{special thanks to Izzi for a lot of these pics from the party!!}

Sometimes we just have to get our craft on, dontcha think?

Well, for the last few weeks, I've been doing just that! Are you ready for a long post of pictures? Those are usually my favorite!!

So we threw a fun graduation party for my Cora last weekend! And we had a lot of little details that we incorporated in our decorations. As it happened, we were a little under the gun with wind and other craziness, and I didn't get all of the pictures I wanted. But I did get some! 🙂

One of the things we really wanted was a photo booth!! After ditching the idea of a backdrop (wind didn't allow it!), we moved it to another place at the park.

Here are two of my fave collections:

the boys…(I love baby Jack in there!!!)

Aren't we adorable??? I love Mr Gorgeous!! 

Did I mention the cans that Cora covered in scrapbook paper and then we filled with flowers?

We covered the tables with paper and put crayons on there for the guests to draw and write… most guests wrote a little something for Cora…

We decorated other tables with special Cora things!

Check out her custom cake…

My darling friend Melanie made it for Cora…don't even ask how many pounds of butter are in this thing!!! It was amazing!!!

and the topper…

I whipped this up:

I cut out two moustaches out of a cereal box and painted all sides with chalkboard paint and added two bamboo skewers. Cora wrote "yippee" on it! I love chalkboard paint…big time!!!

 We had this fun idea to have clothes lines up for pictures of Cora strewn on them. We didn't really think about wind too much beforehand, so when it came time to put them up, there was a little bit of difficulty! But we persevered!!

We put together some tags with baker's twine, and my darling mom stamped a guitar on each of them. We put them in a little basket for everyone to grab one and write a little something to Cora! :) 

I also fixed up an old suitcase to hold all of Cora's cards. We put some other fun stuff in there, too…the cards on the suitcase clothesline says "Sweet Cards". Fun!! 

The ladder behind the suitcase is holding one side of the tags/pictures clothesline.

My fun screen doors (which I recovered with burlap potato sacks that I got from the Round Top Antiques Fair last October) are holding the right side of the clothesline. You can kind of see the tags and pics blowing in the wind!

This table (above) was holding a bunch of Cora's favorite things: Teddy, books, her diploma, a scrapbook…etc. 🙂 super fun!!

One of my fave moments, though, was when Cora opened my graduation gift to her. She wasn't too surprised that it was a quilt. It's been hard to keep this a secret since it was a pretty big project for me!! She hadn't seen the blocks or the border fabric, though!

Now, this is my second MUST-FINISH that I brought to the HMQG in January. (remember this post?) Here is my before pic from that Jan meeting:

I'm not sure what I was thinking in this pic…But check out Cora's expression when she opened the whole thing:

and the full quilt?

fun, huh??? 

I used a pattern from Amy Ellis's Modern Basics book! This is my second finish from that book. I have two more tops that I've finished from it! so fun!!!

One of the special things about this quilts is the journey that I took to get it done. Cora has been asking me to make her a quilt ever since I started quilting about 10 years ago. She has been hoarding her father's quilt that his great grandmother Cora made for him when he was a teenager. My Cora asked specifically for a quilt that was quilted just like his. So for the last year, I have been learning how to do this on my own. When we decided on this pattern, I just thought I would send it out to be quilted. But instead, I started practicing. And when she saw Nathan's quilt two weeks ago, she said, "Hey, that's quilted just like Dad's quilt!" That's when I really knew I was going to pull it off!! :) 

It's going to be sad to see that quilt go off to college…not to mention the little girlie!! 🙂

BTW, did you see my bunting up above our heads? I adore that bunting!! I'm trying to figure out where to put it up in our house now that the party is over!! I don't want to hide it!!

We all had a magnificent time at the party!!!!

 Why can't they all stay young like this, though???

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Fabric life at the Keller's hasn't stopped, though!!

I got these trees in the mail! They are awesome!! It was a Misfit Quilters Swap last fall! I can't wait to finish this little quilt, as per the Purl Soho blog pattern here!!

This one was mine:

Really fun, huh???

Be sure you pop over to Julie's blog and sign up for her newsletter!! Brooke and I have another really cool tutorial for you that will be linked in her May newsletter! Plus you want to see all of her Market pictures!! I was really sad to miss Market this Spring, but I'll be there with bells on in the Fall right here in Houston!!

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I also have a really, really cool surprise that you can "pre-see" if you run over to Amanda's blog right here and watch her little fun video!!! HINT: Be sure to look for my name…teeheeee!!

Have a wonderful week! I'll be back on Friday for some more quilty finish fun!! yay!!!!