de Jong Dream House: Grandma's Kitchen block #21, Telephone Time

Only four more blocks left of Pat Sloan's Grandma's Kitchen sew along! Today's block is Telephone time.

As you can see, I stayed with the general theme of the block, but I changed my phone to one that is more like I remember. I am old enough to remember rotary phones, but we were fancy and had touch buttons!

The other reason I switched up the block is because I had a new toy I wanted to play with: a Cricut Explore Air 2. I've been a Silhouette Cameo girl for the last several years, but I've been a little frustrated with it lately and decided to take advantage of a sale.

Another Silhouette user told me that the Cricut cutting mats work better than the Silhouette ones. That has been my experience too so I've already been using Cricut mats. On the left, I cut with my Cameo. With the right, I used the Cricut. There is a little bit of a learning curve, but I met a new local friend who walked me through my first design.

My Gramma Ann lived from 1921 to 2014. It's amazing to think of all the ways the world changed in her lifetime, especially in regard to technology. I love this picture of my son, then 3, showing her how to use his LeapPad, a kid-friendly tablet.

Gramma never had a computer (or email or social media), but she loved getting phone calls from family. Whenever she greeted me, on the phone or in person, she would say, "Hi Doll!" My mom lived down the street from me for most of her later years. I remember her (mostly) patiently showing her how to use her new senior-friendly cell phone.

I'm so happy that I have a voicemail saved from her. The message makes me smile because she didn't realize that she was leaving a message so it's two minutes of her talking to herself trying to figure out my number and why the phone wasn't ringing. But most of all, I love that I can still hear her voice.