New Phone Holder

I'm not even sure how I came across this tutorial, but when I saw it, I just knew I had to make it.

My husband went out to get me a new phone the other day & it's one of those really nice touch screen phones. I have to say that I really do enjoy having a phone that works, plus has talking GPS, Internet, email, Pandora, Facebook etc... Then he(and other family members) decided that I really needed a Bluetooth for talking and driving. Only now I needed a place to put them both together in one place so that I didn't misplace that crazy small earpiece.

Then I found this tutorial and directions for making a phone/camera holder & decided I needed to make it! I found it over at Sew Mama Sew's website: Sew Mama Sew Tutorial

It is really quite simple and you can even use scraps! The fabric I used(by Alexander Henry) was leftover from the other project I am still working on. I even improvised because I didn't have any batting to use for the lining but I did have a scrap of fleece I found in my "Pile of Scraps That I Will Use One Day".

The photo is turned for some reason but you get the idea. I just sewed along the edge of the fleece instead of trimming it afterwards. Now, I come from an upholstery background and we just make it up as we go & then steam the heck out it at the end :) haha
Here is the final product! I also have an industrial sewing machine that really doesn't do too well on light weight fabrics and it's nearly impossible to sew along the very edge of something because the machine will "eat" the edge. But this is for my own personal use & not to give or sell and I am pleased with how it turned out. My fancy phone peaking out. Perfect fit.

Birthday Gift Card Holder

My husband's sister turned 40 this week. They live out of state so we sent her a gift card to buy herself a nice dinner. I saw this gift card holder on a blog and thought it would be fun to make.
You can find the one I saw and the video tutorial by Dawn over at Dawns Stamping Thougthts. The cupcake stamp was one that we bought in the $ section at Michael's. I colored it in with my Prisma Colored Pencils and added glitter Stickles on the swirly parts for some sparkle. I added the big Rhinestone as the cherry on top!

It opens into a flap card so I stamped the message into the middle section. The gift card is supposed to go in the slot/hole on the bottom flap. I didn't have the same punch that they used in the video, so I just tried to use my small square punch instead. As you can see it didn't really go far enough up from the bottom to slide the gift card in, plus I taped it too close to the edge to slide the card in. So instead I used double stick tape and just centered it over the hole(hopefully she will never know- until she removes the gift card I guess).

The top kind of tucks behind the stamped image & holds it together when you close it all up.I really like this sentiment and it can apply to so many things, but works great for a birthday. I thought it was something different and turned out pretty cute! Who doesn't love to get a gift card in the mail no matter how it arrives?

Halloween Craft Project

This is the craft project that we made at the Kindergarten Halloween party. I only had approximately 8-10 minutes per group of 4-6 kids. I wasn't sure the skill level of the kids for making crafts & was advised to keep it super easy.


I remembered that someone gave me a cute little pumpkin like this a few years ago. So I made up a couple of projects and had my daughter try them all out to see which one would be the best project to do in class. This one was definitely the winner!

We used 5(seven might have worked better) Orange Slice candies, stood them on end in a circle on a piece of plastic wrap. Then pulled all four corners to the center and twisted them together, trying to keep it centered. We took a piece of floral tape and twisted it around for the stem. We had gold Pipe Cleaners on hand so I used those and cut them in half. Each child could then twist the Pipe Cleaner on the stem however they wanted too to look a vine. And if we remembered we trimmed off the extra plastic wrap on the top.

Voila, Candy Pumpkin

How to hem Jeans

I have not tried this yet, but it looked like it could be great help & I thought someone might be able to use it. It is a tutorial on how to hem jeans in 3 easy steps. Who couldn't use those skills?

This comes with a warning - This is mainly for short people- You can find it here: How to hem jeans

Fun Quilt

My sister-in-law posted her first quilt tutorial on her Alysons Petals site so if you're a quilter you should check it out & give her some love!

Bag Crazy

Right now I have a bag obsession for some reason! Last year at the MN State Fair we picked up a few of those lightweight re-usable bags with some crazy college logo, the same kind you can buy at the grocery store for around a buck. I keep buying more because I have so many plastic bags and I keep thinking I will bring them and use them. Most of the time I forget to bring them and just get more plastic bags that I save and intend to recycle at some point. Right now they are spilling out of my cupboard door because I have way too many.

I don't always bring those re-usable bags I intend to use because, frankly I don't always want to bring some cheesy bag to some "cool" place. haha. I want to bring a fun bag with me.

I found this AWESOME pattern over at Film in the Fridge, she has some great tutorials! You can find this one here: to-market-to-market-a-market-bag-tutorial . Please don't make these and sell them for profit, these are for your own personal use.

I have an industrial sewing machine that doesn't always work so great on lightweight fabric so don't look too close at the sewing skills. The fabric is a remnant of Michael Miller fabric on the outside and Amy Butler on the inside. The brown on the strap is something I just picked up the other day for another project I want to try(the Pillowcase dress).

I am pretty happy with how it turned out and I WILL be bringing this cool bag with me whenever I can :)

Coloring Tutorial

Hey! Do you see all of the stamped images that are colored so well and wonder how to do it? Well Kim O'Rosky over at Jacksonbelle Embellishments has an awesome tutorial on coloring with pencils and odorless mineral spirits. Here is a link: http://http://jacksonbelleembellishments.wordpress.com/2009/02/17/jacksonbelle-tuesday-kims-kreativity/

After you become as talented as Kim at coloring head on over to her blog to see some more stuff to get inspired by http://http://www.sunshinydayswithkim.blogspot.com/

Tutorial for Card Box

Start with an 8.5"x11" piece of paper, card stock will hold up the best. Score it at 3", 3.5", 8" and 8.5". Then turn and score the sides at 3/4" and 1 1/4". Cut away the parts that aren't in the photo. You can click on the photo to see it bigger. The smaller end will be your top flap. I punched holes where the circles are and tied my ribbon through for a handle. Fold the bottom flap up and use something like Sticky Strip to hold the sides together. Finally I used a piece of velcro to hold it closed. Please let me know if you have any questions. TFL!

This is not my original idea :) I thought I found it on Splitcoast Stampers site, but now I can't find it to give the proper credit(sorry) - anyone know? It's a great pattern!!