I finally completed the ABC Quilt. Some friends were expecting their first baby and they live on a house boat that can get quite cold so I thought a quilt would be a perfect gift. I wash not sure what to make, but my husband thought the alphabet that I had made earlier this year was the perfect thing for our friends. The alphabet if from the book "Quilt Talk" by Sam Hunter. Her book has all the patterns for upper & lower case letters as well as numbers and punctuation. If you have ever wanted to put text in a quilt this is a great book. It has simple and complete directions for her letters, and some great projects to start you out. I could not wait to make a quilt with letters so I just went through and made the alphabet. I have another quilt planned using text, I hope to get started on it very soon. I kept this baby quilt simple using simple lines across the quilt, the only thing I would do different would be to use blue thread on the lines under the alphabet...kind of like old school paper. Oh well next time. I just wanted to get this completed as our friends had their baby on New Years Day. 

Another friend showed me what he had been up to lately with a box of christmas ornaments he found on the street. He fills the ornaments with paint and throws them against a wall. The results can be very interesting looking. The one above had green paint and the ornament was red, so the glass from the red ornament sticks and dries into the paint. I think this would make a cute christmas card that says have a smashing christmas...next year I think I will print some of these. 

I also received a $20 credit from JoAnne Fabric to Shutterfly. I have always been a little suspicious of photo mugs as they can look terrible when they fade and well let's be honest people sometimes use awful photos of their family members. I decided to upload some cat photos and test the mugs that Shutterfly offers. I used 3 of my favorite photos of our cats and tested the look with different color mugs. I liked the black background the best. I had more photos but they got so small and looked a little distorted so I kept it simple and only used 3 photos. I ordered the mug on January 4th and received the mug on January 9th. Very quick turn around time. The mug holds 15oz, I could have ordered 11oz but l liked the larger mug. The total cost was $21.99 for the mug + shipping, I paid $9.98 for the mug because of the $20 credit. Would I pay $30 for a mug? maybe if it was something special, but for the price of $10 I think I got a great deal. My husband used the mug for coffee the day after we received it.