Calendar quilt update

I just realized that I haven't posted an update on my calendar quilt challenge since March!! It is time for some pictures! I have been keeping up with the challenge, even completing June in one day..I wasn't sure what colours to do for June, but once I decided to do a rainbow, then I wanted to see it all finished!

The first photo shows the first 5 months of the year. January is the blue one, February pink and red, March green, April flower fabrics in greens and yellows, and finally May in pink and purple (Celeste's choice).




This last one is June's rainbow block and it's my favourite so far!

Swap mama sweetness

I had participated in DQS6 (doll quilt swap) a couple of months ago..had made this little quilt for my secret partner:



but it never arrived to its destination...lost somewhere in postal land...

My swap mama sent me a little care package filled with goodies for my trouble. How sweet is that? Here is a picture of what she sent me:



So sweet...

Sketch Tuesday ~ Monet Picture Study

This week we studied the painting by Claude Monet called "The Artist's Garden at Vetheuil". In the picture study, we could choose to copy part of the painting or all of it. Andre decided to do all of it, and the rest of us concentrated on a detail of it. It was very nice to have all my children participate again in Sketch Tuesday.

Virtual Quilting Bee ~ Traveling Threads

I am taking part, along with 11 other ladies, in my first virtual quilting bee. Our group is called Traveling Threads and over the next twelve months, we will be quilting blocks for each other. If you are curious, this is how it works:
each person has her own month, mine is November. A few weeks before November, I will organize my chosen fabrics and mail out 11 small packages, 1 to each of the participants, with enough fabric to make a 12.5 inches by 12.5 inches block.
Hilary in California had July for her month, and I just received her fabrics this past Friday. I have the whole month of July to complete her block and send it back to her....but as you can see below, I am already done! It was so much fun to create something with her fabrics. I do have a little bit leftover, so I will try to make another block...

This is going to be a fun quilting bee!

Book Sharing Monday

I am sharing 2 books with you today because I just couldn't decide between them! They are both excellent. I read them aloud to all 3 of my children and they all enjoyed them, along with the illustrations.


First one is called "All in Just One Cookie" written by Susan E. Goodman (the same author that wrote Gee Whiz which I shared here!) and illustrated by Timothy Bush. Through a picture book, we find out where each of the ingredients in Grandma's chocolate chip cookies came from. Her pet cat and dog have their own little comments throughout the pages and Andre thought those were a lot of fun.


From the chocolate page:

"As Grandma sprinkles two cups of chocolate chips onto the dough, a few fall on the counter. "What a delicious pity!" says Grandma, popping them into her mouth."

"Around the world - in West Africa, Indonesia, Ecuador, and the Dominican Republic - the pods on cocoa trees grow to the size of footballs. When they're ripe, workers split them open with machetes. The beans inside are cream-colored, not brown, and taste bitter, not sweet at all."

The second book is "Ice Cream : The Full Scoop" by Gail Gibbons. This book explains where ice cream came from, throughout history and how it is made today by taking you through a tour of an ice cream factory.

"In 1841 a woman from New Jersey named Nancy Johnson invented the hand-cranked ice-cream maker, also called an ice-cream freezer. Now ice cream could be made a lot faster just by turning a crank. The ice-cream maker became very popular. It took only one hour to churn the ice-cream mixture into creamy ice cream."

Gail Gibbons has many wonderful non-fiction picture books on various subjects. If you visit her website, you can download two free teacher's guides that use her books. One is called "A Year with Gail Gibbons Activity Planning Guide" and the other is "Explore the World of Science with Gail Gibbons" (for grades K-3).

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please click on the buttons on the left side of my blog, and be sure to visit all the great participants in the list on the left too. Thanks!

Another freebie from Sublime Stitching!

Jenny at Sublime Stitching is giving away another free pattern suitable for embroidery! These fireworks are really cute. Adrienne and Andre want to learn how to embroider over the summer and I think this design might be perfect for them to practice their new skill.
Click on the fireworks for the link to flickr to download your own pattern!

I ♥ rainbows

the video is a little blurry..the autofocus kept focusing on the rain drop, and the wind is a bit loud..but i ♥ rainbows! and this one was full and you can see the faint outline of a second one!

Our Camping Trip

We loved every minute of it! I visited the Pinery Provincial Park on Lake Huron while I was a teenager (living in France) and it contributed to me falling in love with Canada...It was a great reunion for me and wonderful to share with my children and husband (and our puppy too!).

I hope you will enjoy my photos from our camping trip..just press play!

Wreck this journal ~ Week 4

Thanks everyone for the lovely comments! It feels great to be part of this community of wreckers!!

We took WTJ camping with us and had a blast! Here are a few photos from our fun:




and here is a very short video of us taking our journal for a walk. Sorry it is sideways, because I am one of those people that forgets I can't tilt my camera while taking videos the way I do while taking a photo...





Added friday evening:

I completely forgot to add one of my favourite pages this week..the paint splatter page:



This wrecking is part of Jamie's book club, The Next Chapter. You can visit the link here to see more destruction!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Sneak Peek Placemat Swap

Sketch Tuesday ~ Souvenirs

Book Sharing Monday

"If I Were a Tree" by Dar Hosta is a beautiful poetic picture book that asks and answers the question "how would it be if you were a tree?". We all loved the colourful collages from Dar Hosta.

"I would be a city tree and remind you of the whispers of leaves"

First race of the year!

Last night I ran my first race of the year. It was a night time (around 7pm) 5 km race with many participants, almost 1000! The weather was hot but the course was great, a bit of forest, fields, a tiny tunnel...very nice. My time wasn't amazing, 33:16, but I was pleased since I didn't run much of this past winter. Now I am looking forward to more races over the summer and fall!

Wreck this journal - week 3

This past week was so much fun with my journal! This time my girls helped out, Adrienne with the circles and the paper airplane, and Celeste with the circles page. We even had our puppy Orion helping us out...I figured out how to get him involved Jamie ;-) You can watch our short video to see him in action!





The mosaic above shows many of the pages we worked on this week. Here are what they represent in order from top to bottom, left to right:

1. I added a couple of squirts of my new perfume Flower by Kenzo my mom sent me for my birthday ~ my journal smells lovely now !
2. Lose this page is in the recycle bin, after seeing the suggestion from another participant, I wrote on the back side a list of things I want to let go of.
3. Decorating the edges
4. 4 letter words ~ Adrienne helped out with writing a few, while my husband and son kept coming up with new words
5. fruit sticker collection ~ ongoing!
6, 7, and 8. our circles page ~ Adrienne, Celeste and I did those pages using markers
9 and 10. Adrienne building the paper airplane and flying it
11. I tore the strips on the page and wrote on them
12. Pressed a few wildflowers and leaves found on my morning walk with Orion

A few last pictures from this week..I really had a lot of fun with my journal! Cutting it with some scrapbook fancy scissors, taking it in the shower with me, and trying out every single marker my kids have!! I was able to sort out the dried out ones in the process. Fun and useful :)



It is never too late if you want to participate in Jamie's The Next Chapter book club, and don't forget to visit all the other creative participants blogs and their work for this week listed here.

What my children are reading ~ June 18 Edition

This past week we adopted a puppy and life has been quite busy!

The kids haven't picked up many books this week, but did enjoy listening to me reading aloud Roald Dahl's "George's Marvelous Medicine". A great and funny book!

You can visit the Well Read Child to read about other families reading choices this past week.

Wordless Wednesday

Book Sharing Monday

Adrienne read this book first and recommended it to me. I read it aloud to Celeste this morning and we both loved it. The message is so clear, but with full of Dr. Seuss' imagination. Written over forty years ago, it definitely still applies to today, even more I would say.

"What's more, snapped the Lorax. (His dander was up.) Let me say a few words about Gluppity-Glupp. Your machinery chugs on, day and night without stop making Gluppity-Glupp. Also Schloppity-Schlopp. And what do you do with this leftover goo?... I'll show you. You dirty old Once-ler man, you!"

If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, please follow the button below!

Wreck this journal ~ Week 2

I have to say first THANKS! to everyone that left comments on my first post for Wreck this Journal last week. It was so nice to hear from other participants, and I enjoyed visiting everyone's blogs to see their destructions, or their thoughts about the upcoming destruction of their journal. You can visit the Next Chapter and see all this week's creative wrecking here.

This past week has been so eventful for us, with the adoption of our siberian husky puppy, Orion



but I had managed to have fun with my journal and my son at the beginning of the week. Most were done on Monday morning, and what a perfect way to start the week!

Here are some photos from our wrecking this week:

Introducing....Orion, the latest addition to our family

Our 10 week old Siberian Husky puppy, Orion

What my children are reading ~ June 11 Edition

This week, Celeste is enjoying listening to "Sleep, Black Bear, Sleep" by Jane Yolen. It is beautifully illustrated by Heidi Stemple. It reads like a lullaby, going through many animals and their habitats for the winter. We're not quite at the right season to read this one, but we both liked it anyway!












Andre has been working in his "Dragonolody Handbook" again. He received this as a birthday present (in February), and he picks it up now and again, completing a few more "lessons" at the time. He really loves learning more about these fantastic creatures.

















Adrienne is enjoying a few Dr. Seuss books this week, along with continuing Elissa's Odyssey (mentioned here).
This particular title was her favourite, she told me, of the pile she brought back from the library. I can understand why, mixing Dr Seuss fun writing with a earth-friendly message of conserving our natural resources.
I found out there is a campaign called The Lorax Project, you can read more about it here : The Lorax Project .
There are activities related to the book here as well: The Lorax .









Visit The Well-Read Child to read other families posts and their children are reading this week. I always enjoy reading these, as it gives me new suggestions for books!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Our new neighbour and her future babies

Sketch Tuesday ~ Anxious for Summer

This week the assignment was to sketch something that reminds us of summer. With our camping trip coming up, the girls and I had that on our minds!