Embossed monogrammed notecards

Here are some gifts- can you guess their names?
I had the best day making these in Mammoth Mountain, in our hotel room (!) while Justin snowboarded. I broke for lunch and took the gondola up the mountain to meet Justin for some chili in a bread bowl. Grabbed some hot chocolate and wrote Christmas cards while watching Shawshank Redemption on TV.

All this while enjoying a view of the snow covered trees and mountains outside my window :) That's my idea of fun. I know. It's weird.

Christmas gifts

As Justin calls our kitchen table "Santa's Sweatshop"...

Here are a few things I'm working on (wipes sweat from brow)

Birthday Bonanza

Here are a variety of birthday cards I made tonight while Justin played Call of Duty. Some I'm more proud of than others. The balloon one is for my 3 yr old niece Olivia. Justin suggested I use string for the balloons instead of pen :)

Oh and the last one is for my friend Sarah from community group whose baby short is this weekend.

Quilted wristlet!

This wristlet is for Kathy, Justin's best girl friend, whose birthday is this week. I figure she can pull this owl pattern off. I quilted it just like I did for the potholders, except this time I criss-crossed over the diagonal lines to make little diamonds. I used felt, but batting would have made it pucker more. Next time. The most time was spent on figuring out how to cover up the zig zag stitches on the wristlet string attached to the keychain.

It looked pretty ugly bc I reinforced it so much, so I had to sew a little strip and wrap it around the stitches, but hen came across the same problem, how do I avoid having raw edges on the outside of the wristlet?

Since I'm new at this, I had to play around with it, but I ended up taking a small stop, folding it in half, unfolding it, then folding in the edges towards the center on both sides. Then right sides together, I sewed these together and flipped the loop inside out so that the stitches are on the inside. Then I slipped this loop over the gross zig zags. And...I'm done! Sent to Austin!

Ruffled reversible tote bag

Let's see...this one took me about an hour and a half to make: a tote bag for my sister-in-law's birthday which always falls on Halloween! She likes earthy tones, so that's why I picked this fabric.

Tutorial here: http://www.mommybydaycrafterbynight.com/2011/08/ruffled-tote-tutorial.html?m=1

I heart ruffles!

Baby Shower Favor Bags

So my friend Grace is having her second baby and I had the pleasure of co-hosting with her Fuller friends.

My instructions were to fill cellophane bags with purple and pink candy, the theme color of the shower.

You forget that pastel colored individually wrapped candy is not sold all year round (Easter), but thankfully Hershey makes dark chocolate kisses that come in purple foil. Don't get me started on buying non-fair-trade chocolate...I promise that is my last Hershey purchase in life.

So then I mixed the purple with the silver kisses, and to add the pink, I made the logo pink. Now the owl was out of pure whim, because I like owls and I know Grace would like them too. It had absolutely nothing to do with the tea party theme (no, not that kind), but whatever!

First time designing a little logo in Word, because I was recently inspired by my buddy Liz and her save the dates that looked so professional.

And lastly, this gave me an awesome excuse to use my circle punch and scalloped scissors. I bet there is a scalloped circle punch out there so I don't have to cut it out by hand, but until then, and until it is 50% off at Michael's with a 20% coupon off your entire purchase...scissors it is!

Large Make-up Bag

So I got "brave" and "winged it" for this make-up bag. I used the same tutorial as last time, but played with the measurements. The boxed corners is what threw me off. At first I did them at 5 inches, but that made the bag look tall and weird. So I adjusted it to 4 inches. And the rectangles were 12x14.

The only thing I have left to figure out is how to make it sturdier. I already used interfacing.

Kindle Fire Case

I am very excited about this finished product which took me about 2 hours. This is for Justin's mom's birthday and she loves to read and has a kindle fire. I don't have one to measure, but I expanded the measurements by half an inch because the kindle fire is thicker than mine, the kindle 3, which she got me for my birthday. I used fleece as padding, which is nice and squishy, in case she drops it or something.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

PS about a year ago, this was the first kindle case I sewed.

Stationery and drawstring gift bag

For Priscilla's birthday

Replicating Ideas

It's always fun to see something I like online and replicate it. I am not good at creativity, but I enjoy trying out other people's ideas. Why reinvent the wheel?

So to give credit where credit is due: http://stampinanne.blogspot.com/
This card caught my eye:

The template

My finished version

Grace and I were watching "The Vow" while I made this: nothing like a chick flick and crafting for girl-bonding time!

Next, I got my idea from this blog: http://inkingaloud.blogspot.com/

This card gave me an excuse to use my new circle punch!!:

The template

My version

By the way, how do they get the lighting to be so soft? I just opened up my living room curtains to let the sunshine in and hoped for the best!

Chick flicks and Stamping!

Grace came over today and brought "The Vow" to watch while she cross-stitched and I stamped. There were lots of gasps and tears...and I got two cards done.

Here's the one I'm prouder of:

Make-up bag

This is for my bFf Jeannie's 28th birthday! Also came with a matching drawstring bag, but forgot to take a photo.

Happy Birthday, Jeannie! I still remember our dance parties with strobe lights and NSYNC choreographed dances on our sweet 16 bday parties :) long live JT!

Reversible Tote

I tried to replicate the bag I bought from Kauai, because it was what inspired me to sew to begin with:

Jewelry Roll

Why a jewelry roll? I was first inspired to see my sister's jewelry tree, which she purchased at Ross for $15.00. If we had more counter space in our current apartment, I might be able to fit a tree somewhere....but alas we have none. I have gotten really tired of untangling my necklaces from my earrings and trying to find missing earrings...then I saw a blog tutorial for a quilted table runner and then my imagination ran wild. Maybe not wild, but anything I think of outside of what already exists is considered wild.

So this project has been sitting in my closet for awhile because I couldn't figure out how to sew the plastic onto the fabric without ripping holes. Finally, all it took was putting a scrap of fabric underneath the left side of the foot, in order to move the fabric along, instead of getting caught on the plastic, going nowhere

I used scraps to create the background, and tried to fake my way through using homemade bias tape. Do not look carefully at the corners!

So I put all my jewelry in there (do you see the NightLighti pieces?) and roll from right to left

I'm rolling...

Still rolling...on the left you'll see a chunky drawstring that I attached to the end

Tie it all up with a bow and it is ready to go!

Upclose shot of the roll :)

This jewelry roll will be at my nightstand most of its life, but if I go travelling, now I can bring this with me and my earrings and necklaces won't get all tangled up! I'm so relieved that this is done because it's been bothering me for 3 months, but I will never make one of these again: too much work and not enough benefit!

Cupcake Gift Wrapping

So I wanted to fold the burp cloths and receiving blankets in a creative way. Thanks to pinterest, I got a few ideas.

Since Sandra loves cupcakes, I thought she would be tickled.