Custom Order!

I have wanted... no needed, a custom address stamp for some time. Kim alterted me to The Star Box shop on Etsy. I loved the seahorse stamp she has, but we all know I'm an octopus girl. I looked in her sold items and saw some customs. Also she hand carves each stamp. So I wondered if she would do a custom stamp for me? With an octopus?

She said YES. Here is my octopus. I had two done, one has my home address, but I bet if I posted that one my mom would say, "Don't post the address of my grandbabies on the internet for everyone to see." So here is this one. I love it! All I told her was what I wanted it to say and that it needed to have an octopus. She chose the font and all that goodness. I think it's the coolest stamp ever. The address stamp looks more like this one. Of course mine has an octopus instead of the seahorse. (although that seahorse is beautiful too!)

They were a STEAL at $10 each. I cannot believe it! I have MANY stamps of this size I paid $10 for and they are not even custom! And those boring address stamps you get from the office place cost more than that and they don't even come in octopus.

What would you have on yours? I mean ALL you cardmakers need a custom stamp for the backs of your cards. Your own image and such. (or that seahorse... why didn't I get the seahorse in addition?)

Kim got an awesome one too! I'll let her tell you about hers.

Skip to my Lou Fabric Notebook Cover

This is actually the second time I've made this. the first time I added it to the purse and zippie giveaway I did a few weeks back.


I made a notepad cover today using THIS pattern I purchased from Skip to my Lou. I love the pattern, it cuts and sews really easily. The one comment is on the final sewing when it says "scant 1/4 inch" she means SCANT. Not EXACTLY. I had a brand new 1/4 inch foot the first time and so I used it and was so proud of my exact 1/4 inch, and it was way snug. It worked out, but today I did do a scant 1/4 and it was a much nicer fit. The pattern was cheap. It was only $1.99. I plan to make a bunch for gifts.


This is for Kim. She picked out the fabric and bought it and had it sent here. It's like my own version of sewing for hire, she buys extra of the fabric, I get the leftovers! :)

Ok Outside view, featuring pencil/pen pocket.
Back view. The band of contrast fabric on the top is not part of the pattern, it's because I had directional fabric and wanted the back to be right side up too so I did that to turn the fabric. I also think it's snazzy.

And the inside. The inside is a smidge boring, but it does the job. The elastic thingie wraps to hold it all closed. You do NOT need this fat of elastic, but I only had this and WAY skinny and the way skinny didn't work. So fat it was. I'm sure someone super clever will cover the elastic with contrast fabric and make it DELUX cute.
Yup, there is crayon on my dining room table. Doesn't bother me a bit either.

Variation on a theme

First I'll share the Valentines Day card I made my wonderful Brian. I was inspired by THIS card I saw on Etsy. ( I LOVE the Etsy card and I hinted all over the place but no one got it for me! *sad* JK) Then I got an order from Cornish Heritage Farms and made a TON of cards. I used the Ranger Paint Daubers a lot.

These are not new stamps on the proud card, but the paint was new.

I love this open dot backgrounder stamp.

Same open dot, still loving it.

This dot circle backgrounder looks totally different with the paint. I thought it was fun.

More paint and a lot of glitter. I painted the letters with paint first, then painted them with glue then dumped tons of glitter. I did the "e" and "o" on foam tape so it would rise above the "h" and "ll".

And that's what I've made lately. I know I've been a slacker blogger. I'm gonna bout to slack more because we are going on vacation. Sorry about that.

Yellow/White

First of all I can't believe it's been TEN DAYS since my last blog post! Sheesh.

I've been stamping a lot but I'm entering almost all of it in a contest so I can't share.

I can share this. I got new lotion. I LOVE it. I'm about to go online and see what else I can get in this fragrance. Because it's my goal to smell like this every second of every day. Brian loves it too, although he keeps asking me to make lemon bars now. haha. *might go get some stuff and suprise him with some today*

I love the lotion so much, I love the bottle almost as much. The white on yellow with touches of black, I adore it! So I got out of bed last night to make a card with those colors.

Liked it so much I made two.

My original plan was to stamp the white with paint, but it just didn't show up great on the yellow. I tried white ink, and embossing power, none made me happy. I then tried stamping the white with white stazon on clear and layering that. I loved the look. So I stamped the black with black stazon too and that's pretty much the whole card. Put the clear piece over yellow cardstock, attached with black brads. whippa wam wam wazzle, it's done.

I don't know who makes the three dandilioin stamp, but all the other stamps are by Cornish Heritage Farms.

I'm off to www.jrwatkins.com to see what else they are willing to sell me that smells like lemon cream. I'm hoping for purfume, shampoo, conditioner, laundry detergent... generally anything.

And the winner is...

Mrs. Fence said...
Love your purse Erin. You always make great stuff!

Mrs. Fence please send me your mailing information to my email at serinone@yahoo.com and I will get your stuff out to you!

ETA: I'm so bad connecting people's online names with real names. Tracey You do not have to mail me your info, as of course I have it. :)

Scrapbook pages

So I do scrapbook. You know, some. Anyhow I was looking back at my older stuff and it all looks dated to me. So I am doing more simple pages. Also I'm currently madly in LOVE with Kraft colored cardstock. Also with handwritten journaling. So here we go: Ah! you noticed? The fabric from YOUR purse is on that zoo page. The Ralph Lauren pillowcase fabric. Now that's become this scrapbook page, your purse, your zippie and a notepad cover that I've not shown you yet. I'm down to almost none of it left now. But I have this personal challange to use all of it. Gotta get my 50cents worth.

I think you will need a Zippie with that.

I felt that the purse in the last post was a little large. I thought, "Whoever wins this will surely spend their whole lives looking for their chapstick." I can't have that! So I made you *the winner* a little zipper pouch to go inside your new purse.

This first pic, the colors are right on, but it's a smidge blurry. *I can't take great pics when it's not sunny, I don't know what people who live in Washington State do ever*

This pic is not blurry as much, but the colors are washed out. Now squint your eyes at these two pics and try to blend them into one pic... THATS what your new Zippie will look like.
So I like to share the things I learn when I sew with you. On this zippie I learned that adding piping to a little zipper bag is about 50 times harder than adding it to a purse. I almost threw this thing out. I did add an additional topstitch all the way around, just in case I didn't catch everything or something, it won't leak your pennies or whatever out all over your purse. It's NOT perfect. I can see in the pic the one corner is weird, also I can see some of the construction on the piping, it does not just appear like magic all the way around. *sigh* I also learned which way to point the piping while sewing it to the zipper so when I turn the bag it's right, although in all honesty I don't see me doing this again. *Julie, I will make you a poof ball zipper bag some day, and this piping direction while sewing thing will be needed for that too.*

All in all, I think it's pretty cute. It goes really well with your purse. If you hate it you can just toss it and I'll never know. Unless you are local. Local girls, if you win you have to use the zippie or I'll know and it will hurt my feelings.

Remember you have to comment on the ORIGINAL POST to enter to win. You can comment on this post you are reading right now to tell me how cool this zippie is, but it won't enter you in the contest. *wink*

Blog Candy! Purse up for Grabs!

I've been wanting to make this purse for a while. One with side gussets, and piping, and an inside zipper pocket. With this gray fabric. And some vintage or vintage looking fabrics. All this fabric is from thrift stores. So I did.

There are a few weird things on it. But the button IS centered right, as is the ribbon catch. It's just wonky in this photo and the one above, I promise it is centered and lays normal. I pleated the lining. That was not really necessary. It also caused a weird outward pucker on the zipper part. If I insist on pleating a lining again I will do that pleat BEFORE I set in the zipper, then carefully carry the pleat into the cut out hole for the zipper. It will be a PITA so I probably won't pleat linings on bags with zippers inside them anymore. I'm sure it will be fine when you use it though. Whenever you open the zipper you will remember that Erin, a self taught crafter made it for you. It will bring you joy.

Here's the roomy pocket that you will access after you unzip the wonky zipper. (the zipper itself is fine, I'd NOT give you a bag with a messed up zipper.)

Do admire the custom made piping trim on this bag. This trim is so adorable it is taking everything I have not to keep it. I simply don't need a bag though.

So there you have it. If YOU would like this bag and have a use for it you just leave a comment here. If you spread the news somewhere then you can leave two comments. If you spread it more places you can leave even more comments.

I AM participating in a Pay it Forward. I want to be clear that this bag is NOT my pay it forward item. This bag is being given away in shameless blog promotion. If you choose to give something away after you get it that's adorable of you.

I will pick a winner Super Bowl Sunday. Then if you love sports it will be a super awesome day for you and if you don't you will have something to look forward to. You know, instead of being excited about a new crop of commercials.

If you live on planet Earth in the Milky Way Galexy you are invited to win the bag. *My son Stephen always says the whole "Earth in the Milky Way Galexy" part.*

Oh! I just realized you could not see the cool inside lining on the sholder strap. It's more of the lush orange print. Which was a Ralph Lauren pillowcase earlier today.

Zippers.

I have a lot of zippers.

I don't have ANY that goes well enough for me with this bag!

The bag will be lined with this print, the outside is gray cord. I might pipe the outside with some contrast fabric too.

how can 100 zippers NOT be enough? HOW???

One Red Robin Mushroom Girl

I saw this pattern at One Red Robbin and wanted to make it. I generally STINK at embroidery though.

So here she is: She is on a large piece of linen. I'm not sure what I'll turn her into. Any ideas?

Stephen's Quilt is done.

I didn't actually use Jenny at all on this. This quilt is the last thing I forced out of The Beast (old machine).

Stephen had requested a "yellow quilt" So I made this: True to his love of yellow (please note yellow walls) He likes to have it on his bed so the back is showing. Shoulda just made it whole cloth with two yellows I guess! haha. But the best part is he loves it. I think he needs a pillowcase for it now. His pillow cases are all blue. That simply doesn't work. I have enough fabric I think to make one with the yellow animal print. I think maybe a line of red ric rac?

New Sewing Machine

Well it went like this. Brian tried to fix my machine, but not only was the pressor foot thingie not working (which he DID fix, YEAH BRIAN) but the timing was all off, missing stitches and it would not free motion anymore. The thing was just generally dieing. I could probably have fixed most of that by getting the full service for $90. I didn't feel it was worth it, as I did really WANT a new machine anyhow.

So I sold some of my cards, I sold some of my stamps. And today I bought this: Here it is all out of the box:

With the free motion/darning foot attached. I LOVE it. (Oh I bought the darning foot and also a 1/4 inch foot seperate.)

It's not terribly fancy. It does have a yellow flower on it, well three of them. So that's cute. Anyhow it's basic, but really sturdy. It has every feature my old machine did plus a few more. And it sews like a DREAM. And it's more quite than my old machine.

So what it has/does that my last didn't:

• something about the threading having an extra catch that is somehow better, but I don't know why. It's a Janome thing.
• A little drawer in the part you can remove (extension table) which can hold your extra feet and such. I'm not SURE I care about the drawer, I guess I'll get used to it.
• the bobin cover thingie is clear so I don't suddenly run out. I LOVE this feature.
• the feed dogs lower, so I don't need the cover I had to use on my old machine
• all the parts just feel better, more sturdy
• came with a seam ripper
• came with a button hole foot, I've never done a button hole, I'll have to give it a try.
• Oh it has two button hold feet, one is "button hole foot B" and one is "sliding button hole foot" I have NO IDEA.
• It can hold a double needle and two spools of thread. the only thing I know you use this for is pin tucks, which I think are the most precious thing ever. I saw it on Sewing with Nancy one time. I don't have a double needle though, or a pintuck foot, but I COULD get them.
• The whole sewing area with the extension table on is larger, great for free motion quilting.

Ok so I also bought the darning /free motion foot, and a quarter inch foot. I had no idea about the quarter inch. I'd heard the term, but my old foot was a quarter inch from the needle to the edge so I thought that was what it ment. NOPE. I now have this special foot that has a fabric guide you actually butt the fabric up against. I did some peicing for an ongoing project and it came out with perfect points. I mean on row after row. I usually get one perfect point in about 5.

So I'm a totally happy camper.

And her name is Jenny. Jenny the Janome.

Aquarium

I love the new Ocean Friends set by Cornish Heritag Farms. When I opened it up and pulled it off the plastic I had an idea! Make a 3D aquarium with it.

First I stamped a handful of the sea critters and colored them with my copic markers. Then I cut down the plastic sheet and colored that too with copic, it looks streaky, but it turns out ok. I think that alcohol ink dropper stuff would rock for this too, probably be even better, but I don't have any so marker worked fine.

Ok next I forgot to take a pic, but I stamped the seaweed and bubbles on a white piece and colored them. Then I glued the pieces I cut out to the plastic pieces (two of them).

I layered with foam tape to give tons of dimension. So it's paper, foam, plastic with critters, foam, plastic with critters.

It looks like a mess, so here I am putting ribbon over the edges.

Here is at the same step from another angel, so only the seahorse and the very large yellow/orange fish are on the top layer, then all the other critters and the coral, then the bubbles and sea weeds.

And here is the finished card. I ment it to be an underwater scene but with the black it looks like an aquarium to me, which is fun too.

Another view.

Mushrooms

In my blog reading the other day I came across this My Paper Crane post about making clay mushrooms. So I decided to do some of my own.

They sure are friendly. I'm not sure what I'll do with them. Any ideas?

No news on the sewing machine front. I'm going to go on Friday and suss it all out. Marcia (my awesome MIL) is going to come watch the boys so I can take my time and not have to scream, "Don't touch that thread, put down that bobbin" the whole time. My plan is this: If they can fix it for cheap just get it fixed. If they cannot or it's expensive get info on a bunch of machines and come home. Then pray about it for at least a week, compare online and such. Then after some time decide. I spent most of yesterday looking at machines online and honestly it's making me a little depressed and insane. So for the next two days I'm going to focus on stamping and other fun stuff. Now that there is a plan in place I feel I can just shove my sewing machine anxiety to the back of my mind.

Ugh

My machine is still dead.

I am considering replacing it if it's more than about $30 to fix. I mean it's old, it's sorta crappy...

so the sewing place has several Janome for under $300. I'm totally comfortable with that price.

I'm thinking about:

TB12 (which is super cool looking but does it do ENOUGH for me)
Magnolia 7318 (which I like the features of a bunch, but with those flowers on it, it looks like a toy)
Harmony (it's aqua. I can't remember what else I loved about it)
And 11590FS. Can't remember what I liked about that one either, it had a nice review though.

I know everyone has WAY fancier machines than me and I'm sure you love your Pfaff or BabyLock or Viking or whatever you are using. But I'm a girl with a budget and I don't know a single person ever to not love their Janome.

Anyhow I'm totally depressed. I'm gonna go back when the lady who sells the machines and the husband who does the repairs are both in and have the husband tell me exactly the charge to fix me all up, then the lady help me figure out how much it would cost to get me in a machine that I will love. Then pray about it more and decide.

I'm just sick over the whole thing. I need to get some work published to offset my new machine spending.

Oh and if you don't know, our AC died, our pool motor died AND our TV is dieing on us. So like I have money for a sewing machine right now? I mean my family COULD survive without a sewing machine, but not a TV or AC. Oh and have you SEEN how stupid expensive TVs are now? What the heck? They don't even SEW stuff! I suggested NOT having a TV but they all thought I was insane.

Bad News Everyone

My sewing machine repair store is not open on Mondays!


The horror.

Broken

My sewing machine is broken.

Not threaded wrong, or skipping stitches,

nasty broken. :(

I was sewing along on Stephen's quilt. Using the walking foot. I hate the walking foot by the way. Anyhow it just went funky and made a huge loud noise suddenly. Then the pressor foot thingie didn't work. Didn't raise and lower the foot. So I took the walking foot off and then it sorta worked. I sewed some more. But it wasn't right. It sounded off. There wasn't enough pressure on the pressure foot. So I took the quilt out and looked at it and it really didn't have enough pressure. Just sorta flopping around. I could raise and lower it, but it was floppy.

Turns out the spring that is on there isn't attached right now. Somehow it either broke some or came unattached.

Brian tried to reattach it. He used my piercer I got from Gina K. Now the thing with the piercer is for YEARS I pierced with a push pin. Then I got one from Gina K. It was awesome. I love that thing. I'm sure you can see where this is going. My piercer is broken too. Snapped off trying to fix my machine. Which is still broken.

I think my sewing machine guy will be able to fix it. I'm really hoping he can just do a quick fix on it while I'm in there. I don't want to leave it behind. I want to finish the quilt, I want to sew a million more projects.

And I REALLY hope whatever I did CAN be fixed. You simply can't buy a sturdy good machine for what I can afford any more. I cannot afford a new machine. It would take me months and months to save up for even a medium quality one.

In other news:
Oh forget it, I can't think of other news with a broken sewing machine.

My new CHF. Glittery deer.

I got my new CHF yesterday. Which you know because I showed you.:)

So last night after I put kids to bed I cut them all out (man are my hands tired) and stamped a couple of cards.

And this one. I may have gone a bit overboard with the glitter? I just couldn't stop!

aaah, shopping

I ordered a pile of stamps from Cornish Heritage Farms. I LOVE LOVE LOVE their stamps. And as you can see I LOVE the Kim Hughes collection most of all. I do have a complaint though! On this set it clearly says in the description that there is an octopus. But there IS NO OCTOPUS. That critter you see is a jellyfish. I deamand an octopus! Kim, please draw an octopus add on for this set. *I'm not really upset by the way, just kidding around, although I WOULD like an octopus please*

I can't wait to get creating, I cleaned the craft room (making a quilt makes a huge mess for me) so I'm all ready.

Top done!

Ok I went with the slashing the quilt at the 3/4 then sewing in the fat yellow stripe bordered by thin red. What do you think? I'm really happy with it. (less happy that it's cloudy and I can't get a great picture)

Another view that shows the design more, but the colors are off.

So for quilting I'm going to NOT quilt in the red at all, then on all the fat stripes some free motion quilting, I'm thinking of sort of curvie lines that go all the way across the width of the stripe then back again the other direction. I can't explain it, but it's very clear in my own mind. haha.

Stephen loves it and says that it IS yellow enough.