Quilled Frame & Buddy Bag

These were supposed to be done in September of 2009. I didn't finish them until August 2010.
This was for my previous employer; she remarried and moved to Italy, and I'd hoped to have it done before she left. I was able to give it to her when she and her family came back to visit this past August.

I designed the frame myself. For the names, I roughly followed the alphabets in The New Paper Quilling. For the flower clusters, I just experimented until it looked right. Some of the flowers have quilled centers. For the ones that didn't, I glued on a small flat-backed gem.

This was for her son. He loves anything Tractor related, especially if it's John Deere. It's the same pattern as the backpacks I made for my cousins a couple years ago. This one is slightly different, because instead of knitting a pocket, I made it out of fabric. My Mom set up her fancy sewing machine to embroider the tractor on the pocket. The inside is lined with (what else?) tractor fabric, and I even got a little fancy and added two pockets.

If you would like a custom designed photo frame, feel free to contact me through the Alchemy section of my Etsy Shop.

Etsy Shop Update

I just updated my Etsy shop with these polymer clay flowers! I split them up into for separate lots. They should all be on my Etsy homepage. If not, click the 'flower' category on the left.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

I crocheted these for my Cousins in California. It was supposed to be mailed in time for Christmas, but with one thing and another, I ended up giving them to my Aunt and Cousin when they came for my Sister's wedding. My cousin thought that it was awesome, and I'm planning to crochet some more 'food' for them this year. The pattern is from the book Tasty Crochet.

As you know, I'm not much of a crocheter. However, the two patterns I've made from this book have been very easy. The hardest part of these treats was sewing the whole thing together.

Blog Posts of the Week VIII

Blog posts of the week; a semi-regularly published collection of my favorite blog posts from the past week. (Or however long it's been since the last time I posted my favorite blog posts.)

1 Ball Projects
In an effort to interest folks in some of the nicer, more expensive yarns, Jelly Wares is trying to come up with some one-ball projects. I tend to avoid pricey yarns, especially when you need 6 or more for a project. The little girls dress featured in this blog post seems like the perfect solution.
(By the way, I still don't know what to do with the yarn in the photo - approximately 187 yds, 4 ozs of rayon fingering weight yarn. Any ideas?)

Summer Sewing Wrap-Up
This is from SewChic. The thing that excited me about this post was the bridesmaids dresses at the end. I love the style and color of the dress that Jessica made, especially the rose at the waist.

Customize Your Blog's Background With Your Own Image
For those of you who don't keep up with the Blogger Blog, Blogger has rolled out a new feature for everyone (It's been available in Draft for a while.) This feature allows you to upload your own image to use as a blog background. I have tried to do this before, by playing with the HTML. Let's just say that it's a good thing I have a separate, private blog to experiment on. I did play a little with my background and layout, so let me know if anything shows up oddly, is missing, or broken. (I am aware that the drop down button for 'completed projects' is hidden. Just click on the words and the menu will drop down.)

One other thing before I end this post - I am planning reopen my Etsy shop sometime this week.

Scrappin' Saturday VII

This page is mostly finished, it just needs one more picture. These are the Buddy Bags I made for my cousins two years ago, for Christmas.

 Nothing too fancy here!

Photos: I cropped the photos and some decorative scrapbook paper to the size I wanted and rounded the corners with a corner rounding punch.
Letters: The first 'B' is from a self-adhesive chipboard alphabet set. The rest of the letters are from the Cuttlebug Red Tag Sale die set.

As you can see on the left, I really need to work on my calligraphy. I've done this on several pages, noting where the pattern came from, materials used, and any notes on the pattern.

Blog Posts of the Week VII

Blog posts of the week; a semi-regularly published collection of my favorite blog posts from the past week. (Or however long it's been since the last time I posted my favorite blog posts.) In this case, it has been a month. It was a busy month with nearly two weeks of vacation in the middle of it. There are a lot of posts, so I'll try to keep my descriptions short.

Tatted Adventures of Complicated Girl
Silver Fever
I just started reading this blog a few weeks ago. I really liked the delicacy of the jewelry in this post, as well as the way the beads were incorporated.

Tatting Tales ~ All Things Tatting
More Blocking Templates for You
This link is to square and oval templates to help block your tatting. There is also a circular template here.

Tat's All She Wrote
This link will take you straight to the blog home page, where Marty has just finished a 16 part series of posts on tatting that she took to the fair, and the ribbons that she won.

Jon's Thread Escapades
Three very informative posts! Two methods for opening closed rings: Method One Method Two.
Tatting Peek a Boo Boo. A post on dealing with tatting 'gaposis'.

Knitted Bear knit some awesome socks!


Kniterella's notepads for knitters have arrived!

A lovely card using a Sizzix embossing folder by The Craftiblog.

Last but not least, for all you Blogger bloggers, Blogger has released a new feature - Blogger Stats. I'm still playing around with it, but so far it seems to be pretty good. If you're concerned about accuracy, you may want to turn off counting your own page views, as described in the article.

That's all for now!