Square Holly Wreath

I am so in love with this holly wreath I made last night!  Using tips from the YouTube video by Custom Crops I changed it up a bit and made a square wreath with varying shades of green.

This is possibly my all time favorite crafted Christmas project ever and it was super easy to make with supplies on hand!

Always,
K

Rosette Tree

I wanted to share the results of the tree I made out of the dyed rosettes I posted the other day.

I absolutely love how it turned out and it looks great in my Christmas nook.  More pictures to come soon to include a couple of other trees I crafted this year and some garlands I am working on.

Always,

K

Rosettes & Dye

Lately I've been into making Lollies (a la Margie Romney Aslett).  I've shared a few of my Halloween ones, but in case you missed them you can find them here.
My favorite part is making the rosettes for the lollies.  I have literally made over 100 of them with no specific plans for them, but just because it keeps my hands busy. I keep them in a basket in my studio and grab one or three to use once inspiration strikes or if I need a quick package decoration.

It's a great way to use up old scrapbook paper (which I have TONS of).
Sometimes I find myself pulling out a piece of scrapbook paper and wondering what the heck I was thinking when I bought it.  Luckily, it finds new life as a rosette!
I discovered a paper stack that I bought that had all pastel colors.  So not me.  So I made some rosettes.

Still not me.  So I decided to try my hand at dying them.  I had some food coloring dye already made for dying doilies and just dipped these suckers in. I love the effect it gave:

Here is a side by side comparison:

You can see the dye I was using was a teal color (I just mixed green and blue food coloring) and it really looks cool in the folds.
I have about 5 or 6 more of these blue rosettes drying for a project I hope to share with you soon.
I also dyed a music paper rosette to see how it turned out and I like that one as well:

Here's a peak at the doilies that started my dye testing:

They didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I think it's because of the coating they have on them.

I'm all ready to incorporate all of these dyed items into a Christmas project.  I hope to share it with everyone soon!

Always,
K

Time Keeps On Ticking...Ticking...Ticking...

Today is my birthday,  (Happy Birthday, to me!)  so I thought it was appropriate to share this project.  I've had this clock for over 20 years.  I remember buying 2 of the same clocks at JC Penney's when I got my first apartment.  I paid $10 each and I guess it was worth it because this baby is still going strong.

I was a bad crafter and forgot to take before pictures, but I found this picture on google that is similar to the before on this clock, but not exactly the same thing.  It was basically a gold frame with a gold interior with Roman Numerals.  This was NEVER my style, but for some reason the clock has lasted many, many moves.

The after picture is much more "me".  (I never realized how hard it is to take a picture of a clock, so it's not a great pic!)

It was a very quick re-do.  I took the clock apart and spray painted the frame black.  While that was drying I cut some aqua polka dotted paper, found at Joann's, for the inside, added a circle punched book page, some mylar numbers I've had forever and some Prima paper flowers with a little bling in the middle in place of the other numbers.

I'm so so happy with it!  

This project can be done with any clock that you can take apart.  This one was a little tricky because the hands of the clock were not removable, so I had to adapt my paper around it, but you can hardly tell!

A small warning...the hands of a clock are very sensitive.  They bend easily and will cause you to put together and take the clock apart several times in order to get them to not run into each other and cause you to lose time .  Trust me on this - Test it before you put it back together.

Hope your day is as bright as mine!

Always,

K

Boo-tiful!

My sister, Jean, and I spent Saturday on a Halloween Crafting Extravaganza!  Armed with the latest class from Margie Romney Aslett (is that woman a genius or what?!?) and our dollar store loot, we set out to actually accomplish something.  Any, OMG, did we!
Here are a few of my finished projects:

I actually finished one more and almost finished another, but I haven't taken pictures yet.

If you have not invested in or heard about Margie's Spark classes, I urge you to check them out.  So so so worth the small investment! (And just for the record - I don't know Margie or have any incentive to give a good review other than the fact that I just discovered her through my sister and want to share the love! ♥)

I'll share the other projects next time!

Always,

K

Ahhhhh! Nature! It's all over me! Get it off!

Turns out that this lil girl:

Yes, the one looking all guilty as sin:

Has a fascination with all things frogs.  Our new house is inundated with frogs and toads.  Big toads.  Ugly toads.  Jumpy toads.  And this girl considers herself the self proclaimed Toad Terminator.  If you don't mind gently freeing said toads from her mouth like J, is no big deal. I mind.  I'm more of a Nature From Afar kinda gal and I'm not touching the toads.  

This one has chosen to withstand the Toad Terminator and live under the drain spout on our bottom deck. We named him Yoda and I used a zoom lens to take this picture because dude looked ready to get all froggy with me and jump. (Apparently 6 is the number of times you can let a flash go off in a toad's face before they get all jumpy - just fyi)

So anyway, like my favorite quote from Melman the giraffe in the movie Madagascar says: Ahhhhh! Nature! It's all over me! Get it off!  

Totally sums me up.

Always,

K

Settling In

No one ever told me that being a homeowner is such hard work!  We keep finding more that needs to be done on the house (fill the 2 foot deep hole under the porch, pull up the disgusting fake carpet outside the lower deck and seed, clean the dryer vent, clean all of the window tracks to get out all of the gross science experiments growing there...you get the picture) before we can actually get to the fun stuff!

I am so tired of cleaning and doing maintenance. And by "I", of course I'm referring to J doing all this while I helped (ie made things worse).  I had to do some nesting. Even if it was a touch here and there.

Last weekend, Jean and I found a couple of gently used bar stools at the local Good Will for $10 each.  They were perfect except for the fabric part.  

 A quick trip to Joann's and a yard of fabric later and ta-da!  I'm still planning to paint the chairs white at some point to match the kitchen better, but this was just the pick-me-up I needed to make the house a little bit more like home!

I also made myself a cozy little corner of our new to us couch donated by a great friend, Mary Beth.  The vintage yo-yo throw was found by my Mom years ago at a yard sale and the denim pillow is something I made last weekend when I was itching to sew.  

So, slowly but surely, we are settling in and creating our own home!

Always,

K

Homeowner's At Last!

I've been away for quite awhile, but with good reason.  J and I became homeowners earlier this month!  Our landlord for 8 years decided to move back into the property we were renting, which gave us the push that we needed to find a home we could call our own and it's been a whirlwind of activity over the last few months.
Here is our new place before we moved in:

We just moved in a little over a week ago, so we are still living in box central, but we are slowly making progress.

J is not so interested in the interior decor, but he has already started working on our curb appeal!  The man has limitless energy and Home Depot has become like his second home!  The bush to the left of the stairs is already gone, as is the straggly rosebush under the window and the ill-placed satellite dish.
He is still working on the front of the house, but I will share pictures soon.

As for me, I'm still "nesting" and haven't quite gotten used to this being our home. I love the master bath with a soaking tub (something I've always dreamed of!) and the huge deck overlooking the woods is the perfect place to relax in the evening.  Our previous place was in an older, crowded neighborhood and on a main street, so we were used to hearing traffic and fire engines and police cars scream through constantly.
The new house is at the end of a quiet court surrounded by woods and all that we hear at night is crickets and frogs.  (I've also been warned that the foxes make quite a racket sometimes, but we haven't had that yet.)

But the best part of the new house is that I'm super close (like one street away close) to my sister, Quilted Cupcake, which means tons more sister sewing and crafting time!

I can't wait to share our before and after pics of our progress.  Our to do list is crazy long, but it's so much more worth is when you are working on turning your own house into a home!

Always,
K

She Art

My latest obsession has nothing to do with fabric & sewing and everything to do with mixed media art.  I used to scrapbook and stamp and used mixed media there, but She Art is new to me. (Apparently it's been around a few years, I just never came across it.)

So I decided to try my hand.  I bought a bundle of 8x10 canvases at AC Moore with my 40% off coupon and pulled out my old stamping and scrapbooking supplies for the reast.  

Not sure how it would go (and wanting to be able to return the canvases if i hated it) I also uncovered a small 6x6 canvas that had a design on it to use as a test.

After modgepodging book pages over the design, I went to work and ended up with this:

I love how it turned out and I loved the process.  I can't wait to make more!  With all of the tons of supplies I already have on hand, I think I found a cheap new creative release.

If you want to learn how to create your own She Art, check out this pinterest pin from the Queen of She Art, Christy Tomlinson of Scarlet Lime.

Always,

K

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, Blogland!  I've been adding more bunnies to my collection.  For some reason they keep ending up blue.  I also made the eggs by modge podging old book pages to plastic eggs from the dollar store.

For the bunnies,I used the free pattern from my sister, Quilted Cupcake.  So quick, easy and fun!

You can find the pattern here.  Enjoy!

Always,

K

Thrifty Finds

My sisters and sister-in-law attended he AQS quilt show in Lancaster, PA this past week.  Unfortunately, I was unimpressed with the quilt show.  I had attended in 2011, then skipped last year and found that this year seemed pretty much the same.  While I found lots of pretty fabric, for some reason the Wow Factor was missing.  We spent three days in Lancaster and only 3 hours at the show.

I always love trips to Lancaster for visits to my favorite places like Zook's Fabric Store, Goods Store & Shady Maple.  This time my sister, Jean, and I spent most of our time in the local thrift stores as well.
My favorite was definitely Re-Uzit .  We went to two different locations (New Holland and Ephrata) and we definately scored some great stuff.  The prices were so low compared to the Baltimore area thrift stores, we went a little crazy!

One of my favorite finds was a bunch of vintage scissors for .25 to .50 each.  They immediately found a home in my craft room in a small square jar.

We also found a ton of zippers - some vintage, some newer.  They found a home in a half gallon mason jar that is place conveniently in my sewing area.  We each got a huge bag of reclaimed zippers for 1.00.

I immediately tried my hand at something I've been dying to try - a zipper flower. 

I used this great tutorial I found on Pinterest.   I'm super happy at how it turned out and can't wait to make more.  (Note to those who may try this: Cut the zippers with scissors, cutting with a rotary cutter may lead to slicing your finger open and interrupting your project for 15-20 minutes while you apply pressure and bandage the wound.  Further note: If you do end up with a bandaged finger, it works really well to block the hot glue from burning you.)

Look for another post soon to share more thrifty finds including linens and reclaimed wood finds from a roadside store.

Always,
K

A Sew Relaxing Week

Before I batten down the hatches and hunker down to meet Hurricane Sandy (or Frankenstorm, as forecasters are calling it) I wanted to share some of my recent sewing and quilting endeavors.

I was on vacation this week and I spent the majority of the week sewing and playing with fabric. Best. Vacation. Ever.

I spent all day Monday sewing with my sisters Jean and Jan.  I didn't get much done, just a small attempt at a wonky scrap block, because I spent a lot of time cutting up some fabric and digging through the ton of scraps that Jan was getting rid of.

I've been really into blues lately so my scrappy block is all blue:

Since "wonky" drives me nuts, I'm not overly thrilled with it, but it will make a nice potholder or mug rug once finished.

During the rest of the week I skipped from project to project, testing out things I have wanted to try.  My main focus was to complete a new mini quilt for the Alzheimers Art Quilt Initiative.  It's a great charity and one that both my sister, Jean, and I have made projects for before.  The finished quilts they collect are no bigger than 9 x 12 and are auctioned off the raise money for Alzheimer's Research.

My latest quilt is one I call Shattered Blues:



Since I wasn't able to participate in the yearly walk in our area this weekend, I wanted to contribute another way.  Serious props to my sister, Jan, and  brother-in-law, Jim, and their family for participating in the walk and raising $750!! 

Another small project I completed is something I've been wanting to try and have kind of been intimidated by: a quilted notebook cover.  I'm not the best at measuring and adding seam allowances and having them actually turn out correctly but I threw caution to the wind and tried the cover.

I'm so glad I did because I love how this turned out!

It was not nearly as hard as I had thought and now I want to cover every book and notebook in my house!

I ended my week of vacation with a sweet treat for J and I this morning: Cream Cheese Cookies.

It was a simple recipe I found somewhere on Pinterest, but I can't seem to find it again.  Basically it is a package of cream cheese, a stick of butter, a box of yellow cake mix and a 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract.  You mix it together, chill it for 2 hours then roll into balls.  Then coat the balls of dough  with powdered sugar and bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  Once cool you sprinkle some more powdered sugar on and viola!

Not my favorite cookie in the world, but definately tasty and worth a try!

Also, my Boston's wanted their pictures taken while I was taking pics of the cookies, so here they are:

This is my 13 year old Boston Terror Terrier, Blair.  As I've mentioned prevously on the blog, she has been through a lot in her 13 years.  She has lost her left eye, most of the vision in her right eye, a toe and the majority of her hearing but if you could see her when the pizza man comes to the door, you'd never know it!  She's our pitbull in a 20 lb body.  She's never met a stranger she didn't bite terrorize let know that they were unwelcome.

This is Jovi, my 3 year old Boston.  She what you might call fat a tank chubby. It's hard to get a picture of her upright because this is literally her favorite position.  She sleeps like this and plays like this (what we call "back wiggles).  If we would staple her food bowl to the bottom of the table she would eat like this too.  Her personality is the polar opposite from Blair and she is always wagging her tail and wanting love from every stranger who passes by...not that easy to do while Blair is trying to bite those strangers at the same time.

That's it for today, I have a few more  quilty things to share soon, mostly WIPs!

Always,

K

Gift Giving

I love to give handmade gifts.  I try to give them as much as I can.  I try to not nitpick my gifts and immediatly point out the flaws when I give them. (Am I the only one who does this?  I will literally interrupt someone as they are thanking me to say "Sorry about the little bit of crookedness on the side" even though they didn't even notice it!)

Sadly, my absolute favorite coworker left our team at the end of this week.  I'm sooo sad.  She is so awesome and even though she is in California and I am in Maryland and we've only met twice I consider her a great friend.

The best way I could think of to tell her thank you for your hard work, good luck with your new job and I will miss you terribly was to make her something.  I threw around lots of ideas before I decided on a business card holder.

I was really happy with how it turned out.  I didn't use a pattern and I did have a couple of failed trials before this success, but I'm hoping she will love it as much as I do!  I'm tucking in a Starbuck's gift card and one of my own business cards so she won't forget me!

My other project this week was ruffles.  I will admit that ruffles scare me, or should I say scared me.  I am all about the ruffles now!  I read a few tutuorials I found on a google search and armed with some  good tips, I went to work.  How exciting that I got some decent ruffles on my 2nd try!  I've been wanting to try one of those multi layered ruffled towels that I've seen on Pinterest and I did it!

These ruffles are hand done, but once I fell in love with the ruffles I immediately went on Amazon.com and bought a ruffle attachment for my sewing machine.  I'm hoping it gets here before I go on vacation next week so I can spend some ruffle-y time!

This towel is made out of a cheap flour sack towel that I cut in half.  I used half for the towel and the other half I made into the ruffles.  I love the white on white look.

I'm planning to make a few towels and potholders for another team member who just got married yesterday.  (And I STILL have to do bibs for yet another team member who just had her first little one!)

Needless to say, I'm keeping busy and I couldn't be happier!  I'm hoping to get together soon with my Stitching Sisters for some girl time and sewing time! (We've happily added my sister, Lucy, to our sewing circle and she is SEW excited to quilt and sew!)

Always,
K

Studio Makeover - Part 2 - In Living Color

My studio has always been predominately decorated with red accents, but always with a mish mash of other colors thrown in.  Little by little as I thin out my excess crafting stuff (which sounds better than "get rid of my crap") that I don't need/won't ever use, I'm trying to stay within my chosen color pallette of red/aqua-teal/pink.
A few weeks ago I did a mini-redo of what is possibly the ugliest free standing pantry ever.  I bought this pantry at a thrift store I worked at back in 1993 while living in Virginia.  To be fair, it's little particle board self has held up well.  I keep planning to repaint it, but #1 it's really heavy and #2 I keep saying I'm getting rid of it, although it somehow always ends up sticking around.  For a short-term fix I modgepodged some adorable red & white polka dot wrapping paper that I picked up at Michael's for a dollar (score!) to the front panels. 

Who knew that a little thing like that would brighten it up so much!  I also plan on changing out the knob hardware and doing something to the side that faces my main crafting table, but I'm still thinking on those.

I love how the red & white accents draw your eye up to the scrap fabric in mason jars stored above.

As many of you know, my sister, Quilted Cupcake, has such a great eye for color and decorating, whereas my eye is a little, shall we say, off?  If you haven't seen pics of her studio follow the link and check it out.  It's my dream studio!
My studio is slowly but surely getting there.  I'm in no hurry to get it all done.  I do a little bit at a time and it seems to work better for me stress-wise.

Would love to see some links to your studios!  I'm always looking for inspiration!

Always,
K

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Today I had to break up with some fabric.  I was very sad.  As a fabric hoarder, it's in my genes to keep every scrap just in case.  My BWF (best work friend) Christina is just starting to sew & quilt and she is not well stocked on fabric yet.  So, I do feel better that the fabric I broke up with is now hers and she will make good use of it, because honestly, I would have never used it.

It also helped that the UPS man came today and brought me a box full of new fabric.  And in case you are wondering, yes, I did just whine about breaking up with fabric knowing full well that my stock would be replenished with new pretties by the end of the day!

Most of the fabric is from the new Riley Blake line by Lori Holt called Polka Dot Stitches with some other pieces thrown in from Riley Blake's Chevrons and Riley Blake/Lori Holt's Millie's Closet as well as  Pierre's Famous Traveling Circus & Tiny Gingham by Michael Miller.

  Lately, I buy all of my online fabric from the Fat Quarter Shop.  They have the best selection, the newest fabric lines and will even email you when a new line is available.

 (I am not a paid spokesperson, but I would love to be let loose in their warehouse for 10 mins!)  They are the quickest shippers around too.  I always get my fabric quicker than promised and that makes me a happy girl!

Did I  fail to mention I placed another order from them last month as well?  Well, I did.  Not quite as much, but still some fun pretties:

.

So, are you not feeling very sorry for me for breaking up with the older fabric earlier?  I didn't think so.  But I know Christina is at home right now petting her new fabric, so all is good!

Just so you know, I really have been working on lots of new things and on redoing my craft room, I've just been lazy about sharing.  I'll work on it!

Off to play with my new pretties!
Always,
K

Hexie Love

I came across a sweet new blog called The Hexie Blog via Pinterest.  I emailed Julia a photo of one of my Mom's beautiful hexie quilts and she featured it in a post.
Please check it out here!

Nothing feels better than to have my Mom's quilt legacy shared with others.  She bought me my first sewing machine and is the reason I have such a passion to sew and quilt.  I'm sure my sisters will agree that every time we sit down to sew Mom is on our minds and in our hearts.

Always,
K

Piece Out

This past week I rediscovered my love for Foundation Paper Piecing.  I first learned this method several months ago on a sewing day with my sisters.  As soon as I "got it" I realized this is the perfect thing to satisfy my OCD tendancies of straight lines and following a pattern directly.

I found a really great site here that has 100 paper pieced blocks.  The quilt featured using the blocks is a crazy quilt with tons of embellishments on it.  Quite intriguing, but not my style.  I have done a few blocks using Block 1 and some scrap fabric. 

Each block looks a little different because I was getting into the swing of things and measuring things wrong, but since it's a crazy quilt, it doesn't really matter as long as the blocks are the same size in the end!
After practicing on these blocks I wanted to try something with a higher level of difficulty.  I will not share with you the star block that I spent waaaaay too much time on and never did quite figure out.  (No matter how I sewed, it wouldn't quite work.  I choose to blame pattern error, even though I know for a fact the pattern is correct!)

Saturday I got up the nerve for attempt 2 on a more difficult block.  The finished block is only 5" square, so the tiny pieces frustrated me a bit and had me saying some very inventive curses.  It was only after I finished the block and sewed the four separately pieced rows together that I realized one of the pieces that was supposed to be black was done in linen.  Oops!  It's okay though, nothing a strategically placed heart won't fix! I also added a little bit of hand embroidery for the thread and the needle.

Overall I was pleased with the result and learned from my mistakes.  I definately will not be making a whole quilt of sewing machines, but it was much easier than I always feared the multiple rows would be.  Here is the free pattern if you want to attempt it. She actually has a ton of free paper piecing patterns on the main site sewhooked.com.  I love the fandom ones, but am not yet ready to attempt them!

Another sewhooked pattern that I made was the spool one.  This one was pretty simple.  I'm thinking of making a wall hanging for my studio with this pattern.

Check back soon for some more sewing room updates.  I haven't forgotten I said I was going to post more, I've just been sewing more than organizing and I don't want to lose my mojo!

Always,
K

Granny Blocks

Thanks to the fabulous Lori Holt over at Bee In My Bonnet I tried out a new technique and I'm totally addicted.  (I so want to adopt her as my 4th sister!)


She is hosting The Great Granny Along and has a great tutorial to help you get started. 

Here is my first block:

I was so proud of myself at how well this turned out.  I doubted it the whole time I was working on it, but as my sister always says: Trust the pattern.  I did and now I want to make tons more!

I've also been working on hexies again and want to work on a block I found in the Summer 2012 magazine Scrap Quilts for a Crazy-Pieced Block.  Looks like something I can do.  It feels so good to be motivated to sew again!

Always,

K

Studio Makeover - Part 1 - Curtain Call

My studio serves double duty as my creative area and my home office.  I've been "redoing" it for months.  Nothing major, just organizing, purging and redecorating as I go along. 

I'm super tired of the clutter.  It's a large area made smaller by my office area and an old pull out sofa that came with the house and can't be moved.  It won't fit through the door...don't ask how it got down here in the first place, I have no clue.

Yesterday, I spent the day shopping and sewing with my sisters.  They gave me great advice and pointers to complete my new curtains.  Unfortunately, I only took some of their advice...I'm stubborn that way.

Here are the before curtains.  Basically they are discount store curtains that I hung just so the neighbors couldn't peek inside until I made new ones.

Here is my fun, bright upgrade:

It took me 2 days of sewing to make these.  I started picking them apart the minute I hung them, then I stopped.  Because who cares if they aren't perfect?  Who cares if one side hangs slightly lower than the other.  I MADE these.  I put my ♥ into them.  And I love them.  So there! :)

I will be posting more studio updates as I complete them.  (See those red polka dots in the bottom left hand corner?  That's a sneak peak at another update I'm going to share!)

Always,

K

What's Cooking?

Father's Day is an especially sad day at my house since J & I both lost our Dad's in the same year.  This year we decided to honor my Dad by making something he would have liked.  His favorite was always something with red sauce whether it was lasagna or spaghetti or something  Italian, but since I don't do red sauce we went with seafood.  Dad used to love steamed shrimp, steamed crabs, crab cakes, crab imperial, etc.

J & I came up with our own version of a seafood quesadilla.  The first one is the shrimp version with white cheddar cheese and mozzarella.  As you can see by the top picture, we really loaded them down with shrimp.  What made it extra good (and calorie-laden) is that we sauteed the shrimp in a garlic butter sauce before putting it on the quesadilla.  Can you say YUMMY?!?

The second quesadilla is a crab quesadilla with white cheddar.  I didn't think to take a picture of this one before cooking but we didn't do anything special, just lump crabmeat and the white cheddar.  We had sour cream on the side for dipping, which was the perfect addition to both versions.

I have to say that both versions were awesome and I think my dad would have loved them.  The crab was my favorite and J liked the shrimp better.  Although this is not something we will have on the regular menu (because of the cost!) it was a great way to remember my dad on an otherwise sad Father's Day.

I know I have once again been lax with my crafty updates, but I do have lots of projects to share.  I've just been super lazy about taking pictures.  It's on my to do list, I swear!

Always,

K