2008 Photo Ornament

I'm attempting to start a tradition of the annual photo ornament. I get really sentimental when I pull out the ornaments that my babies made when they were in preschool. They are by far my favorite. And now that only one child is left in preschool, I figure I need to be responsible for carrying on that tradition.


Last year I was heavily pregnant, so we went with some store bought craft foam that we taped a picture to and added some glitter. It worked, I guess.


This year I had planned to be far more elaborate, but then I realized that it would never get done if I went along that path. So I opted for simple. We used old cereal boxes, dollar ribbon, and pictures from our printer.


Basically, I printed the pictures on regular printer paper. I then cut out rectangles from the cereal boxes that were a bit larger than my pictures.We glued the picuters to the cardboard. I then cut ribbon to size and hot glued it around the pictures. I thought about decorating the backs with wrapping paper, but I didn't have any on hand. And we were keeping it simple, remember? So one of the kiddos wrote 2008 on the back for me.


I had the ribbon laying around for a impulse buy at the dollar spot of a popular chain store. Unfortuneatly, we ran out halfway through. We went to buy more, but the inventory was different, so I had to get different ribbon. My mistake here was to cut the ribbon in half in an attempt to make it fit the small border. It now sheds, and I apologize to the recipeints who will have to deal with that.


Maybe if I start sooner next year, we'll get more fancy. In the meantime, I'm glad that I actually completed a project and got it in the mail!!!!

Baby Quilt

This was originally posted on my old MommaQuilts blog.

I can't do anything simple. I have a history of not finishing several quilts that I've started. In fact, none of my children have a quilt made by me. The problem is that my ideas for all that I want to do get out of hand.

So I decided that this time around I'd go simple. I found a nice disappearing nine patch pattern and got a good portion of the quilt done in no time. But since I was working with scraps, I didn't have enough of the given fabric to create a quilt the size I wanted. In retrospect it would probably have been the perfect size for a baby, but I wanted it big enough to be used throughout the toddler years.


So I got the bright idea that I would use Tonya's letters to add a Bible verse to the quilt. I learned a lot from this project.
Most importantly, there should be a lot of contrast between your background fabric and your letter fabric. You can see that when I was finished, I couldn't read what I had "written". Luckily, someone in my bee gave me the idea of outlining the letters. This helped some, but I probably should have used a heavier weight thread for the outlining.




Also, be careful with stripes. Actually stripes probably don't matter as long as there is more contrast as I mentioned above. But they didn't work for me because my stripes had white in them.

And try to avoid cheap fabric. I now know why I got these scraps for free. It took me so long to get this done, that something got spilled on it somewhere along the way. I had to wash it and some of the thin fabric shredded. This is probably also a result of my poor sewing skills.


Another big thing for me is my lack of whimsy. I chose Tonya's letters because they match my idea of not needing a perfect quilt. I like the idea of free handing. But I learned that when I put the idea in practice, it irritated me that different letters where different sizes. It made it hard for me to predict how things would line up. I've concluded that I will have to do a bit of standardization in creating my letters in the future.


I don't know when I'll get this project completed, but I'm hoping that it will be soon. We'll see if it ends up getting used much. I'll keep you posted.

Making Contact

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Welcome readers

My name is Erika. I'm a wife and mom living in central Texas. My career is in education, and I'm always looking for creative outlets. (Translated, this means that I have a habit of starting hobbies that I don't finish.) In an effort to motivate me to complete some projects, I started a couple of blogs.

Made by Momma
This is a blog about stuff I'm making. I honestly started it as a means of accountability for myself. My hope is that if I publicly discuss my projects, I might finish something. And if I find a need to create a post, I might be motivated to start new and different projects.
Reading With Momma
This is where I write about the non-work-related books that I find time to read as well as the related blog challenges that I participate in.

Round Robins

This was originally posted on my old MommaQuilts blog.

I was warned that I wouldn't enjoy this, but I wouldn't listen. I was enchanted by the idea of working with different people and seeing their quilting style. I loved the idea of having a quilt that resulted from a collaborative effort. I really wanted a quilt that had signatures and blocks from several ladies of whom I'd have fond memories for years to come.

Little did I know that there are unwritten rules to this type of quilt. Number one should be to ensure that you are on the same quilting level as everyone else. Number two should be to ensure that you have the same quilting style as the others.

Needless to say, I broke both of these rules. I quickly learned that I'm not as skilled as I thought myself to be. I also realize that I have no aspirations to meet the approval of any quilt show judge. While I want to match seams and points, I don't sweat it too much if I don't. I have no eye for color. I'm a scrap quilter and when I buy fabric, I just get it because I think it's pretty - with little to no regard for what's already in my stash.

Since starting this project, I have ripped a countless amount of seams, cried about my horrible workmanship, procrastinated like no body's business and sworn to quit quilting more than once. What makes it worse for me is that I know my center will likely be transformed into some perfect work of art. I am sure that I will love every detail. And this will serve to make me feel even more guilty about how my contributions to the quilts of others were flat-out eyesores. In fact, I'm relatively certain that I will not show up at the meeting where we reveal our work and everyone gets their centers back. I'm way to ashamed to show my face and meet these nice ladies.

I don't mean to discourage others from giving it a go. I'm sure that many of you have fond memories of the round robins that you have participated in. And maybe some time in the far, distant future I'll give it another try and surprise myself. But for now, I am swearing this activity off FOREVER!!

I finished something!

This was originally posted on my old MommaQuilts blog.

OK, it's not a quilt. I've been pleased with the fact that I've kick started my sewing again. The down side it that I have too many things going at once. I put in my 15-30 minutes a day, so there is progress. But no completion.

So I had to find a crafty project to complete to give me a boost. I made these fabric boxes for holding my works in progress.
I think I like them. I adjusted the tutorial at applehead. They are a little floppy, but they serve their purpose well. I'll get back to quilts when I get back to town. Happy Thanksgiving to you!

Christmas Quilt

This was originally posted on my old MommaQuilts blog.

I've probably put too much on my plate again, but I couldn't resist taking Tonya's class. I love her style, and I thought that if I did this, I might actually see a completed quilt in the near future.

So here is my first stab at a free style block. It's probably hard to tell, but this is supposed to be a manger. I'm trying to stick with what's in my stash so my blues are quite patchy. I've cut the fabric for the star. I also want to make a block with a shephard and angel. We'll see how that goes. I'll keep you posted.