an International Crafting Fairytale

Once upon a time in lands far, far apart, there lived two little girls. These girls liked so many of the same things that it was almost as if they were twins separated at birth. And the biggest thing they had in common was the love of crafting.

Turns out that even though these two crafty gals were growing up hundreds of miles apart, in two different countries, they had so much in common that they even grew up to have the same day job as librarians.

One day they ran across each other’s blogs and discovered that they had the same love for the outdoors, kitty cats, and books. Then they discovered that they both had Etsy shops and their friendship was off and flying.

Our two heroines did have one big difference though. One loved to make totally groovy tote bags while the other loved making plush creatures. One day a light bulb went off over their heads and the idea to combine their crafts became overwhelming. Now these two talented ladies from Canada and the United States have teamed up to provide a fun and useful product.

tote bag + creature = functional & fun

Karyn of Trail Mix Designs and Felicia of Fluffy Flowers present you with the best their combined creative talents have to offer. They hope you will enjoy these innovative creations of international crafting combination.

And they all crafted happily ever after.



Gnome Creature and Tote



Tree Sprite Creature and Tote



Kitty Creature and tote

Hop on over to Felicia's blog to see three more truly groovy internationally crafted creature totes.

I finally sewed something!

Insipired by the the awesome quilted pouch my Mother made for me, I made a mini (non-quilted) version.

Can you say cute?? (Notice my new mushroom prop!)



And a Christmas-y one.



I made a ton of these over the past couple of days. You can bet your bootie that my friends and family will be getting their very own pouch for Chrismas (probably filled with goodies they would like).

This is what my scrap pile looks like right now. I haven't cleaned it up yet.



I'm not done yet, back to the sewing room I go!

Mushrooms

This is what you get for $1.49 at VV.



Some really cute salt & pepper shakers and matching toothpick holder.

The pepper shaker (I think) is chipped, but how could I resist????

A little thrifting

Finally, I got lucky at Value Village! It's been a while since I've found anything there that I want to bring home.

Today I found this cute cotton fabric, and after a little bit of looking, I found a HUGE bag of vintage buttons! I can not explain why buttons make me so happy, but they do.



I'm in a sewing rut. Ever since the hunt for my new car began, I've barely entered my sewing room. First of all, it's a disaster area. I need to de-stash and go back to "using what I have" for a while. It's unbelievable how fast I accumulate "stuff". (This after I just posted about my new VV finds!).

Secondly, this time change is killing me! When I get home from work, I tidy up the house, make dinner, and then I'm done! I have no energy left for anything! I have a zillion things I need to do/make, but honestly, by the end of the day, I just want to "park it" on the couch and do nothing. Not good.

I think I need to sit down and make a to-do list. If I do that then I might not seem so over-whelmed. Maybe I'll start by just tidying my sewing room tonight.

Be sure to check out this Quilted tic-tac-toe-to-go game. It's today's featured project for the Last Minute Gift Count Down at the Cotton Spice blog.

My very talented Mother

Every few months my Mother, DianNe, and her friend Carol pass through town on their way to and from cross-border shopping in the States. It has become a bit of a ritual that I meet them on their way back home.

My Mother signed up for a free-motion quilting class about a month ago. I had taken a similar class several years ago and I found it VERY hard. I had warned her before she went that it was going to be a nightmare. Well it wasn't. Apparently she picked it up very quickly and asked me "what the big deal" was.

She is going away to a quilting retreat this weekend and they have to make a quilted pouch and fill it with toiletries to be donated to a women's shelter (or something).

I was the VERY lucky recipient of one of her practice pouches. I love the shape and I'm especially in love with the GREAT free-motion quilting! I'm completely in awe of her talent.



It's hard to see, but the quilting IS amazing.



Thanks Mom!!!!

If you're looking for Christmas gift ideas to make, please check out the great cell phone pouch tutorial which is today's feature project for the "Last Minute Gift Countdown". I think that this would also make a super little camera case and I may have to make one or two of them myself!

Last Minute Gift Countdown begins!

Today is the first day of the Last Minute Gift Countdown. Please be sure to check out today's great gift idea by by Tracy at Plum Cute Designs.



I've made some more Christmas cards. I do have other projects up my sleeve but with buying my car I really found myself with little time to be creative. I'm really hoping that changes this week.





Today I have to go BACK to the dentist (regular visit, not for emergency root canal!). I THOUGHT my appointment was for tomorrow after work, but when I called to find out the time, I was HORRIFIED to discover it's today! I was even tempted to cancel, but when I went down that road I discovered that the penalty was over $100.00 for missing an appointment without 48 hours notice. I think I'll be going to the dentist.

It's been a cozy weekend!

I'm in all out Christmas present making/planning mode. We have lots of friends who are geocachers who survive on Tim Horton's coffee while out geocaching. I thought it would be a great idea to give them Timmy's gift certificates and a reusable coffee cuff as a little Christmas gift.

My first thought was to crochet them with this incredibly funky yarn. Ya, if you really aren't very good at crocheting, do NOT attempt to crochet with fancy shmancy yarn. The first several crochet attempts were BEYOND disasterous and were ripped out.

My next thought (which came very quickly) was to knit them. The first one I knit was way too large and was way too slippy. The second was way too small and wouldn't fit around the cup. This is my last (and still failed) attempt. It fits around the cup (barely) around the top and bottom but it's still pretty slippy and loose around the middle, which won't work.



So, this morning I decided to just sew them. This is NOT my first attempt. After about 1.5 hours of tweaking the size, this is what I have.



It's slightly quilted with raw edges that have been zig-zagged. Simple to make and I think they will make cute little gifts when combined with a gift card.

Happy Halloween!

Hmmm...when I logged into Blogger to create this post, I realize it's my 250th post! Yikes! That happened fast!

Last night I started knitting a pair of fingerless mittens. The cooler weather always seems to make me want to knit warm things. The yarn is verigated, so I know both mitts will be different, I'm ok with that.



Happy Halloween!

My New Car

First up, thanks to everyone who offered their opinions/suggestions for my new car purchase. I took each and every one into consideration.

I have spent the past 4 days at car dealerships, test-driving cars and negotiating deals.

I finally settled on a 2007 Hyundai Accent Hatchback. It has only 7,000 km on it and I love it!



I get it on Friday and I can't wait to drive it this weekend!

I'm just glad the process is over. Buying a new car is not fun for me. Now I might actually be able to spend some time in my sewing room. I haven't even opened the door in there in days!

Fabric Christmas Ornaments

I had some extra Gocco printed trees on fabric and I instantly knew what to do with them. Make Christmas ornaments!



They were simple and fun to make, I'm sure I'll be making more once I get some more Christmas fabric.

The other thing that's been happening is my car is dying a slow death. It's a 1997 Cavaliere and it owes me nothing. I'm just really bummed because I LOVE that car! Other than regular maintenance, I've never had to do anything to it! I would drive it forever if it would let me. I do NOT want to get into car payments again and I don't want to go through the stress of selecting a new vehicle for purchase, but it's time.

If you have any recommendations for me for an economical small car, I'm all ears!

Gocco fabric printing

So I think I rescued the crappy Christmas cards by making them into gift tags that I actually quite like.



But I still had dreams of using the tree image combined with fabric somehow for Christmas cards.

I have the fabric ink for the Gocco printer and the stamp adapter to make fabric printing possible so it was time to give the new toys a whirl. I bought some inexpensive Christmas fabric at Walmart and dragged out the Gocco supplies.



I loved printing on fabric! The experience was very different from printing on paper. The fabric sucked up the ink quite quickly and the master had to be re-inked quite frequently, but I am thrilled with the way it turned out.

So once I printed up a bunch of trees I cut them into squares and then stitched them onto the note cards.





As completely embarassed as I was about the original UGLY design, I ended up with something I'm happy with and I'm glad I tried the new printing technique. I'm sure there will be MUCH MORE printed fabric in my near future!

Last Minute Gift Countdown!

I've been invited to participate in a very exciting blogging event, the Last Minute Gift Countdown.



The event takes place from November 5th - 17th. Each day a very talented blogger (how did I get invited??) will be posting a tutorial on her blog (as well as the official blog for the Gift Countdown) for a quick and easy Christmas gift project.

I will be posting my tutorial (which I am frantically trying to write) on November 16th. I highly recommend bookmarking the main page to see all the great tutorials offered!

Some days you just have to admit defeat

Well, with Joe gone geocaching for the day I had every intent to spend a quiet day being crafty.

I had an idea for more Gocco Christmas cards that I thought would be amazing. Ummm...it sure wasn't. I spent a good chunk of my day yesterday drawing the tree (yes, it took me almost an entire day to draw THAT!) and finally had a tree I liked.

I thought it would be fun to combine stitching fabric and Gocco on the same card, and I'm sure with a different design it would be a great idea, but NOT with this one!!!



I'm embarassed by it. In fact, I can't even believe I'm blogging about it.

Anyways, after a LONG consultation with my very crafty Mother over the phone analyzing the card, she suggested turning it into a gift tag. I completely agreed with her that there was NO other way to save this mess.

So....here's the first version of the tree gift tag.






I do not like the button, it's "out". It still needs something, but it's far far better than the card/fabric version!

So that's the extent of the crafting I got done today, and quite honestly, I don't even want to go back into my sewing room until I get over the tree disaster.

So, what did I do for the rest of the day?? Cooked and baked of course. It's a beautiful fall day, nice and cool and after being sick this week I felt like doing some cooking and baking.

I made chocolate chip pumpkin muffins (with nuts, of course), an apple pie, a quiche and beef enchilladas (not photographed). Joe better be hungry when he gets home from hiking!

The muffins...



The quiche and if you look very carefully, the pie is in the top of the photo. The picture of the pie alone didn't turn out.



I'm off to take some muffins to the neighbour's. I hope you're all having a better weekend than I am crafty-wise!

New Tote

Today is day 3 of a migraine. Days 1 & 2 weren't too bad and I was able to work through them. Today was a different story.

I cut out three totes this morning before I realized just how bad my head was. I called in sick to work and slept the majority of the day.

When I woke up I was feeling slightly better and decided a little sewing therapy might be what I need to feel better.



The fabric is a recycled pillowcase that I bought at Value Village. I had intended to use it for lining, but I decided I liked it enough to use on it's own.

I think the migraine is gone now. I'll just have to be careful for the next day or so just in case it returns.

MORE Gocco cards and a winner!

I can't stop Gocco-ing.

I wanted to make some thank-you cards and here they are in all their loveliness.



I really like the cards printed on the pink cardstock but then I got to thinking...a little colour would be nice, so I printed a bunch up on watercolour paper and went to Michael's, bought some watercolour pencils (I "forgot" my coupon so they let me sign for the discount) and this is what I came up with.



I can't stress enough that I'm NOT an artist, AT ALL!! But the watercolour pencils were so easy and so much fun to use! They are my new favourite crafty item!



Now for the important part of this post, the winner of my Etsyversary contest.

Before I announce the official result, I just want to thank everyone who commented for all the kind words about my Etsy shop. I know that I blushed a million times while reading the comments and although I'm not sure that they were all deserved, they sure made me feel good!

I used this random number generator and the winner is Christy is the lucky winner!

Congratulations Christy!

Gocco Christmas Cards

My Gocco machine has been working over-time this weekend.

I printed out my first batch of Christmas cards.

I even love the way the ink looks all globbed on the screen!





I'm even packaging these cards differently. I bought plastic boxes for them. I think they look so pretty all tied up with a bow!



Some are for sale in my Etsy Shop.

Today's my Etsyversary!

One year ago today I created my shop. I didn't actually start selling until November, but I remember well now nervous I was setting up the shop. I had NO idea what I was doing or what I was in for at that time.



I try very hard to keep my Etsy shop and my blog separate. I never want my blog to become a giant commercial for my shop and I think I do a fairly good job of doing that.

To celebrate my Etsyversary I'm doing two things:

First up, I'm having a sale in my shop. From now until midnight on Friday any purchases from my store will be shipped for FREE!! All you need to do is write "Happy Etsyversary" in the note to seller section when checking out and I will send a revised invoice through paypal. If you make a purchase, please wait until I send the updated invoice before paying!

And secondly, I'm having another give-away. You could win any item of your choice from the shop. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment telling me what your favourite item is and I'll make the draw on Monday.

I've had so much fun with my Etsy shop and I've "met" so many great people along the way. I hope it's around for another year!

Mini Wallets

I purchased a Snap Setter a while back and I haven't had a chance to use it so I decided it was time to make some more mini wallets.



I bought it because I was wasting so many snaps doing it the old way (with the tools that come with the snaps). If you are snap-impaired like I am I HIGHLY recommend the Snap Setter tool! It is amazing! The snaps are perfectly set on the very first try!

My only recommendation is to practice using it SEVERAL times (not just once) before using it to set a snap that you care about. I speak from experience, trust me! Once I got the hang of it I haven't destroyed a snap since!

Here are the mini wallets I made. There's only three, although there WAS five. Don't ask, the other two are in the garbage, but it was NOT the Snap Setter's fault, it was MINE!







If you get a chance, pop by and wish the birthday girl a happy birthday!

New book, new tote and a bit about my new camera

I hope you have realized by now that I'm very easily influenced by other people's recommendations. If someone recommends a book, a movie, a fabric, a Gocco machine, whatever, I almost always look into purchasing it it.

I had read on several blogs about the book Craft Inc. and I eventually broke down and ordered it.



I've yet to peek through it, I plan to do so tonight. I'll try to remember to post about it at a later date.

When I got home from work today I HAD to make a tote. They are so therapeutic for me to make. I had purchased a beautiful linen tablecloth at Value Village not long ago and it was just screaming "make me into a tote NOW!!!". I had to listen.





Honestly, I thought it was big enough to squeeze two totes out of, but it wasn't. I think I'll make a zippered pouch or two out of the leftover scraps.

Lastly, these photos were taken with my new camera. Can I just say I'm loving it??? There is ZERO, I mean NO shutter lag AT ALL!!!! I click the button and "poof" the photo is taken. I think the lag on my other camera was at least two seconds. Secondly, I'm loving the 10X optical zoom (the other camera only had 3X). I had hoped to do a bit of reading about it today and learn a bit more, but that didn't happen. Maybe tomorrow.

New camera and a teensy bit of sewing

I bought a new camera. A Fuji s5200. I want a Canon digital SLR eventually, but this was such a great deal I couldn't pass it up.



So far we are getting along (the camera and I). But can I just say that I have spent the better part of two days now trying to figure out which settings take the best shots?????? I've said it before and I know I'll say it again, photography is hard (for me, anyways).

I made a few more zippered change purses and a few more pendants, but honestly, I've spent more time trying to photograph them than it took me to make them!



I love long weekends, I don't want to go back to work tomorrow!