Lined Clippie Tutorial

So, this is for one person in particular, but I figured, what the heck, might as well post it to my blog incase anyone else out there in craft land wants to know how to line a clip! Sorry for the cheezy commentary and my wild kiddos in the background, but hey, that's life! =)

Little bit of organization!

My very first post on this blog was a peek into my craft room. It was a disaster! Well since then, my husband has been helping me slowly get a bit more organized! It's slow going, but the little bit of progress we have made has helped so much! Here is a look at what we have done.

Yesterday my husband put up this shelf above my embroidery machine! It's amazing how much more room I have on the table by getting the random stuff up on the shelf! I wanted 2 shelves but Target only had one so I'll have to wait to get my second, or venture to a different Target, but I want one over my sewing machine too!

Now that I am looking at this pic, I should of moved the bolts in front so you could see the nice neat line of fabrics behind it, but oh well, you get the idea! I saw on a blog that someone went to a comic book store and bought magazine boards. They are 100 for about $10 and they are thicker and sturdier than card stock. I am using those to help me wrap my fabric into uniform bolts. It's soooo much easier to find what I am looking for and see all the fabric when it's neatly organized!

For my flannel we are using large pieces of foam board and cutting it into 3 pieces and wrapping the flannel on those. It's working out very nicely!

More flannel bolts.

And more mini fabric bolts.

Ok, so I said it was slow going and here is the proof! I still have A LOT to wrap, but once it's all done it's going to be awesome! We are also using the foam board to wrap the minky around.

That's all, just wanted to share that with you! =)

Ordering for someone else?

I just wanted to let everyone know that if you would like to order something for someone else as a gift I will be more than happy to ship the item directly them! I will wrap the item in tissue paper with some cute curly ribbon and I can even include a note with the item (all for no extra charge!!)! This will save you from having to pay double shipping!

This is a big sis/lil sis order I did and it shipped directly to them!

The customer asked if I could include a message that she came up with and this is what I came up with as presentation! The washing/care instructions are actually on the reverse side!

Finished package! It isn't anything spectacular, but it's sweet and simple!

Christmas In July...

So, I have been rolling an idea around in my head and I thought I would put it out here to get your input! I have an abundance of long sleeve shirts left over from this fall/winter and, being that I am struggling to balance my kiddos and my crafting, I was thinking about having a Christmas in July sale for the month of July. Basically, this give me the chance to use up some long sleeve shirts, get a head start on holiday orders, and for you to get a good deal!! I was thinking about doing a buy one shirt ($18) get one half off ($9) sale. This would be on select holiday designs.

There would be a few stipulations that I am still working on, but I wanted to see if there would be any interest before I go through figuring out the finer details of the sale.

What do you think!?

Something Fun

My daughter's preschool class has a class pet named Max. Max is a stuffed monkey from build a bear that takes his turn going home with one student a week, and last week was Savannah's turn with Max! Early in the week I decided it would be fun to make Max a shirt with his name on it. Unfortunately, I let time slip away and didn't get the shirt actually finished until after Max already went back, so I didn't get a pic of Max actually wearing the shirt, but luckily Mr. Curious George was a good substitute! Max is actually a bit bigger than George so it will fit a bit better on him!

Savannah with Max

Green Faded Glory onesie. I cut the bottom off and appliqued MAX on the front using my All Star fabrics!

I surged the bottom where I cut it off, then ironed it under and did a straight stitch!

George modeling the shirt!

This was just a fun project I did in between orders! It was, as my daughter would say, easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Something for my Mom!

Once again, this is not my original idea, I saw a post on sewforum from someone who got these towels at Target in the dollar spot and added this design, which I already had. The towels already had the little hearts embroidered on the bottom. I loved them so I knew it would be a great little gift for someone, and that someone happened to be my Mommy! I added their last name initial into one of the hearts and then her husbands and her first name initials in the other!

I found a few more sets at Target yesterday so I think I will make myself a set too!

Dresses

Just sharing a few a line dresses I did for a customer recently. I did 3 reversible A Lines and I think they turned out cute!

I have a new A Line pattern as well as a Peasant style that I am excited to try out soon!

Ribbon Storage

Let me start off by saying this is NOT my original idea! I saw a post on SewForum from someone who made something like this and I knew immediately I had to do it!! I have so much ribbon it's shameful!! I only hope one day I can have a studio for all of my sewing/crafts and have a few of these ribbon holders, but for now, I will stick with just the one.

I am going to try and describe what we did, so here we go!

We started off by purchasing this 2 foot by 4 foot piece of peg board from Lowes. We also got 1 10 foot plastic gutter and ended up having to go back and get one more.

I spread some brown paper bags on my dining room table and roughly taped them together so I could do my Mod Podge on the peg board.

I got these papers at Hobby Lobby in the clearance section. They were 6/$1. I ended up getting 10 pieces just incase I messed anything up, but luckily I didn't and only ended up using 8.

My goofy little girl watching excitedly!

This was my very first Mod Podge project and it was pretty straight forward. Spread it on the paper, spread it on the peg board then stick the paper to the peg board. Allow to dry for 20 min and then do a coat over the top!

I did one piece at a time and then when the last piece had dried for 20 min, I did the single coat on top over the whole thing. There was a little bit of overhang on the sides so I just too my craft knife and trimmed it up.

Now enters the Husband! He took the gutters and cut them into 2 foot sections with his miter saw. Then he marked each gutter piece where it lined up with the holes on the pegboard and predrilled the holes.

Then we screwed each piece of gutter to the pegboard!

This next part was just a bit of trial and error, but we ended up backing the pegboard with some piece of foam board to keep it off the wall some. I hot glued the piece of foam board to the back and then we poked the screws through the foam that were being used to anchor the entire thing to the wall. Did that make sense? I hope so.

Husband had already marked on the wall where the screws would line up an put wall anchors in, then screwed the entire thing to the wall! and...TADA! A neat ribbon holder!

We put it behind the door to my craft room and because the wall is set back a little bit, the door still opens completely and I was able to utilize an otherwise useless space!

I love it! It think it's so neat!

(it appears crooked in the pics, but it's not...I don't think!?)

And just because my husband said I had to..this is really only a fraction of the amount of ribbon I have. I could probably fill up 5 or so of these. Sad I know, but maybe one day I can have a entire wall dedicated to ribbons storage! haha! =)

This was such a fun project to do with my husband! He's so great when it comes to my crafts!

Hooded Towel

I did it! Yay!! I have wanted to make a hooded towel for months and today I finally did! I have to say, I might get addicted. It was so easy and the possibilities are endless!

I got the idea from a fellow crafter. This chick is AMAZING! She has a tutorial on her blog:

Cole's Corner and Creations

Seriously, go to her site and have a look around, you will die! She is so talented!! Oh and she has 3 of the cutest kids!!

Ok, well here is my first Hooded Towel, and my little one modeling!

Mermaid is from Planet Applique

Sweet Turtle Shirt

With the input I received on a previous post I tried the poly mesh stabilizer. I actually ended up hooping the poly mesh and tear away, making sure the poly mesh was closest to the shirt. I am pleased with the outcome, but it still needs to go through the wash to see how it looks.

It's just so cute!

Applique is from Lynnie Pinnie and the font is "Itty Bitty" from 8CAAP

Tweet Tweet

This past year all of the major holidays seem to have snuck up on me and I was not able to make cute shirts for my girls or my nieces and nephew. This year, one of my new years resolutions is to make sure they all have cute shirts for the holidays! So, I went ahead and made my nieces their Valentines Day shirts!

I took this opportunity to try out my new (to me) technique of making the shirts with tear away/wash away stabilizer and I am still very happy with the end results!

Here is the back of the hoop after the design is all stitched out! I am really impress with how well it all holds together considering it's tear away stabilizer. I kept expecting to turn it over and see it all shredded or starting to pull apart, but it wasn't.

Here is Sara's sweet tweet shirt! I love this little birdie!

And her is Em's!

Savannah and Scarlett will be getting sweet tweet shirts of their own also, but it will have to wait until after we get back from another little trip to see family.

The bird applique is from Embroidery Boutique and the font is Madison from 8CAAP

And the results are....

I am very happy! I took a few pics to show what the shirt I did looked like after I did the embroidery. The first one is the back of the shirt after pulling what tear away stabilizer I could off.

This one is the shirt flipped back right.

This is after running it through the washer and dryer and then doing a light press.

It turned out really nice!

And here is Miss Scarlett wearing her new snowflake shirt!! It fit her so much better than the minnie shirt because the design contoured with her body and wasn't stiff!

I am excited to try a few more shirts this way!

And as per a few comments on my previous post, I will be trying the poly mesh stabilizer as well and see how that turns out!

I LOVE seeing other peoples creations and learning new tips and tricks so if you happen to come across my blog or already follow and have a site/store of your own, I would love for you to share!!

The snowflake is from Planet Applique and the font is Bella from 8CAAP

Trial and Error

I haven't been embroidering for all that long, less than a year actually even though I have had my machine for over a year. Everything I have read, when you are doing appliques on items such as shirts, you are suppose to use cut away stabilizer, so I have. While the finished product looks awesome, one wash and the design is wrinkled. I hate this. I don't know if it's the type of stabilizer I am using or what but after getting Scarlett a shirt form Carter's and seeing that it's an applique on a shirt with NO stabilizer on the back I am doing a little experiment! I just stitched out an applique snowflake with her name across it on tear away stabilizer. I ended up hooping 2 layers of the tear away and then pinning the shirt to it like I normally would. It stitched out great! I tore away the stabilizer and the shirt is currently going through the washer and dryer to see how it holds up and comes out! I am really hoping it does well because, at least with Scarlett, having the stiff stabilizer behind the design looks strange on her because she is so small and chubby! lol

I'll post pics and update when it's done!

If anyone has had any experience with this I would love your thoughts on using tear away vs. cut away on shirts!

Snowman Shirts

Here are 2 shirts I just did for my niece and nephew! I am loving doing the snowman appliques!

Applique is from Planet Applique and the font is Casual from GG Designs

Applique is from Planet Applique and the font is Bella from 8CAAP