Fourth of July Party

At the end of summer, I had some friends over from my church Bible study group for a 4th of July party.  I set out my patriotic quilted items and hung some banners in the house for the festivities.

I hung the Stardust quilt on the wall in the family room.  I tried to get it a little higher, but didn't want to get a ladder.  That was as high as I could reach!

I asked the ladies to dress in red, white and blue and we had a fun time together.  I'm the girl on the left side of the pic.  

 

Quilted Pumpkin Name Tage and Bowl Fillers

Every month at my quilt group meeting, we have a name tag drawing.  If you are wearing a hand-sewn name tag, you can put your name in for the drawing.  It's usually a gift certificate to a local quilt shop.

In a perfect world, I would like to have a name tag that will coordinate with my outfits or with each season.  So last week I made the time to whip up a new tag with pumpkins on it for the October meeting.  The orange strips are 1.25" wide and I added a corner square to make the strips into a pumpkin.  I embroidered my name using my sewing machine and added the bow and buttons when it was done.  

At my quilt group, everyone commented on my tag.  I just love it and now I want to make a different one for next month's meeting.  Maybe a patchwork acorn for November?

After making my new name tag, I made three more pumpkins from the strips that I had sewn together.  I turned them into bowl fillers for fall.  You can set them on a shelf or put them in a basket or bowl for decor.  

After I finished the pumpkins, I made some key fobs to match for fall.  Don't you just love them?  I do.  

Glow of Harvest

Last month's exclusive product from Stampin Up was the pretty Glow of Harvest designer papers.  At first I didn't think that they had enough color in the papers, but after playing around with them, I decided that I liked them.

My first card has some pumpkins cut from the paper.  I added some gold leaves to spruce it up along with a strip of the golden glow paper.  I put a half circle of vellum behind the pumpkins to help them stand out.  I'm very pleased with how this card came out.  

My second card has some of the flower sprigs cut from the papers.  Again I added a vellum circle and some gold leaves.  The designer paper on the left is from Nature's Sweetness.  The base of the card is Pecan Pie.

The third card is my version of one of Stampin Up sample cards.  Although you can't see it in the photos, the paper has a nice shine to it, making the cards look more elegant.  I've got a couple of banner cut outs for the focal point along with embossed cardstock underneath them.  I cut out the pumpkins from the paper.  

Even though I only had one package of the papers because that is all that SU allows for the exclusive products, we made 18 cards from one paper pack.  And the colors remind me of fall!

Painted Pumpkins

This week I had a lot of fun using the Painted Patch suite.  I like the colors in the designer papers; it's something a bit different.  For this card, I added the gate that opens on the front of the card.  Inside the gate is a saying and another pumpkin.  I stamped these pumpkins onto colored papers using the Painted Pumpkin stamp set.  

These two cards are both the same card, only I used different colors for the cardstock.  I like how they coordinate with each other.  The pumpkins are cut out from the designer papers, which cut out three pumpkins at a time.  A couple of the crows from the Fun for Fall stamp set flew onto my cards.  

For my third card, I put the little mouse from Christmas Mice into the pumpkin patch!  The dies cut slits into his little arms so that he can hold things.  He has picked a gourd out for you and is saying, Hello Gourd-geous.  :)

I need more time to make more of these whimsical cards.  Which one do you like best?

 

Yes, More Sunflowers

After making the sunflower stamp class, I wanted to do more projects using the pretty papers.  So I made some decor blocks and put Bible verses on them.  First I painted the blocks and then decorated them with my stamping supplies.  Pretty, right?

These blocks make nice gifts or something cute to sit on a shelf in your home.  

Here are a couple of smaller ones.  I found the Scripture stamps at Hobby Lobby but I need to look for a few new ones.  Maybe I will look online for some.

This pic shows all three of them along with some yellow washcloths that I crocheted.  I usually pair them together in groups of 3 or 4 - they make nice gifts along with a pretty bar of soap.

You can even pair the wooden blocks with a matching card for a gift.  I just loved working with these pretty sunflower papers.  :)

Look how cute they look together!

In my sewing room, I whipped up some sunflower bookmarks to go along with the projects.  I just want to make more.  

I was having such fun!  

Sunflower Fun

My last stamping class featured some sunflower cards using Radiant Sunflowers stamp set and Sunflower Fields designer papers.  Here is my first card.  We used sponge daubers to color in the sunflowers.  I love how they turned out.  

For my second card, we cut the designer paper into thirds and mounted it onto a brown piece of cardstock.  The little sunflowers are from the Pop Up Petals stamp set and the images int he set coordinate so nicely with the Radiant Sunflowers set.  

This card has some pretty green background paper from an older paper pack.  I added two sunflowers along with leaves, also colored with sponge daubers.  The saying is heat embossed with white powders.

I had so much fun playing around with sunflowers that I made a fourth card.  I folded down the top part of the designer paper for a different look.  I cut out some vases from Earthen Textures and added some sunflowers to them.  The ladies who came to the class enjoyed making the cards.

Here's a pic of me enjoying a sunflower maze at a local farm.  I love this time of year!

 

Sewing Book Sleeves and Bookmarks

Recently I had the idea of making some book sleeves to carry around any current book that I've been reading.  So I came up with up a pattern and made a couple to try it out!  

I really loved making them and will definitely make some more.  My sleeve is about 8x10 inches and has a pocket on the outside to hold your cell phone and some pens or a bookmark.  The sleeve can hold a book or a Kindle or anything else that is about the same size.

It will also hold a small sewing cutting mat or ruler and your rotary cutters or scissors will fit right into one of the pockets.  

The first few sleeves that I made were quilted but then I tried working on a couple that didn't have quilting and I still like the look of them.  Because they don't have the quilting on the top and bottom, they were faster to make.

While you can use any fabrics, I looked through my stash to see if I had any fabric with books on it.  I found some cute little house fabric that says Books on one of the houses.  Now I'm on the lookout for fabric with books on it.  

The bookmarks are fun and easy to make.  I ironed a stiff interfacing to the inside so that they wouldn't be flimsy and added a ribbon at the top of them.  I think they turned out so cute.

I will definitely be making more of these.  It's time to take out some whimsical fabrics and give it a go.  (In my spare time, of course!)