Easter is on it's way!

    Usually, we don't do anything super special for Easter, we don't give gifts, or have egg hunts. Just church & a family lunch at Grandma's. For some reason this year I've just been in the mood to make Easter baskets - mine are little cone shaped baskets. I took some 12 x12 scrapbook paper & folded it in half, added some adhesive to the outside of one short end & rolled it into a cone. I then cut the extra off at an angle & secured the end with more adhesive. I added twine handles by punching two holes on either side, I then threaded the twine through & tied a simple knot on the ends that will get hidden by whatever I fill them up with. Easy Peasy & pretty cute, I think.

    I've also been playing with a Wild Olive Button Buddies embroidery design Mollie offered in a workshop a couple of years ago. I made little felt needle books to add as a small handmade something in my baskets. I used pieces of felt & ribbon from my stash, so they're all unique & a little different. Now, I just have to go find some Cadbury Mini Eggs to sweeten things up even more! 

    What does your family do for Easter?

{Our Creative Spaces}
{Stash Bash}

I should pre-face this post by saying I am really just a big kid. I'm a ten year old in a thirty-somethings' body. I am not above annoying & begging to get my way....

So, on Wednesday...Christmas Eve Eve Eve Eve...I'd already been asking for several days if my hubby wanted to open a gift early. I argued that we should spread out the wealth of happy & open one every day. He managed to hold me off for a long while & then finally relented that we could open one, & I (of course) wanted the exciting one first. The unknown one, not the one I had a pretty good guess what it was. I wanted the surprise right up front. And oh what a surprise it was!

A mini library of my very own! Hello, wonderful Kindle! We'll skip over the fact that I downloaded 30+ books in 2 days & get right to the reason for this story. The case I made Thursday morning. The quilty envelope that now is Kindle's cute new home. Just in case you got something under your Christmas tree that needs a little quilted envelope to protect it, I snapped a few phone photos as I improvised the design to share with you.

In the blur above is how I laid out my fabric sandwich. I cut a rectangle 2-3 inches taller than the Kindle & 3 times the width. Then I cut a triangle shape at one end, almost 1/3 of the way in. I laid the lining fabric face down, added two layers of thin batting, (I'd have used only 1 had my batting been thicker.) then laid the outer fabric on top.

After pinning all the layers together I improvised I swirly, embroidery thread, quilting pattern. Inspired by Nova & her hand-quilting I really love these wandering lines & the simple design. You could easily quilt it in any design you like, by hand or by machine.

After the quilting I trimmed up all the edges to make them straight & clean. I found some leftover binding & finished off the short, straight end. I then folded it up to form my envelope, rechecking the position with my Kindle before pinning them down. I then stitched the binding on, starting at one side near the fold, going up & over the point, & down the other side. Leaving small tails to tuck in when I finished stitching it down by hand.

I finished the binding just like I do on any regular quilt. I folded it over & hand-stitched it down. It was pretty chunky & hard to squeeze it down sometimes but I got it all in there & finished up. Lastly, I gathered up a hair tie (because thin elastic was not in my stash) & a button to use as a closure. Placed where I liked them & handstitched down my envelope was all ready for action.

Easy, improvised, useful, & free. Love it.
What will you put in your quilted envie?

We've added some Chirstmas cheer to our house!
How are your holiday plans coming along?

We discovered a whole bunch of dead lights this year. So put all we had - large & small alike - onto the tree giving it a lovely mismatched quality. Guess who's getting new LED lights for next year when they all go on sale after the holidays? mmhm.

We are using our stocking hangers for cards this year...well not that we've gotten any yet...but when we do they'll get hung on a string between the hangers under our olive branch nativity.

So...our handmade stockings got to go up on the wall. The two on the left were from some vintage material my Aunt gave me. The pre-quilted kind, with the design & directions all printed on the fabric for you to follow. A quick cut & sew project from last year. The two on the right match our tree skirt, the set made by my MIL for us before we were an 'us'. :)  
I feel like I need something to cover the thermostat...maybe some garland so swag around to liven up the area & disguise it?

It's not a ton of decor but enough to make it feel more like Christmas season around here. There are a few little other things spread about - candle holders & a light-up little holiday toy shop. I'm so ready to finish putting gifts under the tree already! A few more things to make & do before they are all under there, though. This year I've made fabric bags for wrapping to make our gifting just that much more green & handmade. Last year our wrapping was old coloring book pages & the few paper gift bags that get passed around year after year. There will be a few of those reused this year too, but I'm pretty excited about the fabric wrapping, imperfect as it is, it just feels so warm & vintage-y to me for some reason. I got the idea from this Soulemama post last year. Then, after Christmas, hit up the fabric store for some 80% off Christmas fabric that I stashed until I pulled out all the decor again this year.

Fabric wrapping makes me want to cuddle the gifts. Is that weird?

Another little Chirstmas something getting whipped up around here...

Another little something for gifting getting checked off the list...

This one might have to be given early so it can be used & enjoyed. I think we might have to forgo that year of waiting between gifting & using for the recipient. If I was getting a quilted tree skirt for Chirstmas I wouldn't want to have to wait a whole year to be able to use it!

Plus, it's going to a place where I'll get to enjoy it too, visitation rights, as it were. And, that's pretty great since I'm kinda loving it! Yay!

{Our Creative Spaces}

I have an issue with labels.
That removing them & changing them can be so difficult!
Not people labels. Although, I think the same is also true for those kind. 
 Jar labels.

    It's no secret that I like to reuse jars. I also like to label them. For things like rice, lentils, couscous, flax...staples in my pantry, I'm not terribly concerned about needing to wash those jars very much. Those jars are always in use for the same products. The turn over rate for those items is also high, so nothing is going bad before it is used up & replaced with the exact same item. Therefore, my scrapbook paper labels that are glued on work just fine. No worries about having to peal & replace.

    My issue comes into play when I want to use the jars for gift giving. I'd like to make it easy for the jars to be reused. Either by me (because so many of the people I send food gifts to send back the containers even though I don't always expect them to) or by the person I've gifted. It's to tedious to remove glued on labels!

    So, I came up with a crafty solution while using up some scrap yarn - I could just make knit cozies to pretty up the jars! And then, it occurred to me I could sew on a label! You remove the sleeve, you remove the label. You can then throw the jar in the dishwasher & reuse it. Reusing the sleeve, or changing it out with a different one. I love simple crafty solutions!

    The first one I knit alittle too wide/tall for the jar. It fit, but as you can see above, it covered every bit of the glass. Since I don't frog things unless I think I absolutely have to, I just knit the rest of them a bit more to the size I liked. I found some scrap pieces of canvas & some cute cotton scraps to cut wonky labels from. I didn't do anything to finish the edges, I like the fraying, organic feel of them just simply layered & stitched on with some embroidery floss.

    Now, the plan is to put granola, trail mix, or candied nuts in the jars with bird themed labels, & dog cookies in the dog labeled jars. I even found a new beefy, cheesy dog cookie recipe to use this year. Which I'll share when I get around to actually making them. :) I also like the idea of getting scraps of fruit themed fabric to label jam, jelly, pie filling, or dessert topping. I could get other dessert themed fabric for chocolate or salted carmel sauce, hot cocoa mix, cookies in a jar... the possibilities are numerous! I love being able to put all those recycled jars to good use!

    Are there any food items you give as gifts? For Christmas, I make specialty popcorn every year, & now the dog cookies are a tradition. My sister-in-law bakes special candy cane cookies, & her husband makes beef jerky in a variety of flavors. Our family loves gifts of food, all year long it's my favorite thing to give! I so enjoy spending a day baking & then filling up containers to give 'just because'. There's a lot of love involved in homemade food gifts, don't you think?

Despite my need to get an actual dowl to hang this guy from, is it too soon to start decorating for Christmas??

Mamacita & I saw this fun winter themed panel hanging in one of our favorite local quilt stores. They'd quilted it as is, added buttons & hung it up in all it's quickie project greatness. We snapped one up on the spot to reprodeuce it for Mom's house. Sometimes you can let your fabric do all the work. Love that.

Since we had another snowy day yeasterday I thought maybe I could get away with hanging it up...I mean, after you complete a project who really wants to put it away for just a month? That is, assuming you would start your Christmas decorating after Thanksgiving. But, maybe you start way before Thanksgiving & extend your Christmas cheer way past New Year's to really spend as much time steeped in holiday decor as possible. I'm not saying I do this...I'm just saying it can happen...and it might start with one small step...like, say, hanging up a just-finished quilted wallhanging...

We found some fun bird, snowflake, & pinecone buttons to enhance out festive quilt. And it went together super fast. I'm already on the hunt for another fun panel to make something similar for my house.

Have you ever used fabric panels in projects? Do you use them whole or cut out pieces for a larger project?
Oh, and when do you start decorating for Chirstmas in your home? Is it too soon?

{Our Creative Spaces}

Holy Snow Day, Batman!

Two days ago we woke up to this lovely sight.
We were lucky, all the leaves were actually off our tree.
Know what happens when Fall hasn't finished dropping leaves & you get a foot of snow cover?
CRRRAAACCCKK! Bang! Boom!
Branches fall everywhere! Power lines go down. 60,000+ people are in the dark. Roads get blocked. Cars get smashed. People get hit in the head & go to the hospital. (It wasn't me or my family, Thank God!) It's really not as pretty as this picture trys to tell you it is.
But. Here we are. Picking up branches, chopping wood, surviving our first Snow Day. Oh, and yes, we've already done considerable melting & soon it'll be back to Fall outside. Minus, a few trees & limbs. Welcome to Colorado!

In other news...
We're not here to talk about snow! We're here to talk about pillows! Pillows, that easy peasy, lovely, cuddly, Handmade Holiday gift you can recreate in a million different ways! How about with some embroidery today? And some more fancy home decorator fabric samples?

You can find embroidery inspiration everywhere! Flickr is one of my favorite places. You can also search for Coloring Book pages of any topic to find great patterns. And, don't forget to check out Etsy where you'll find all sorts of cool patterns & project ideas.

I'm in pillow heaven. It might be hard to hand over some of these pillows I've been making come December 25th. But...then again...I could just take a little time for making myself a few new pillow covers...hmmm...

I'm a little bit obsessed.
I admit it.
That's half the battle.
Right?

I made some pillows last year...here...and here...
And, this year I'm at it again!

I kinda love it.
So easy.  I love this tutorial from Brett Bara. Sew easy!
So pretty. So practical.

The pillow covers are removable for washing, or for changing out as you like to keep life interesting. I made mine from home decor sample fabric that was getting sold off from my local Joann's because they are moving to a larger store & starting fresh. But, you can buy any fabric you like...home dec., cotton, linen...cut it to the size of your pillow, follow the zipper tutorial & snap, bang, boom you have a fancy new throw pillow! You could also fancy it up with a piped edge or other creative goodness as you like. I have another variety of pillow happiness to share with you in a day or two...
mmhmm.
Told ya I was a little bit obsessed!

While I was away I was definately not idle! With two knitting projects at the ready when I hit the road, I made sure I had plenty to do. I totally completed one shawl & got 90% of another done that I finished up once I got home.

The first one off the needles was just a simple garter stitch shawl done in Homespun, the colorway is Ocean. This is the second shawl I knit with this yarn & really enjoy how soft and silky it feels. It doesn't need a fancy pattern, simplicity really shows off the variations and texture of the yarn its self. This shawl is the first of a long line of handmade Christmas gifts to get created this year & I'm so very happy with the result!

The second shawl I completed is the For All Reasons shawl from Debbie Macomber's Friendship Shawls. I called mine 'An Ocean Of Reasons' due to the blue & white colorway of the classic brushed yarn I used. I enjoyed knitting it up because the yarn was so cushy & spongy feeling. It knit as quickly as the simple garter stitch & came out pretty great. I think of it as a tee shirt & jeans shawl - cozy, comforting & casual. I used a little bit larger needle size so that it wouldn't feel too bulky & thick, & I'm so glad it worked out to be a really nice Spring weather kind of weight. I decided as I blocked it to put it in the shop. I hope someone will love wearing it as much as I loved creating it.

Now that I've gotten my two big projects off the needles I've got to gather up a new something to cast on! :)