That Sounds Like a Winter Project

Hello everyone!! It has been forever since I posted, but a few things have been happening. 

BIG LIFE EVENTS:

1. Mike and I got married!!! I am officially Laura Latham now!! Woohoo matrimony!

2. We graduated NAU!! Yes education!

3. We left Flagstaff and moved to Eugene so that....

4. I could teach first grade! AND

5. Mike could get his Master of Accounting at the University of Oregon!

So yeah it has been an eventful 9 months to say the least! But now that we are getting settled into Eugene and finally starting to get out of survival mode and I am going to start utilizing my newly minted "craft room" that is actually the spare bedroom in our apartment. Especially since Winter is Coming.... (Game of Thrones anyone??). 

As this is mostly a blog where I talk about projects because they are far more exciting than boring old real life... here we go!!

I have been extra good recently about finishing up projects and not starting new ones. Mostly due to the whole moving across the country and hauling all of my crafting paraphernalia with us thing made it a necessity. 

I have realized that trying to prioritize my projects in order of importance doesn't work because there are too many different kinds of projects because I have too many different hobbies. 

So without further ado, here is my list of projects!

Scrapbooking: 

1. 4th and last volume of study abroad - I have finished everything but our last month in Europe. All that is left to scrap is from May to June when my mom came and traveled with us. I am going to be so happy when all of the books are scrapped... even though I will still need to journal. 

2. Wedding Album(s) - I don't even want to think of how amazing but huge of an undertaking this will be. 

3. Flagstaff Year 2

4. Flagstaff Year 3

5. Flagstaff Year 4

6. Cancun Honeymoon

7. Eugene Year 1

So obviously I am a few years behind on my albums... but they will get done! The problem with scrapbooks is that if you don't stay caught up, life keeps on going on and on anyway!

Handcrafts:

- Mike Christmas stocking embroidery

- Depression Block Quilt

- Mike and Laura stocking quilting and finishing

- Knitted Couch Blanket

- Sewing backs onto the knitted pillow covers for mom

I have to say that I am very impressed with myself. In the area of handcrafts I am quite guilty of having at least 3 knitting projects at once and I whittled it down to one. And I have one embroidery and one quilting. Look at me being reasonable. 

Pictures soon! 

Thanks for sticking with me, I know that this is mostly a blog for me to keep track of my own projects but hopefully when I get around to posting pictures you will be able to at least share in my joy of achievement!

25% Done With Stocking #1 and a New Project is Brewing

Hello all!

I am about 25 percent done with my Christmas Stocking! I have the design all drawn out and perfect on my stocking and I have almost finished with the branches on the bottom. Then comes the holly, then the cardinal, which I am a little nervous about because it is so much more intricate than the pine boughs!

Here is a picture of my design all drawn out. I am going to wait to embroider the name until I finish Mike's stocking as well because I want them to be the same size and color.

Here is the in progress photo, although it is still in the hoop so it is a little bit harder to see. 

I have the bottom outlined and I am hoping to finish all the pine boughs by the end of this month! I am hoping to have all of the embroidery done by the middle of May. 

After much pestering, I had Mike finalize which design he wanted on his stocking. After making him look through the incredibly detailed Pinterest board I had made with a million different types of designs, he really liked this one, and I have to say, it will be a challenge, but I really like it too!! 

A peaceful little village scene I think it is going to be very nice and very Christmasy. 

Now, my favorite topic... NEW PROJECT. 

I have been thinking about this one for a long time. I want to make another bed quilt especially for the wedding and after. I wanted to make a special quilt to put on our bed. Very sentimental, but I want a new quilt for a new chapter in our lives. 

In my Pinterest stalking I found a beautiful and simple quilt design. It is called the Depression Block quilt, known for being made during the Depression era when people still made quilts from feed sacks. 

This is the quilt I found and I am going to use the same kind of idea but instead of blue and grey and white it would be blue and green and white. 

After much searching for a design charm pack that I could pair with a white charm pack to make a ton of HST's. Sadly none of the charm packs I saw had the color combinations I wanted. So I sucked it up and got over my laziness and decided that I can find fabrics that I really like and cut them from yardage. In comes Aria by Kate Spain.

I loved the Aria by Kate Spain collection, but I did not want the pinks the dominate a lot of the collection. So I really truly looked closely at the collection and saw a lot of beautiful blues and greens with white. So I looked and found 12 of the prints from the collection in yardage. Here are the pictures.

I know I repeated a few of the fabrics in the picture, but I really think that the blue, green, navy and  turquoise colors will compliment the white that makes the depressions in the quilt. My favorite fabric is this turquoise and navy and green butterflies on a white background. I am thinking about backing the quilt with this fabric once the quilt top is done.

After I finish the cardinal stocking, I want to start the quilt!

So far it lives in my cart ready to be bought but I am waiting until the embroidery on the stocking is done. Then the summer will be dedicated to the quilt!!

Embarking on a HUGE and HOLIDAY THEMED Project

I have been dreaming about doing a huge quilting and embroidery combo project. I want to hand embroider and then quilt christmas stockings and a matching tree skirt. As the far ahead thinking woman that I am I ordered enough fabric for 10 stockings. I figure that way I can have a huge family and the stockings will all match!

I ordered my fabric and it is going to be coming in on Friday!! I ordered Robert Kaufman Kona Cotton in Snow. It is a very pretty warm white but not quite cream color. I wanted something that would be white but not going to be too stark white. I think that the snow color is a perfect middle ground.

Now to the fun part. THE DESIGNS!

I have already completely scoured the entire internet for Christmas embroidery designs and I have a lot of great ideas. The only one I am having trouble finding is Mikes!

The design for my stocking is going to be a cardinal from the design that is pictured below with my name like in the sketch. I am also thinking about maybe jazzing up the snow on the pine branches with some clear/white beads. It will depend on how it looks after all the embroidery is done. I am going to not have the brown ring around the cardinal but extend the branches so that it looks like they are extending off the "page" of the stocking.

I am so excited to be finally starting this project. I want to have Mike's stocking and my stocking done by our first married Christmas together. Our wedding date is January 7th of 2017 so I technically have 2 more years before these 2 need to be done, but considering how intricate the embroidery I will need all that time! As for the tree skirt, I want to have all of the designs finalized before making it to make sure that it goes with the stockings. 

I am so excited to start this project. I know that I am a project junkie. I currently have a pair of socks that I am working on, knitted pillow covers for my mom and a embroidered initial that I want to frame to put on the door of my room. I am going to try to finish either the pillow covers or the initial embroidery before I fully go for this project. I have no idea about how I am going to quilt them yet because I want to do some awesome designs but I do not have a machine that can do free motion quilting. I should probably do the difficult part of the the time consuming, intricate and gorgeous embroidery first and deal with the quilting later. 

I am so excited to create these amazing stockings that will forever hang in my living room and make me happy. 

Exciting News

Hello blogosphere,

I realize that I have been terrible at keeping up on this blog. I am a terrible blogger. But oh well. Life is busy and thats how life gets.

I have exciting news!! Mike and I got engaged on December 11th of 2015. It was in an Aspen grove outside of Flagstaff in the snow. It was the perfect winter wonderland proposal and I could not be happier.

Wedding plans are already underway and it is incredibly exciting to me that I get to marry the love of my life and my best friend.

Here are some photos!

I promise to post more in the future (maybe)!

I Am Alive!

Hello family and friends,

I know that I have been MIA for awhile (5 months) but with getting back from Europe, working over the summer, and now getting into the groove of things here at school I have not been blogging. But I am back! I have to say though, my future blog posts are not going to be nearly as exciting as Europe photos though!

Catch Up
My last post left us at Spring Break in Spain. After that Mike and I went to Barcelona to see our good friends Brent and Marilynn. We then went to London to see our favorite band, Striking Matches. After that was Andorra with our good friends Brent and Marilynn. After Andorra, 5 beautiful days in Belgium then my mom came to visit and we did a wonderful trip in Paris followed by going all throughout Italy. It was so much fun and a wonderful end to our study abroad adventure.

Mike and I both were home for the summer. It was a super fun and busy summer, we went to 2 concerts, Jason Aldean and Chris Young who were amazing, an Angel game with Mike's family, my cousin Rachel got married, and Mike and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary. It was an incredibly busy but very fun summer.

Back in Flagstaff
We are now back in Flagstaff for our junior year of college! It is crazy to think that I only have a year left of college, which leads me to my exciting piece of news. I am graduating a semester early which means that I will be done with college next December. It is super excited and I am so happy.

This semester is very busy. I am taking 19 credits and Mike is taking 18. Wow! Mike also got a job at Home Depot in the garden department and is working weekends. So we are very busy.

We have been squeezing in some fun though. First up, the Grand Canyon.

I had never been to the Grand Canyon before even though it is so close to Flagstaff. I loved seeing the incredible majestic beauty.

It was great to see the beauty of the Grand Canyon and it was a wonderful start to the semester.

So that is catch up! Sorry I have been gone so long from my blog but I will try to be better.

Thanks for putting up with me!
Laura

A (Spring) Break from Reality

So sorry this is quite late. I plead guilty!

Spring break 2015 was one for the record books! We took a while and planned out all of our tickets and reservations then left the rest up to whatever we wanted to do once we got there. We settled on traveling less but being able to spend more time in each place. The places we chose were partly planning, partly dreaming and partly guesswork! In the end we decided on Seville, Ireland and Nice. We knew before studying abroad that we wanted to go to Ireland. That was always the main plan.

We added Seville because of the amazing and well-known Semana Santa festival celebrations. We had a great hostel located right by the Seville cathedral and 5 days to explore one of the only major cities in Spain we had not explored yet.

Packing for this trip was a struggle beause we were going to be in 3 different climates. Combine that with the fact that I thought the bag max for Ryanair was 8kg instead of 10kg leading to a frantic unpacking and repacking. It was stressful and a lot of hoping that we wouldn’t have trouble at the airport. I ave never had trouble at airport before but the budget airlines are tricky.

We took the train to Valencia from Alicante at 3 in the afternoon. This was our 4^th and last time in Valencia. The flight to Seville was cheaper from Valencia and also very early in the morning so it made sense to spend the night there. The hostel arranged for a cab to pick us up at 4am. That means a 3:30am wake up for a 6am flight. Way too early for my tastes.

We spent our first day in Seville walking around and exploring but also being total zombies all day. Later that night we met a girl from our hostel, an American who is living in Madrid and teaching. All of us decided to go to a close by Mexican restaurant because it is one of the foods I crave most here. The food was supposed to be good and they lured us with coupons for free margaritas. Of course they were mini margaritas half watered down. The lies of advertising! It was a fun night and it was very nice to meet new people. We gratefully went to sleep and slept in the next morning to get over the exhausting day.

Day 2 we did more walking around and explored Seville. We went to the old jewish quarter and saw some gardens and ducked into all these little shops, some touristy and some not. Many of them sold the same tourist related items and sadly very few had the little old fashioned out of the way shops I had hoped to find. Seville is very beautiful place and seeing all the processions throughout the day was very cool because it embodied the traditional culture of Spain!

Day 3 we went to the Alcazar. It reminded me a lot of the Alhambra in Granada. The Alcazar has been used in lots of movies and TV shows, namely Game of Thrones where the Alcazar is the setting for the water gardens of Dorne. So it was very cool to be able to see the one of the settings of my favorite TV show in real life. We treated ourselves to an amazing Italian lunch at a local place followed by a visit to the Sevilla cathedral. The cathedral is very beautiful with a lot of ornate metalwork. We got to see Christopher Columbus' tomb. They really love him here. 

Seville was very fun but we were especially excited for Ireland. It was the first time we were going to be leaving Spain and on top of that we were going to the place that we had always dreamed of when deciding to go abroad. IRELAND. We flew into Dublin from Seville and dropped out stuff and immediately went out to explore and have some food. Walking around we found a little pub with a menu that looked good so we ducked in to have some food and have the classic pub experience. Since in Spain the dominant meat is ham, it was great to be able to go to Ireland and have some good comforting beef! I had a burger first and was able to try the beef stew Mike ordered. SO GOOD. Delicious food and great beer. We threw up our hands when the waitress asked what we wanted and so she introduced us to some of her favorites. Good meat, good beer. What more can you want out of life?

That night we stopped into a local bar to listen to some live music. The duo was great and my favorite  was when they played Sweet Home Alabama and I sang every single world at the top of my lungs while everyone watched on and laughed at the crazy American!

The next day in Dublin Mike and I both got some long overdue haircuts. Due to the food at Bankers Bar that blew us away we decided for a repeat round of amazing food. This time I got the beef stew with homemade Guinness brown bread. So so good. One of the best meals I have had abroad. I also discovered by favorite new beer. Smithwicks Irish red ale. Very very good. We then went to the St. Patricks Cathedral and sat on the lawn outside of it and enjoyed the sun and watching all the children laugh and play soccer and tag and generally enjoying life. It was a beautiful day of bliss topped of with a wonderful meal of delicious burgers. 

Our last day in Dublin was really just a morning. We did the typical touristy destination, the Guinness factory. It was interesting to see how this beer was made as well as getting to try it for the first time at the source, the factory! It was a fun way to finish Dublin before leaving for Galway!

Next is Galway! Galway was good but it was not that exciting. Pretty countrysides with lots of newborn baby sheep prancing around being adorable. We spent about one and a half days there before taking a bus to Shannon to spend the night before our 6am flight! A very early morning. 

Next up we went to Nice, France! We stayed in an airbnb and got to stay in this great little place for 7 nights. Nice is beautiful and it was great to be able to cook and hang out eating baguettes and just relax. 

From our position in Nice we were able to travel to Cannes, Villefranche de Surmer, Éze, and Monaco very easily by train. We had a great time and loved the easy relaxing time we were able to have in Nice. It was great to be able to just relax and enjoy the last part of our spring break. It was a great way to reenergize before before going back to school.  

A goodbye pastry from our favorite bakery at the airport the day we left. The next day school started and it was quite the reality check from the relaxing time in Nice cooking, drinking wine, eating brie and baguettes and enjoying the beautiful place that we were in to the early mornings of school and homework. 

Now tomorrow is my last day in Alicante and I cannot believe it. I still will be traveling until June 11th, but it is crazy that tomorrow is my last day in Alicante. 

Next we are off to see our good friends Brent and Marilynn where we are going to road trip to Andorra! After that about 5 days in Belgium and then MY MOMMY COMES TO VISIT. I am so excited because then we are going to Paris, Rome, Siena, Florence and Venice! 

Spring break was amazing and we still have another month of abroad left. 

Time has flown by.