Wildflower Birthday

Another guy card for the February set of birthdays. This time it's for my father in law. He likes to display my cards on his mantle and brags to all his family and friends which of course makes me feel like a wonderful daughter in law.

One of his favorites was this Lawn Ranger card using a stamp from Rubbernecker stamps and when I was at the Expo last year I picked up a few more. Not as fun as the Lawn Ranger but something a little different (both stamps on this card are from Rubbernecker). I doubt it w ill replace his favorite but will still find a place on his mantle nonetheless.

Sewing: Apron

When I was up visiting my father in law over the holidays my husband's niece asked if I would make her an apron for her acupuncture business. She described what she wanted and left the rest up to me. Her basic requirements were that it be black with some sort of Asian accent.

I found a free pattern online and went about making what I thought would be an acceptable apron for her. I must say there was quite a bit of discussion in our family about the number and widths of pockets needed. In the end we felt three was the best number. One for her used needles which was one of the requirements, one for a cell phone which was another and then one for either new needles or for whatever.

The apron was easy enough to make but I beefed it up using some twill material for the main part. I truly wanted a nice sturdy apron that would hold up for the long haul of wearing and washing. The only part that let me down was the tie, It was barely long enough to tie around my waist and I don't know about you but I like something that gives me lots of room to tie. In fact I like to wrap it back around and tie in the front. So I tossed out the black tie which would have been nice accent and fortunately had bought some red bias tape which I used instead. I left it the entire length and now there is plenty of material to tie with.

I was also a bit disappointed on the overall size of the apron. Granted I am 5'10" and this was just too small for me. Fortunately my dh's niece is all of 5 feet so it should be a perfect fit for her.

Lastly I had to add some sort of Asian accent so I found in the Silhouette store the letters for Peace and thought that would be appropriate. Cut those out of heated vinyl and added it on for the finishing touch.

 

See the nice long tie. 

 

Here is a close up of those pockets



And the back of the apron. I really love that material of course I am partial to the red/black/white combo as well.

Zappy Birthday

Continuing on with my February birthdays, I made this card for the 5 yr old grandbaby. Not too much superheroish but maybe just enough. I used some Tim Holtz distress inks to create the background mimicking a bit of a sunset. Cut the city from a Taylored Expressions die and then used my Papertrey Ink superhero stamps and dies for the rest.

Confetti Birthday

It's no secret that I love these confetti stamps from Papertrey Ink. They are so fun to play with. You may remember I used them recently for this Valentine's Day card.

Using them I built up layers along with a Hero Arts stamp that also had large circles. I stamped the Hero Arts stamp in a pale pink to add to the background. Then using the confetti stamps with inks from Colorbox cat's eye or Papertrey Ink I completed the layers. I cut two stars from a Fiskars star punch and a few tiny ones using a die from Memory Box. The Happy die and Birthday stamp are also from Papertrey Ink.

It's Birthday Season!

At least in my house. I realized that I have 2 friends with birthdays in Feb, 1 friend with a birthday in January and then 5 family members all in February so I need to crank out some birthday cards. Of the 8 cards I needed to make 5 are all male. I find those are always a bit more of a challenge. First up is this card I made with my oldest grandson in mind. I figured being 16 he's definitively not going to want some cutesy card, something more on the serious side for him. Using a round dot die from Papertrey Ink and a stitched rectangle die from Simon Says stamp, along with an arrow die cut from QK.

A few more Valentine's Day cards

Ever since I was able to finally lay my hands on the Harvest Mouse stamps set from My Favorite Things I envisioned that I could alter them just a bit to fit the holidays. So I took this little guy carrying leaves and changed them to tiny little hearts. They are hard to see but I piled them in and had a few falling from the basket.

This card I designed for my dh. Guy cards always seem to be hard to make for Valentine's Day cards since I would think they aren't too fond of getting a frilly pink cards, or at least my husband doesn't. I do like the combo of grey and pink and found some pp that matched the grey I was using. And for some reason it made me feel a bit of a tropical theme was going on so I did add a few tiny confetti flowers. Hopefully it's not too feminine for him. And if you can keep a secret I will tell you that I purchased tickets to Jersey Boys to see on Valentine's Day. I am kind of excited about giving them to him. I bought the tickets late last summer and have been holding them waiting for my grand surprise moment. I did tell him I had plans but he's probably forgotten about it at this point.

Alien Kaboodle

I wanted to finally share with you my Etsy shop. I am focusing primarily on little girls at this time. I do hope to expand to add more boy clothing but for now it's just little girls.

This is the link to my shop Alien Kaboodle. I wanted to have something fun and whimsical so you might remember the name, at least I hope so. My tags feature this little alien guy with the shop name. I wanted to use Alien Wear but that was too close to Alien Ware which is related to computers and didn't want any confusion. You can imagine most sewing or clothing terms are already taken.

Here are a few items I just added. I also have my Star Wars, Dr. Seuss and Mickey Mouse skirts already listed.

I have more items to add and hopefully will get those up before too long. I am really loving the vintage look and feel of my floral material and currently sewing a few tops where I have paired it with denim. And of course who doesn't like some pretty eyelet {swoon}, I have 3 different styles and definitely plan on adding some more tops featuring that material.

 

 

A few more Valentine's Day cards

So I think I have officially put my December Daily on my long list of stuff to do, not good but right now I am trying to get more items available for my Etsy shop so my time and energy has been spent sewing.

But I am still being bitten by the pink bug so I couldn't help making a few more cards. I really should have been making some Thank you cards, but alas that's not what my heart wanted to do.

I have also been loving the splatter look so I have been playing around with different styles.

I used mostly Papertrey Ink dies and stamps except for the textured hearts, those actually are from Sizzix. I received the die free with something and at the time I kind of dismissed them because I thought they just embossed, I didn't realize they actually embossed and cut out (swoon)!