Happy Halloween! (Almost, anyway)

I finally tried one of Bakerella's ( http://www.bakerella.com/ ) adorable creations. Mine didn't turn out nearly as cute. I may try for round two tommorrow.

A whole new world...

Tonight I took my first baby steps into the world of quilting... I'm attempting to make a Disappearing Nine Patch quilt using nine different patterns from Joel Dewberry and Amy Butler's lines. Here's a few pictures and easy description of how you too can make this quilt!

Disappearing Nine Patch

It starts off easy enough. I cut simple perfect squares to make the nine original pieces for this block. I am using "busy" fabrics with big designs, so i decided to make my squares 6" to try to capture the designs better. I've seen others doing mainly 4" blocks, but so far I'm liking my decision to do them bigger. (and it helps that the blocks end up bigger which mean less blocks to make over all!)

Once you've pieced together the nine patches, you do some slicing and dicing and will end up with this.

Now your block is in 4 pieces. "Why would you cut a perfectly good block into four pieces?", you might ask. It's so you can do this!

Or this!

Or even this! Which is how I actually sewed my first block.

So I'm 1 block down with who knows how many to go. I need to decide first if I'm going for a decorative throw, or actual bed sized queen or king quilt and then do some math to figure out how many blocks I'm going to do in all.

In other news, I started a new job on Monday! I'm working as a clinical manager at a large home health agency. It's a similar role to my last job, but is a better company that services many more patients with more staff and resources to make my job so much easier. Thankfully it also came with a bigger salary and most likely smaller headaches. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out great!

Lastly, for all my crafty friends out there, I was introduced to a FABULOUS fabric shop online that has great sales! Everyone go check out http://www.hancocks-paducah.com/ and browse around their whole collection, but specifically peruse the sale fabrics! They've got tons of 54" home dec weight Amy Butler and Joel Dewberry fabrics on sale for $4.98 a yard! I've seen these in my local stores for anywhere from $15 to $20 a yard. I feel so much better buying a ton when I'm buying it for 1/4th the cost!

Their sale fabrics include great prints from many popular designers, tons of quilting and fashion fabrics and some pretty batiks; so if you have any fabric needs, I'd go there first!

New Fabric!

I love new fabric! My mom gave me a gift certificate to Fabric.com for my birthday and my selections arrived today!

Here's what I got:

Heather Bailey's prints I believe.

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

Amy Butler

How convienient that I get all this before a 3 day weekend! I see crafting in my future!

Organized Craft Room....

I finally did much needed organization to my craft room. It was getting to be a mess. Now I'm going to work on decorating it a bit more, but here's some pictures of my room.

My main work area. I absolutely love this desk, got it at Target.com with free shipping. I also love the wooden sewing box, gift from my Mom. I need to get a better chair, currently using on of my dining room ones.

The brown table on the left is a new sewing table that Mom gave me. Pardon the guinea pig cage, it is a temporary placement.

Anyone ever tried to make an ironing board cover? I'd like to make a cute one, but not sure how to pad it right.

Finally folded all my fabric and fat quarters so I can find what I want when I want it.

My craft room luckily has a great closet for craft supplies. It wouldn't work so great if you wanted to use it like a regular closet though. The bag was made using Amy Butler's Birdie Sling pattern.


One side of the closet housing some fabric scraps, patterns, stuffing, etc.

The other side with ribbon and scrapbooking supplies.

Finally made myself a sewing machine cover with some cute fabric I also got from my Mom. (She gives me a lot! You should see her fabric stash! I could sew daily for years and not make it through half of it)

All the organizing and sewing made Ellie tired.

Dear little blog.....

I've not forgotten you!

We had a great (but horribly hot!) time in Orlando. Since I've been back I've been super busy at work and have been coming home too tired to craft, sew, or anything that I really like to do!

After a week of eating all kinds of goodness from some of my favorite restraunts (Pei Wei, Texas De Brazil, the list goes on....) and feeling like a sweaty pig walking around Disney I decided I needed to recommit to weight watchers so next year if we visit Orlando I can eat less at my favorite restraunts and walk around hot Disney like a sweaty smaller pig. hehe

I went for my first real meeting last Wednesday and weighed in at the highest I've ever been.

=(

Depressing.

But today was my weigh in after a week of being on plan and I lost.....

11 pounds!

Not so bad if I say so myself. I know this is a bigger loss than I will probably ever see again (unless I lose a body part in some terrible accident, hehe) but I'm glad for such a sucessful start that will motivate me to make it through the next week. I've tried online WW before, but this will be my first time doing the meetings. Hopefully it will be easier to follow when I have to go let others see my weight!

My father in law will be visiting us from Tennessee this weekend and that usually means touring the good restraunts in Jacksonville, but not this time. We'll hopefully be doing most meals at home so I can be accountable and stay on track.

On to crafting......

My next projects are

1. making a wallet/sleeve/cover thing for my weight watchers weigh in book. It's a little paper thing that I'm supposed to use all year. I need to make a cute thing to help protect it so it holds up.

2. Making some new totes to carry my lunch to work in. It's gotta be more fun to take it when you're packing a cute bag, right?

3. I think it's time for a new purse. Now which fabric to use...

Heading off for vacation =)

I have time for one last post before we head off for a week of vacation in Orlando. We hope to have a nice, relaxing time and may go "see the mouse" a few times. I'll be looking around for inspiration all week, since i won't be able to work on anything myself.

Here's a few pictures of things I've recently acquired!

I found these at http://www.vistaprint.com/

They offer 500 business cards for free! I'm hoping to start seriously doing an etsy shop and maybe try to sell items in other places as well, so I was excited to find these cards for only the cost of shipping. They offer many different designs in color, all still free! You should go check them out if you have any card needs!

Yesterday was my birthday and it was a good day. My coworkers suprised me with cards, balloons, lottery scratch off tickets (I didn't win so I had to continue working, hehe), muffins, and then we went to lunch. My husband got me some sweet cards and made me a yummy cake and dinner. My Mom is a fellow crafter and shares my love of fabric and gave me a gift certificate for fabric.com and also sent me this awesome handmade coaster set and handmade cards and bracelet! I love them all. Thanks mom! (you can visit her at http://sewmanyprojectssolittletime.blogspot.com )

When I got home today I also had this waiting in my mailbox, my fabric order from www.quiltingasyouwish.com

I've got so many things I want to make! And to make it worse i'm going out of town and away from my sewing machine for 7 days! Their shipping was really fast. I was impressed!

And one last picture, here's my coffee sleeve (I showed it last week on my blog) in action. Perfect size! I gave this one away to someone at work. I'm looking forward to making many more! I may list some in my upcoming shop.

I hope everyone has a great week!

New Project!

Hanging Star Tutorial


Gather supplies:

-Metal Star

-Glue ( I used clear tacky gel, but I bet regular white glue would have been fine)

-Scissors or Rotary Cutter and Self Healing Mat

-Various Scrapbook Paper or Fabrics

This is the star I found on sale at Joann's. The project turns out better if you get a star on clearance. (OK not really, but it makes you feel a bit better about the money you spend on crafting!) My star had already been painted a pale yellow and then distressed. If I were a more industrious person I would have sanded it down to be totally smooth... I however was tired and just worked with what I had and it turned out just fine.

1. I removed the hanging wire to make it easier to manipulate and get my paper on smoother.

2. To make a pattern for your sides, take a sheet of paper and make an imprint of a corner, but keep in mind to cover all segments you will have to make paper or fabric sections with your pattern flipped on each side, as each segment is not the same directionally!

3. Next I cut out my paper pattern and transferred it to a piece of cardboard just so it would hold up for several tracings and cuttings.

4. Use your scissors or rotary cutter to cut out the paper/fabric sections. You can stack multiple pieces to cut at once, but remember that the pieces go different directions, alternating around the star.

5. Once you have all 10 sections cut out, arrange them how you would like them to lay on your star.

6. I found the best way to attach my paper with full coverage was to apply the glue to the star itself and them rub it all over one section at a time. Alternatively you can do the same to the back of the paper or fabric sections. Place the paper around all the sections, trying to avoid any gaps if you don't want your star to show through. Rub out any bubbles that form.

7. All done with the first round of gluing! Congrats! Admire your star!

If you like the look of this, you're all done! If you're like me and have been looking for an excuse to decoupage something, allow your star to dry completely from this first round of gluing.

Check back tomorrow for the second half of my star project tutorial! (Cause I'm waiting for my star to dry before I can continue!)

And the winner is.....

#65, as selected by random.org!

Congrats to Beth, who left the following comment:

Beth said...
Thanks for visiting my blog for my giveaway! I used the same fabric for my doll kimono that is in your inaugural blog. Those little birdies are so cute. I'll be sure to come and check you out again.

Beth blogs over at http://snoodle.typepad.com/ .

Checkbook; First Draft // Giveaway almost given!!

I've come up with two style ideas to make checkbook covers. Tonight I tried the first. Overall it turned out ok, but I'm already changing it up a bit for my second draft. This one is made of Amy Butler fabrics and took roughly 30 minutes to cut out, fuse interfacing, and put together. It took an additional 20 minutes to battle with my machine over bobbin issues. Hopefully you can aviod the last 20 should you try to make something similar!

Outside
Open

With checks and register.

Tommorrow I'm going to try my second idea and see which one works best. I may try to make a quick tutorial if anyone's interested! It's pretty easy!
- - - - - - - - - -

I will be using random.org tommorrow morning around 7am to pick the winner of the Quilted List Taker I posted a few days ago. I will announce the winner on here, and email or post to their blog. If I do not hear back within 24 hours I will pick a new winner. Good Luck!

Giveaway Success and tried a new tutorial.

It's exciting at how many comments and visits to my blog I've gotten from the Sew, Mama, Sew giveaway! I've found so many new fun blogs to follow from the giveaway listings. My giveaway will be open until I wake up Monday morning, so check out my giveaway post and enter if you haven't yet! =) The winner will be contacted Monday.

While registering for other's great giveaways, I came across a blog with a link to a great coffee sleeve tutorial. I whipped up a few this morning.




I think they turned out pretty cute! They took no time at all to make either. I'm thinking of a few modifications I may try in the future though.

You can check out the tutorial here http://houseonhillroad.typepad.com/coffeecozy.pdf

Now I just need to go to Starbucks to try them out!

Sew Mama Sew May Giveaway Day!

Hi everybody! I'm new to craft blogging and after finding so many great blogs out there I've decided to participate in the Sew, Mama, Sew May Giveaway Day.




The giveaway officially starts tommorrow, May 27th and I will be accepting comment entries until May 31st. On June 1st I will select a winner from the comments. I will be shipping only to the USA for my first giveaway.

I really hope to get some new readers and followers of my blog as well as find more great blogs to read! I'm going to soon try my hand at making free tutorials for bags I've designed and a few other craft items I've been working on and will be sharing them on my blog. I have also linked to my new etsy shop, which will be getting more items in the near future.

For this May Giveaway Day I've decided to offer this cute Quilted List Taker!

This quilted list taker is fun and easy to make and was designed by Jennifer Casa - a tutorial is available at her etsy shop at jcasa.etsy.com.

So please feel free to leave a comment below to enter to win the quilted list taker! If you have any great blogs you maintain or love to read, share them with me in your comment. Please leave either a link to your blog or email so I can contact the winner! Good luck! =)

Want an extra entry into the drawing? Follow my blog! Click "Follow Blog" at the top of the page!

Jacksonville Senior Expo

This year I organized a booth for my company at the 13th annual City of Jacksonville Senior Expo. It kicked off today and will conclude tomorrow. I apparently very much under estimated the appeal of the "freebie". We were practically under attack all morning by people taking handfuls of our pens, jar lid openers, nail files, etc. Some of the seniors tried to walk off with the mugs holding our free pens and other supplies. Some other seniors tried to pick up and make off with our giveaway baskets. More than a handful berated us for not giving away parts of our display. I think a few of the attendees would have taken our clothes right off our body if given the chance... It was rather amusing..

I'm happy to report that with a strong multi person defensive line, we luckily at the end of day 1 still had all our permenant display items in our possession. I hope to report the same such luck after the end of tomorrow.
I'm still deciding what to make for the Sew, Mama Sew giveaway... It's been a busy week with the expo and my parents visiting from Tennessee. We're also on day 5 of a particularly nasty "nor'easter" as they're calling it on the news. Torrential rain and winds up to 50mph have made my week a little rougher. Here's hoping for clearer weather and crafty inspiration!

Inagural Blog

I'm new to the craft blogging world, but after gaining so much inspiration from all my favorite blogs out there, I've decided to try to maintain my own blog to share ideas, show off new things I've made, and get suggestions and feedback from all my fellow crafters out there...

Here's some new things I made yesterday for a "grandkids" giveaway basket my work will be raffling off at the Jacksonville Senior Expo next week. I may have gone a bit overboard with this adorable fabric I found yesterday at JoAnns. I used it for a bib, tree applique on a blanket I bought, burp cloth, washcloth, appliqued onsie with a birdie similar to ones in the fabric itself and then a stuffed birdie toy.

Today I'm going to decide what to make for the Sew Mama Sew May Giveaway Event. You can check out the info about this event here.