Tag Archives: finished project

Pencil Bunting 101

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If you and I know each other in real life and you’ve worked on a crafty project, chances are I’ve hounded you to write a blurb for my blog. Sometimes I beg to no avail and just write a blog for you (ah-hem, Krafty Katie). But for the FIRST TIME EVER, one of my friends has actually given in to this peer pressure.

I’d like to think this is a form of “positive peer pressure” — you know, the kind you learn about in D.A.R.E. class… kind of like this:

Positive Peer Pressure

Anyway, remember my good friend Joe? I made him a Mickey Mouse “man bag” for his birthday. Joe is a fifth grade teacher and he’s been going crazy on the Pinterest for the past week or so, preparing ideas for his classroom. When he sent me a picture of pencil bunting he made for his classroom (you know how much I love bunting), I begged him to send me a write-up and photos!

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Inspiration from up north: Jill’s denim quilt

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As I write this post, I’m sitting in a sparkling sunroom surrounded by windows on three sides and admiring the majestic greatness of a northern summer. I spent this past weekend in a small town near Madison, Wisconsin, visiting my brother Jason and future sister-in-law, Sarah. We spent the weekend celebrating Jason and Sarah’s recent engagement and new house in addition to my dad’s retirement from dentistry. I also visited the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the first time!

wisconsin

Wisconsin as seen via my iPhone — A new “You Are Here” Starbucks mug, the infamous
terrace chairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Wisconsin Belgian Red cherry ale.

While I love my “Florida life,” spending time up north during the summer is always special. Everything feels just a little different outside of Florida – the grass is softer, the breezes cooler and the sounds reminiscent of my childhood summers in the Chicago suburbs. And of course, a change of scenery is always inspirational for a creative soul. I first realized this a few years ago when I wrote about some regional differences I noticed when visiting a fabric store in Northern Wisconsin.

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Finally-Finished-It Friday: Summertime Watermelon Bunting

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Today’s “finally-finished-it Friday” post is brought to you by… sweet summertime watermelon bunting!

Sweet Summertime Watermelon Bunting

Last Halloween, I made some bunting inspired by candy corn. For Easter, I made bunting inspired by marshmallow Peeps. I started this project months ago – the idea has been in my head for awhile. All of those little pink triangles have been sitting on my cutting table since I abandoned them sometime during the spring. I finally decided to finish up so I’d still have a chance to enjoy this summer decor!

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It’s Tea Time!

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Here’s a fun little project I recently whipped up for my coworker Sylvie. We’ve been “cube neighbors” for six months, but she was fulfilling a temporary assignment and her last day was this week. The office will definitely be a lot lonlier without her!

Every afternoon, Sylvie likes to partake in “tea time” – aka, a trip to our friendly neighborhood Keurig machine for a cup of tea. So when I saw a tutorial for a zippered teacup pouch, I immediately knew that I had to make one for Sylvie.

Teacup Zipper Pouch

If you’re wondering what the faux “tea bag” says, here’s another fun fact: Sylvie is French and often takes the opportunity to educate our office suite about French culture (mostly because we interrogate her with silly questions). So the tea bag says, temps de thé – aka, “tea time” in French. At least, that’s what the Google told me the translation was. Maybe it actually translated to something inappropriate and Sylvie just didn’t want to tell me… let’s hope that’s not the case!

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Woohoo – biscornu!

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I recently wrote about my roommate Katie – aka “Krafty Katie” – and her love of counted cross-stitch crafts. Well, never having tried cross-stitch myself, I could only watch her stitchin’ along for so long before I had to give it a whirl myself.

In searching for a pattern, I fell in love with Clouds Factory – a site with “parody” patterns that portray squishy little versions of beloved characters from TV shows and movies. After much debate, I decided I wanted to make a Snow White themed biscornu – an eight sided pincushion. (Side note: According to the oh-so-trusty Wikipedia, the word biscornu is french for skewed, quirky or irregular. Look at that, my blog is educational!)

My Instagram followers were privy to viewing the progress of my little pincushion… which took place over the course of two weekends and many episodes of The Mindy Project.

Snow White Biscornu Instagram Progress

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Mother’s Day: nailed it!

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One of my earliest Mother’s Day memories is my dad taking me to the cosmetics section in the grocery store to choose a bottle of nail polish for my mom. I couldn’t help thinking about that as I constructed this year’s Mother’s Day gift – a small tote for my mom to carry her nail polish and related supplies around the house.

Some time ago, I was showing my mom all of the sewing projects I have pinned on my “Sewing (Someday)” Pinterest board and the Portable Manicure-Pedicure Kit tutorial on Positively Splendid caught her eye, which made it really easy to choose what to make for Mother’s Day.

This is what it looks like folded up – a strap with a Velcro tab keeps it securely closed.

image

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‘Shaving’ the best project for last!

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I ‘mustache’ you – have you ever seen a stitched greeting card? I ‘shaved’ this project for last…

Ha  ha ha.

Just when you thought I was done talking about “Mustaches + Elephants,” I have one more little nugget to share!

A few hours before my friend Amanda’s baby shower in which I planned to present her with the legendary Mustaches & Elephants Quilt, I decided to make a card to match the quilt. Since Amanda’s baby shower was mustache-themed, I wanted to go the mustache route (sorry, elephants).

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I used some of the green fabric leftover from the quilt, but not the actual mustache or elephant fabrics – I didn’t want to give away the awesome mustache-elephant combo surprise before Amanda actually opened the quilt!

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Behind the Scenes: Mustaches + Elephants

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I recently wrote about a “Mustaches and Elephants” themed rag quilt I made for a friend’s baby shower – check out the original post here! Now I want to write about the quilt a bit more and share some of the technical information. It’s not as exciting as the story behind the quilt, but it will likely be of use to you if you’re looking to make a baby-sized rag quilt yourself!

Mustache and Elephant Rag Quilt

The hardest part about this project was figuring out what size I wanted the quilt to be. Every tutorial out there recommends different measurements and I had a hard time visualizing each size. I saw a rag quilt sample hanging up at the fabric store that looked like a good size, so I counted the number of squares and measured one of them with my hand to make my final decision… when I got home from the store, I had to measure my hand. My methods are very scientific. 😉

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Mustaches + Elephants

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I’ve really been looking forward to writing about this project! Mostly because I get to title it “Mustaches + Elephants.” What do mustaches and elephants have in common? Read on, my friend!

My friend Amanda – 8 months pregnant – told me that she and her hubby were having a hard time settling on a theme for their baby boy’s room and the crafty portion of my brain started racing! Amanda had visions of  whimsical baby elephants and her husband Josh had visions of mustaches.

Mustaches vs elephants

Mustaches? Yep. It’s not as crazy as it sounds. Mustaches are “in” right now! A quick search for “mustache baby” on etsy will bring up mustache themed nursery decor, bibs, shower invitations and onesies.

I tried to convince Amanda that she could combine the mustache and elephants theme, but I’m pretty sure she thought I was crazy.

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Sweet Success

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My mom loves iced tea. Really, she is a self-proclaimed iced tea addict. I grew up hearing, “Can you pass me a pink/yellow/blue packet?” in restaurants as she requested her sweetener of choice. But of course, for those emergency-sweetener-situations, she always has some packets in her purse. When I made my mom an earbud zipper pouch (she’s as addicted to music as she is to iced tea) she mentioned that it might be a good size for her sugar packets.

I had a Barney Stinson moment: “Challenge Accepted!”

Barney Stinson: Challenge Accepted

Side Note: This Barney Stinson graphic is going to be a recurring image in my blog every time I try something new. Because it’s awesome.

Okay, so making a separate zippy pouch for sugar packets wasn’t really that big of a challenge, but I knew that I could do better than the circular earbuds pouch. Here’s the thing with sewing: you don’t have to “make do.” You don’t have to say, “I guess this MIGHT work for my sugar packets.” No. You get to say, “Let’s make something that WILL work.”

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