M.C. Ham Pop!

Blarrrrghhhh....

Taxes. Yuck. That is pretty much all I have to say on the matter of ..... taxes...

Colt and I are trying to conquer them right now, and basically all we have accomplished is totally bumming out on the amount of money we are spending on crap. ( fast food and gadgety-things) (other things are labeled as Non-crap, such as business expenses and such) I was in charge of the fancy big calculator, and Colt was in charge of reading out reciept totals. Man, I caught myself saying, "What really? We paid that much for THAT?" Or, "Auuuuggggh, that was a stupid purchase" or the most frequented of sentences, "MONEY SUCKS, WE AREN'T SPENDING ANYMORE OF IT!" Sigh, why is money such a big deal, why can't we just share everything we have. I really hate spending money, I haven't spoiled myself to anything other than food in a long while. It just scares me when money starts to disappear in the bank account. Augh. Well, I am glad to be almost done with.......taxes... And it was nice to add up what we did make this year, and we were happily surprised with the total amount! Heres to hoping for an AWESOME tax return! But for now, we are feeling kind of like this

When I typed in "frusterating taxes" into Google images, this was the photo that came up the most. Isn't it just wonderful. Makes me laugh everytime.

And I kind of feel like doing this sometimes too.

Buuuut I guess they have to get done. Welp! *pushes up glasses* Off to crunch some serious numbers!

Happy Feet!

Craigslist can be a wonderful thing. The other day I saw a job posting for drawing on Toms Brand Shoes for a publicity event at Nordstrom. I usually don't like malls. Still don't as a matter of fact. Well, after an email and a few days later a phone call, Abi and I were invited to come draw on shoes for a few lucky people who came to  buy shoes at the event. This first pair was a test run of the neon paint pens we got, and the rest are the results of what Abi and I came up with!

Abigayl does rule.

Fun Peacock Feather

I need to practice my owls...

I loved doing some cholo skulls..

Go Utes! 

It's Tinkerbell.

Abi fixed the Expeto to Expecto on the Harry Potter shoes. She was stoked to get the persons shoes who was into Harry Potter.

I got to do a chubby Zebra

Abi's Fancy Design

Super Porter!

Our sweet little cousin is going through a lot right now. He was in the hospital because he wasn't able to put on any weight, and his feeding tubes were getting messed up. But through many tests and screenings of his body, to find out any clues on why he wasn't growing, they found tumor in his brain. No one saw this coming, and our family is really coming together through this very hard trial for the Frandsen family.

I am writing this post to let you know Porter, that I think that you are a SUPER HERO. I mean no mere human can be SO STRONG, and SO TOUGH, and SO COURAGEOUS! You definitely are a super human! You aren't going to give up the fight! Beat up all those bad guys! POW! BAM! You are amazing!

Colt and I love you very much, and we wish that we could see you more and get to know you and your awesome brothers better. But even though we are far away, we are sending you our love! Keep a look out in the mail Super P! An awesome letter is coming your way!

(since the letter is so awesome, and it is only going to Porter, I thought it would be unfair if you guys never got to see it! So I attached a picture below!)

Here is a closer look at the adorable super hero himself! SUPER PORTER!

Colt's amazing teacher Jake Parker, who is SO TALENTED, ( http://www.agent44.com/ seriously, check his stuff out!) drew this super adorable picture for our main hero! He has worked on some pretty big movies like, Horton Hears a Who, BOLT, Ice Age, and the new movie Rio! Cool Huh!? I told him about Porter, and asked if he could draw him a cool picture, to which he said, "OK OK, don't tell me anymore, I am going to start crying! I will draw him anything!"

So he lovingly labored on this way cute picture, just for P-man himself! I got to color it... :) didn't do too bad of a job if I do say so myself. *wink*

I hope you like it Porter! I wish we could do more, but I hope that making you smile is ok. I love your smile! Don't you ever stop doing it!

Love you with all our hearts,

Abigayl and Colt

Fun with Photos!

So, spring is here.. Voila! Out of nowhere it is warm, pleasant and enjoyable to be outside again.

After classes, we decided to go test out the new camera a little more with a photo shoot by the Misses.

I love these shots and their lack of gravity ..

And p.s. I did land something!

Surprise!

Well, since none of you guessed, I guess I will just have to tell you what I made! I was actually surprised on how quickly I finished this! I could have done it in a day if I really wanted too, but I spread it out. It was such a fun thing to make, and I would like to give a BIG shout out to my amazing Mother inlaw Karen who is so wise and who helped me out so much! Without her, I think I would have given up and just sacked the whole project. THANKS KAREN!

So here is the big project I have been working on for the past week!

It is called a "Stacked Coin" Quilt! I made it for a dear friend of mine who had a sweet baby girl on the first of January. Today was her blessing day, and so that is why I had just a weeks time to finish it.

Her mom, the amazing Megan, wanted it to be pink and brown (well actually, she didn't know what I was making, I just asked her). So Colt was so gracious and drove me over to JoAnn's, where I found these adorable prints!

I then I cut long rectangle strips of 4"x16" of each fabric, and then sewed them side by side as seen here.

I then cut them across width wise, so the squares were 4"x4". So the end result was a strip of 4 different fabrics, each fabric square being 4"x4". Then you take 3 of those long rectangles and sew them end to end, to make a LONG strip, as seen below. Now if you don't want any of the same fabric touching each other, you have to strategically map that out. Which I didn't do....and so 2 squares of the same fabric were touching in the end result. But really I didn't care anymore, because poor Karen and I were trying to puzzle piece that thing to make it fit, and we were turning them every which way possible for an hour, but to no avail. OH WELL.

The next step was to place the white strips inbetween the strips of squares. Karen had some pillowcases that she wasn't using from Ikea, and so we RECYCLED (always an awesome and free option!) and cut them into strips for the middle sections, in between the patterned fabric. The awesome thing about these pillow cases was that they didn't have a seam at the end, so when I cut it, I didn't have to sew it back together! It fit the length of the quilt perfectly when they were cut into strips! Having the white solid strips in between the blocks is the "pattern" of a stacked coin quilt. That is what makes it unique! Don't you think it looks cute?!

Next came the border! Karen had some adorable pink polkadot fabric to spare, and so we used it to form the border of the quilt. I sewed that on in a couple of minutes, and BAM! The top of my quilt was finished! Voila!

I then basted the front, batting, and back together with about a million safety pins. I rolled some of the brown over the pink border, so it gave it a smaller brown border around the edge of the quilt. This was a difficult part, but I survived. Lets just say, it looked very handmade. :)

I then wrapped it up with a big bow, and gave it to Megan and little Audrey.

I hope you like it Miss Audrey Grace! You better snuggle up like a bug in a rug!

I know she is crying in this picture, but as soon as Megan wrapped her up in it, she fell right asleep! It must be the fuzzy soft backing, SO SOFT.

P.S. I am proud to say that this quilt cost only 25 dollars total to make! It had to be the fastest quilt I have ever made and it still looked adorable! Recycling is a key factor here people!

Well I hope I didn't disappoint! Enjoy it baby Audrey!

Mustache

So Colt and I were commissioned to make a mustache costume. Oh yeah, you read that right. A mustache costume. At first we were at a loss on how we were going to do this. We drew up sketches and tried to figure out just how the heck this thing was going to fit on a person. We went and looked at supplies, and man, the price tags were scary. Foam is 60 bucks a yard people! $60!

We got some very furry brown fabric which looked very mustache like, at this little quilting shop, which was Very fortunate.

So tonight Colt set out to conquer this huge, furry beast! He kept coming to show me the developments, and I could NOT stop laughing! First when he was wearing it, it didn't have the foam in it to give it more of a solid shape. So he looked like Cookie Monster!

And then when he came back downstairs after a while, and I hear this struggling noise. And then the door bursts open, and BAM! Giant mustache! He couldn't fit through the door the normal way, so he had to shuffle in sideways. I am still confused on how he got down the stairs! I wish I could have seen it. Then he went back to finish it, and then he comes back down stairs (of which he actually fell on, when he was NOT in the mustache costume, poor silly boy) And he was like "GO TO YOUTUBE".

There I found out the answer to what he was doing for the last hour.

Masterpiece.

(He couldn't reach the button to turn off the camera, so he had to peck it with his nose, that is why he goes down in the end of the video. Instant Classic.)

I was laughing so hard I was crying and could hardly breathe. I had to stop the video a couple times because I wanted to watch it, but I couldn't see though the streaming tears. So. Good.

I love my husband, he can make me laugh in any situation! He is so creative, and not afraid to look completely ridiculous. I love him to bits! Thanks for the tears of laughter dear Husband.

P.S. Up next MILKSHAKE COSTUMES. For real. I am so excited to see how that hilarity will turn out. Wish us luck!

TOP SECRET!

So for the last week, I have been working on a project! I won't blog about it until I am done, (which will inevitably be on Sunday, because that is when I have to give it away as a present. Which is kind of sad because I am SO DANG PROUD OF MYSELF. And it looks way awesome.) (wow...that was a really long parenthesis sentence...sorry) ANYWAY. SO. DANG. PROUD. OF. MYSELF! What? Oh did I say that already? Sorry. Wait, no I am not. IM AWESOME.

So, I am going to blog about it when I am done! So you all will just have to wait in suspense! MWAHAHA.

You could play the guessing game too in the comments box if you would like. Maybe it will give me future ideas for other projects! READY, GO.

Late Night Giggles