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You know, this summer seems to have breezed by in a haze of laziness on my part. I haven't update my Etsy shop since July and I haven't embarked on any big projects as of late. I went on vacation and came back refreshed, but came back to heat that I just found so awful I have done nothing but watch television and play video games. (And read! But that's a given)

I finally made it around to a Totally Tim Studio Day at Scrapbook 911. Studio Day is when you work on whatever you'd like and there's demos and whatnot of Tim Holtz products. It was a good time and I did get a project done!

Although, now that I think about it, it was more a 7 Gypsies inspired project...oh well!

I put together this box from over at One Lucky Day mostly because I wanted to see if I could measure and cut, then build, a box from scratch. I'm not the best with measurements and straight lines as it is, but found this to be a breeze to put together. It was a bit on the time consuming side, but very satisfying once the box started coming together.

In progress:


Best part: now that I know I can build a box from scratch, I know I can build them in different sizes to suit my needs.

Box without it's roof: It's lined with some paper I picked up at 911 (which I now can't remember what it's called) and to that I just edged it out with some distressed ink. The doilies I sprayed with Adirondack Colorwash Spray. ( I love that stuff) The rest is just millinery flowers and bird, a branch from a nearby bush, and some Prima fabric leaves.



All carefully glued together to become this:


No clue where I'll hang it, but I do love it. It further shows my love (okay, obsession) with bird houses and little mini-buntings!

Is it June already?

Wow. Time flies between posts when you have a million other things going on.

Where you'll find me creating this month!


I had so much fun with the Nesting Matchbox that I couldn't pass up the chance to do the Paris Edition.

And since I'm in dire need of rebooting my creativity when it comes to paper crafts, I've decided to play along with the Creativity Boot Camp. I'm a day behind, but plan on making up for that here shortly!

Sea of Love

I'd been in the market for making something that didn't involve my sewing machine for a few days now. I came across this tutorial somewhere in the blog-world and knew I had to make it.

I didn't want to buy a template to make a box and I didn't want to shell out for a stamp I was only going to use once, so I improvised. I used a vintage cigar box and one of my favorite stamps, along with the print-out freebies she offers for the project.

Cons: The tutorial is picture heavy and a little slow loading. If you want it to look just like the one in the tutorial you have to shell out for the stamp and the box template if you can't figure out how to make your own.

Pros: The downloads are organized nicely and you have the options of PDF, PNG, or JPEG, along with various color choices. It's a well put together tutorial and the end product is adorable! I think the stamp she used is cute, but it's not my style and won't have a use for it, so I went with my own thing. I think this particular project allows for that flexibility and the possibilities are endless. (I already want to make another!)

Materials: cardstock, lots of glue and tape. The boat is colored with Twinkling H2O's (which I haven't played with in months) and the hearts are just chalked. (So is the sun.) The robot is a Savvy Stamp called 'Valentine Robot' and the little thought bubble hearts are a Memory Box stamp called 'Good Thoughts'. (Neither of which I can find a link for.) He's just colored in with regular pens.

Time to make: about 4 hours, mostly because I had a hard time making the sail look just right. I tried everything from paper to fabric to hearts and finally just settled on the plain triangle sail.

On to the next one. This time I think I'm going to use vintage papers!

A Fool For Spools

I had a bag of spools (wooden, plastic, and paper) just sitting in my closet longing for a use. I was going to use them for ribbon, but that didn't work out, so they just sat in their plastic bag waiting.

Then I saw this post over at Classic Campbell and I knew what I had to do:


Garland, but it's a bit on the heavy side so I think I'm going to hang it on a wall somewhere.

Spools before I put the garland together.

Quick, easy, and an adorable way to use up my scraps.

Booklets!

Folding paper and getting it to line up perfectly is NOT my strong suit. I love making books but my lack of skills in the folding department make me shy away from them.

These are a little on the crooked side and I couldn't get the tabbed part for the pocket to work out, but I do like how they came out! I did two plain paper, two graph paper.


The tabbed inside pocket -- I ended up just taping it together. Works just as well. I also bound it together with my sewing machine rather than by hand.


Originally found here.

Video of the creator cutting it out and putting it together, here.

And we're off...

The first few gifts for Christmas have been made...(And everything I've needed to buy has been purchased...last week.) (I know, I know.)

The farm wall hanging. It's a Martha Stewart craft kit I got on clearance at Micheal's awhile ago. (And wow, they really marked it down. I picked up for $3.99 because the box was smashed.) Took all of 5 minutes to put together.




I saw these the other day Chez Beeper Bebe and bookmarked them because they were too cute to not save.



It's a huge set of 12, so I split them into two groups and made a little Velcro carry bag. One for a boy, one for a girl. I just printed on regular weight card stock and to make them a little sturdier, I just covered one side with clear contact paper. I substituted string for regular yarn because I had it on hand and gave one end a plastic bead to serve as an anchor.

I've also boxed up a few of the ornaments and have them ready to be sent off...but still have more to make. I see that as today's low-key project.

It's beginning to look a lot like...ornaments

From the bookmark folder labeled "Christmas Ornaments". These are for a swap I will not name so it'll keep the element of surprise.

This one I did from this tutorial over at Zakka Life. Degree of difficulty? None. In total it took about 5 minutes to whip up once I cut all the circles out. This one is a 4 inch circle; she recommends not going smaller than that but I'm curious to see how a smaller circle will come out.


LOVE. This one. Love. I used the pattern from Make it Do. (I used the pattern she links from Kaboodle.) Absolutely simple and stunning.


Lark and Lola had this up last week and that was when I made these. I used antique dictionary pages as I'm short on sheet music. Centers were a little difficult to come by as I just couldn't decide. All this Christmas scrapbook stuff stockpiled and I couldn't find the right thing. So I went with whimsical and simple.



These are going off to my swap partner tomorrow. As to which one is going to be the "official" ornament of 2010 (made in bulk and shipped to friends and family for their trees) is yet to be determined...

Cute as a button

Little bottle cap pincushions to go with the Christmas square swap I signed up for. I used this tutorial and let me just say: super SUPER easy.




I love super easy. (I mean, SUPER easy. I've seen tutorials for small bottle cap pincushions and they are convoluted and have a zillion steps.)

So I was a little early

I laugh as I write this. I mean, really laugh. Why? Because I made this as a birthday gift and mailed it off -- 3 months early! I clearly misread Kelli's entry and thought her birthday was this week. I thought it was perfect timing since I needed to send her a mixed cd anyway. I laugh because I very rarely am ever on time with birthday gifts.

So, happy early birthday Kelli!

Tutorial wise, I lost the original tutorial I used for this. It was fairly similar to this one. Straight forward, simple, especially since I've made bunting with scrapbook papers. I did, though, because I had no clue how to use bias tape, have to watch this video several times. Made it so much easier!

Christmas in July

Let the record show that I don't really quilt. I can never get my seams to line up (not a big deal, I know). I simply find the whole process to be daunting and maddening, especially when I get to the let's put it all together part! I do like to make small doll quilts, though. What I enjoy the most, though, is the putting together of blocks part. There's just something fun about starting out with a square and adding to it to see what you get.

I joined the Scrappy Christmas Block swap at modernJax because I really wanted to try the tutorial being used for the blocks. So, so simple and once I got my fabric scraps down to the colors I wanted, I managed to whip out 8 of these in two days! The tutorial was clearly written, easy to follow, and I had no issues what so ever. I did, though, only use strips of one size.


And if you are wondering: yes, Christmas at my house is usually a pink, lime green, aqua, green dotted, stripped explosion.

I used the last of what Christmas fabric I had and threw in a few pieces of non-Christmas to balance it out. I think they are fun and colorful and so not the traditional holiday fare. I love them and I can't wait to see what everyone else in my group comes up with!

See the rest of them here.

Now I know my A B C's

In the need for a few little girl birthday gifts, I just had to try this tutorial. Had to. I typically shy away from project like this only because I get to the middle of them and decide it's just taking too long. These held my interest, which was awesome!

I did not directly use Happy Together's technique involving washing/drying the letters. I try to not use my dryer in the summer time, so I came up with a solution: fabric fronts, felt backs.

Worked like a charm and it was a great way to go through some of my scrap boxes. Her tutorial was clear and easy to follow and the results are certainly charming.


Of course, the alphabet needed companions, so I whipped up some numbers also using the same fabric/felt combo.


The full set of letters and numbers are here in my Flickr stream.

Swish...back to the tutorials

It's been lost to me that part of the reason I started was this blog was so that I could try other people's tutorials and you know, clean out that massive bookmarks file I have.

My dear friend Carrie's birthday is coming up and I was at a loss as to what to do for her gift. I know she likes birds, but I always do birds. Birds = Carrie. I didn't want to do birds this time around. Then I came across this tutorial over at the Naughty Secretary Club and knew I had to do it.

It's not the best picture, but it's the best I could do at the moment. I hate waiting for things to dry!

The instructions were clear and easy to follow, but I was out of spray paint so I painted. And I put the glitter on the inside instead of the outside. I couldn't find the vintage postcard I wanted to use but thought the paper worked out well. Of course, I stickled everything to give it a little extra pop.



It was totally a use what I had on hand project, but I think it came out well. The only thing I hate is that (the) Lillie's head is cut off (that's how the photo was!) but it's cute all the same.

A tiskit, a tasket...it's...an Easter basket

We all know I'm not the best when it comes to making things from patterns. Those pesky directions get me every time...but this time I threw caution to the wind and tried this adorable pattern from Myrtle and Eunice.


He's my second one...and has already been shipped off in the mail as an Easter gift. There's also a third one, but she won't be posted until after Easter in the off chance she's seen early.

He isn't perfect, but the tutorial was clear, concise, and I had no issue following it to the desired effect. I love the goofy eyes and the legs crack me up. I'm so glad I tried this one out!

Oh. And the basket is just a simple felt and fabric basket I made mistakenly a few months ago ... when I was trying to make a fabric house. I didn't make a handle for it (it would have been simple to add some ribbon) because I wanted it to be a functional basket after wards.

Hungry?

Perhaps a pizza?


Or maybe you'd like to cook something on this handy stove top I made using this fab tutorial?
(Seriously, one of the simplest and most fun tutorials I've ever worked my way through.)
A sandwich?
What about some cookies?


Bacon and eggs?

I had so much fun making this play food for my little cousin Sullivan. I hope she liked it!

Sometimes I forget to update

I forget to update sometimes...especially when live gets really busy and I find myself having to juggle, well, everything.

My latest tutorial project: ha. I can't find the link now. I think it might have been one of the ones I accidentally deleted yesterday.

It was just a simple pouch with a button tutorial meant for a camera case but I was thinking more as for use for a wallet.

Things of note: this is the first time in the two years I've had my machine that I've done a button hole. I had no idea it was that simple. Second, this is the first time I've done a binding with actual quilt binding. Thanks to this awesome (and amusing video), I now know how to do it. I need some practice, but it wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be.

Inside of the wallet:


I really need to learn how to finish off the corners of the tape before moving on to making more!

oh! oh! oh! i made one!

There will be better pictures tomorrow, but I was too excited about this to not post it now!




From this tutorial.

Paper Patchwork notebook

After a few days of cleaning, being under the weather, and listing a mass amount of vintage fabric on Ebay (yes, I kept some for myself!), I finally, finally got around to doing something for myself. I found this tutorial the other day and for as simple as it is, I bookmarked it anyway as sort of a reminder to do it...I go through a lot of notebooks and like to have prettier covers.

This one, for example. Seen here with my cat Miss. Bunny Watson:


A better look. It's a graph paper notebook meant for mapping out small sections of mining/railroad tracks.


Using the clever and simple tutorial, it went from an all over ugly yellow to this:



I just used scraps of paper I couldn't bear to part with and my handy-dandy square template. I didn't cover the spine because I liked the yellow (a little bit) but also because it would have been a pain to cover. A couple of scraps, some squares, some Mod-Podge and 15 minutes before bed and I have a pretty new notebook for sketching out those patterns that float around in my head!

Castles!

Inspired by much prettier castles I saw on Etsy (featured: here) I tried my hand at making a few for a birthday present. For having no pattern and no clue what I was doing because I'm not really a Softie making kind of girl, I had the best time putting these together. Truly, with creations like these, the possibilities are limitless.

I call this one the Ivy Tower. I used lime green ric-rac for vines and the flowers are Prima Flowers. (I'm not sure which kind, though. I have had them for quite some time and they are the loveliest shades of purple and are paper...but finding them on the Prima website is impossible.)







The pink one was my first attempt at making the windows look more like windows and the door look more like a door. The vines are hand embroidered (my poor arm is now aching badly. boo!) and so are the window/door details. The flowers are these little plastic flowers I sewed into place with French knots...





A close up of my very first French knot...I've been doing embroidery/cross stitch since I was 10 and I have never been able to do French knots. Then I found this tutorial and they were a breeze!

A little organizing + recycling

I recycle. A lot. If I can chuck it into the recycling bin I will. We recycle so much in our house (there are two of us) that we use about 1 trash bag a week but have to take our recycle bin out to the main bin at least every day. I like knowing that what I've tossed isn't just going to go into some landfill over by the airport to languish well past my living years.

I also like to recycle when it comes to things I make. I take apart old clothes and add the fabric to my sewing stash. I reuse frames for bulletin boards, glass jars for storage, the back sides of printed sheets for homemade notebooks. I like found object art and indulge in it occasionally. So coming across this tutorial pleased me greatly and I couldn't wait to try it.

When I moved into the house I live in currently, the owner left behind a lot of stuff. (I stress the word A LOT) One of them was a box of old albums. The Beatles, the Monkees, Leonard Nemoy. They were musty smelling and warped from age, but I kept the box thinking record bowls or notebook covers. I'd forgotten they were in my office closet until I saw this tutorial and had to try it. I just picked the first two covers and went at it. One is at my office door for bills and one is by my paper station holding some old 45" album covers I wanted to turn into cd envelopes.

Bills! (Boring old bills!)
Ephemera! (Not so boring!)

The only thing I did differently was use thumb tacks on the inside instead of the double stick foam tape to hang. My walls are textured and it wouldn't have stuck. I'm thinking of making a few for Christmas and jazzing them up with some glitter or something. And I certainly see notebook covers in the future!

My poor hands!

I can delete another tutorial from the bookmarks folder! Deleting one or two a week is quite a nice thing, especially considering last week I cleaned out said folder(s) and it took me nearly 2 hours. It's nice to clop another one off and it's a nice sense of accomplishment to have something to show for it.

A few hours yesterday and a few hours today have been spent making birthday presents for two little girls in my world: a one and a two year old. The one year old, whose birthday isn't until March, is getting a house (there's a tutorial I'm not looking exactly forward to) and a set of these hair clips. The two year old, whose birthday was at the beginning of August, is getting that set of blocks from a previous entry and a set of hair clips.

That's right...this weekend was hair clip weekend using this tutorial.


Easy? Very. Just draw, sew, cut, and stuff.


A little tedious? Yes. Especially when your hands bother you from doing small pieces like that and not even the hand brace helps. (Alas, it's not just my sewing and embroidery projects causing issues, it's how I sleep.)

Worth it? VERY. They are adorable and a great way to use up bits of left over fabric from my growing stash.

Tips: the less you stuff your circle, the easier it is to get it to look like an actual flower. I used 3 strands of embriodery floss instead of two simply because I like how it looked and it seemed a bit more sturdier to me.