Fabric ornaments

December is always filled with mixed emotions of exciting holiday celebration and oh-my-goodness-I'm-too-busy!

I love the idea of making Christmas gifts. After I took the snap coin purse class, I had originally thought to make a few as gifts for friends. Unfortunately, the workroom ran out of purse frames... So I went on a hunt for another easy Christmas project.

Vanessa Christenson posted a great tutorial on her blog for fabric ornaments and I was sold. I picked four different print fabrics and decided to mix it up with some Kona solids.


The project is super easy. I got really good at sewing curves on the machine, and eventually got used to the hot glue gun and stopped burning myself...

Some lucky friends and family will be getting a fabric ornament for Christmas depending on how many I manage to make! I just dropped off my first batch at the workroom for the awesome pretty ladies that work there! In exchange, I stuffed my face with baked brie at this month's Stitch and Bitch. I think it was fair tradeoff!

There are less than two weeks left until Christmas and I've still got a couple projects to finish! Hope you're all having a great December, whether you're rushing to get some crafty projects done or braving the shopping malls!

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Crafter by weekend

For those of you who don't know, I only moonlight as a crafty girl. Most of my day is spent doing Engineering related work. With other Engineers. Mostly men. We make jokes like "that guy is team mu" (mu is the static coefficient of friction. being on team friction refers to causing trouble. team mu is a surprisingly large team.) We're geeks. Root 3s, so to speak.

My crafty cottage getaway last weekend was such a breath of fresh air. (We didn't craft the entiiiiire weekend. There were breaks to catch up on the latest Bieber gossip, double dream hands, and this romantic music video; we found our Mr Darcy; we even spent some time with Harry Potter. I digress.)

My last post was the "thank you" post. This post is about the amazing crafting that was happening.

After Jenn finished the "where my heart belongs" embroidery, she worked on a quilt. Her fabric choices are just fabulous, separated by simple, natural beige to let the colours really pop.

Isabelle is slowly working away on an amazing crochet blanket, inspired by Jenn's find on this blog.

Laura worked on a super cute embroidered wall hanging. It was mostly done after the cottage weekend. Those are two mugs. "Filled with love." So cute.

I worked on a birdie sling (yup! the factory is reopening!) and also a baby quilt. But I can't share yet. Don't want to ruin the surprise. I did have fun sewing opposite Jenn in a "duelling sewing machine"-like setup.

It's so inspiring to spend a weekend with fellow crafters. Engineer by day, crafter by weekend!

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Crafty Cottage Getaway

How was everyone's weekend? I hope you had as lovely a weekend as I did.

I spent the weekend in a gorgeous cottage on Joseph Lake in the Muskoka region, thanks to Jenn and her generous friend Steve (and family!). It has been a dream of mine and Jenn's to devote an entire weekend to crafting, and this venue was a super wicked bonus.

From Crafty

From Crafty

To say our thanks, we ensured a gourmet menu for Steve. For his family, we adorned the cottaged with a couple crafts.

The menu for the weekend included fruit and granola crepes, winter root vegetable soup, quinoa salad, made-to-order eggs, and delicious snacks to boot... But my favourite meal was our dinner on Saturday night. Jenn whipped up an amazing cheese fondue made with gruyere and oka, and served it with an assortment of steamed veggies, nutty bread, cured meats, and crisp fruit. So delish!

For the crafty thank-you gifts, Jenn spent a good chunk of her weekend perfecting this beautifully embroidered wall hanging.

We also whipped up a set of four coasters. Jenn had a log cabin block lying around (don't we all?) so I cut it into four, much like a disappearing nine patch, and zigzag stitched it to layers of muslin. A little stitch-in-the-ditch, and tada! Gorgeous coasters for a gorgeous cottage.

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Wedding cards: I do

I've just returned from a weekend of crafting. I can't wait to tell you all about it. Here's a little crafty appetizer that I've been meaning to post for a while.

I love to keep things. Dustin likes to declutter. Regarding the subject of whether or not it was important to keep all the wedding cards from our friends and family, we were at an impasse. I thought it was a no-brainer. Of course we needed to keep the cards so we could read them over and over until we were old and grey. Dustin felt that we had already read them, enjoyed them, and should then recycle them because they will likely sit in a box in the closet forever.

Our compromise was to re-craft them to become new weddings cards! They're a perfect "personal touch" for the happy couple.

Most of the time, I craft the cards in a mad rush because the wedding is the next (sometimes same) day. I don't usually remember to take a picture to share on my blog.

After about 3 years of these re-crafted cards, I have a few pictures. So now I will share.

So many things are great about making wedding cards from old cards.

Reason #1. I have read and reread the cards so many times. When I'm looking for a card with a good design, I will always pick a few to read through; some of which I can't quite bear to cut up quite yet. My good friend Jenn gave us a beautiful black and white card that was perfect for re-crafting. I've finally brought myself to cut it up.

Reason #2. I can steal the captions. Most of the time, I don't have a page-full of congratulatory remarks for the bride and groom. It's nice when the card says some of it for you, takes up a little space, and gives the inside a punch of colour.

Reason 3. I also love that I can play around with matching colours and patterns. It took me a while to realize that I was a terrible scrapbooker. I bought all the supplies, oooo'ed and ah'ed at all my friends' scrapbooks, and then struggled to finish anything. Making these wedding cards is like micro-scrapbooking. They are small contained projects with all the creative options of scrapbooking.

I think the most time consuming part about making these cards is deciding on matching paper. Since the realization of my failed scrapbooking career, I had a large stack of paper with no future; when I make these cards, I only use paper that I've already got. It was incredibly easy at the beginning, but as the pickings got slim, it was harder to find a nice match. Challenge accepted! I spent one evening earlier this month pairing cards with paper. Hopefully this speeds up the process when I (inevitably) forget about the card until the day before (or of) the wedding.

I have one friend who donated a stack of her wedding cards to us. In return, I gave the couple some of the cards that came from their stack. Hopefully they didn't mind me reading all the lovely congratulatory comments in their cards, too! If you're ever at an impasse about keeping cards, try re-crafting them! Or give them to me and I'll re-craft them for you!

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