Ahhhh I'm terrible.... I didn't take ANY photos of Thanksgiving... please forgive me :(

We had it at our house, per usual, though.  Aunt Mildred, Larry, Holly, and Joe all came and Dan, Kathy, and Alex came this year too!!

I also ran the Turkey Trot again this year with Rob - Dad even came out to watch!  It was super crowded though so it was a little hard to find a running rhythm - I was constantly trying to avoid people!  Still fun though :)  And I felt great at the finish!

I'm sure we all have our own little version of reminders that we leave for ourselves, particularly in the morning when we're on our way out the door.  

For a while, I was writing lists on scraps of paper and taping them to the back of the door so that there was no way I could miss it on my way out.  Usually it was something along the lines of "start the dishwasher," "take out the recycling," "bring sweatpants for dance," etc...

I figured a dry-erase situation would probably be ideal.  And then I figured I would take it a step further by trying to make it cute! :)  Plus, I wanted to be able to hang my keys near the note as well - that way, there was NO WAY you could miss it!

Verdict thus far? SUPER useful!!! :)  

I found some simple black picture frames from Jo-Ann's  - yay for being on sale!  I picked up some scrapbook paper to act as the background (that's the cute part!) and some little hooks to screw into the bottom of the frames for our keys.  (I added a quick tutorial here, if you're interested but it's pretty straight forward!)

I ended up making three different key reminder boards - Katie and Kaleigh just moved into a new house (Katie) and apartment (Kaliegh) this summer and I knew they would both love this idea, too.  :)


I LOVE how they turned out!  I tried out different DIY flowers for each one - Katie's (far left) has crochet star flowers, Kaleigh's (center) has felt flower bursts, and the one for Krista's and my apartment (far right) has fabric flowers with clear stones glued in for centers!

STORY OF MY LIFE RIGHT NOW!

We managed to escape Hurricane Sandy unscathed and I am so very, very grateful for that!  I know some of my friends and their families were less lucky and my heart goes out to everyone impacted.  <3

The NYC MTA posted some photos from around the city after the storm.  My South Ferry station was mostly submerged.  :(  

(I posted some photos from around the station here, when Rob and I spent the day in Manhattan).

Here are some post-Sandy shots:

That last photo was the one I found first - makes me so sad to see the art wall under so much water...

However, a subway station is just another "thing" and it's more important that everyone is safe.  <3

With the holidays just around the corner (gasp!!), it's about that time to work on shopping and DIY gift lists...

While reflecting on past gift giving, I realized that I was a terrible blogger (and yes, not just because right now I'm averaging a post every 3 weeks..) but because I completely forgot to show you any pictures of one of my bigger DIY undertakings!!

Last year (!!!) I made a flannel rag quilt for little Rozalyn - I am THRILLED with how it turned out and Rozalyn seems to be a big fan as well... :)

I originally got the inspiration from Creations by Kara - she has a great tutorial posted so I didn't feel the need to write one myself!

I made mine rectangular (instead of square) and I made it a little larger.  She recommended cutting tiny 1"x1" swatches of your fabric to represent your squares and plan out your pattern - I voted for "nerd" and went with Excel...  :)

Here's the pattern I came up with (complete with square count) - The letters correspond to the design that I put on the back of the quilt.  Just to keep it interesting... not at all because I miscalculated how much backing fabric I would need............

It was purely coincidence that I ended up with a brown and pink quilt (just like the tutorial example), by the way...  I was originally planning to go with bright colors but when I found the princess ballet monkey flannel, I just couldn't resist!  

Cutting this quilt was definitely the most tedious process (lots and lots and LOTS of squares...) but it was really easy to piece together!  Like the tutorial shows, you basically stitch an X through each front-batting-backing sandwich and then sew them together with seams toward the front!  From there, you're just 2 movies-worth of scissor snipping fringe to a super cozy quilt!  

I'm very seriously contemplating making another one for myself...

Anyways!  Here are some snapshots of the final product!! :)