New Fabric/New Find Friday #41

While on a fabric hunt last week I found this really colorful box of Gutermann thread. I love colored thread, I have to stop myself from buying it every time I go to the store. This time I had a coupon and they were just so cute in this clear box all lined up by color that I had to buy one for myself.

Below is a picture of the box with the lid off, do you see those bright greens, yellows, and reds? A little bit of every color you could ever want. Well until I find more thread colors that I need and want. :) These will do for now, I just have to buy more bobbins so that I can use all of these.

I am having a crush on the color orange these days and there is a nice bright one in this box. What color are you loving?

Silky Burp Cloths Part II

As promised here is the second installment of the burp cloth/scarfs that I have been making. I really am in love with these and as you can tell, can not stop making them! Be on the lookout for more and once my rush of custom items are finished I plan to put these up for sale.

Here we have the red circle silky fabric backed in the red flannel. It is a nice punch of color and would look great on a dark brown or black purse. It looks much better in person and I hope to get a better shot of it before putting them up for sale.

There are other fun things in the works and if I can finally motivate myself, it is pumpkin decorating night.

Silky Burp Cloths Part 1

Over the weekend I was all pumped up to get things done around the house and to finish some sewing items. I have not only projects that need to be done for clients but some projects that I would like to make and put on this site or etsy to sell. So I worked on this set of burp cloth/ scarfs. This is another one of those silky fabrics that I picked up at the fabric store a while ago and I used the cream flannel fabric that I had to go with it.

This like the ones I made in the past can work as "purse scarfs" when you are in need of them and then you can untie it and use it for you baby. I made these a bit longer than the brown circle version ones that I made in the past because they might tie better to some purses/diaper bags.

I of course made a bunch of other ones that I will wait to show you, be on the look out for Parts II and III. :)

 

I am on a roll and got so much done over the weekend that it is energizing me to keep working at this pace. Some of the things I made might not debut on the site for a bit but it feels great to scratch things off my list.

New Fabric/New Find Friday #40

I have always loved things that glow in the dark, I had those stars on my ceiling for a long time growing up. When doing the moonlight ramble for the past three years my favorite part was the tee-shirt that glows in the dark.
This year I decided that I wanted to make a shirt of my own that glows in the dark. I knew that there was some glow in the dark ink that could be used on tee-shirts and so I went and got some on sale. I hope to come up with a few designs that I can screen print on shirts. All kids love shirts that glow in the dark, and some adults do too! :)

While shopping for the glow in the dark ink I also saw this Martha Stewart glow in the dark glitter! How fun is that?! So I hope to try this glitter out on some Halloween pumpkins that I have at the house this weekend. Maybe even on some note cards would be cute. I like the way it shimmers in the daylight but then glows at night, gives depth and interest at all times of the day.

I will share what I come up with soon, any design thoughts for the glow in the dark ink? My nephew wants an army man that glows...I will have to work on that one. ;)

Reversible Roosters

My MIL has a special love for chickens and roosters and can not resist them when she sees them, so when I found this fabric in my stash I knew I had to make her something. I try not to give her too many rooster items so her house does not become overloaded with them but I thought these were cute.

This fabric would have made a really cute pillow but I did not have enough fabric for that so I settled on two sachets. She can put them in her dresser drawer, car, or even in her shoes (although she wears open toe shoes and doesn't need them). The fabric was reversible so I made one with the red as the background and one with the white as the background. I love the way they are facing each other. I have yet to give them to her and I hope the she loves them, chances are good she will.

So I guess I should make a few Halloween items since we are in October...any ideas? I do need to work on some pumpkins that I picked up a few weeks ago and fill the window baskets outside with smaller pumpkins. I need to get on that before Halloween arrives.

Aprons For Twins

I made these two aprons for the same client that ordered these leggings for her nieces. What a great aunt to be thinking of and outfitting her nieces with such fun items. She wanted to order the same apron that she had seen me make before with her nieces names embroidered on them.

I decided that even though I could just buy these at the store that I would go ahead and make them like I did with this apron. With the first apron I had to outsource the embroidery because I had no way of doing it myself. This time I was able to use my new sewing machine and do the names myself. This was my first time trying and I love how it turned out and seems like it will be great for projects. I hope that these two little girls get to enjoy their apron and even get them dirty while cooking with Mom.

I think this might be the last plain colored apron that I make, it takes too much time when I could just buy them. I would like to make children's aprons out of patterned fabric but have not had a need for that yet.

I know this is not the last time that I will be embroidering something. I am sure I will be putting my child's name on everything and driving my husband crazy. ;)

New Fabric/New Find Friday #39

I saw this fabric at the store while picking up something for a future project and it just called to me. I really like funky animal prints, but they have to be just right, a nice balance between traditional and fun but not trashy. You know what I mean? Sometimes you see animal prints and they just look trashy or cheep but this one is funky without be trashy but not traditional because of those blue dots.

It is a silky fabric and the print is brown and blue on white. The colors do not show up the best in the picture but trust me it is cute. I hope to make a few burp cloths with this and have them on my blog/etsy site soon.I am working on that at the same time as I am cleaning out my sewing stuff from the baby room. It is a great time to organize and get some much needed projects finished.

 I will let you know when I am finished, there will be a lot of fun stuff and some more fun before and after pictures.

Cover For Mom Of Three

This cover and burp cloth are going to a mom of three boys, and I think this is her first time with a breastfeeding cover. It was given to her by her sister-in-law whom she told that she would like to try a cover this time. Anyway, I love the fabric that she choose and I hope the recipient loves the fabric as well.

This is the fabric that I showed you would coordinate with the dot ribbon that I found and was going to use, but I thought the ribbon was too wide so I found another ribbon that I liked just as much.

The fabric I had for the burp cloth was just a little short so I needed the ribbon to extend it to the point that I usually like to have the fabric cover. I was really iffy about how the ribbon was going to look with the fabric since they were two patterns but I love how it turned out!

What do you think about the ribbon?!

30th Birthday Shirts

I am so excited to show you these tee-shirts, mostly because I love the new heat transfer that I have and am excited to make more shirts with it!
A friend of mine and her friend planned a girls night for two of their friends who were turning 30. Of course when you turn such a monumental age you  have to celebrate with a special shirt. She called to place the order and let me know how she wanted them done and I think that they turned out pretty cool.

There are four shirts total, two of one style and two of the other. The picture above shows the fronts of the shirt, the two shirts that the Birthday girls wore said: "Age is just a number, and mine is unlisted" on the front. The two shirts that the non-birthday girls wore said "She's thirty" with an arrow pointing to the girl who is thirty. All of this is done with pink flocked heat transfer.

The back of the Birthday girl's shirts say their last name in white flocked transfer and the number 30 in pink flocked heat transfer paper. They were made to look like sports shirts.

Here is another close up of the non-Birthday girl's shirts. They had nothing on the back of their shirts.

Here they are all lined up in a row (as they would look from the front when seeing them standing together). I hope that they had a great night out and got some good comments about their age. :)

I can see making such cute specialized shirts for 16th, 21st, 30th, 40+ over the hill Birthdays, and bachelor/bachelorette parties. Oh and maybe even something cute for 25th and 50th wedding anniversary. You have something to celebrate that you want on a shirt let me know!

New Fabric/New Find Friday #38

While at the fabric store the other day looking for some ribbon I noticed that there are a few ribbon patterns that match some of the fabrics that they sell. I was so excited to see this and started thinking of some fun projects that I could do with matching fabrics and ribbon.

This is the ribbon that I picked up, it goes with three different fabrics in a collection. This fabric above is one of the fabrics in the collection and the fabric from this post is also in the collection. There is also a dot fabric in the collection as well that matches this ribbon and how cute would it be to make a little girls dress out of it, or to do some ruffles on the back of a onesie with the ribbon and the letter on the front in the matching fabric.

I ended up not using this ribbon with the project because it was a bit too wide so I used something else that I picked up. That post is coming up next week.

I hope that everyone has a great weekend. I have been craving hot apple cider, I hope to get some this weekend.

New Light Fixtures

I have been majorly nesting these past few weeks, organizing my closet every two weeks, starting non-baby related projects, and of course starting baby projects. You already saw my two ottoman re-do's here and here and now I am on to some new lighting for our house.

This all started when my hubby got a ceiling fan for our bedroom. I am not a huge fan of ceiling fans in design from the standpoint of form but from the function standpoint they are great. We were sick of tripping over the oscillating fan cord and were excited to replace the 1970's square fixture with something that will function as a fan and also give out some great light.

I am sorry that I do not have a before picture of the light fixture and this isn't a HUGE change but it works for what we need it to do now. (BTW those lumps in the bed are all of my pillows that I now have to use for sleeping!) Now I need to go find cute pull chains for the light and fan so it is easy to turn on and off and has a bit of interest. I would love to have a remote but this one did not come with one, maybe next time.After this went up I was thinking...I would really like to change the hallway light and the light in the third bedroom. I will tell you more about the third bedroom light when I get that fixed up and hung.

Here is a picture of the hallway light before the change, it was the original globe covered bulb from when we moved in and it is probably from the 70's as well. I wanted something a little softer and larger and was going to use a small chandler but that looked too big so I started searching Ikea. After finding only expensive things that I liked and wanted I ended up looking on Craigslist.

Here is what I ended up finding for a VERY good price. It is a drum shade with pleats that arch out to give it a bubble shape around the sides. We love how much light it puts out and the updated look. Ok granted it is a throw back to the 60's but it gives us a new look in our house.

The third lighting fixture needs a bit more work than these two did so that might have to wait until 2011 after baby comes and I get my paint out for a few things around the house.

I hope you are enjoying these little breaks from the crafts to see some mini design projects. :)

Baby Belly Band

This project today might seem a bit out of the ordinary, but I wanted to post it to show that I try to fulfill your requests and make the custom item that you need. A friend of mine puts her baby in just tee shirts and diapers (as a newborn) and was needing something to keep her stomach warm to help with digestion.

That is a long story in itself--but she was thinking of some sort of item like a baby legging but for her body. So we worked together to come up with this open-ended at both ends belly band. It is made from jersey cotton and has elastic at either end. This way she can pull it up over baby's clothes and keep her warm and belly happy. I think it is working so far, but maybe she is just being nice. ;)

So there you have it, a truly custom item that was made to order. I am sure it is not something that I will be making again but that is fine because it fit the need of my client.

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful weather, I am finally embracing fall.

New Fabric/New Find Friday #35

Did anyone notice that I miss-counted my Friday Find posts and was missing #35?? Well I did and here it is....a little late and out of order but here non the less. That is what I get for writing posts ahead of time, saving them for later and not sending them out right away.

This week I have something really really fun and exciting to talk about....magnetic paper, tattoo paper, and printable heat transfer material. These are all products that are made for the silhouette machine that I have. I am really excited to try using all of them.

The magnet paper will be great for making my own fridge magnets, it would work for cars, and of course anything else that is magnetic. I have seen clean and dirty signs for the dishwasher, so cute! I am sure I will come up with other ideas when I start playing with the paper and looking around the house for things that are magnetic.

The tattoo paper can of course be used for fake tattoos, which are not my favorite but there are some other great things that you can use it for. I have seen people use it on candles and of all things including pumpkins! CUTE

There are two types of printable heat transfer paper, one for light colored shirts one for dark colored shirts. This paper can be used to make custom decals etc that can be ironed on to shirts. I am excited to use this for items that people are not looking to last for longer than a day or two because I am not sure how long the material stays on the shirt before peeling off. A great way to use it would be on a tote bag that are not going to be washed, with pictures of your kids or animals on the front.

I am sure I will start using these items as I get the baby room put together and I promise to share the projects with you as I finish them.