Fairy garden reno

A trip to Ballek's greenhouse meant a purchase of some new plants for the fairy garden terrarium. A goldfish plant and sellaginella (bright green lacy fronds). Some fresh soil and a good wash off brings the magic back for February.

Christmas Thanks

Deer in forest embossed card with white ink and Smooch spray.

Cuddle Quilts for Twins

Clouds, bees, bunnies for girl.
Snowflakes, snowmen and skating penguins for boy.

Maxi Masculine and Mini Feminine Chef Aprons

June is a month of anniversaries, birthdays, and a bridal shower.  Time to make some chef aprons for the bride and groom and a little grand-niece expecting a new sister this summer.

I use two patterns made from tracing around my own chef apron and my granddaughter's T-shirt. They are both on craft paper--and well-used.

For the male version, I use Parson Gray fabric designs.  Parson Gray is fabric designer Amy Butler's husband. The patterned one is Dimitri Vine and the textured one is Rustic Weave.

The neck tie is attached at the top on one side with right sides together.

The other top corner has a short tab with 2 1-inch D-rings 

also placed inside the right sides of the fabric.

Attach reinforcements of black denim on the the armpit corners.

Fold the black denim under and top stitch across.

A little tricky since you're working on the bias!

Ready to sew.

Neck tie and tab with D-rings and reinforced corners inside.

Sew right sides together all the way around

except for the very bottom where you will turn 

the apron inside out.

Now the fun part!

Turn right side out.

Clip corners

and curves.

Pressing is really important.

Make sure those corners and curves are sharp!

Turned and pressed apron.

Top sew all around starting at the opening.

Mark the whole for the grommet with a white pencil and the grommet top piece.

The instructions are on the back of the grommets.

I use the hammer on the garage floor on top of a piece of newspaper!

Masculine version done!

Mini version, too!

The armpits are the pockets for a couple utensils.

The fabric is Amy Butler Love Sun Spots and 

Midwest Modern Daisy Chains.

Now I need one for the bride!

Springtime Is Time for Anniversary Cards

I needed a few this coming week so I found an inspiration on Pinterest using materials and tools I had on hand in my stash.

This idea was from Simon Says and highlighted their hello die cut.

These are the cards I made:

I used some Papertrey Ink white cardstock, some light blue cardstock from my scraps 

(not sure which color or source) and some Strathmore Vellum and

Recollections Precious Metals silver cardstock for the basic building blocks.

I also added another layer and texture with the Paper Artist Butterfly Frame embossing folder.

From blue and silver and vellum, I cut some leaves from Turning a New Leaf , 

a Papertrey Ink die cut set.

And from the silver metallic cardstock I cut double layers of the sentiments

from Di-Namics Celebratory Greetings set.

For adhesives I chose the following: Scotch foam mounting tape for the embossed layer, 

Creative Memories ink pen for the fine work attaching the leaves and the sentiments.

I tried the Scotch vellum tape for the first time.  Not easy to use on the stems!!!

A mini Glue Dot held the metallic wire bow on the card.

Some glittery embellishments completed the cards:  Liquid Pearls, Glitter Glue in clear, 

some rhinestones and Smooch shiny spray from Stampin' Up.

Also, a few tools like scissors, corner rounder and a sharp pick came in handy.

It feels good to have enough materials and tools now to make a decent

facsimile of a wonderful design with my own flair--and stash.

Triple Treat Pastels

Even though we've had more snow, I'm encouraged by the intensity of the sunlight (when it appears) to work with some pastels.  Here's a triple treat of yellow, pink and blue for Easter.

The stamp set is Reason to Smile from Papertrey Ink.

It was a freebie--and now it's pastels for Spring.

Two --or three?--reasons to smile!

Balloon Birthday Revisited

Back to the drawing board for the birthday card from last week!  I had three extra kits from the card making session and decided to make them up this afternoon.  I found a Papertrey Ink die cut and stamp set "Heart 2 Heart" with a sunshine and clouds to add to the cover.

I like this one for the triple deckle edge.

The pearl heart on the cloud and highlights on the balloons are new too.

I used some of the confetti from the bubble punch to add texture on the background.

This was my first attempt and I'm not liking it very much.

I do like the dotted sentiment flag but the empty spot beside it couldn't be filled by sequins really.

The glitter highlights don'r stand out much, but I used Ranger Pearl Dots on the background 

(which gave me the idea to use it for highlights!).

This is the version I liked best.

Balanced composition makes the card look bigger.

Nice pearl heart on the cloud.

Simple sentiment stamp less busy.

Five balloons make a nice bunch--and tall for height.

I will use them all in the next month for birthdays but it was fun to dabble today.