THAT was quite the fun time, but it all worked out and looks really nice.   I didn't have any more of this fabric and REALLY wanted to use it, so I made do.

I made a couple of little changes on the first page. There was some advertising down by the bottom of the heart that I wanted to cover up, so I found some felt hearts on clearance at Hobby Lobby and some heart confetti, so that worked out nice to finish up this page.






I'm not re-posting the pages I already showed on my previous post, so the rest of this is all of the remaining pages, except the one of the finished chair. That will come later when the chair is done.

All the rest of these are pretty self explanatory so here goes with all of the pictures. I scanned them all and some of them turned out a bit dark because of the "dodads" added to some of the pages. Since there were so many of them, I didn't fix up the pics, here they are in all their original glory, lol.

 This is Peyton's daddy. Isn't he a cutie? He still has the big dimples and the loooong eyelashes.

 I was four months pregnant with Frank in this picture, thought it would be cool for Peyton to see.

 This is Peyton's Aunt Mindy and her daddy when they were younger.

This is when Dan and I got married and it shows Peyton's dad and all of her aunts and uncle on her dad's side.

 Peyton's parents when they were dating.

 One of her parents engagement pics.

 A couple of their wedding pics. I really like the upper left one. It's not posed and seems more "real" to me.

 All about little Miss Peyton's birth.

 Family tree on her Dad's side.

 Young pics of her dad.

 More pics of her dad.

 More current pics of dad.

 Early pictures of Aunt Mindy.

More pics of Aunt Mindy.

 Earlier pictures of me.

 Newer pictures of me.

My parents, 1 year before my dad passed away.

Earlier pictures of my brother.

 Newer pics of my brother.

Pictures of my mom, Peyton's great grandmother.

Pictures of my dad, Peyton's great grandfather.

 My dad's dad, Peyton's great great grandfather.

 My dad's mom, Peyton's great great grandmother.











So there you go, 35 pages later, the history book about Peyton's rocking chair is done.
I could have put so much more in it. It was almost hard to pare it down. And considering I have never done any scrap booking before, I'm very contented with the end results.
Now I have to get cracking on staining the chair, only 3 weeks til her birthday!

Let's go see what the other ladies are doing this week. Just click on the logo below.