Another birthday - Karen - the Big Three Oh!!

Karen brings up the tail end of Birthday Season here.... no more birthdays until fall!

She was kind of tired of the buttercream iced cakes she makes from her Wilton class recipes.... so I decided to try something new....

I made a regular white (french vanilla flavor) cake, and planned to frost it with cream cheese frosting. I took strawberries.... cut them up.....

And made a bit of strawberry syrup, and strained it and poured it over some additional sliced berries.

These were put in the middle between the layers, with a thin layer of cream cheese frosting to hopefully keep the lower cake from getting soggy, and a dam of frosting around the edge to prevent leaking....

And then iced the rest, as usual. I think it worked!

We celebrated with dinner at T.G.I.Friday's. Her dear friend from high school, Dani, came by with flowers for her, at the restaurant. I was so blown away by seeing Dani, and hearing about her engagement and seeing her ring, that I completely lost my mind and failed to get a picture of the girls together! Dani, can I have a do over?

I did get a pic of Karen with the flowers Dani brought, later! Dani had to leave, and after she was gone, I had my "duh" moment and got out the camera!

Because Dani had brought flowers, the waiter was tipped off about the birthday and he and his crew brought Karen ice cream and sang. Karen produced her "red face" on cue!!

We came home and she opened presents and enjoyed her cake!

Happy Birthday Karen!!

More Saturday Sampler Minis

The big block (10 inches finished) for this month is done.....

As for the mini blocks? The three smaller (five inch) blocks we make each month?

From many teentsy tiny pieces?

Here's the first one I tried this month (above). And here is the second (below).

These kicked my butt around the block. But I perservered and baby, I got two of them done last night! The third one I will conquer tonight!

:)

Three more quilts for Crisis Centers!!

Karene and Yvette have donated these gorgeous quilts to our efforts for the Women's Crisis Centers in Wyoming.... Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!


Karene's is a beautiful, happy bee quilt! This is perfect for one of the cribs! Isn't it cute?!



































I think those bees are adorable! Karene appliqued them and they just make me smile!


And Yvette's is a double size quilt that is backed with flannel.... What a pretty tulip design!!






































This has made me completely rethink the backing for a few of the quilts I'm making for the Crisis Centers. Talk about increased warmth! The flannel is an idea I had not considered.

With that in mind, I took some left over squares I had in 30's reproductions and made a quick crib quilt the other night.... And backed it with some flannel I had on hand. At one time, I thought I'd make jammie pants for my girls from this blue plaid flannel.... But we live in SoCal - flannel jammie pants are too much and this fabric has just sat in my stash....

Yay, busted some stash and hopefully this will keep a baby cozy in Wyoming.... which DOES get cold! We're sending twice as many crib quilts as there are cribs, so hopefully we'll have some for all seasons, and backup quilts for when a child is sick or one is in the laundry!

Thanks everyone! :)

See Joy Catch Up #2

Day Two of our Mini-Retreat at Ms. Ellen's, we continued working on our web sampler blocks. Some of us are making them in the original pattern colors, and some of us are doing our own thing.....

Here are our blocks!

And here is Karene, our birthday girl!

And look at this gorgeous block Ellen is doing for a table topper! Sew Pretty!!

We're going to have another get together at Ellen's soon, for a Stripping Party! (Her husband quipped that he'd be sure and be gone that day!! I think he was afraid of just what a stripping party would entail with all us "not exactly spring chicken" ladies!)

We're actually going to take squares I will cut and mark, and use them as a base for strip quilted squares and hopefully, while having fun and enjoying ourselves, we will bust a lot of stash and make enough blocks for two twin quilts for the Crisis Centers!

:)

See Joy Catch Up #1

We got together a few weeks ago, us Red Hot Sew'nSews, for a mini-retreat at Ellen's house. She graciously let us come to sew on a consecutive Saturday and Sunday and it was HEAVEN!


On Saturday, Yvette, Jenny and I were with Ellen. Yvette brought some gorgeous blocks she had made in both a black version and a white version. Here are a few pictures of the white one!

She got really tired of making these, and after seven blocks of each set, decided not to do any more. (might have had something to do with each block having 4,592 pieces!!) Instead of making more, she decided that since they "really were just not her", she would put six of the completed blocks from each set together, and sash them, and hopefully with a border they would become much appreciated twin quilts for the crisis centers!

Happy Dance!

So she squared up, cut sashing, and pinned, and I sewed...

YAY!!! The white one is done except for borders! Thank you Yvette!!

We sewed the whole day! (well, except for the part in the early morning, where we went to pick up our BOM at Saturday Sampler at Orange Quilt Bee.....) Here's this month's block I'll be working on.

At the Bee, I had a major "must have it" attack over this pattern!

Yep! I came home with it! More pix from the Sunday part of the mini-retreat up next! (I hate fighting Blogger on pictures, so will make multiple posts with fewer pix when I have a lot to share!)

Here's one more pic.....




















I came home that night and made a cake for a certain someone who was having a birthday soon.... Mr. B has decided that one of the few benefits of having the kids all grown and gone most of the time, is that there is no competition for getting to lick the beaters when I bake cakes!

:)

The Big Six Oh

We're becoming antiques here at Chez Bury. I turned 55.... and then, not to be outdone, Michael turned 60.

Such a momentous occasion was worthy of a special cake, Karen decided! And since her Dad and I hail from the "flower power" and "groovy" years, she decided to replicate his prized 1971 VW Bus!












































Is that not the cutest thing?

It tasted good too! We made quite a dent in it, although it seemed a shame to cut it!


















We took him to dinner at his new favorite Pizza place, Tony's, in Fullerton. Patrick and TiJae were able to join us.

The deep dish pizzas are MASSIVE, and the cheese and ingredients are SO thick - the pizza weighs a ton and the best that some of us could do was two pieces and we were stuffed!

Patrick found the Ranch Dressing!

We had too much pizza. Patrick and TiJae took home some pizza and so did we!

One of Michael's favorite gifts was something I'd looked for for three years. A favorite show of his, as a child, was Whirlybirds. It was about helicopters. Unlike The Fugitive and Cannon and other old shows he loved, this one was NOT available. I finally found it online and it made him grin from ear to ear. On his birthday, he watched about three episodes!

He had a tiny cake that morning with gifts - that little lumpy cake was made from the bits left over from the VW cake... it was sad looking, but delicious!

Happy Birthday Michael!