Personalized Napkins

I have been wanting to explore the world of napkins for a while and I finally pushed myself to make some from fun fabric (you will see those in a few weeks) and personalize some plain white ones that were already made.

First let's start with these monogrammed napkins. I bought these white napkins with a slight pattern on them and thought they would be great for our table and put our monograms on them. I am really trying to use less paper napkins so these cloth napkins are going to be great for us to use at the table. We end up using the same napkin for several days since they don't get that dirty at one meal so it will be nice to know who's is whos.

Then I decided to make something a bit universal and saw ones like these on Etsy and thought these were cute. Something you could put on your table for guests or at every seat when having a dinner party. These were done on plain white cotton napkins with black screen printing ink.

These next napkins I also saw on Etsy and thought these would be great to have a set. Now really how fun would these be to have at a dinner party where you can tell your guests that they are sitting at seat number 1, 2, 3, etc.

Finally I thought one simple initial would be a nice touch. I did all of these in black but how fun would they be in the colors that coordinate with your house. You could do all of them the same, last name initial or all of them different, for each member of the family's first name. A red letter or number to go with a red dinning room?  Fun.

Well I had a lot of fun making these napkins and think custom ones would be great, have any ideas? What about ones with orange turkey's on them for Thanksgiving? That would be cute. Maybe I will have to make a set for my family.

I have these posted on Etsy so if you feel like you need to have some napkins like these come on over and get some for yourself.

Fall Pinterest Challenge

I am a week or so behind but I wanted to post this anyway because I had such a fun time making my item from Pinterest that I wanted to share it. Do you remember when I participated in the summer challenge that Young House Love put on? You can see that post here. Well here I am to show you my fall Pinterest challenge entry.

A good friend of mine was making some Merry Christmas Bunting and I have seen so many on Pinterest that when I found some pretty red burlap fabric at the store I thought I should make a bunting of my own for my Christmas decorations.

Inspiration photo one was found on Pinterest (I did change it a bit to make it my own) and you can find the original link to the Christmas bunting Here. I liked the idea of stenciling or stamping the letters onto the burlap.

I also saw this image on a friends board and this got me thinking to use this bunting that I made not only as a decoration in my house but also for our Christmas photo (which we are taking tomorrow). How sweet is this picture, it came from this photographer's website. I think we are going to have to break the words up like the first image to get it to fit into our picture. We will see.

And....here is what I came up with.

I am sorry that I did not take any process photo's for you this time. I was doing this late one night and did not really think about taking picture in my dark and MESSY family room. I can walk you though the process though and maybe that will help you. I bought the red burlap and thought of this project immediately. I thought it would be great to use black screen printing ink to put the letters on the burlap. I cut the shape of the flags out of vinyl with my silhouette machine and then stuck that on my burlap as a template. That made it VERY easy to cut the shapes out since the burlap moves a lot. Then I used the vinyl as a stencil for the letters and painted in the letters. It was very easy, the hardest part was making sure that I put enough black paint in it to show up and not getting that black paint on anything that I set it on while it was drying.

It is really simple but I like the that and I think this is going to be a great addition to my mirror in my living room at Christmastime.

Check out the other women who put this challenge on, Katie, Sherry, Ana, and Erin. Also go Here to check out other bloggers like me who took the challenge and actually did it in time!

New Fabric/New Find Friday #91

I am having a strange fascination with seersucker fabric. I keep seeing it at the fabric store and cannot stop myself from buying it. It reminds me of my father-in-law and I think baby bee would look so cute in a seersucker outfit.

The lady at the fabric store made a comment to baby bee "I bet all of these fabrics are for you," well those weren't but I think this will be. I am thinking it would be cute to make summer jumpers out of these for him. Simple ones that button at the shoulders and I can do one short pair and one long pair. I would like to get working on them now but I think I might wait a few months since I have no idea what size he is going to be in the spring/summer.

Don't these just remind you of those cute seersucker blazers? If I get adventurous I might try a pair of pants (elastic waist) and a jacket.  We are so traditional around here with our clothing that I think he is going to look so cute in these!! I can't wait.

Also I wanted to say thank you to all of the Veterans who make our country safe. Thank you!

New Scarves

Speaking of scarves here are a few new scarves that I made a few weeks ago that I thought would be fun for summer, but really you could wear them anytime of the year.

This first one is made from a grey cotton jersey fabric that has some small yellow flowers with gold overlay on some of them. I gathered it with some elastic thread to give it some bounce and movement. I like how casual it looks compared to the other scarves I make.

This scarf was supposed to be the same look as the grey scarf but ended up being a bit thinner than the grey one and so it looks a bit more wispy than I was going for. It is made from that shirred tee-shirt material that has some voids in it, making the cotton a bit lighter and it also is cut on the bias so it curls up a bit more than the other. I actually like how thin it is and is perfect on hot days when you want to just add something of interest around your neck, sort of like a soft necklace. That is great these days for babies to play with and not be able to break.

Finally there is this black beauty. This one is made from a shear fabric and is gathered along the width making small little ripples or bubbles down the scarf. I think this one is fun to wear long or wrapped around your neck. This one could take you from summer to winter.

These have been posted on my etsy site and are ready for purchase!

Pretty Fall Scarf (Giveaway)

I had a great weekend and thank you to everyone that stopped by the Christmas Boutique, we had a great time. I am still catching up on sleep from all of those long nights preparing and I will have to report later if I made it through my 30 day challenge.

Today I have another exciting giveaway today but this time it is for a scarf! I am hoping that more of you will be excited about this than a breastfeeding cover, or at least more of you would use this than a breastfeeding cover.

The details:

What: One grey scarf seen in the pictures below(does not come with the broach shown in the pictures)
Where: Go to  http://ajillofalltrades.blogspot.com/2011/11/youll-love-it-too-giveaway.html to enter.
When: You have until the 20th at midnight to enter
How: Winner chosen randomly and you must go to her blog to enter (all comments here are just for fun and to be nice, comments there actually count). Here is how to enter the giveaway on A Jill Of All Trades....

1- Become a follower of this blog via GFC or Networked Blogs and leave a comment with your e-mail address.

2- Go to You'll Love It Too and tell me your favorite item and leave a comment with your e-mail address.

Here are images of what you will win....

Now go enter! Good luck!

New Fabric/New Find Friday #90

This is a really quick post today as I am trying to get everything finished for tomorrow. I bought these fabric while I was at the fabric store last for baby bee's quilt. I needed a few more solid fabrics to go with the fabrics in his room and here is what I picked out.

I have a feeling that I might be using this bottom fabric for other items as well as his quilt because I think it is so cute! A nice texture for a onesie with a letter on it.

Below are the fabrics that are in his room and the solids that I already bought for his room. I hope I can get started on this after Christmas for his Christmas/Birthday present, good thing he isn't old enough to know better. :)

I will be back next week with another giveaway and don't forget about THIS one that I told you about last week. She needs 1000 friends on Facebook before she draws a name and yours could be one if you "like" her on Facebook.

Basment Part II

I think it is about time to show you Part II of the Basement saga! I posted part one with the before picture here and it is coming along! Now not only do we have the walls up but we also have the ceiling grid up and tiles in place!! Whoot Whoot!

Here is a view of the right side of the basement. You can see how the walls looked before we put the panels up. We also fixed that window leak, can you see all of that grey haze running from the corner of the window to the ground? That would be where the water leaked, not anymore! Well we hope.

This is the left side of the basement. The house was built a while ago so the space from the floor to the ceiling is not that tall, to pass code we needed at least 6' of clearance so we were not sure about a traditional drop ceiling. The ceiling tiles would have been pretty close to the joists which would make it hard to push a tile up and out. We talked about a million options and finally compromised and decided to do a ceiling grid that attaches to the joists and the tiles clip into the grid. I said that I wanted flat tiles with no ripples etc so they look the most like drywall, which is what I would have preferred on the walls and ceiling.

Here is that same view again of the right side with everything in. We still need to paint the columns and soffit around the duct work but one step at a time. :) Is it starting to look like an office?!

This is the left side again, along with wanting flat ceiling tiles I also wanted can lights, not fluorescent tubes. We were going to do incandescent bulbs in the cans but they were so hot we decided to change to fluorescent. I just do not like the color that fluorescent lights put out and I also hate that they take so long to "warm up."

Anyway that is part II. Part III will be the fourth wall that divides that finished side from the unfinished side, the stairs and maybe even some paint?! We will see.