Sew On & Sew Forth art canvas

Ahoy! Did you have a great End of Year Period of Togetherness? I really enjoyed ours! Scott and I spent one entire day eating breakfast food (yum! ^_^) and then the next day seeing Scott's family and playing with our little neice and nephew at his grandma's house. I have learnt many things about building block towers and playing peek-a-book and also that singing Soft Kitty to babies actually makes them happy o_0

And then yesterday I got out my scrapbooking supplies and a 5" canvas and made this!

Yay! I'm really happy with how it turned out ^_^

Here are some close-ups of my favourite parts ...

 

Finally a use for the tiny scissors that come with sewing kits and yet are unable to cut a single thing!

 

I made these tiny spools when I was making things for the craft fair; they are about half the size of the spools I used for the necklaces.

 

This vintage lady is so awesome ^_^

 

I love 3D stickers and washi tape ^_^

 

Here's another vintage lady!

Now, here's a list of some of the things I used (I can't remember where I got everything unfortunately):

Wooden dress form made by Kaisercraft

5" square canvas from Riot

Alphabet stamps from William Topp, Northbridge

Mod Podge (you can't see this but I used it to stick down the papers and also as a varnish) from Spotlight

Thickers (spelling out "Sew On") by Amy Tangerine

Colourful border paper (used on sides and bottom of front) by Amy Tangerine

Vintage ladies paper by Grace Tyler

Pink pattern pieces paper by Crate Paper

Mini spools from Spotlight (stained, aged, and thread added by me)

Baker's Twine from Spotlight

Chip board ampersand (covered in washi tape) from stash

Craft paper from Spotlight

Washi tape from various places that I mostly can't remember - sorry!

Mini scissors from stash

Do you like it? Did you have an awesome holiday season? ^_^

- Lisa x

Ninni Monsters and Mustache Cuff Links

Hey! Today I finished four Ninni Monsters - yay! ^_^

I have another four monsters cut out but I still need to sew on the eyes and such.

 

I think that the best thing about Ninni Monsters is that you only need a small amount of fabric so they're great for using up remenents. Do you have a favourite? I think I like the pink one the best ^_^

I also made these mustache cuff-links. They are a custom order for a friend at work, and I think they turned out really well ^_^

 

I actually made two pairs, but they look exactly the same so you can just pretend that these photos are of two different sets of cuff-links ~_^

 

I've got three more pairs of cuff-link fastenings, so what do you think I should put on those? Maybe I should make some Death Stars ones for Scott?

Have a great weekend!

- Lisa x

Vintage style monogram brooch, hanky tissue case, and Ninni WIPs

Hey! How have you been? I have been lazy. Very, very lazy. Even though I am *finally* getting over this flu thing all I want to do is read and eat cherries. Neither of which are bad things, of course, but I was *meant* to be finishing a pair of gloves for my Nana's Christmas present.

As you've probably guessed, I haven't done that. >_< So, because I'm seeing her (and the rest of my family) tomorrow for the gift exchange, and there is no way I was going to finish the gloves in one day, I made her some other gifts. *Fast* gifts!

First up: a pretty vintage style brooch made entirely with stash components.  I love it when my hoarding tendencies actually come in useful! ~_^

Here's how I made it:

1. I drew a fancy "A" (for "Alma" in this instance) onto a piece of calico, making sure that it was going to be small enough to fit into the ... setting? (I'm not really sure of the proper term. It is meant to be used as a pendant, once a cameo or something similar is attached to the middle of it, but I turned it upside down for this project.)

2. Using tiny stitches and only one strand of DMC, I embroidered the A. 

3. As mentioned before, I used a necklace setting (if anyone knows the proper term, please tell me!) turned upside down; I attached a bead and pearl teardrop where a jump ring would normally be attached. The bead and pearl teardrop are from an old earring. See what I mean about hoarding? ~_^

4. I had some epoxy stickers which I hadn't used before; I stuck one over the embroidery and then trimmed the edges. I was pretty nervous that it would ruin the stitches, but it turned out fine and also magnifies the image somewhat. To give you an idea of how small this is, the epoxy stickers are about 1.5 cm high.

5. Then I used E6000 to glue the embroidery into the setting. This had the added bonus of ensuring my stitches will never come loose ~_^

6. To finish, I used the E6000 again, this time to add a brooch clasp to the back of the setting.

Hurray! One present done!

For the second present, I was inspired by this tutorial, but I wanted to make it smaller to fit those little packs of travel tissues and thus make this more of a "keep in your handbag" kinda gift.

To make this, I used one handkerchief, cut into quarters (cutting it was the scariest part for me, and this isn't even a real vintage hanky, it just looks like one). I used fray-stop on the raw edges, then I just stitched the ends closed. Very easy, but check out the link if you want to see more detailed instructions.

It fits a travel sized pack of tissues perfectly, and is pretty cute too ^_^

I used a piece of baker's twine to make it look a little more fancy; it is a gift after all ^_^ 

Now, with Nana's gifts ready for tomorrow, I can get back to the *other* project I've been procrastinating on ... making Ninni Monsters! ^_^

I hope you had a great weekend! Have you been making any Christmas gifts?

- Lisa x

We have a winner!

Hey folks, just a quick one from me tonight ^_^

I used the generator at random.com to pick a winner for my birthday giveaway and the lucky lady is ...

Helena! 

Yay! ^_^

Congratulations Helena, and thank you to Rebecca and Sara who also left comments ^_^

- Lisa x

Birthday give-away

Hey! This year my birthday date is 12/12/12 - and, like a total nerd, I'm pretty pleased with that! ~_^ I'll be 24 and so I thought, in classic blogger fashion, that I'd do a little give-away ^_^

Here's the pitch:

You chose one of my jewellery pieces from below ...

heart necklace in pink, blue, green, or red

spool necklace in silver, red, orange, purple, pink or yellow

moustache badge in natural wood or black

chalkboard badge with vintage button

granny triangle necklace in purple, green, or grey

moustache earrings in natural wood or black

heart brooch in blue, green, pink, or red

And two card designs ...

clockwise from top left: blessed are the geeks, number, cuckoo clock, crafty birthday, and invisible friend

clockwise from top left: neon skulls, zombie survival skills, high tea, geometric birthday, and crafty friends

And then leave a comment saying what you've picked and then on Thursday (the day after my birthday) I'll announce a winner! Yay! ^_^

 If it's you, I'll message you for your postal address and you might get a special Christmas present (depending on how much my postie likes me this week, I guess) ~_^

Good luck!

- Lisa x

Jammy dodger brooch

Hey! I've still been sick (booooo!) but I did manage to make one thing this week: a jammy dodger brooch ^_^

I used the instructions from Mollie Makes magazine, issue number four, but I didn't use the templates so it's sized a little differently.

 

And I put a badge back on it, so now I have a giant jammy dodger brooch ^_^

 

Anyway, how have you been? Are you working on anything fun?

- Lisa x

Thrift shop embroidery hoop

Hey! So much for a regular posting schedule, huh? Scott and I have both been sick - which totally sucks. We've just been walking around like zombies for the last week, except hunting for frozen things to numb our sore throats instead of brains.

Anyway, we're both on the mend, and I have a finished project to show you! First though, have you heard "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis? Go on, I'll wait while you watch it. Oh, and P.S. - there are lots of swears in this one.

Anyway, I'm kinda a little bit obsessed with it ... so I made this embroidery ^_^

I wanted this to a be really quick project, so instead of embroidering a coat I used one of my Blythe ones. My girls don't wear coats very often but I can easily detach it if I want to in the future.

 

I really do need to find a better way to transfer patterns onto my fabric though; I've just been doing the ol' lightbox and transfer pen method, but I'd like to try a more accurate way ... Do you have any suggestions?

Here's a shot with my hand to show you the scale of this peice - the hoop is 12" which I think makes this the biggest embroidery hoop I've ever done.

 

I got the fabric in a pack so I'm not sure what it's called, but I really like it. The white patterns are of lotus leaves, birds, and swirly clouds. I think this will be a nice addition to my hoop wall (which is yet to actually exist, but hey! ~_^)

 

What do you think? I hope you like it!

Are you ever inspired to craft by songs?

- Lisa x