A tote and Little Red Riding Hood

No more wallet news today. I took the day off from wallets and I slipped into my comfort zone and made a tote. No big deal, but it was just what I needed to do after the day of the wallet.



In more exciting sewing news, look at this:



My blogless sister Lisa of Sink Daisy made it. I'm very impressed. Who knew my baby sister had such talent????? According to the description in her Etsy shop it looks as though it may be the first in a series of dolls.

Just a reminder that tomorrow is the last day of The Challenge so get your entries in!!!

Wallets, almost

Ok, I've spent ALL DAY sewing and thinking about sewing wallets.

I'd think of a way it MIGHT be done and try it. It wouldn't work so I'd sew up an easy one while I think of something else to try.

Here are the ones I collected from the waste basket.



They are back in the waste basket now.

My issue was the zipper, I had a hard time trying to figure out how to construct the wallet with the features I wanted. I THINK I've got it this time but I'm way too "walleted out" to give it another go. MAYBE tomorrow.

In between all the ones that found their way to the garbage I was also perfecting a multi-slotted business card holder/wallet (no zipper). The design changed all day for these too.

Here are the ones that AREN'T garbage.







Even though most of the day's efforts ended up in the garbage, I learned a lot today. I made much more progress than I ever have before towards making a wallet that's actually functional.

Hopefully I'll figure it out soon so I can move on!!!

We have a winner!

Today's post is going to be a mish-mash of a whole bunch of stuff. I'm apologizing in advance :)

I still don't have pictures of the now completed purse to post. I need to invent some sort of a closure for it. Since the purse is now done, I'm thinking fusible velcro. I went to Fabricland this morning and of course, they don't have any. I phoned Joann's (across the river, aka, in the STATES) and of course they have it. I'm waiting for the traffic at the border to clear and then I may run over tonight to pick some up so I can finish this bag.

I zipped into Value Village this morning. It hasn't been a very thrifty summer for me thanks to The Challenge. I found the cutest little lap-sized quilt.



It's not in the best of shape, it's wearing thin in some spots but it doesn't need any immediate repair. I LOVE the blue fabric with the pink spools of thread on it!!!



And the best part??? The price.



For no reason I also bought this picture. It was very dirty but it cleaned up nicely. I have no idea where to put it yet, but I'll find the perfect spot eventually.



Here's my wallet update. I've added different pockets for cards and a clear plastic pocket on the back (forgot to photograph that part). Anyways, here are today's experiments MINUS the snap closures. Why no snaps yet??? Well Joe took the hammer to work with him after lunch. I called him and asked him if he could please bring the "craft" hammer home with him. He blabbered on about how it was a "manly" NOT a "crafty" hammer and it shouldn't be used to whack snaps on wallets, blah blah blah. The hammer will be coming home tonight and snaps will be installed :)




And lastly, I want to thank everyone for the kind comments left on my 200th post!!!! I loved reading every single one of them. When Joe came home from lunch today I had a bowl full of pieces of paper with all the names of the commenters on it and asked him to pick a name.

He picked Chelsea. Congratulations Chelsea!!!! If you can e-mail me your address I will get something (I still don't know what) in the mail for you soon. Well, kind of soon. Before the end of the summer soon, how's that???

Have a super weekend everyone!!!!

Teeth, Ruts, Wallets, Bags and Contests

Yesterday was my second trip to the dentist. I decided since he (he being the evil mean dentist) was just going to fill a cavity I would not take the prescribed "happy pills" and act like a big girl. Well, 1.5 hours in the dentist's chair listening to him say things like "darn" and "that's not working" later I wish I had taken those stupid little happy pills!!!!!!!!! My mouth still hurts. Oh, and he (the evil mean dentist) called me last night again to see how I was. He's like a nightmare that won't go away!!!!!!!!

The truth is he's a very nice man and it's not his fault he's a dentist. Well I guess it is, but he is nice. I might even like him if he didn't torture me. You know what I mean. I do think it was nice of him to call me. I don't think that many dentists do that but then again, not many dentists have to put up with ME.

Moving on.

Apparently I'm not the only one in a creative rut. I do want to sew. I do want to be creative but I'd much rather sit on the couch, watch movies, eat ice cream, read Stephanie Plum books and nap.

Yesterday morning I didn't know what to do so I cleaned up and purged some of my fabric. I should have done that at the beginning of The Challenge because now I can actually see what I'm dealing with. It's still a lot, but at least it's organized now.

During my cleaning/tidying spree I found lots of little pieces of pretty fabric. I really wish I knew how to make wallets. Any time I've tried to make one it's ended up in the trash.

I made a few mini card holders.



I want to work my way up to wallets.

Anyways, I was delaying my post today because I was hoping to have a new bag completed but I'm not sure if it's going to happen today. I have been sewing and ripping and sewing and ripping a new gusseted bag. I don't know yet if I'm going to love it or hate it.

Don't forget to comment on my 200th post to qualify to win a fabulous prize from me. I still don't know what the prize will be, but I'll figure something out :)

200th post

I never really look at the information before I click on "create post" when blogging, but for some reason I did today and I'm amazed that this is post 200!
It's quite a milestone considering almost a year ago when I started this blog I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I had no idea if I would ever keep it up.

Well, I think 200 posts call for a give-away. This is totally unplanned and I have no idea what the give-away will be, but I'll come up with something. So, if you leave a comment on this post, later in the week I'll pull a name out of the hat and send that person a present.

I'm glad I noticed that this was post 200 because this was going to be a very boring post.

I've been in a slight rut the past few days not really feeling like doing much of anything. I did make a mushroom wristlet yesterday (it was a custom order for Etsy)



Yesterday I managed to make this in about 10 minutes. It's an earring holder inspired by this. I can only show the front of it because trust me, the back isn't nearly as pretty. I just hot glued a piece of batting to the cardboard part of the frame, covered it in fabric (hot glued to the back of the frame too) and then hot glued some ribbon to the back.



I know for sure this is a project that will get tons of use. I don't own many earrings, but the ones I do own are in little jars/bowls scattered all over the house. It will be nice to finally have them all in one place where I can see them.

I guess I should also post a reminder that The Challenge is winding up soon so don't forget to post your projects on Flickr!!! Sadly, the challenge for me will be continuing for a while longer.

Rockin' Girl Bloggers!!!!

To my complete astonishment, I have been nominated not once, but twice for a Rockin' Girl blogger award!!!!! A great big thanks to Randi and Jessica for their nominations and kind words about my blog.

Now it's my turn to nominate five Rockin' Girl Bloggers!!!! How exciting!!!



In no particular order, here are five girl bloggers who ROCK!!!!!

Felicia creates the most incredible little creatures out of recycled items. She is not only extremely talented but has become one of my best blogging buddies. It has nothing to do with the fact that she too is a librarian and loves books and reading, honestly!!! :)

Lera may be the Rockin'-est Girl Blogger out there. She manages to create the most incredible projects while parenting six of the most beautiful children ever!!!! I have no idea how she does it, but she does. Extremely well. Her blog is ALWAYS fun to read and I look forward to it every single morning. Lera has also become a very good friend to me over the past year. I'm so fortunate to have met her. (Lera, stop barfing, I promise I'll never be that nice again).

Linda of Craft Apple fame is one of the very first blogs that I can remember reading. I get so excited when I see a new Craft Apple post in my Bloglines. Her blog is amazing and so is she. There are very few bloggers out there who are as skilled as Linda is. I admire her so very much.

Sonja has an amazing blog. I urge you to go and check it out. She is always sewing up something new and she makes me laugh because she can't believe that anyone would join the "Use What You Have" challenge and not buy ANY fabric for over a month!!!!! Sonja just got a new teaching job which better not (although I'm sure it will) interfere with her crafty/sewing/blogging time!!

Chara is another one of my favourite bloggers. Her blog is full of amazing photos taken with her new spiffy camera (which I'm very jealous of!!!).

I could go on and on and on. I think that every blog I read rocks!!!!!!!!! It's been almost a year (I think) since I started my own blog. I can't believe in such a short time how much it has invaded my whole life (in a good way).

Tags and Cards

Ok, so the tags appear to have been a hit. I've had quite a few questions about my punch. It measures 1.75 X 2.75 inches. Unfortunately, I threw away the packaging so I don't know the brand. I can check the next time I'm at Michael's.

I've made some more. These ones are stamped.



And perhaps my favourites.



I also found some fabric squares I bought on Ebay last fall. I made Christmas cards with them last year and I've almost used them all up (yay for stash-busting!!). I use this amazing tutorial from Linda at Craft Apple.



I've spent the better part of my morning finishing up the tags and cards and taking pictures of them. I've also gone back and re-done a bunch of my Etsy photos (stuff that hasn't been posted yet because I hated the pictures). It is such a slow process, taking pictures and keeping everything organized. It had to be done though and I feel much better about things now.

Tag-o-rama

For the longest time I've wanted a great big tag punch. For some reason I decided that I HAD to have one today, so off to Michael's I went.

I was not armed with my 40 percent off coupon, but all you have to do at the Michael's that I go to is pretend to have forgotten it and you still get the discount. I bought a humongous tag punch (regular $24.99, OUCH!), but I pretended to forget my coupon and got the discount making the price almost ok.

Anyways, I quickly went through my scrapbooking paper stash (yes, I have one of those too from my earlier days) and found some pretty papers to turn into tags.

The first batch are thank-you tags using Amy Butler paper.



Then I found some extremely cute snowman paper and thought "why not??". The glue is still wet, apparently I couldn't wait to take the picture.



Some more. Again, wet glue.



Let me tell you, they may not look like much but are they ever fun to make. AND, the best part is, I'm still stash-busting!!!!! Although, I do need to go back to Michael's and get more ribbon, but that's ok.

Getting back to the swing of things

First of all, while I was away the mailman left me the greatest package!!!!! I was fortunate enough to win a prize from Felicia of Fluffy Flowers. It's all her fault that I've hardly done any crafting/sewing. I've been GLUED to the Stephanie Plum books by Janet Evanovich that Felicia recommended. Anyways, she had a give-away on her blog for the coolest snowglobe ever!!! I'm sure it's because of all the whining I did that I won, but I'm ok with that.

Not only did she send the world's greatest snowglobe (which is going on my desk at school in September), but she sent a beautiful crocheted fluffy flower, a bookmark and a pin that says "Stephanie Pick Ranger", although I'm still voting for Joe :)



A little added bonus to winning this prize is that I now have a snowglobe with Joe's name in it in a heart. My Joe has NO IDEA that it's from the books I've been reading, total brownie points for me :) :)



It's been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster since we got back (stop laughing Lera). I'm having cat issues, I'll leave it at that. I did manage to finish the pouches that I embellished while at the cottage. Here's a couple of my favourites.






I have no idea what I'm going to work on next. I think tonight I'll do a little brainstorming.

Also, don't forget that the Use What You Have Challenge is winding up. Sadly, I think I'm going to be using what I have for quite a bit longer. Why is my fabric stash still huge??????? Actually, I think at the end of the month I'm going to seriously go through it and just purge what I know I'll never use and be done with it.

I'm baaaack!

Whew, what a great week that was. We had a super time at the cottage. The only bad part about it was that we had to come home.

I woke up one morning and caught the sunrise. I took a picture of the lake with the mist rising on it and a picture of the front of the cottage.





I have a hard time getting good photos of our dogs. They rarely sit still. I did manage to get this photo of Chinook. I love it. Chinook is a Shepherd mix and her arthritis is really slowing her down. She loves the water but the stairs down to the lake were just too much for her this year. She did go down but we really discouraged it.



Not far from the cottage there's a little in that for some reason keeps several llamas on their property. Joe and I stopped in for a little visit one day. I really liked this one. I kept telling her (for some reason I just assumed it was a "she") that she was pretty. I think she knew it because she was very happy to pose for the camera.



One of the highlights of the trip for me was visiting the screaming heads in Burk's Falls. It's home to an artist who has creating HUGE sculptures in the fields surrounding his house (which is also a work of art).

This is the gate at the front of his house.



Another enterance to his property.



I'm not sure if he actually lives in the house or not. There is a trailer set up right beside the house and I suspect that that's where he may live. Anyways, this is part of his house.



The fields surrounding his house are full of the most incredible sculptures. Here's one of my favourite photos of Joe posing with one of the trees.



And lastly, here's a couple of photos of the trees.





While we were away I think I knit one more inch of the socks that I brought to work on. I wasn't too crafty although I did do quite a bit or reading. I'm reading the Stephanie Plum series which was recommended to me by Felicia. I only had two of the books with me and when I finished them on Thursday I was certainly left hanging. I dove into the next book in the series last night. I'm not sure how much sewing/crafting will get done until I've read all 13 books!!! (thanks Felicia!!)

I got some great mail while I was away that is yet to be photographed so I'll be posting about that later this week. I've missed my sewing machine and if I can get through the laundry and unpacking I might actually get re-acquainted with it today!

I have a zillion blogs to read now. I can't wait to see what I missed!!!

Thanks and have a super week!!!

First of all....thank you to all you extremely sweet and supportive comments regarding my little dentist fiasco. I am happy to report that my tooth is now filled and thanks to some little pills I didn't shed one tear during the whole ordeal (either did the dental staff!!). I must have been pathetic because last night at 9:05 the phone rang. Joe looked at the caller ID and said "it's your dentist's office". I cringed....they're now calling me at home???????????? Anyways, I answered the phone and just about fainted when I heard "THE" voice. The dentist called me at home to see how I was making out!!!!!!!!!!!! I guess I was super-pathetic and since I have much more dental work in my future, I think he wants to insure that I'll go back. I just think it's funny.

So, thanks to my teeth, there has been little craftiness/sewing going on around here. Mostly tooth drama. I did receive in the mail today some pendants I ordered from Sink Daisy's Etsy Shop. (Sink Daisy also happens to be my sister). Here they are and I love them.



I've cast on a pair of socks to work on while at the cottage.



It's been about a year since I've knit socks. I can't tell you how much I love hand-knit socks!! I have about 5 or 6 pairs that I've knit and I wear them all winter long. LOVE them!! When I was knitting them over a year ago I was getting really good. I did a couple with different patterns on them and I was starting to knit them on two circular needles. And then I stopped. I don't know why. Knitting socks is fun! Unfortunately, since so much time has passed since I knit them before I feel like I'm back to square one again. I was going to cast on with two circular needles but I felt like I needed to knit a pair on DPN's just to remember how to do them. I'm not going to let another year pass before I make more. I think I'd like to have a pair on the needles at all times.

I'm in the midst of packing and cleaning and doing laundry before we leave for the cottage on Sunday. We will be gone a week. We do have access to dial-up Internet at the cottage, but it is way too slow to do any blog surfing. Essentially I just check e-mail and that's it. Sooooo...it's going to be a very tough week for me!! I will discover just how addicted I am to reading blogs and snooping into other people's lives!!

Anyways.....I'll be thinking of all of you while I'm drinking my morning coffee and knitting socks while looking at this.



Have a super week!!!

Dentists are SCAREY!

I feel crappy. I have a toothache. I hunted down a dentist this morning and I have to have a cavity filled. He didn't look at my whole mouth today, just the sore spot, I'm sure there is lots more dentistry in my near future, maybe. I am TOTALLY afraid of going to the dentist. The ONLY reason I dragged myself there today was because we are going away on Sunday and I didn't want to be stuck up at the cottage with a dental emergency.

I had to fill out a form. On it they asked what did you like best about your last dentist?? I said "nothing". The form asked what is most important to you in a dental office and I said "lots of drugs". When the dental hygenist started to tell me what she was going to do tomorrow I told her to "stop, I don't need to know". When the very nice receptionist offered a tour of the office before I left, I asked her if she was crazy!!! he he he "NO! I don't want a tour, I don't want to know!!".

Oh, and I cried. Quiet tears, not real bawling, but I cried. The only good thing was that when you cry at the dentist's office you don't even need to wait in the waiting room, for some reason they rush you right in!!! :) LOL!!!

The ladies were all very nice, and thank goodness, they all had a really great sense of humour. If they didn't work in a dentist's office I would probably even like them.

I have drugs to get me there tomorrow. I need them.

Ok, I can't think about it anymore.

Moving on.

What does a girl do when she's trying to keep occupied and not think about scarey dentists??? Make totes, of course.





The only thing I did a little differently was change the shape a little bit. They are a little narrower at the top than the bottom. It's not very noticeable, but I like them.

Wish me good luck tomorrow. No, wait, wish the dental office staff good luck tomorrow!!!!!!!!!

Mushroom Bag

Here's the second version of the pleated tote complete with mushroom applique and ladybug button:



It's a short post today, I'm in the midst of cleaning, doing laundry and trying to get some stuff together to take to the cottage on Sunday. I did though want to share one of my favourite websites though. www.readersadvice.com is a super resource if you are in between books and wondering what to read next. You can look up the author of a book you've read and enjoyed and it will offer suggestions for similar books. Enjoy!

A New Purse

Next week Joe and I go to the cottage. It's our "happy place" and the two weeks we spend up there each summer are the best two weeks of the year!! Traditionally I bring knitting with me when I go but I'm just not in the knitting mood. I think I have some sock yarn stashed away somewhere so I may bring that with me but I also want to bring something else to work on.

I spent the better part of yesterday morning putting together little sewing kits. I've prepared about 15 zippered pouches for embellishing. Each ziplock baggie contains the makings of a pouch and matching buttons for decoration. It will give me something to do while Joe is hogging the dial-up internet and logging all our geocaching finds :)



Between the kitting, sewing and "Stephanie Plum" books (thanks Felicia!!) I should be quite busy.

I've also spent the past two days working on a new pleated purse. I had a vision of what I wanted it to look like but knew to make my prototypes with crappy fabric. Version one was way too small, version two was way too big. Here they are, strapless because I cut the straps off to re-use them for take three.



In the third version I was playing with different strap styles. Traditional straps and bias tape straps. I went for the sturdiness of traditional straps.



I was feeling confident in the design and decided to make the real bag. I used a light interfacing on the outer fabric and lining. I did't want it to be too stiff or too floppy. I'm quite happy with the outcome.



Hmmmm...now that I'm looking at the photos, I do kind of like the blue floral print I used in the third version. Maybe I'll use that to make another bag.

Friday Night at Port Dalhousie

On Friday night I went out for dinner with a friend I used to work with. I hadn't seen her in ages and we had a super time. I came home and crashed on the couch. I had pigged right out and was planning to "park it" for the night when Joe asks if I want to go for a walk on the pier (meaning Port Dalhouse on Lake Ontario). I was fooled into thinking he was being romantic so I agreed. About five minutes later it occured to me that there was probably a new geocache placed out on the pier and THAT'S why he wanted to go. Of course there was. I could have guessed he wasn't interested in a romantic stroll. :)

Anyways, the cache was hidden on a rock pier. There was NO WAY I was going to go get the cache so I grabbed Joe's camera and proceded to play.

Here's Joe making his way to the cache (which was hidden down by the red lighthouse by the way). It took him over 20 minutes there and back. I would have fallen and died out on those rocks!!



Here is a picture of the pier. If you look to the left you can see the Toronto skyline.



A couple more random shots:





Yesterday Joe went geocaching with friends and I stayed home to go garage saleing (what a disappointment) and sew. I ended up with a terrible migraine and did pretty much nothing the whole day. I did catch a movie on TV that I loved, Catch and Release. Such a sappy chick flick. Watch it if you can.

I'm starting to gather some portable projects to take to the cottage with us next week. Space is at a premium so I have to really think about what to bring.

Today we're off to do some geocaching with friends and then have a Canada Day BBQ!!!

Happy Canada Day!!!