Not only did some great books arrive for me the other day, medicine and my bff showed up with some fun stickers for me but I also got a surprise get well gift from my best yet to be met online friend Mollie.
Look at how fun she is?! She even drew a signature Mollie smiley face on the ankle!
I already have a plan for making something fun based on this project.
A while back I signed up for Wild Olive‘s stitch swap. It was round robin style so the person I sent to isn’t the person who sent to me, which is a fun way to do it and keep it all secret.
Here’s what I made for my partner.
It’s a copy of a piece I made myself a while back. I just changed the colours to fit her favourites.
And here are the surprises I got.
I love how she wrote along the hoop, it’s a nice touch and will stay with the art.
That’s no big secret, Mollie is just super awesome. I was very happy for her when I saw her featured in the past issue of Mollie Makes. Plus, like a weenie, I also chucked at Mollie being featured in Mollie.
I printed out her cuckoo clock pattern and set to work making this hoop art for my craft space.
If you’ve never seen Mollie Makes you are missing out on a very pretty and inspirational part of life! It’s a magazine from the UK and while I’ve never had the privledge of holding a paper copy I do have a digital subscription(also in the app store) with Zinio.
If you’d like to get Mollie’s cuckoo clock pattern it’s available here in her shop.
Well it’s taking me quite a while to catch up from my vacation and get back on track around here! Mostly I think it’s because I was still set to relax, I’m not used to this rush and get things done after a week of leisure. So here’s a peek at a lovely little surprise I got in the mail just before the holidays.
A sweet little ornament made by Mollie! Such an awesome surprise. I’ll have to get her back at some point. And guess we’ll have to get working on another project for 2012. We’ve done
this, this and this so I wonder what’s next?
I can’t remember the first time I stumbled onto Mollie’s site but I’ve been going back ever since. She’s so great with colours, stitches and designs not to mention can throw a cute little face on almost any object. We’ve worked together on a game, a planner and somehow keep wandering back to each other with more ideas.
Here’s the latest idea I’d love to share with you, her Little Snackers designs. These sweet little things are for use one your very own reusable snack bags. With back to school time approaching for most of us I thought reusuable snack bags would be a great tutorial idea and asked Mollie to help out with some of her signature embroidery patterns.
Pattern is for personal use only.
These work perfectly with my snack pouch tutorial from yesterday. If you want a different pouch design, fold over or buttons or something you can find a ton of ideas with a quick Google search. Happy pouch making!
Posted in embroidery, gifts, kid fun, other crafts
Tagged embroidery, reusable, snack pouches, stitching, wild olive
We’ve been making the switch to glass and stainless steel lunch containers. Both my school and my son’s school push for the whole literless/boomerang lunch thing. Bomerang lunch basically means if you send it in packaging or it creates some sort of garbage they’re going to send it back home to you. Strangely we teacher folk are free to load up the garbages at school with our lunch litter but I’m trying desperatly to avoid that. Hence my binge to create some snack pouches!
Now I created a few for my son and I’m going to show you how to make some yourself. I was really hardcore with his and used parts from one of my hubby’s practically new shirts. Somehow he got a weird big circle stain on it right in the front and tossed it into the donate pile. I rescued it. Oh, lookie a Mabel’s Label.
I also tried to use fabrics I had on hand and chose some of the bright colourful kid prints I have to jazz the pouches up a bit. There some debate online about materials to use for the inside and what is and isn’t food safe. To just avoid having to buy something or find out later what I chose was wrong I’m sticking with cotton fabrics. If you plan on carrying something that could get things wet I suggest adding a layer between the inner and outer cotton pieces to help prevent everything else in your bag getting soaked. Cutting up a freezer bag would work great for this and you could probably get a few out of just one.
You will need:
– lining fabric 4 1/2 x 6ish
– printed fabric for outside about 4 1/2 x 3 1/2
– plain fabric for outside 4 1/2 x 3 1/2
– 4 inch length of velcro, hook & loop piece
– strip of fabric to make tabs
Pin the 2 outside fabric pieces right side together and sew together. I use 1/4 inch seam, or slightly less.
Unfold the pieces and press the seams flat.
Stich on the rightside of the fabric to each side of the seam. This will help reinforce where the fabrics are joined and adds a nice little decorative stitch.
Because I repurposed an existing garment I didn’t have to make my own little tabs but if you do it’s really simple. Take 2 pieces of fabric shaped like rectangles and fold it in half so it’s a long piece and then sew down the edge. Turn it right-side out and you should have a nice long thin rectangle. If you want the little decorative top stitch mine has you can just do a straight stitch down one side. Trim one tab so it’s slightly shorter than the other. I’ve found it’s easier to separate them when opening the pouch.
Fold your tab piece in half and sandwich it between your lining and outside piece, placed right sides together. Sew through all 3 pieces.
You should now have this sort of looking thing, with your tab sticking up. Now position the velcro about 1/4 – 1/2 inch from what will be the top of your pouch. Stitch along at least the top and bottom of the velcro, you can do the sides too if you like. Secure the velcro on the opposite side of the pouch, measuring them against each other to get the positioning correct.
Fold the pouch over completely so the outside is outside and you’re looking at the lining. Press to get a nice clean edge and then topstitch along near the edge of the pouch. This will create a nice finish stitch on the inside and outside and reinforce the tab.
Once you’ve completed all these steps for both sides you should be left with something that looks like this.
Place the 2 pieces with the outsides together and stitch all the way around 3 unfinished sides. This would be a great place to use a serger if you have one. I don’t so I just went back and did a zig zag stitch just beside the straight stitch and then trimmed the fabric really close to the stitching.
These are really fun and easy to make. It’s a great way to use up some scraps. I’m thinking of making them to use as loot bags for my son’s birthday party this year, then the kids leave with some goodies and a fun little reusable snack pouch. Since things will only be in there a few hours I’m not worried about them getting stale but if you were, or plan to put wet-ish snacks in there, then you can put a water resistant lining between the fabrics.
Also, I’m going to tease you with a little fun embellishment you could add to these. You’ll have to come back tomorrow for the full explanation. All I can say now is it involves a guest post and it will kill you with cuteness.
Posted in DIY, embroidery, gifts, kid fun, scraps, sewing, tutorial-ish
Tagged back to school, eco, embroidery, kid, lunch, reusable, snack pouches, wild olive
So, I know I’ve said it before, but having a blog, online shop, family and ‘real’ job gets tricky to balance. I’ve been missing opportunities and dropping the ball on things because I’ve been *gasp* disorganized. I decided I needed to unplug in order to feel organized by going back to pencil and paper and planning things out. I started to poke around Etsy looking for printables or a complete planner but nothing was fitting exactly with what I wanted. I spent some time thinking about what my needs would be and made a sketch. A very professional sketch with my finger on my ipad.
With no idea how to go about making a graphic printable or a PDF I turned to my friend Mollie for some advice. I have no many things on my to learn list and graphics and PDF creation are on it. However, the sweet Mollie just went ahead and quickly whipped something up, and it’s stinking perfect!
Here’s a close up.
It has a 2 page layout for the week with 2 columns ready for listing To Dos and checking them off as you go. She squared things up a bit and created some balance and even added some pretty colours. We thought it was pretty comprehensive as a planner for a blogger and so we’re going to share!
Click to see and download the calendar
I printed mine on 32lb white paper, double sided it and made up a cover based on some of LA’s blog redesign drafts. I took the pile of paper over to Staples and for around $11 they cut the pages in half, added covers and coil bound it. Voila my very own custom made planner!
Ok, I can spill the beans now, the cat is out of the bag . . . insert other silly saying here. Mollie of Wild Olive and I have been busily working on a project together. I had this great idea to make a cloth memory game, something that would last a while and be special because it was handmade. I sat down to sketch out some ideas when it occurred to me that she could make drawings waaaay cuter and better than I ever could, so I sent her an email and asked if she’d like to be part of a collaboration. I was thrilled when she said yes.
As I’ve said before, I’m not familiar with a graphics program, nor do I understand the magic behind making PDF patterns (both on my To Do list I might add) so I figured teaming up would solve those problems. I had the idea and did the sewing, instructions and photos and Mollie added her fantastic designs and technical know how. The PDF is for sale in my Etsy shop, as well as Mollie’s where you can check out her other fun embroidery patterns.
Posted in embroidery, kid fun, sewing, tutorial-ish
Tagged embroidery, game, pattern, PDF, sewing, soft toy, wild olive
Wild Olive and I are going to tease you. We’ve been working on something together for a while now and we’ll tell you all about it on Monday but why not give you a peek now?
Thanks to some linky love from Mollie over at Wild Olive I’ve found some new blogs floating around the net. Here’s something awesome I stumbled upon the other day over at the Quilted Cupcake. Isn’t it so fun?!
I just might have to ‘transform’ my Singer now. It’s my ‘juice pouch’ sewing machine now that I have a fancy pants Babylock. Might be fun to dress it up a bit.
Posted in neat spaces, other crafts, repurposing, sewing
Tagged buttons, quilted cupcake, sewing machine, singer, wild olive
