A Needlebook Obsession

Hello! A confession here - I think I might have an obsession with needlebooks... I have a ton of them. Some I have made, some have been made by friends. One was made by my dad - my favorite of all. Let me show you some of them - then you decide - do I really  need a kit to make more????

Wool needlecases with stamped die cuts on top two. Bottom left is simple wool applique. Bottom right was given to me by a friend - just a few pieces of wool sewn together - functional. Second picture is these cases opened up.

Made by a friend - silk embroidery.

Another silk embroidery case by my friend.

A beautiful fan shaped needle case with tons of silk ribbon flowers on the front. Beautiful inside and out. Made by my friend.

Cute wool beehive case - made by me.

Wool felt case made by a friend.

Simple 30s fabric case - made by me.

More silk ribbon cases from my friend. She passed away a couple years ago, and I bought these at her estate sale.

A simple roll case - made by me.

A felt and wool felt case - made by me.

This one is my favorite. My dad made it during WWII. He was a marine and fought in several larger battles. I imagine this was his field sewing kit. He left it to me in his will.

This was made from wool by me - just a simple case.

This crazy needle case was made by a friend of mine. It is made entirely from French knots - over 100 per inch!

Make It Monday #205: Confetti Cluster Stamping

Hello! I have a card for Papertrey's Make-It-Monday this week. Lizze Jones showed us how to use little confetti-type stamps and a basic shape to create a design element on our card. You can see the video here.
For my shapes, I used the balloon die cut negative from Birthday Style. I used confetti stamps from Shakers and Sprinkles. The ink colors I used were Pure Poppy, Hawaiian Shores, Summer Sunrise and Limeade Ice. The sentiment is also from Shakers and Sprinkles. This card will go out to my 6 month old grandson. I send my grandkids birthday cards each month.

Hope you are having a great day! Thanks for stopping by!

Chicken Scratch Embroidery

Before this month, I had never heard of chicken scratch embroidery. I have so many different hobbies already - I didn't need another one. But alas, Erin had to go and introduce chicken scratch stamps over on the Papertrey site on Nicole's blog here. I thought I was safe for a while. I googled and pinterested "chicken scratch" and wasn't overly impressed. I figured I'd pass on this one.

Then the other day I was in a quilt shop and saw some beautiful aqua gingham fabric. Aqua is my favorite color. Cannot resist it! So I bought a yard and thought maybe I'd give chicken scratch embroidery a try. Just a try. Not going crazy with it - yet.

So I searched on Pinterest and found a couple tutorials for actually doing the embroidery on gingham fabric. It started to look inviting. So I cut a 9" x 9" square of that beautiful aqua fabric and some Size 8 white pearl cotton and gave it a try.  It's actually very easy once you wrap your head around it.
Oh.my.gosh! I really really loved the results! The pearl cotton just makes the design jump off the fabric! I.think.I'm.hooked! So I made a little 4" square of a simple design using just the basic stitches, and then made it into a pincushion. LOVE!

This is the basic stitch pattern I used. Just four double cross stitches, four straight stitches, and then the weave through the straight stitches. I did the weave twice to make it pop.

Pinterest Link

I can't believe how the stitches transform the gingham! So I think my next project will be to make two little aprons for my two granddaughters with a chicken scratch border along the bottom. Not quite this elaborate, but along this line.

 

Pinterest link

So what do you think? I think I need to order those stamps so I can make a coordinating tag!!! It never ends! Good thing it's so fun! Thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey Make-It-Monday #203 - Doodling with Stamps

 Hello! Thanks for stopping by today! I am entering the card to the left in Papertrey's Make-It-Monday this week. Ashley showed us how to doodle on our stamps. It's alot harder than it looks though. At least for me! I think you need to be relaxed to make this work, and I think I was just trying too hard. My first attempt (see last card) was awful - way to busy. The second attempt (see left) was much simpler - and the one I will enter for the MIM challenge.

The third attempt below was ok - just not my favorite. I will keep practicing at this technique, because I love the look it brings to your cards.

I used Beautiful Blooms 2, and the Swoosh dies.

 This was my first attempt - way too busy!

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamping on Felt

Hello! I wanted to share a technique that is new to me. I've done alot of work with wool and wool felt. I love Papertrey's 100% wool felt, although they only have a limited amount of colors. Sometimes I have to go to other sources to get the colors I want, and sometimes the percentage of wool is not as high as Papertrey's.
I am getting ready to do a demonstration on wool applique at a quilt show in April, and was trying to come up with a design I could make up into kits to have for sale at the show. I was thinking it would be nice to have pre-cut die shapes in the kit, so I started thinking about all the Papertrey dies I have, and which ones would work well with a simple design.
What I came up with was a simple needle case with a Rosey Posey flower on the front. I cut the flower out of two different pink felts I purchased from Village Mercantile (a booth at a quilt show I attend). The die cuts seemed kind of like a blob - no real definition of the flower. So I thought maybe I would try to stamp the Rosey Posey flower on the felt die cut. I wasn't too sure how well the ink would dry - whether it would smear when I was working with it. So I stamped the image and let it dry overnight. When I rubbed my fingers across it in the morning, it seemed to be dry. I hit it a bit with my heat gun just to make sure the ink was set.

 The first flower was stamped with Berry Sorbet onto the slightly darker pink felt. It really had good contrast, so I decided to leave it as is and just attach it to my felt base with whip stitches. The leaves were cut from a green felt, also from Village Mercantile, and stamped with a slightly darker green. This green ink did not have much contrast, and really did not show up much in the finished product.

 The second flower was stamped with Hibiscus Burst and only made a light impression. I decided to use the faint outlines as a guide to stitch the interior of the flower.

Both sets of leaves were blanket stitched. Which flower do you prefer? I kind of like them both! I think I am going to try out some other Papertrey stamps on felt die cuts - I love the added dimension the stamping gives!

Papertrey 2015 Anniversary - Day Eight

Hello! Actually, I am beginning to lose track of what day of Papertrey's Anniversary it it! Seems like every morning I get up and check out Nicole's blog for new product introduction, then head downstairs to make a card for the contest. Today's contest is all about Blue! Betsy Veldman has a new set coming out on the 15th called "Blue Skies". It's all about fluffy clouds, sun rays, and all things Blue! So the challenge today is to create a card with a blue ombre scheme.

I used the "smooshing" technique (a la Laura Bassen), with Tropical Teal, Hawaiian Shores and Aqua Mist to create my sky on the background of my card. Then I pulled out one of my old favorites - Up Up and Away - and colored a couple of the balloon diecuts with copics. I decided on the Silver Lining sentiment, so I made another die cut of each cloud using Silver Shimmer cardstock. This silver layer was glued underneath the white cloud. I covered the balloons with Wink Of Stella, and then wrapped some silver cord around the bottom to reinforce the silver theme.
I love the way this card turned out!

Thanks for stopping by!

Papertrey 2015 Anniversary - Day Seven

Hello! Today is all about metallics over on Nicole's blog here! New cardstock - both in silver and gold, as well as adhesive sheets and patterned paper! Wow! Lots to sink in today! Anyway, the challenge today is to create a card using metallics and neutrals - nothing else. I browsed on Pinterest to get some ideas and so much of what I saw was very graphic shapes - stripes, polka dots, and the shape I chose - triangles. So I pulled out my trusty Triangle coverplate, and cut a sheet of black, white and gold cardstock - lots of tiny triangles! Then I used the white as the base, and added in rows of black and gold triangles. Finished up with a Wonderful Words diecut in the gold, and a gold string to balance the sentiment. What fun this week has been!

A couple different angles so you can see all the glorious shine. :) I picked up that cute little easel at Mike's yesterday in their new Make Market section. Does that name sound vaguely familiar?? Lots of great linen, denim, burlap and wood! And it's on sale this week! Each of these easels were 2 in a pack for a little over $1.00! I also loved the little 4" linen canvases in that section. They really reminded me of the little canvas in the Masterpiece kit. They fit perfectly on this little easel.

Made one more card with the left over triangles while I was at it!

Thanks for stopping by today!