Expanding my accessory collection.

I’ve ordered a few pins lately.  Thanks to Instagram I’ve fallen down into a bit of an enamel pin addiction.

I found this lovely fox pin from KushKush on Etsy.

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Of course I had to like this tote and dream of owning it too.  I’m resisting . . . for now.

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Frame redo, with Instagrams.

This was on my living room wall.  A picture taken of a friend of my son’s toes with a dandelion, a personalized birthday gift from my bf and a saying I cut out of map pieces a few years ago when I was going through some rough times.

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I decided to change up the rough times picture as I feel far more settled and happy now.  I have had these printed Instagram images lying around in a pile for a while, I figured I’d finally put them to good use.

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The frame is a Ribba from IKEA.

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I picked my favs and laid them out in a way I liked.

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Then ta da! New happier wall art!

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Had a hard time getting a non glarey picture but you get the gist.

 

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Another Reddit swap

Did a ‘yarn’ Reddit swap a little while ago. Was sent these lovely yarns. I’m not the best with yarn but it’s on my craft adventure list and I’ve been giving it a go recently.

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You can sign up for current Reddit gift swaps here.

I won a thing!

A little bit ago on my my Instagram I stumbled on a ‘comment here to win’ post and gave it a go.  Then I won!

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I got my pick of t-shirt from Maker Valley.  I, of course, chose the ‘Maker’s Gonna Make’ one, although the one covered in fake threads was a close runner up.  It’s a ridiculously soft and comfortable t-shirt.

I also recieved a tote bag (I’m addicted to totes and bags) and a wee little notebook.  So much awesome.

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My friend Shannon

This is my friend Shannon and she’s amazing.  I met her years ago at Blissdom Canada.  I signed up to be her roommate without even knowing her.  I arrived at the hotel room we were to share in downtown Toronto on a Friday.  Shannon was coming from British Columbia and there was a medical emergency on her flight.  They had been diverted into the US to land and deal with it.  Things were all crazy and complicated as they were taken off the plan but no one had passports, because it was to be a through Canada flight . . it was a mess.  Apparently she had been Tweeting about it madly but I was busy settling in at the conference and meeting people.  Eventually I heard there was an issue.  So rather than meeting in the lobby or over dinner, Shannon walked into our hotel room while I was sitting in my bed in my jammies at nearly midnight.  It was a sort of ‘Hello’, ‘Hello’, ‘Good night’, ‘Good night’ sort of deal.  It was pretty funny.

Needless to say since then I’ve grown to love, love, love her!

A bit ago she started a knitting channel on YouTube, I don’t knit but she’s amazing and funny and a hoot to watch.  Might be enough to get me knitting!

She’s also started sewing recently and opened an Etsy shop, Soxcetera.  She has these great project bags, I’ve already ordered two, and now project backpacks, like this.

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Honestly, how could I resist!?! Look at these amazing prints!

il_570xN.1018805424_hf5qAnyhoo, while there are many tutorials for drawstring bags out there and I could totally whip myself up some here and there I don’t mind supporting other handmakery people, especially when they’re a friend.

 

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Another TinkerTote, this one’s for me.

I can’t tell you how much I loved this class my Tara Rebman- Quilt-As-You-Go: Patchwork Bags. I have made sooo many. They never fail to get commented on. And they play on my love of making use of scraps!

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I love Echnio fabrics and I had a vision of making my self a bag using scraps of their prints.  So off I went to Etsy to find a scrap bundle.  I found Mountain of the Dragon and after some chats about ‘Will you pretty please ship to Canada?’ we sorted out a way to get me some pretties.  Basically I said ‘I’m willing to spend $X, send what you can for that amount’.  It’s so hard lately with the terrible exchange rate to get things shipped from the US . . .

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These scraps were perfect! So I set to sewing up my own tote, finally.

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I used some thrifted purple denim at the bottom instead of the usual blue and chose to make use of my pre-made bias tape I purchased from my favourite pattern making gal Michelle Patterns.  Sadly I was missing about 4-5 inches of tape to finish it off! Of course I hadn’t measured twice before I started so I had all the tape sewn on the bag and then was missing this one piece.  Luckily thanks to a sad face shout out on Instagram Michelle let me know what the fabric was.

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Did, yet another, quick Etsy search and found this shop to order exactly what I needed, and of course a few things more . . . because FABRIC!

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Doodling

Had a bit of a crummy evening the other day. So while the kids were running around with friends and otherwise occupied I decided to be creative.

There are so many fun classes on Creativebug, I’ve made and learned so many things. Creative Doodling with Pam Garrison was exactly what I needed that day.

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Here are my butterflies. I did have to work a few times to stifle the urge to compare them with Pam’s seemingly effortless doodles, but she is a pro and I got over it.
I shared it on my Instagram and *both* she and Creativebug liked it so I can’t be doing all that bad!

My kids and I also got our sketchbooks out while my leg was still all castified and healing and we all did some of Pam Garrison Drawing Challenge. It was a fun activity to do together.

You should check the class out, or some of the other great ones on there if doodling isn’t your thing (although I think you could be swayed between this class or one of Lisa Cogdon’s like Paint a Geometric Star)

You can see them all at Creativebug.

Zipper pulls!

Ok here’s another amazing tip and pattern from the pattern lady I love Michelle at, michellepatterns.com.

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I can’t say enough how much I love all her patterns and tutorials.

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A great place to start if you haven’t done much sewing, or a great place to just go to create some fun accessories.

Embroidery addiction.

I’ve become a bit addicted to embroidery lately. I’ve been carrying around little projects to have on hand. After finishing my Mollie Makes bear I happened to stumble onto this little beauty on Etsy in Jenny Blair’s shop.

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It’s a sampler so just the printed fabric arrived for me to fill it in how I’d like. Which is a great idea. It came packaged very nicely, and the fact that it’s all nice and flat means that shipping was pretty reasonable.

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She has a mix of pdf, fabric and kits in her shop. They’re all really quite lovely. I’m swooning over these ones.

 

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Find her blog online or follow her prettiness on Instagram.

Reddit stationary and pen swap.

Ever done a Reddit Gift exchange?

They run almost constantly and they have a wide variety of themes.

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Last summer I signed up for a teacher gift giving one. It was a Secret Santa sort of thing but teachers singed up and were paired with gift givers. The person who sent my package to me was so ridiculously generous. My students were thrilled to get so many neat items. The limit was set at $20 but my Santa clearly went overboard. Even went so far as to send me a cheque when I was surprised at having to pay a bunch of delivery charges.

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This is the great pile of goodies I received from my gift giver. She did some online research and found out some things about me to drive her gift collecting.

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I packaged up some lovely things to send to my match. I hope she enjoys them as much as I enjoyed mine.