crafting this and that

Hello!  Oh, it has been a while since I last posted.  December was busy with lots of Christmas activities and crafting.  Then we went on a vacation and I closed up my Etsy store for a couple weeks.  I have been trying to get back into crafting but feel like I need to recover from vacation!  The only thing I really love about traveling is not having to cook or wash dishes.  That was the best! Here are some projects I didn't get a chance to blog about. I made this fabric basket for our cousin's baby.  I was happy that the diapers fit so nicely in this basket! Also made this little tutu.  I switched out the stuffed animal later since the bear belongs to one of our kids.  Just wanted to see the fit.  This was quick and easy to make. Oh, I also won some cute prizes from Stacey Yacula Studio !  She designs some amazingly cute stuff!  She has a wide range of products for sale too and an Etsy store . Also won this sup...

Hello!  Wow, it is a hot day today!  It's actually been very hot every day the past few weeks and I can't wait til it starts to cool down.  It's hard to craft or sew or do anything in this weather. Anyway, today I'm sharing my fabric wine bottle bags.  I looked at a few tutorials online to see about sizing.  A lot of choices come up in a simple Google search.  So these bags will fit a standard 750 ml size bottle.  Not those huge Costco size ones. Here is my first pair.  The fabric for all these bags are from Penny Rose Little Joys.  They have that vintage look.  But they also remind me of Japanese fabric prints.  So cute.  I paired them with Avery Elle's Cheers stamp set and used just a couple of sentiments on the kraft tags.  I got a great deal, I think, on this stamp set since it was on sale and shipping was only a couple of dollars or so from Scrapbook.com.  I'm surprised at how some places will charge more...

Hello!  Finally sharing some of the potholders I've been making.  I sold all the Christmas potholders at the last craft fair.  I had used Penny Rose Little Joys fabric line and a couple of nice ladies fell in love with the vintage look of them.  I love the Little Joys print too so I'm gonna make a few more but then that's the end of my Little Joys stash.  Here is my stack of potholders.  I used Penny Rose Milk, Sugar & Flower line for these.  I love the prints on these too.  They are so pretty. I'm not gonna share each print cause that would just take too long but this one is one of my favorite prints.  I love that they look like mini quilted blankets.  I hand sewed the binding on each potholder.  I just like the look of that more than seeing the stitches all around the binding when you use a sewing machine.  They each have a little handle also in case you wanna hang them up.  I think these birdies are swe...

Hello!  I have a bunch of projects to share today.  I'm adding some new sterling silver jewelry to my Etsy shop.  I actually haven't listed these dragonflies yet.  Been kind of busy and lazy when I'm not busy.  All the kiddies are at home for the summer.  I think they are already bored. This is one my favorite little necklaces.  The round disc is only 9 mm and I stamped the kanji symbol for beautiful onto it.  Everything is sterling silver and the chain measures 16 inches.  This one is listed in my shop. See?  Tiny and sweet.  Good thing my nails aren't dirty looking.  Hehe. I started making Xmas gifts!  Pillows for all our cousins' kiddos.  This was my first one and I think it's just a tiny bit snug.  I tried doing a zigzag stitch around the letters but boy that was complicated so I opted for a straight line stitch instead.  I guess it's okay but it is super time consuming. This is my se...

Hello!  Thank you all for the encouraging comments and support of my Etsy store opening.  I'll be adding more items soon. Today I am sharing my finished Christmas tree skirt.  I know it's May but I had only finished the top half of this skirt last year and was looking for red fabric for the bottom half.  Finally found some at a good price at Walmart.  The Walmart I go to doesn't seem to restock very quickly.  Red seems to be a popular color also.  I bought whatever was left of the red fabric and when I went back today they still hadn't restocked it. Here is my finished tree skirt.  I purchased a pattern from HERE .  The patterned fabric is a Doodlebug line from Riley Blake that I purchased online.  And I'm pretty much proud of this skirt!  I can't believe I made it.  And I made the binding also and sewed the back of the binding by hand.  I thought it would take me forever but the hand sewing wasn't too long. I di...

Hello!  I finished up this sewing project today and even though I would make some changes for the next time I make something like this, I'm kind of proud of how this turned out.  It's wonderful when you can find a free tutorial of something you have pictured in your mind.  You don't really have to think about measurements.  Just cut and sew!  I searched and searched but I couldn't find a tutorial on how to make this exactly like I wanted so I took some tips from a couple of sources and just decided to try it out.  It's always scary to start cutting into fabric!  I'm always worried about making mistakes especially because fabric can be expensive.  Anyway, I think my brain hurt a little during this process! So I'm not really sure even what to call this!  It's similar to the composition book cover I made HERE .  But because I wanted to give this to a little toddler, I wanted to add some handles and little pockets for markers.  Orig...

Hello!  This year I thought I would try sewing up some Easter baskets.  I was planning to buy some cute Easter fabric but then thought I should just use the material I have.  I did buy some cute fabric for the liner since I used up all my other pink material I usually use for the liners in bags.  I also added names for personalization. Here is the first one I made.  I started out with 9 x 12 inch pieces of fabric so these turned out to be good sized baskets with lots of space for goodies.  Now I have to go search for some goodies to add!  I think for this material, the name does get kind of lost with the busy Hello Kitty background. Here is the second one I made.  The name stands out a lot better. These baskets are pretty wide too, about 5 inches. I'm working on another Easter goodie for a little boy.  Hopefully I can pull it off!  Might be a little tricky for a beginner sewer like me. Thanks so much for stopping by! ...

Hello!  Hope you're all enjoying the weekend.  I spent most of today cleaning and cooking and there is still more to cook and clean!  I finally got around to taking some photos of the Easter chicks I made for my youngest one's class.  I've been wanting to sew up something cute using felt and was lingering on Pinterest one day and came across this site .  Such cute creations but I obviously don't have anything as fancy as that machine!  I love the clear tummy idea so I thought about how I could make something similar with the materials and tools I had. I got my largest oval Spellbinders die to cut out the chick's body and a smaller circle die for the tummy.  The chick's feathers, beak and wings were cut out using Taylored Expressions chick dies.  Then I wondered what I could use for the clear part of his tummy and I didn't want to buy anything extra like clear vinyl.  So I used my clear contact paper.  I just folded a piece large ...

Hello!  Before I share what I made today, did you all see Sister Stamps introductory post of their upcoming release?  The 2 new kiddos are so cute and are perfect for all kinds of occasions especially in Hawaii.  Can't wait to share my projects! Today, I spent most of the day making a fabric case for my needles and other sewing stuff.  I have had the same pack of needles for a while now and the packaging is falling apart so I checked out Pinterest of course and found this cute tutorial .  I left out the ribbon and made the cover a little different. I had a hard time picking which fabric to use and then found this one in my stash.  Just like paper, I have a hard time cutting up fabric. So for the first time, I sewed some stitches down the cover (and batting) to give it a quilted look.  I was always hesitant to try it cause I didn't want to make crooked lines but I saw a clever tip on Pinterest using painter's tape as a guide to make evenly sp...

Hello!  I have another sewing project to share today.  I have been looking all over the internet for a good tutorial on how to make fabric composition book covers.  I found a good one HERE .  I made this cover for my youngest one's teacher.  This fabric is called Hello Tokyo from Robert Kaufman and I purchased it from one my favorite Etsy stores, Stitch Stash Diva .  I added the personalization by using some Heat Bond ultrahold and PTI's alphabet dies.  Usually I would print the name out and cut it all by hand but the letters had to be smaller to fit on the cover so the dies were pretty handy.  I also added some fray block on the letters to keep them more secure. Here is a side view.  There are a lot of different tutorials out there.  I made this one just a bit different from the tutorial as well.  I wanted to use up the fabric I had already cut into so I made the flaps using the same print.  You can see that in the pho...