Sew Tara | Inspiring creativity in me + you

My space

Posted on May 10, 2011 by SewTara| 3 Comments

I’ve had these photos for a while but last week My Girl Thursday shared her beautiful space and it prompted me to post about mine. It’s not pretty. But that said, it also shows you that you can carve out a place to work if you really need one. I’ve also helpfully taken the photos at different times so watch my phone magically move and various drinks appear and disappear!

So if you look down our basement stairs you can see my little nook.

Our basement was previously a Man Cave but I invaded it. My hubby’s hobby is fish, he has salt water tanks with coral and fish and all sorts of neat things. We have an anemone and clown fish who live in it. It’s all really cool.
So our basement is quite taken up with tanks and pumps and then a desk for my hubby . . . so I’ve got a little corner set up, 2 tables pushed up around the freezer. It works.

We had an extra monitor and my hubby said I should use it but it’s really silly and excessive. I usually watch shows in the one on the right and work between the 2 tables.

There’s the freezer that I usually end up piling with the things I’m working on. Until my hubby comes down and needs the fish food.

I’ve hung things up, Christmas lights are something I started in university and keep hanging up in whatever space is mine. I prefer lots of dim lights. I never turn on the overhead basement light. All my lights are plugged into a power bar so I just flick the switch and about 4 lights come on.

I’ve also filled every space I can with something fun on the walls. I really need to finish that incomplete drywall job the previous owner left us, but who’s got time for that when they’re busy crafting!?

I’ve debated putting the kids into a shared room, then I could have a nice sunny room to work in . . . *sigh*. But then I feel like I’d be a bad mom or something so I’ll make due for now.

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Posted in neat spaces

Tagged desks, studio, workspace

Silly new cozy.

Posted on May 9, 2011 by SewTara| 4 Comments

I don’t even remember how but I stumbled up on LittleRedAfro’s Etsy shop one day and saw this really funny little painting she had done.

I contacted her and asked her if she minded me putting it on a cozy. She said go ahead and just let the world know it was her idea. So behold my cozy based on her little painting.

I think it’s pretty funny, but I’ve got a dorky sense of humour. I’m making one for her as a thank you for letting me have some fun with her design. If you want one you can get one here.

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Posted in cozy, embroidery, fun finds, sewing

Tagged cup cozy, embroidery, Etsy, sewing

Budgeting with the zippered pouch system.

Posted on May 7, 2011 by SewTara| 14 Comments

My hubby and I have been using Mint.com for our household budgeting, we keeping track of the money online. But somehow we’re messing it up so we’re going to keep the cash at home. Instead of boring paper envelopes I’ve decided to steal this idea and make some zippered pouches. I’ve made a lined & zippered pouch before but couldn’t seem to find the link again, so I just used a few I found after Googling for instructions/a tutorial.

I gathered up all my various scrap swap scraps and pieces together some fun colour combinations.

I just pieced them together stripe by stripe.

Then cut them down to the right size.

I cut some plain cotton for the strip of fabric to stamp the lettering on the front.

I used Staz-On I had at home and some $1.50 alphabet stamps I picked up in those impluse buy bins at Michael’s.

We left all our bill money in the bank so we can still pay those online and we have cash in our ‘envelopes’.

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Posted in DIY, scraps, sewing, tutorial-ish

Tagged budgeting, lined pouches, zippered pouches

So I’m making a bag . . .

Posted on May 5, 2011 by SewTara| 7 Comments

I’ll let you get over the shock . . . .

I had it all cut out and almost ready to go when I found this cute little tree print at the bottom of my fabric crush drawer and now I’m rethinking my choices. The main fabric is this cute Little Red Riding Hood print.

Then for the side pockets I’ve got this brown polka dot fabric lined up. For the big pocket I’ve got the red polka dots ready to go.

But then I stumbled upon this fun brown fabric with little apple trees on it. The colours fit with the bag perfectly but I’m wondering if it would be overkill. Thoughts?

Here’s what the bag looks like assembled, front view and back view. It’s from Quilt a Bag, my new favourite purse making store.

The lovely Pheobe at the store was worried about selling me the pattern since English is not her first language and she’s not sure the instructions are well written. I offered to be brave and give it a try. So far I’ve just cut out all the pieces but over the weekend I hope to get down to some actual sewing. Wish me luck!

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Posted in sewing, uncategorized

Insert happy dance here!

Posted on May 3, 2011 by SewTara| 22 Comments

See it? See it? Isn’t it wonderful?!

LOOOOOOOOK!!! Look left! Look right!! Look up!! Look . . . ok you get the idea.

Thanks to a whole lot of hard work by Leigh-Ann, Kyla and Corey Marie of the Freckled Nest Design team my lovely new blog is up and running. I’m still working on some of my homework, like adding to Friends & Sponsors, so there might be a few tweeks here and there. But isn’t it lovely!?

If you’re still in your reader what are you doing?! Get over here!

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Posted in uncategorized

Oh right.

Posted on May 2, 2011 by SewTara| 5 Comments

I blogged a while back about The Vintage Cabin, a fun blog and shop I stumbled upon thanks to My Girl Thursday. I made some purchases and was going to show the fun package I recieved and my purchase in action.

This cute little fellow was greeting me when I unwrapped the box.

I thought this was a brilliant little touch, stamping the tissue paper! I have a custom SewTara stamp, why hadn’t I thought of this!

Here’s the new home of the lovely vintage clock. Yes that’s an unfinished wall. Yes that’s the fuse box. My ‘studio’ is a corner in the man cave. I make do.

Lately I’ve been having a hard time working my various jobs. I spend the mornings with my kids, run off to school to teach all afternoon, come home and do the usually family type stuff and then run to the basement until I can’t keep my eyes open to run my business. It’s like working 3 jobs.

I was wondering why I didn’t think of all this creative/blog/business thing *before* there were kid/kids and my hubby pointed out that maybe they are what drove me to find it. I think about all that time I just sat around doing nothing with my life before and how now every moment is filled with something. He said the pressure might be what pushed me to work so hard at being ‘me’ again.

I thought he was being pretty wise. Don’t tell him I said so, that kind of stuff goes to his head sometimes.

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Posted in fun finds, uncategorized

Tagged Etsy, vintage

Construction woes.

Posted on May 1, 2011 by SewTara| 2 Comments

We hit a little bump during construction. So no prettier site just yet. I had my handy dandy hubby work some magic so there’s at least something here to greet you all. Don’t worry you’ll know when it’s all shiny and new. I’ll be shouting it from the rooftops!

Once again, image via We Heart It.

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Posted in uncategorized

The caterpillar turns into a butterfly.

Posted on April 27, 2011 by SewTara| 4 Comments

I’m so exicted. My little blog is going to grow up. Friday it will emerge looking super fantastic, all thanks to some very hard work over at Freckled Nest. See you on Friday!

Butterfly image via We Heart It.

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Posted in uncategorized

I made a purse!

Posted on April 25, 2011 by SewTara| 7 Comments

I know, you’re shocked right?

When I went to the Creativ Festival I hit upon 2 super exciting booths in the last aisle (apparently where I should have gone first). The combined powers of those booths have spawned this amazing purse. Oh and me staying up until 1:30 possessed with finishing it. That’s misleading, it’s a really quick bag to make, I just wandered down to my craft space really late.

Both of these booths were so crowded I had to fight my way to get to the things I wanted. At the Kallista Quilts booth I was amazed to see some Echino fabric. I have never seen any in person so it was great to get to pick from some pre-cut pieces and buy some right off the bolt. Kallista Quilts are also on Etsy if you care to see their selection. They have great quality Japanese linens.

A few booths away I found Quilt A Bag. These ladies also carry some lovely Japanese fabrics, some of the more cutesy stuff I like. They also carry all sorts of fun things to make bags and purses and totes and change purses . . . all of which are my weakness. I’ve got a little rule in place to curb my addiction, I’m not allowed to buy myself another bag/tote/purse/etc but I sure am allowed to have a new one if I work my butt of making it!!

I bought a kit for the vest bag but then went ahead and made it using a $5 piece of the Echino I got, it was just enough, a random fat quarter and I used the piece they included in the kit to line the bottom. I also got fancy and added an interior pocket and a magnetic snap.

I was really intrigued by the webbing used for straps. It was super easy to make the bag, there’s no turning because the webbing hides all the raw edges. Just fold it over and sew it on!