The French Knot

While in Savannah, we (Misti, Leslie and I) stumbled onto the most enchanting shop of all.  It was the French Knot a Stitch Boutique.  It was beautiful, intimidating and alluring all at the same time!  I wanted to buy everything I saw in front of me.  I ended up with a little tart to put together.  I have never embroidered in my life and decided to just jump in and buy a project.  Audrey was so sweet to mark every page of the "The Embroidery Stitch Bible" so I would know what to study before each stitch.  

Misti is going to make this beautiful piece for one of her daughters! I love it and can't wait to see it finished!

So I got started on my Tart, and never quit!  I have never embroidered before so learned from my new Embroidery book.  

Phase #1

Phase #2

Phase #3

Now Audrey is going to finish it off and make it 3 dimensional!  

I shipped it to Savannah today!!

Mail box surprise!!!!

I was pulling out of my driveway today and as I looked over by my mailbox I see a package setting on top!

I didn't remember ordering anything that size.

I jumped out to see what it was and it was from my friend Renee!!!

We take classes together at the Paper Crown and really got to know each other at the Mary Engelbreit event.  We e-mail back and forth a lot and I am hoping she and I can go to an event sometime together since she is a pro at them!

Anyway, I thought to myself "Shelley when Robin blogs about getting a gift in the mail she talks about savoring all of it.....so don't rip it open yet!"

I waited and when I got home went as slow as I could. I think I got through it in 5 seconds none the less!

At this point my eyes were crossing at all the cool things she had made so special.

I noticed all the special touches with the "Go Red" logos and all the cute bees. Then I dug a little deeper and found......

this amazing heart collage that had a tiny bee, buttons, flowers and heart reminders!  Renee made this special for all my post I made related to my heart condition and my "Go Red" post!  I love it and hung it on my cross wall close to one of my other favorite heart collages from Robin!  So special for someone to think of me and go to all the effort to put all this together!  I love you Renee!  

Renee and Wendy Addison at ME.

It has found a special home in my home:)

I found a 1930's dress form in OKLAHOMA!!!!

Ok most anyone knows from their American history classes that Oklahoma is a fairly new state by comparison.   We were Indian territory so long.  (I am a little bit of a few tribes according to my grandparents:)  So my point is, we do not have all the really old amazing antiques you can find in a lot of other areas of our great country.  I have found an amazing antique store in Bethany, Ok that is quite the contrary though.  It is Norma Jeans!!! 

 I wanted a hard to come by dress form and she was my gal.  When I    asked her about it, she ran home  and came back with two of them.  I   fell in love with one of them and snatched her up right away. She has a beautiful hand made wooden post and base too!

 I love visiting antique stores when I get a chance while in different states because of  all the history you can learn   about that area.  (I love visiting the ones in Colorado.  They let you relive    people's history of such a      difficult life trying to survive in the  mountains.)

Anyway,  I being "Honey Lamb and   I" (a line from our state song     OKLAHOMA) found an amazing old bee hive that stands two feet tall.  It is to be put in a garden as a dome for bees to make a hive!  I had to have it and D'Ann gave it to me for 20% off!!  

I also found some other great buys with old Barbie paper dolls, china dolls, and breakfast tray.

I had a great time with Norma Jean, her daughter and D'Ann. My mom found some great buys too.  They were so sweet with my busy little girl roaming and having to touch EVERYTHING she saw while making me a nervous wreck!

Holly told me that I had to name my new dress form and so I did....... Juliet 

Jewelry - obsession number 1,943,262 for Shelley

Why can't I do a project and be like "no I hate doing this and I will never do it again!!" ?

Since I made the bracelet at ME a few weeks ago, I just want to keep cranking them out.  I bought a few from Kaari while we were there and have put one together.  I hinted to Ryan that they had a monthly club at French General where they would send me three new pieces to make a month.  Being the sweetheart he is, he got me  a gift card to do just that for mother's day! 

It is so fun!  Holly and I have made plans to spend some of our summer with kids playing and us making some baubles!!!

It was a little intimidating at this point.  I was nervous I was going to break one of the glass beads.

But it all worked out......

Go Red luncheon!

Go Red! 

This is the 3rd Go Red luncheon for me to attend.  I actually was one of the speakers at the luncheon a few years back.  I wanted to run up there and grab the mic to tell my story again this time!!  (ok this is the part where my life long friends nod off because they have heard it all many times before!!!)  Anyway, I had a heart attack coming up on 3 years in July.  I had just finished a sprint triathlon and 5 hours later had the attack!  I have a really funny story about the whole episode. I have spoken to different groups, the go red luncheon, a spread in Distinctly Oklahoma Magazine, a local tv station interviewed me on set about my story, and I have been flown to D.C. this year to speak to our congressmen in their offices on Capitol Hill!  Who would have thought my heart attack would give me so many opportunities to share about woman's number one killer!

(as usual I have bad quality pics)

This is Anna Miss Oklahoma International.  She was super sweet and she and her mom sat at our table.

I was really glad that Holly and Leslie both got to come to the luncheon.

The Big Surprise Party!!! Nana is 60!!!

Momma is 60 on Monday and we had a big surprise party with a lot of her girlfriends, sister, daughters and granddaughters! We had all the ladies meet at a church and pile into two limos.

She came out the side door and      started crying!

 The two limos at my folks house

She had fun looking in the cars to see who all was coming!

 This was her corsage from the Flower Boutique.  I love the tiny roses.

We went to the wonderful and beautiful Nona's for brunch in Bricktown.

My sisters, mom, nieces and daughter

Stacie, Sue, mom in law Cindy, Maranda and I

All the gals

Maranda posing in her beautiful JemJam party dress!!

 Avis, the owner of Nona's, came up and told Moma happy birthday too!!:)

We had quiche, bacon, fruit, muffins, mamosas and cake! So yummy!

Momma and her new Paula Deen book from Glenda.

My two pretty little sisters Stefanie and  Stacie.

Patty, Char and Dee rode with us from the church to pick up momma and then they had to get back to work at the Enchanted Cottage.


Ok so what I stayed up until midnight working on every night were all these flower pins that I had learned to make at Kaari Meng's class last week.  

I actually dyed fabric and ribbons to get the color I wanted.  I felt very Martha Stewart! 


The mess I had on the coffee table in the living room all week!

I had the pins to give as a favor at each of the ladies place settings when they arrived at Nona's.  They all put theirs on and I was flattered.  It was really fun to surprise momma.  When we got back to her house, she gave a tour! We then had to give the limos back before they turned into pumpkins!:( 
My mom really is an amazing woman with so many wonderful women in her life.  We should all be so lucky to be blessed with so many sweet girlfriends at the age of 60!  
I love you momma and happy happy birthday!!

Spring Craziness!!!

I am just as busy as usual, but at home!  I have had fun playing with the kids this week and actually cooking dinner and eating at the kitchen table (and even once at the dinning room table) all week!!! The kids have loved playing in the sprinkler, driving the golf cart by  themselves, and spending time with dad and mom both at home.  I have been crafting, but it is a surprise so I will share later.  I am really in the mood to sew a bag.  After going to Mary Englebreit last week and meeting Amy Butler,  I bought one of her patterns for a bag.  Jemellia sews so many great things and I want to too!!! I used to sew a little when I was younger and want to pick it up again.  My surprise craft involves hand stitching so my kids have felt the need to sew too.  They did an ok job but loved it!  If anyone cares, Mary Englebreit put a picture of Jemellia and I one her blog :)  http://www.maryengelbreit.com/blogs/.
Happy belated birthday to Leslie!!! We have all been so busy that we have not been able to celebrate.  We will make up for it next week (I HOPE!!!).

Name dropping to the 10th power!

Jemellia snapped this of Rene and I working hard in Kaari's millinery flowers classs.

These are the two flowers I finished in class!  I had so much fun hand stitching these with Jemellia, Rene and Rachel!  Kaari was a really fun teacher, and I was glad to take both of her classes!!!

Kaari Meng and I 

This is Kaari Meng, Marcia Ceppos and Wendy Addison signing our books.  I forget to get a picture of Mary Engelbreit signing though:(

More name dropping........these are all the books I have bought in the last two weeks that I had signed minus Jo Peckham's!  lol  To tell you the truth,  I wasn't familiar with half of these people until this week!  Jemellia had to give me a little tutorial when we got there! Ha!

Projects

Sweet gifts from Jemellia

Thank you for all your help keeping my kids momma, Stacie, Leslie and Misti!