Craft Time

This isn't a great picture but I wanted to share this photo from the craft show we did last Wednesday night.  Wow, it's already been a week.  Where are the days going???  Kelley (oldest daughter) and I shared a table and we though maybe next month, we'll get two.  lol  Kelley did the best she's ever done at this show and there was barely a crowd.  We will do it again in December and hope for a better turn out and in turn, better sales.  Woo hoo!

 

 



Kelley called Monday night and asked me if I thought I could make small pilgrim hats for some little people she was making for Thanksgiving.  She was making sets of one pilgrim boy and a turkey.  The boy has a typical pilgrim hairdo with bangs and a sort of pageboy cut.  She said without a hat, he looks sort of like a girl.  Didn't all pilgrims with those lovely hairdos?  :o) 

 

So....feeling up for a challenge, I got out my circle die from Stampin' Up! and picked the two smallest circles and cut out some felt.  I made an arc for the hat and got my tacky glue out.  This is what I came up with but the top circle had to be cut out by hand.  I didn't have anything small enough.  WHAT???  I must be missing a tool.  LOL  The soda cap is from a 2 liter bottle so you can see what size they are.

 

 

I finished them off with a buckle from a Stampin' Up set I had from a few years ago and some black satin ribbon.  Here they are but the glue hadn't completely dried yet.  It dried clear so they looked better.

 

 

Kelley's supposed to come over tonight and we'll see how the hats fit.  I tried one of these on my little monster she painted me and it looked really cute.  I'll see if she'll "allow me" to share a picture with you.  I think she's afraid she'll get more orders.  lol

 

 

 

The Craft Show

We survived it!  The craft show at The Quilt Bee was pretty good.  The crowd was pretty consistent, which always makes the day go by faster.  Here are my two daughters at the table.  Kelley is on the left.  She is our oldest and the art major.  Stephanie is on the right and she likes everything crafty but focused on hair accessories and cards for this show.

Here are a few samples of Kelley's artwork.  She sold sets of cards, two of the Jelly Bean design...

...and two like this of Coffee Beans.  I thought they were a great idea and so cute.

She made some little framed prints with button accents.

And in this photo, you can see the 'flower girl' pictures but what I loved was the print that she made behind it.  It's the popular saying, "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream".  Oh my gosh, the little drawings are so cute.  I told Kelley I wanted one so when I get it, I'll post a better picture.  :o)

The weekend wiped me out!  We had the craft show Saturday, a dinner for Kelley's birthday afterward, a car show AND bridal shower on Sunday.  Stephanie was hosting the bridal shower with some co-worker friends so I helped clean up a bit and went to the car show to hang out with my hubby.  Whew!  I think I "might" be recuperated....maybe! 

Happy Easter!!! (Really this time!)

I didn't think I would have a chance to get back on my blog and do a post but I had a quick crafty moment the other night so here were are!

I wanted to bring my boss and neighbor down the hall a little goodie for Easter.  And just about the time my old brain was tick-tocking 'what to do, what to do', I got an email newsletter from howdoesshe.com.  The blog post was for Easter projects include little round can toppers for these bunny pails....

Here's the link for the howdoesshe blog post and the direct link to the blog post by Jenny, the woman who created the free download for the can tops.  Six toppers print on a page and you can punch them out with a 2 1/2" circle punch.  Easy as "can" be.  lol  Couldn't help myself. 

I couldn't find any Big League Chew (gum) that they call for in the freebie so I used Sweetart jelly beans.  Can you say DELICIOUS?  And the colors were just right! 

The cans at Michael's are a little too pricey for my liking, around $5 each.  When I spotted these cans in the dollar spot (at either Target or Michael's - I can't remember which) about a month ago for $1 each, I grabbed five bucks worth.  And as usual, I wish I would've purchased more than five!  They are a little taller than the ones at Michael's but they worked and the price was right!

Because they are a little taller, there was room for a little something inside the center.  I put a Skittles egg but a few chocolates or a gift card would work too.

I know the meaning behind Easter isn't all about bunnies but I can't help falling into the trap bunnies, pastel colors and Springtime.  I hope you have a wonderful Easter with your family and friends at this wonderful time of year.

Playin' with paper!

My daughter Stephanie had a Stampin' Up! Big Shot workshop at our house today.  I think there were about 18 ladies in our little house!!  Oh, and there was ONE adorable baby.  :o)  Me and my oldest daughter Kelley got to hold little Mason for quite a while his mama was making her projects.  

We made this really cute gift bag with the Love letterpress plate (the background on the red paper) and stamped using a stamp set called Sweet Cake.  I love the combination of the red paper and the blue paper called Pool Party.

This little Valentine card was made using the same Love letter press and the cutest darned stamp set called Greeting Card Kids.

We made a little candy favor box with the 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches, a scallop punch and the die cut called Two Tags.  The stamp set is called P.S. I Love you.  We tucked a little package of M&M's in there and it would be just the cutest little 'goodie' to give to kids or co-workers.



The last project was using a Mason jar and cutting out a label with a metal die set called Labels Framelets and the Chalkboard vinyl.  I had three boxes of red and white butter mints left over from Christmas so we let anyone who wanted them fill their jar if they wanted to.  I had purchased some of these big Sweetarts so that's what I filled my jar with. 

Stephanie knew she would be busy with cutting out kits for the party and asked me if I could use a new line of paper to make some samples.  I used craft cardstock and vanilla for the cards themselves and the new line of paper for Sale-a-bration called Everyday Enchantment.  They are such pretty papers, it was easy to make pretty cards, even for me!  lol

Hope you had a nice weekend.  Gotta get some sewing time in this week so it's a good thing I got my paper fix this weekend.

Save the Date....done!

We had a house full this afternoon for our assembly line to put together my daughter Ashley's Save the Date cards. Ashley's fiance', her future in-laws and our other two daughters were here and we got the cards done in a little over two hours.....done and in the envelopes! I think they came out cute!

The paper is Stampin' Up! Night of Navy. The envelope was cut from the Cricut using the Wild Card cartridge and the Save the Date was from the Sweetheart cartridge.
Kelley, our oldest daughter drew the couple, designed the background and the cards.
If you pull on the ribbon, you get this...

Ashley has to check her list for addresses and will make labels. Tomorrow is a Bridal Show at the facility where she is getting married so the whole group is going. There will be about 30 vendors there, hor d'voures, champagne and hopefully some yummy wedding cake to sample. YUM!

A gift for me, a prototype for the wedding

My crafting buddy (and all around best buddy) Neena brought me a birthday present last night. It's a trivet, wall decor, cute as can be red tea pot. She said when she saw it, it said "Liz". :o) Don't you love friends who know you so well? Thank you Neena. I LOVE it!

And after much catching up and gabbing last night, we played with our Big Shots and our Cone Shaped Die and worked up some favor samples for Dave and Ashley's wedding. This is just one. There are so many cute things you can do with that die shape, it's amazing. Maybe Neena will post some on her blog. (She's due for an update.) :o)

The other thing I worked on last night was finger folding my four patch/nine patch units for my Jared Takes a Wife quilt. I didn't want to haul out my machine and all the paraphernalia that goes with it since I knew we would be having a gab-fest last night. It had been a while since we had gotten together. I was right. It's a miracle we can still talk after all that yakkin'! TGIF!!!!!

Bring on the dollar dance!

I had my eye appointment last night but didn't have to get them dilated after all so woohoo, sewing time!!! I got the bride's little purse made, though I was up til the wee hours of the morning doing it. lol The bride, Mailei picked the fabric which is a cotton blend from Joann's. I laughed when I got this finished as I think they bought two yards and I think I might've used a quarter of a yard, maybe!

I am pleased with the finished product since I have such a hard time making things without a pattern. You know how you picture something in your head but getting out of that cranium is challenging! :o) I don't have enough experience making bags to 'whip one up' so it was tough to figure out how things go together........(see of you can stay with me here) like how to sew the lining to the outside fabric so the seam would be hidden once I folded the right side of the fabric down a bit for the ruffle. You know? I put the pieces the way they "should" be and then reached inside the bag and pinned it so I would know how to sew it together. It was pretty funny actually. A little tweak of my head and I got it. lol

And since I didn't really know what I was going to make, I had to use things from my stash. I didn't have any pretty satin cording for a purse and fabric handles would've been too thick so I decided to use ribbon. I had a pretty satin one but it was too wide and the purse wouldn't pull closed, you had to force it with your hands. Not good for a bride on the dance floor. The grosgrain was kind of hum drum so I went through my craft stuff and found these little silver charms and some leftover beads from a Christmas snowflake craft. They've been in my craft room forever and recently I thought about throwing them in the donation pile. Glad I didn't do that!! They were just enough 'bling' on the ribbon to dress this up a tiny bit. (I sewed them on with quilting thread.)

That dressed it up just enough. When searching the internet for ideas, all I could find were pretty dainty satin bags. This needed a little something else and those little dangles did the job. When I talked to the bride on the phone the other night she said, "Anything will do Liz. I would just like something to tuck a lip gloss in and maybe to hold for the dollar dance." I think she'll like it.

On to my UFO's, blocks, quilts, charms..........

Tis the Season.....

....for giving and love and twinkling lights. And a little exhaustion. :o) I finished my decorating the weekend after Thanksgiving and got my cards done at my card party but I was four short. I cut four more out last night and finished addressing all the store-bought cards. Got the postage and labels on and mailed them off today.
With all of the activities going on, and trying to squeeze in some shopping here and there, it is also my turn to hostess Bunco. Needless to say, there is no sewing going on at my house. :o( So I've got Bunco tomorrow night and our family Christmas party on Sunday. I thought I better post something so you knew I was alive. hehe
I bought this wire basket last year at an antique mall. I got two packages of ornaments from the after-Christmas sale at Target and this year, I have a pretty centerpiece. The tablecloth was an after-Christmas item too, from Gooseberry Patch when they still sold giftables and not just cookbooks. (The day I got that email that they were no longer selling gift and kitchen items.....I was SO SAD!!)

Here is my Christmas tree....... Using "The Clapper". "Flash on"...

"Flash off!" I can never quite capture a perfect picture of my tree with my little Sony camera. My husband says I don't need a new one because this one works just fine. Somehow, I don't think my reasoning of it taking bad pictures for my blog a good enough reason to get a new one. LOL

This is the first ornament I painted back in the old "tole painting days". I made it in 1987. I got a scroll saw for Christmas the year before so I could cut out my own stuff. That saw is collecting rust now but I sure got my use out of that puppy!

This was another painted ornament. A little heart upside down to look like a cute chubby Santa.

A few years ago, I 'paid' someone to cut these out for me and I painted them up for an ornament exchange at a retreat with quilty friends. I didn't realize it was blurry until I posted it. Darn it.

I'll be missing again for a few days but will try to check in soon. Until then, I hope you are able to check things off your list and get all of your "to-do's" done. Try to grab a cup of warm tea or cocoa and sit by the fire and take in the wonder of the season. Even as crazy busy as I have been, I am trying to take little breaks in my house with the lights turned down low while I catch a classic Christmas movie!

Snowmen and a merry "Mary" quilt

My little sister, Virginia, and her friend Rachel came over on Saturday from San Diego. My friend Nora came over too so we had a fun crafting time and sleepover. That was fun stuff but boy, did it wear me out.
You might remember these little Hershey covered snowmen from last year. Here is a link to the blog post with a link for the download. My sister works at a credit union and wanted to make these for her Christmas party.

I got the fleece at Joann's while she was driving over. And man was I jealous when I found this one because it's waaaay cuter than the fleece I bought last year for my snowmen. Go figure!

Virgie also brought over these little 'men' for a little color. She wants to use them for pinning up her Christmas cards but they were just plain wood with little faces. My oldest daughter Kelley grabbed a couple of Stampin' Up! markers instead of paint and did one up. Virgie loved it but Kelley left for the night so Nora ended up coloring them for Virgie. I guess she didn't get the coloring gene. :o)

I need to stop over at Michael's to see if they have any more of these. Too dang cute.

Then..........as if all of that crafting wasn't enough, my sister and her friend left and my middle daughter came over to work on a signature quilt she is making (I use that term loosely!!!) for a manager who is leaving the hospital where she works. She "borrowed" some Mary Englebriet fabric from my stash and figured out the layout. Then, "Because you sew so much faster mom", I sewed the rows together and borders on while she pressed and pinned.

It came out pretty cute and they still have several people to sign it. We started it on Sunday at around four o'clock and were dead tired at 7:30 but we had a finished top.

At first, all you saw was the red and white top but we kept playing with the border fabric and finally got this one. It's amazing how now, you don't even notice there isn't any yellow in the blocks.

I did a tiny folded solid red border and it really made a difference.

One of the siggy blocks.

I barely made it to work today. On top of all that fun crafting, I laid down in bed and it started.... This hormonal can't go to sleep thing. I'm gonna have to resort to some type of drug, I think because being sleep deprived isn't working for me. Yawwwwwn..........

Wedding Favors `R Us!

******From the comments I've gotten, I should've mentioned Jessica is my friend Sherrie's daughter. She is getting married in a couple of weeks. Now, onto to the show...........

Here is Jessica, the little bride-to-be! She picked from the wedding favor samples (you can see them here) that my friend Neena and I worked up a few weeks ago. We had a "favor making party" on Thursday night.

Jessica's colors are black and white with yellow roses. Pretty combination. This is the little sister, Dani. Dani got a few hand cramps with the Supervisor (me) pushing her to curl 750 petals. Poor overworked munchkin. But look at her, still smiling.

This is the finished favor. A label will be put on somewhere with the Bride & Grooms names and their wedding date on there. Some flowers have a rhinestone, some have pearls.

They all have chocolate. Yum. Four little Hershey's Nuggets fit inside - plain chocolate, dark chocolate, with almonds and with toffee. There were a few missing out of the package. We still can't figure that one out. ;o)

Lots of pretty little blossoms.

Tonight or tomorrow I will post pictures of the things we made at my sister's stamp party on Saturday. Ohhhh, such fun stuff. Hope you had a wonderful weekend!

Post-it Note Clipboards

I've mentioned before that my middle daughter, Stephanie, is a Physical Therapist Assistant at a hospital. Her manager asked her if there was something "they" could make for PT Week as a gift for this week. Stephanie looked on Splitcoast Stampers, one of the greatest websites EVER!!! If you go there, click on Galleries in the upper right corner. You don't need to log in but the ideas there are endless.

This is what Stephanie (and her elf helper) made yesterday. Instead of using cardboard coasters, she used chipboard (a knock-off really) from my buddy Carolyn. Carolyn does payroll and the packs of checks have these cardboard sheets. She mailed me a bunch and they saved Stephanie or the hospital actually, a bunch of money.

Stephanie tried to cut the chipboard with her Cricut Expression but it was giving her a bunch of grief. We trimmed them up and made them pretty and glued on decorative paper (on the front or top side only). She found binder clips at WalMart on clearance and also the post-it pads for .17 each! We did the best we could to match up the sets and used ribbon to try and coordinate.

We made 60. Yup, 60! They measured approximately 4 1/2" square. The actual coaster clipboards are a bit smaller. I think around 3 1/2".

Stephanie's manager took the scrap paper from the clipboards, rolled them up and tucked them inside a pen. Each PT and PT Assist. will get a set. It's a usable gift and hopefully they'll appreciate them.

We were busy all last week and into the weekend. I only had Sunday to relax and helping Stephanie took up most of my day. I did get two sets of blocks sewed together in the morning and another two sets cut out after she left. They're simple scrappy blocks for a swap and the deadline is quickly approaching so I better get some done this week. And all those new tv shows are starting this week. Ohhhh, it's going to be rough to balance my evenings! I like House and Castle but would like to catch a few of the new shows.

Wedding Favor prototypes

My friend's daughter, Jessica is getting married next month. My pal Neena and I offered to help with table favors so last night we got our thinking caps (and our paper toys out) and came up with a few prototypes for the bride2be. Before you start looking, remember these are 'rough drafts' and we glued and pulled apart pieces and there are no embellishments. These were just to show the bride and get the thumbs up so we could order supplies.

The popcorn box and little black heart box were cut with the Cricut machine and the Tags, Bags, Boxes and More cartridge. The matchbox was cut using the die from Stampin' Up! The tags were made using either the SU circle or oval scallop punches and the circle or oval punches.

One white popcorn box was rolled with black ink and a jumbo design wheel from SU. The other white popcorn box was dry embossed with a scroll design and the black one we used a dotted embossing folder. The matchbox was embossed with the new SU wallpaper embossing folder.

Here is a close up of the heart box, which you really can't see and the matchbox. Neena used a flower punch and cut two 5 petal flowers and layered them and then added a dark rhinestone. It needed a little something so we embossed it with the dots but we're not sure about that. Maybe a little ink.

This is the other box Neena had the die for. We cut it out and then embossed it with another folder she had. It was getting late so we didn't even add a ribbon but it's enough to show the bride2b the shape and size.

When we get the 'go', we'll order supplies and get an assembly line going. The wedding is mid-October so we want to get going. These were fun to make and having all these toys sure makes doing mass-production things like this a little easier. Sheesh, when I got married you bought things like plastic swans and filled them with butter mints. It's so much easier to be creative nowadays. :o)