weekend wips

not a whole lot to say, besides the projects that needed to get done were completed, wrapped, and sprinkled with christmas cheer. some still sit in my room awaiting to be delivered, but hopefully that will happen soon. in the meantime, i'll be spending this week probably doing some cleaning and craft planning for the new year. gotta get that next wedding project ball on the roll so it doesn't end up last minute! hope everyone had a very merry christmas yesterday :)

weekend wips

another I GOT STUFF DONE! weekend. hip hip hoorah! so crazy that christmas is now officially less than a week away, and i feel like things are finally dying down. of course that means come january, it will be on to wedding crafting... and maybe even that t-shirt quilt of mine... or the scrappy squares one. so many choices! anyways, here is what went down this weekend.
christmas gift c: done. and i'm SO happy with it. like, want to keep it for myself but i know i shouldn't because that would just be plain silly happy with it. i just now need to make my sister model it for me, so i can wrap it up and make plans with it's soon to be owner.
christmas gift e&f: yeah. things aren't looking good as far as this one goes. i think it may just turn in to one of the two planned things, since it's something i've never done before, and christmas is inching closer moment by moment. if i can knock out one, that's better than i'm feeling about it right now.
christmas gift g: was delivered yesterday, but i'm going to wait until post christmas to do all the present reveal posts... just because i can.

weekend wips

are you ready to see this massive list start getting crossed off? are you SURE you are ready? because things are happening, and it's happening FAST! before i know it, it's going to be christmas eve. yikes. but i must not worry. i'm on top of this, right? yes. must keep telling myself that.
t-shirt quilt j: DONE AND DELIVERED. the thing that has been on these weekend wips since i started blogging again in august is FINALLY off the list and out of my possession.
christmas gift b: DONE. just need to photograph and wrap.
christmas gift c: it's moving closer. it has been cut up and ready to start sewing. since the quilt is done, i guess i have no choice now but to take the plunge.
christmas gifts e&f: moving closer. all my supplies came, but it's another partial fear project. i do need to get one or two more things before i can actually begin, so hopefully, this week i can get it going. depends what my brain looks like during "cram for the christmas show" time.
christmas gift g: DONE! one of those super quick, but super excellent projects. i'm really hoping the recipient will enjoy the humor of it though :)

happy gradu-birth-mas - scrapbook project

well, the planning for this started nearly two years ago. how do i remember? well, apparently it was my photo for the day back on january 14th for my 365 photo project. fast forward however many exact days later, and i finished it right on time! of course, erika's birthday coming up made me push myself for that deadline to get the dang thing done.
when she graduated high school, i made her a photo quilt. this scrapbook option was much easier, and probably much better space saver since she's now coming on 6 months until her wedding day (ahhh! that's what tomorrow is! crazy!) and probably doesn't need a whole lot of extra things laying around. shoot, i'm not engaged or anything, and i know that i don't need things laying around... but it happens anyways. i do it to myself. hah.
the book starts off with the very first photo of us. 2003. brace faced and at marching practice. no, i'm not going to feature it on this blog post. sorry. through out the book, i tried to feature as many photos of just US without the extras along the way. you know, the high school boyfriends, the people we don't talk to anymore, the ex coworkers. all that jazz. some of them made their appearances because they had to - sadies, prom, homecoming - but hey, it's all part of the journey right?
i'm totally not a die hard with my cricut either. my main use consists of making letters so i don't have to use stickers. and that is just fine with me. the pictures say it better though. i'm sure i could have left the entire thing blank, and everything would have fit just perfectly.
2003 all the way up to november of this year (my birthday even!) all covered with photos. a friendship that i'm super happy to have all these photos from. seeing this complete makes me want to get MY scrapbooks going... but at the same time, i'm so much less motivated when it is something for myself versus a gift... time to keep those holiday gifts going!

weekend wips

as i'm typing this blog post, i'm freeeeeezing. you would think i would have worked harder to get binding sewn on. blanket on me while crafting. sounds like a good thing right? well, that binding is just so unconvincing! i enjoy the occasional cross stitch, but when it comes to hand sewing... no thank you! alas, it needs to get done. i don't think a blanket half full of pins would go over well as a DIY kind of christmas gift. as in "here is a blanket... now do the REST yourself". bah. i've been a crafty slug. please someone keep reminding me that each day i procrastinate, the closer christmas is getting...
t-shirt quilt j: after much whining and ranting (mostly to myself and you blog readers) i got the dang thing done! spent a decent amount of yesterday evening hand sewing through tv shows to get it done, and then threw it in the dryer with a wet hand towel to hopefully get some of the cat hair off it. but what is a gift without a little bit of cat hair?
christmas gift b: i was ready to get going on this project, since it was small and would go together very easily, but once i went to the drawer where i THOUGHT the last piece i would need to be... i found it wasn't. excellent. so hopefully today i can get that going, since i know what i'm missing... for reals.
christmas gift c: still sitting. uncut. partially because i wanted to get the quilt out of the way. and partially out of fear of messing it up. i think today or tuesday might be the day to take a deeper look in to this project.
gift d: signed, sealed, delivered. it was well recieved, and will be on the blog on wednesday!
christmas gifts e&f: yeah, as the days grow closer, my list grows longer. these items require some of the same supplies - all of which i ordered off amazon yesterday afternoon and should be here this week. this is another potential fear project. something i have never done before, and could be a total bust if i don't get it right...
christmas gift g: pinterest is the devil. because that's part of where i keep getting ideas from. yeah. another idea to add to the list. it's more in my crafty zone of comfort, so once i get the supplies for it, it should go together easy peasy since i found a pattern online to use. with all these lists going... it sounds like a joann's trip is much needed! luckily, i won't need any fabric cut!

weekend wips

my ONLY black friday shopping
and this is the result of mine + mom's combined since we forgot to grab two cut table numbers
we got in the store and they were in the teens... we were #49

most of this week didn't really consist of much crafting. my goals to get certain things done by a deadline didn't happen. oh well, no big deal. it's not like christmas is tomorrow... although at the rate that this year is speeding on by, it just might be. so i guess my "crafting" for this week can consist of the jamba juice-esque smoothie i blended, and the potstickers i helped prep for thanksgiving. yes, you read that correctly. pot stickers for thanksgiving. and three photo sessions. whoop whoop.
t-shirt quilt j: slowly but surely, the binding is being added. saturday night it got sewed on through watching 17 again & friends. it's over halfway attatched, but it is just so blah to keep doing all in one sitting! hopefully this week will be the week when it is finished... and i can get it out of here!
christmas gift b: i think i'm just going to stick with two fabrics here, unless something in my box o' fabric what nots screams "use me!" i found some buttons while at joann's on friday, so now these little things might get underway this week as well.
christmas gift c: TOTAL change from what was originally planned, thanks to pinterest. i saw it, i searched for it, and found my direction to go. the fabric was bought, prewashed and dried on friday, and now it is just on to cutting it out and assembling. here's to hoping it turns out as good as i vision it in my head.
gift d: this is more of a little bit of every occasion gift that has been waiting and waiting for me to get all the pieces to continue working on it. well, when michaels wouldn't take my coupon (but they were the only place that had what i needed) i left in a huff, but knew that meant i could get started. another "work on this week" kind of project... hopefully.

weekend wips

so i used the same picture as my "let's do 52". big whoop.
i left the mushu fur in this one though, to make it crafty "authentic"

not a whole lot of crafting this week. i guess i was pretty run down from quiltzilla of last weekend. but then i looked at the calendar, and then back to the joann's pile on my floor, and then back to the calendar, then back to my floor (imagine that all said in the old spice man voice). sadly, there was stuff to be done, and if i let it sit any longer, it would be christmas eve and i would quite possibly be going insane with trying to finish things.
t-shirt quilt j: blah for binding. i started sewing it on saturday night, through episodes of whose line & snl, but called it a night when i ran out of thread on my first piece and didn't feel like re-threading the needle. my goal is to have it done before thursday so it can be out of sight and secretly passed off to the gift giver.
christmas gift a: done done done. i could have knocked it all out in a day, like i had estimated, but i broke it in two, which i think my hands appreciated. only so much cross stitching can be done. but hey, i think this counts as my first fully finished without any mistakes cross stitch project. gold star for me!
christmas gifts b&c: sitting. i'm still trying to find a perfect third fabric to go with one of the items, and NOTHING seems to be working out for me. perhaps i should try beverley's or something... joann's variety just isn't cutting it.

meagan's wedding gift

like i mentioned on the weekend wips post, this past friday was meagan's wedding. which means i can now do the big reveal of the her wedding gift, which was also the biggest quilt i have ever made! lisa had used the amy butler daisy chain pattern for her brother in law's wedding, and i liked it so much, i decided to use it for meagan's (see lisa's rendition here). meagan's colors were a peacock scheme, so i based them off some fabric i found at joann's that had peacocks on the print (without using the actual print itself) and also enlarged it from a queen size pattern in to a california king. and then i had to find somewhere to hang the finished product to photograph it. rain gutter + binder clips = win.
the cool part is that the pieces are generally left up to your free will as to arrangement and placement of different sized strips to create the scrappy looking design. i used different shades of teal, green & purple, with hints of paisley and a blue/purple print. the orange was thrown in there based off the original fabric, and helps break up the other colors with a little something extra.
my grandma came to my rescue again and helped me out by quilting it. she used a variegated purple thread, which looks SUPER great against all the colors of the quilt. apparently it was nearly too huge to fit in to her normal quilting area. at least my next projects that will request her to help me out again are smaller... kinda ;)
SUPER happy with how the binding turned out... and i have LOADS of it leftover. i could make some mean ruffles with it. maybe that will be everyone's christmas present this year. some form of varigated peacock colored ruffle creations. aprons, lampshades. i see it all now! now, here are a few pictures from friday night so you can see just how fabulous the newlyweds looked :)
of course, had to show off her fabulous dress and flowers! she definetly made one gorgeous bride on a very wet and rainy friday evening. nothing could get her down, and i know the two of them will have an excellent life together :)

weekend wips

not a whole lot happening this week it seems. mainly because one HUGE project needed to be completed for friday, and once that was done, there was definetly a crafty burn out. that is until sunday came around, and i wanted to do SOMETHING... but couldn't think of what. christmas gifts were still lacking one supply or another, or needed flattening before continuing... so this week's wips is a little on the shabby side. but hey, that means there will be a blog post this week for a completed project!
wedding gift m: signed, sealed & delivered! this was the burn out project, because i hate hand sewing. but all that blind hemming on the binding paid off. well, at least my mom was impressed by it. wrapped it up in it's peacock colored glory and shuttled it off to the bay area with me on friday. stay tuned to see more pictures of the quilt (and the b-e-a-Utiful bride as well!)
t-shirt quilt j: i was bored on saturday, and needed to find out if i had to buy more fabric for the binding... so i threw that together and found out that (shockingly... not) i had over purchased fabric when i bought the fabric last trip to joanns. so now the binding is attatched, pinned down to the back side waiting to be hand sewn down (ew).
christmas gifts a-c: nothing. still sitting around and have done nothing. well, one is being flattened out under a cutting mat and a box of 12x12 paper packs... so maybe tomorrow. and i bought a frame. oooh. exciting...

fabric flowers - homecoming 2011

since i now know the secret to making these, i'm sure there will be plenty more to come. ariana and i spent a saturday last month cruising thrift stores for anything decent to find. well, out of the day, we found my sister a dress for homecoming the following saturday that was perfect. it needed a little accesorizing, so i took it upon myself to create a headband and wristlet using a tutorial on fabric flowers. after some lovely glue burn blisters, and a video tutorial made by lisa, these flowers became what they were supposed to!
the wristlet was made from three little rose shapes wedged together and glued to a piece of elastic. i opted against using the "premade" corsage bracelets craft stores sell, so that i could make my own shape instead of having a big piece of metal to cover. and have this sparkly elastic as well.for a little variety, i threw in a sparkly black rosebud on the headband. to coordinate it a little more, i pieced in the leftover from the elastic of the wristband on to the headband. originally, it was just a simple solid black band, but this helped "glam" it up a little bit more.
a few more full "portraits" of her are on my other blog at http://photogbyem.blogspot.com. i didn't get any of her on the day of homecoming itself, and well... it was pretty chilly outside the day i took these. you get what you pay for, right? unfortunately for her, this model isn't paid ;)
fabric flower tutorial - http://mysparkle.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-to-rolled-flowers.html

weekend wips

here we are, back to where we left off last month. besides the crafting for the halloween costume, you really didn't miss out on much by me not posting my weekly crafty work-ness. now it has become crunch time for one project, and then it is time to begin the crafting for the holiday season that is slowly sneaking up on us. it's november already?! weird.
wedding gift m - crunch time! i made binding last monday. yards and yards of binding, since i knew how large this project was. so much binding, i wrapped it around a vhs box to keep it flat and out of the way. the quilt came back on tuesday, and did i use all the binding? no. did i use half the binding? heck no. did i use even a quarter of the binding? probably not. am i going to have this binding for the rest of my life? more than likely. the wedding is on friday, so it is time to get down to business and keep on hand sewing!
t-shirt quilt j - still pretty much where i left it. awaiting binding. i bought the fabric for it, so once i get through with the wedding project, it will be time to begin this one so i can get it out of my house!
christmas gift a - still sitting where i left it after i bought the supplies for it. it would seriously take me one sitting to do it... i just have to get my act together and do it!
christmas gift b - bought fabric. not ALL the fabric i wanted. but some. need to take a round 2 trip this week and see if i can find exactly what i am looking for.
christmas gift c - the ideas are brewing. i now know what i want to do, i just have to execute it. and hope that they end up as fun and fabulous as i hope - and not make one for myself since i don't know what i would do with it!

butterfly feet

for some unknown reason, i had a blank canvas in my room. thanks to pinterest, i was inspired what to do with it FINALLY. in september, lorelai, kent & i began an art project for lisa's birthday. this last saturday we finished it up and wrapped it. the easiest way is to just dive right in and show you the messy progression.
step one: gather supplies. paint.blank canvas.cute children.step two. paint feet.kent loves hanging out at my house. can you tell?step three: after feet dry (ours sat for like a month between visits, but you shouldn't need to wait THAT long) add butterfly bodies and wha laa! complete!step four: label and date for future reference.step five: enlist the three year old to help wrap.step six: label present. if you can't tell that says "for mommy" you might want to get your eyes checked. okay, i'm kidding. a little bit.
step seven: reflect. and wish you had two sets of adult hands helping with the painting of the feet. recommend this project to anyone with children, but don't try and do it alone! it can get crazy (refer to step two, the kent photo)

halloween costume - 2011

i can't really title this one a flashback, since today is halloween and i wore this two days ago! so here it is, the long awaited "secret" costume! i originally had NO CLUE what to be this year for our now 2nd annual bowling night, and when ariana threw out the suggestions of "jessie or mrs. buzz lightyear" the idea wheels started turning. pieces were slowly purchased one by one and the designing began.
lots of blue tape and paint helped get the right shape of the front piece. i painted all the main parts first, and then added on the button and "lights" detailing. the skirt was made from the pirate costume pattern, and i found some awesome rick rac to go along the seam line to create the "belt" part. i wish i was cool enough to say that i made the bow, but i didn't. not yet at least! i'm sure i could crank some of those puppies out easy peasy!
my shoes were fun :) i found a tiny can of spray paint at the craft store and painted the bottom of the shoes. the green is the same that was used on the top to create the "toe" part of the boot look. since we went bowling, i didn't get to wear the shoes TOO long - which may have been a good thing. they were a 10 wide... i wear size 11 normal.
and in true "toy story" fashion, the bottom was painted to mark ownership :)
the gloves were going to be true gloves... but i can't ask too much of gloves on clearance. my fingers were too long, so i cut off the finger tips and seam ripped out the thumb. probably a good idea, since i couldn't imaging trying to bowl with satiny fingers.here was my "model" that hung around the living room as i painted and watched friends. yes, costume making and nick at night do go hand in hand.now for the action photos! i realized most were NOT full length shots, so here is the best i could do.the ladies! what we have is a clown, 80's prom, a devil, mrs. buzz lightyear, and a pink lady from grease.everyone that came! definetly another good turn out with lot's of costume variety. and don't mind me. i'm "shooting my lazer" like chris (the "chimney sweep") told me to.
happy halloween everyone!

halloween flashback - 2010

this costume could easily be noted as my favorite costume to date. it was super easy to make, super fun to wear, and people knew what it was too! the year before i was in k-mart with my mom and sister and found a green striped tennis dress and tried to convince her to be "stevette" for halloween that year. she didn't go for it at the time, so the next year, i swooped in and made it my own!
i asked kasey to draw me a "handy dandy notebook" since everywhere online wanted 20+ dollars for one. i used a plain ringed album i bought from joanns.com and "borrowed" my sister's crayon that she still had for some reason.
blue of course HAD to be part of the costume, and i found this adorable one at goodwill for $1. we went bowling the saturday before halloween, and she went ahead and hung out with everyone there. best purse dog ever!
the shirt was the most time consuming part. lots of blue tape and lots of fabric paint. the polo shirt came from goodwill, and the fabric paint from joanns. lots of measuring to make sure the lines were even and straight. i did all of the front first, and then all of the back. it was a very happy day when it was all complete, that's for sure!
just for kicks, here are some of the "in action" photos from our halloween bowling night! the event will be repeated this year, but just WAIT to see what costumes we have in store for you :) but you'll have to wait another week for that!
and this would be chris. he also made his own costume. the wig was cut and done by his sister, and his cape is made from a tablecloth and rhinestones. he's pretty legit! (and if you don't "get"who he is supposed to be, click here!)