Craft Apple

My sister and I haven’t lived in the same city since the 90s.  If I had to do it all over again I might have tried harder to live closer to her.  But when I was newly married my husband and I moved to Texas and she and her husband moved to Washington State.  It’s just not close enough to jump in the car for a visit.  Last weekend my sister flew in for a few days and it was fun to hang out with my best friend. We even got some crafting done in the form of glass etching.

I had a couple of glass containers and my sister, empowered by youtube decided to do give it a try.  We picked up some super cheap paintbrushes and some Glass Etching Cream ($10.99) at Hobby Lobby.  I cut out the words out of adhesive vinyl using the Cricut then weeded out the actual words so that we had the outline left to use as a stencil.

My sister brushed on the etching cream and watched it do it’s magic. Etching is pretty easy to do but super hard to get a good picture of.  I hope you can appreciate how pretty it is, though.

Check out youtube where there are a bunch of tutorials to get you started on your way.  Happy crafting!

This is my first little sewing project for Christmas completed!  It’s a little apron for my goddaughter to wear in her play kitchen.  It’s been a while since I’ve had fun pairing fabrics in the sewing room so this was a lot of fun!

It was also a lot of fun embellishing the picture above.  But maybe it’s a bit busy.  For those who prefer a less-busy version, here ya go.

Happy Christmas sewing to all of you, my fellow sewists!

I’ve always wanted a Cricut but never had the motivation to get one until now.  I’ll tell you what made me want one – it was my sister.  She sent me cute little pictures of different labels that she had seen and it made me want to make cute labels too!  So far all I’ve been doing is cutting vinyl labels for my cleaning products.  But my sense is that this is just the beginning!

I started making my own cleaning products last year when I started having symptoms of environmental illness.  I found these cute glass amber spray bottles on Amazon and now my cleaning products are going to be beautifully bottled too!

I’m learning a lot about the Cricut.  The Maker is the only model I’ve ever owned so I can’t compare it to the other models.  The Maker is supposed to be able to cut fabric as well  with a mini rotary blade but I don’t imagine I’ll be using that feature for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, I don’t mind cutting fabric – I actually enjoy it.  Secondly, the fabric must be adhered to a sticky cutting mat which means it must be pealed off after the cut is made.  When pealing it off, the edges fray.  Not a huge problem but not worth it to me.

Do you cricut?  I’d love to see your stuff!  Feel free to leave a link in the comments!

As my sister was setting up her new website for her essential oils business it reminded me of the excitement of starting my own business 10 years ago. I had just one pattern at the beginning but the thrill of selling a pattern – it was exhilarating!

I wanted to do something special for her as she was getting all her stuff together and what would be better than a bag with your new company logo on it?

Isn’t it the cutest logo?  Thanks to custom digital printed fabric, she has a one-of-a-kind bag to carry what she needs to teach classes or meet with buyers.  The leather straps don’t hurt either.

Congratulations, Joanna!  Much success to you!

I’ve been putting a lot of leather straps on bags lately and here is a sample. At first glance, these bags probably look about the same.  Sure, one is bigger, but they use the same fabric and they both have leather straps. The leather really elevates the bag, in my opinion.

The bag below is the first one I made.  Nothing glaringly wrong with it. Except that the straps look funky.  I had momentarily forgotten about my 6-inches-between-the-straps rule.   The leather is bending and warping near where it attaches to the fabric and eventually this bag is going to become misshapen between the straps. Oops.

Lucky for me I had enough fabric for another one!  Made the bag a bit bigger and more importantly, remembered the strap rule and am so happy with it!

Can you see it?  Left = bad.  Right = good!

Gray + lemons + limes + tangerines + leather = very good.

It all started with me wanting to design my own baby boy quilt.  It was going to have mushrooms growing all over it, and it was going to be SO CUTE.  I drew it up in Publisher and colored it in.  I was determined to applique without adhesives.  After determining that I could cut the applique in half by not having mushroom stems, what I ended up with was a quilt with little mushroom caps on it.  Isn’t it funny how things work out? The caps look more like little hills but I’m happy with how it turned out.  This little boy is due any day and his quilt is ready for him!

Even though the mushrooms didn’t look the way I expected, I really liked the patchwork background and went to work on a mushroom-less girl quilt.

I love a cute ruffle quilt.  And this one was backed with a double gauze receiving blanket.

The ruffle is a Mona Luna print.  I am gradually hoping to use up my traditional fabric and replacing it with organic.  My chemical sensitivities have gotten more severe and I’ve been cleaning up my life.  No more adhesives melting under my iron and putting fumes in the air.  No more fabric with dye fixers that I shouldn’t be around.  Did you know that there is a certification process for organic fabrics that can ensure that the chemicals used in processing meet certain toxicity and environmental standards?  GOTS certification – that’s what it’s called. MonaLuna, Birch, and Cloud 9 fabrics all have this certification, thankfully, so while my fabric choices are somewhat limited, there is still a lot to choose from.

A post with 2 quilts!  I’m so proud of myself.  🙂