In the Barbie House

At my house is a Barbie dream home that I picked up on our local Marketplace.  My four-year old granddaughter loves to play with it and I work on making her items to make the place a nicer home for the dolls and all of their pets to live.  :)

In this photo, I crocheted the fringed blanket for the bed and the little mat for the dog that can also be used as a blanket for the dog or a rug for the floor.  I made a little pillow and a pillowcase along with some throw pillows to soften up the look of the plastic furniture.  

For the family room, I made some little crocheted throws for the love seat.  She likes to also use them as dog mats or blankets for the dog beds.  

I love the imagination of a four year old.  The pieces are very versatile in her world and can be used in many ways.

Here you can see some of the pets.  There are about 30 of them.  So I guess we could call it the Barbie Dog House instead of the Dream House.  But there's lots of room for creative play.

This week I made four pink beach towels to be used at the pool.  I sewed a little piece of colorful ribbon on the top of them for decoration.

I told her about them and she will be over soon to see and use them.

I'm sure the dogs will be using these along with the dolls for both sun bathing mats and for swimming.  

Here's a picture of my sweet little girl.  I was teaching her to sew using sewing cards.  She did such a good job that I don't see that there will be any problems in her future sewing skills!

Hopefully she will love crafts as much as her Nana.  :)

 

Quilt Retreat Coming Up also known as Unfinished Projects

In a few weeks, I have a three-day quilt retreat to go to.  I'm looking forward to spending time with my quilty friends and work on a few unfinished quilts.  

I thought that I would bring this quilt.  It's from Corey Yoder made with her fabrics.  I've liked the pattern for a while and started this about two months ago.  It has cute sashing with stars in it and I hope to actually finish it for myself.  I have collected a lot of Corey's fabrics and feel like I could make 5-6 quilts with what I've got.  So I'd better finish at least one of them.

This soon-to be-made quilt is half square triangles made from an older line of Tilda fabrics, called Plum Garden.  One day I just took it out and started to work on this layout for it.  I don't have a pattern; I just saw a photo on the Internet. 

I'm going to bring this along with me on the retreat, also, so I'm hoping to get some things done while I'm there.  

I've numbered all of the pieces and will need to square them and sew them into rows.  I will have to figure out what to use for a border - the fabric line is old and I can't find any more of it.

But I will figure out something when I get to that point.

When I was working on the Plum Garden quilt above, I got a bit carried away and started to sew up a couple more charm square packs from assorted Tilda collections.  

So now I have enough to make a second quilt from my half square triangles.  I sewed together 144 of them last week in preparation for my quilt retreat.

We'll see what actually gets done.  LOL

FYI - there are other quilts laying around that just need borders, backing and/or quilting to finish them up.  

I'm going to try to finish those up by the end of the year.  Maybe I'll throw them in the retreat bag, as well.  I will need way more than three days, but I will try to get as much done as I can.  Wish me luck!

 

Stamped Post-It Note Holders

In my house I have two crafting rooms.  One is for sewing and the other one is from my stamping and paper projects.  And I'm always torn between my two loves.  :)

This week I made some Post-It Note holders in my stamping room.  For these pretty purples ones, I used Perennial Lavender designer papers and some punched out flowers from Petal Park stamp set.  These flowers are a quick and easy go-to because the flowers stamp three at a time and then have a punch.  So you can make them fast without using the Big Shot machine.

I'm pretty involved in my church and I often have the Bible study ladies over for dinner or a crafting night.  They like to buy things from my Shop and always ask for cards and small projects with Scriptures on them.  So I made these as part of my Faith Collection, that contains some of my crafts with a a more inspirational feel to them.

Here are some note pads made with the lovely Charming Day papers.  They coordinate with the cards that I made a couple of weeks ago.  And there's even a small inspirational block in the photo.

I love making multiples of things and then displaying them in my little Shop.  But they don't stay there for long - they're big sellers and sell out quickly.  Maybe someday I will open up my Etsy shop again, but I can't make things fast enough.  

 

Making Quilted Items for My Shop

Last week I saw a large quilted heart on the Internet and thought - why, I can make that.  And so I did.  :)

The old quilt is from the Vintage Market that I had picked up a couple of years ago.  It's all hand sewn and falling apart in most spots, but I stitched up some of the ripped seams and make some heart pillows.  I love the "old quilt" look to them.  They would be pretty in a basket or on a shelf.  I put them in my Shop to sell and I have to say, they look great in there.  

One of the things that I love to make is pincushions.  You can use them in your sewing room or just use them for display like in a bowl on the table for decor.

One day I was fooling around in my sewing room making some fun new cushions. They're fast and easy to do.

I had made some blue pincushions in the spring for my quilt guild auction but this time I made some for myself

The dogs are fun to sew and I have a lot more panels to use.  I already had a pile of blue strips ready to go, so I made some more along with the patchwork ones, too.  

Aren't they just so cute?  I love the expressions on the dog's faces.  :)

The lighter colored ones are made from left over scraps from old projects.  I like to keep the strips to use to make more things.  Here are a few of those.  

The grays and pinks are in a quilt that is waiting to go on the longarm.  Waiting and waiting.  But his turn will come soon.  

The yellow and grays are from a block of the month that I didn't finish.  No surprise there.  LOL

Lastly, is a little cushion with Bigfoot on it.  I think this is my favorite fabric that I bought from going on the Shop Hop.  They look so cute.  There will definitely be more items to come with Bigfoot on them - there's even cute fabric to match them.  But that's all I have time for today.  :)

One time I read on a blog that a lady made 1 pincushion every day for a year.  Now that's a great goal.  :)

 

Making Flowered Pillowcases

One of the things that I love to do is to decorate my home with handmade things, especially quilted or sewn items.  I have some sort of quilted piece in every room of the house!

I have to say that I sorely miss Joann Fabrics in my town.  At just eight minutes from my house, Joann's was always a place to go for a little bit of inspiration.  Sometimes I just want to buy fabrics for making crafts or simple items with and now we really don't have much to choose from around here.  :(

So I drove to Hobby Lobby to see what their fabric selection was like.  An honestly, it wasn't too bad.  They don't have all of the extras like Joann's did, but I found a pretty flowered fabric that I thought would brighten up my room.  I had picked up some larger pillows and wanted to make some pillowcases to fit them.

I love the colors and how they bring out the corals that are already there.  So then I went back and bought four more yards of the fabric.  I'm not sure yet what I'm going to make with it, but it was just so pretty that I couldn't refuse.  LOL

I like the look.  I think it may need some sort of a flowered quilt to match.  What do you think?

Shop Hop Winner - Me!

Remember the Shop Hop that I went on back in June?  Well, all of the passports have been turned in and come to find out, I won the drawing for a new Bernette sewing machine!  I was so surprised and happy to be one of the regional grand prize winners.  :)

I had so much fun going on the Shop Hop with my friends and winning something is just the icing on the cake.  

Here she is all set up.  She's sleek and modern looking, kind of like a little sister to my other two Berninas.  I'm not sure yet what I will do with her, maybe use it for my sewing classes or teach my granddaughter to sew on it in a couple of years.  

I also got a special square sent to me in the mail for finishing up my North Region.  I'm so glad that New York state has it's own Shop Hop now.  I can't wait to try a new region next year!  

 

Dresden Plate Sweatshirt

My friend Carol's birthday was last month and I wanted to make her something quilty for her to wear.  I found a nice soft sweatshirt at Walmart and decided to sew a quilted square onto it.  Originally she was supposed to get this for last Christmas, but I got sick and didn't get my projects made.  Shh, don't tell.

So after thinking about it for six months, I finally ventured into the sewing room to make a block.  I decided on a Dresden block and chose blue Tilda fabrics that I have already used to make another gift for her.  She likes Tilda fabrics.  I picked out some burgundy fabrics to give it some pizzazz and this is what I came up with.  

The sewing took WAY longer than I thought it would - ha ha, what else is new in the sewing room?  Then I stitched it all down to the front of the sweatshirt.  It was not very easy to maneuver my block under the machine to quilt along each of the pieces but I was very happy at how it came out.

I should have gotten a photo of her with it on - she looked so cute and happy.  :)

Now I want to make one for me!  

 

Charming Day Cards

For my stamping class this month I decided to use Charming Day, a new online stamp set and papers.  I bought 2 packages of these papers because they are just so beautiful.  :)

I love how this card came out.  I started with a beige cardstock. (I still had some Sahara Sand from a long time ago so I used that!)  Then I added a layer of green and the designer paper that I think is just so pretty.  

I love the look of the arch die as the focal point and added some of the smaller flowers to it.  It's embossed to give it some texture.  I had a strip of that trellis out (not sure which die set that is from) so I put that on the card as well.  The sprigs are Old Olive green from the same set.  The greetings are embossed with white powders and then fussy cut.  I could make this card all day.  

 

My next card uses the same designer papers, only along the bottom part of the card.  I used Cloud Cover for the cardstock.  Then we stamped the large flower on the top piece (Lost Lagoon) and embossed it using the Subtle folder.  

The beige paper strip that we stamped on is from Country Lace papers.  I copied this card from Dawn Olchefsky.

This pretty orange card is made using the same paper, only cut and taped together on the back.  The colors coordinate so well together.  The ladies and I had a fun time using this set.  I just want to make more and more.  You could put this pretty flower on just about any designer papers.  The idea is from Barb Brimhall.

Which card do you like the best?  They're all pretty but I think I'll have to go with the top one.  :)

Let's Set Sail

For my summer stamping classes I wanted to make cards using summer themes.  So for this class, I made sailboat cards for a "Day at the lake." 

We used the stamp set and punch called Let's Set Sail.  The punch coordinates with the sailboat but honestly, they could have designed it better.  You have to punch each sail and mast separately when it would have been so easy to just make the stamps all in one image to punch easier.

For this first card, we stamped the water several times and then brushed some light blue into the sky using ink and the brushes.  This gave the sky a little bit of color so that the clouds show up better.  I used the cloud dies from Give it a Whirl.  

I got the idea for this card from Karen Ksenzahovic.

This next sailboat card gives you the feeling of sailing off into the sunset!  I used some cut out designer papers for the circular sunset focal point.  The addition of the birds makes it look like a real summer night sky.

For some reason, my sailboats always seem to be blue.  I love the breezy feel that this card has.  You could send it for any occasion.

For this pretty red card, I used watercolor crayons for the sea and sky.  Then I stamped the sailboat shadow, birds and saying right onto the white panel.

I added a steering wheel from another sailboat set, even though sailboats don't have steering wheels.  LOL

This card has a very nautical look to it.  

This is the exact same card, only I used a different designer paper for the background.  I often give alternative card options for my stamping ladies.  

I loved using this fun sailboat set, even if the punch doesn't line up easily!  These cards can be used for both women and men, adding to my stash of masculine cards.  

I hope you enjoyed sailing along with me today.  :)

 

Cup of Tea Cards and Projects

Last week I took out a stamp set called Cup of Tea.  It has cute images in it and the papers that came with it are really colorful and fun to use.  First I made this wooden block decor piece and love how it turned out.  

Here is the card that I made to go along with it.  I got the idea for this from Elizabeth Price on Pinterest.  I love the color combo on this, the purples mixed with the lime green and teals.

Then I made two smaller blocks that coordinated.  I added a Scripture and a saying to them.  You can set them on a shelf or desktop.  I love making them.

To compliment the first card, I made a card with just the tea cup cut outs.  It's such an easy and fun card to make.  

I got the idea for this third card from the Paper Daisy Crafting site.  This cup set is just so cute!  I want to make more cards and projects using it.  Cutting out the flower dies takes a bit of time and the larger flower is easier to just cut out by hand than to try to match up the die for it.  I think each card that I made had less and less flowers on it!

For an additional card, I made the same card as the tea cup card, only I put different designer papers on it.  I had a great time working with this set and making these cards and blocks.  

Have you ever used this set?  Which card do you like the best?  I like taking out older sets and breathing new life into them.  :)

 

Birthday Thank You Cards

I'm still making more Thank You cards for all of my birthday outings and gifts.  I took out one of my favorite stamps from Senior Years and played around with her this week.  I think she looks fun-loving, whimsical and weirdly a lot like me!  

I used papers from Garden Walk, an older 6x6" paper pack because I had it out.  I fussy cut some flowers from Celebratory Sips papers and added some little hearts and the flower pot from You Always Deliver.  I think the two sets were drawn by the same artist.  I like to mix and match stamp sets.

I was working on some Celebratory Sips cards at the same time and used some of the designer papers from that, too.  

The cards were fun to make and I hope that my friends will like them.  :)

What do you think of her them?

 

Basket of Blooms

This week I took out an old set called Basket of Blooms and paired it with designer papers called Garden Walk.  I made these three cards.  I found an old punch that matched up pretty well with the flowers and cut them all out using that.

The colors in real life show up a lot nicer than what is in this photo, but I loved the basket and how it stamped.  I'm surprised that I had never used this set.  I made these cards as Thank You's for my birthday presents.  

On this card, I stamped the case in the designer paper.  I like the look of it.  I used Wildflower Design dies for the focal point.

On this card, I stamped the pot in the designer papers and used the same die cut.  The flower paper is much prettier than it shows here.  The cards were full of color and I enjoyed using this set.  :)