Summer Has Me In Stitches

As the summer sun beckons and creativity blossoms, most folks love to head outdoors. I do love the warm sun, enjoying beach days, and gathering with friends for a picnic! But my biggest love is about exploring how to infuse my sunny days with inspiring and fulfilling creative projects in hopes of reducing my various stashes of beautiful papers, fabrics, and even saved materials I had hoped to find new uses for. 

Throughout the recent weeks, I have enjoyed beginning to whittle my fabric stacks. Yea!! My sweet friend Melanie Diane brought her serger over along with a few bags of scrap fabric and some rolls of waffle shelf liner. We had in mind a useful gripping tool for opening containers. I had seen many clever names for these handy devices...Good Grip, Robotwist, GetAGrip, Magic Twist, Rubber Husband, MightyGrip. There are some very clever and humorous people, HaHa! My favorite so far, is Rubber Husband!

MY HOW TO:

Using scraps of fabric and Dollar Store shelf liner we churned out a stack of these handy dandy tools pretty quickly. I tried it in square, rectangle, and square format eventually deciding on a 6-inch square as my favorite. 

The waffle shelf liner I mentioned was a Dollar Store purchase. You can find it at other places like Walmart, Target etc.  

Our fabric choices were varied. I had some scrap left over from my table runner project. (I still have more of that scrap so after sewing these grippers up decided to make some coasters similarly). 

Let me share with you how we made these! 

The process was simple. Cut 1 piece of fabric and 1 piece of shelf liner 6 inches square (or your preferred size.) 

If you are using a serger put your fabric right side up and your shelf liner grippy side up facing the wrong side of your fabric. I stitched my laters with the grippy shelf liner on top. It did drag a bit under the sewing foot. (A suggestion to minimize drag is to put painter's tape on the underside of your sewing foot.) Just stitch around the edge.

If you are using a standard sewing machine put the right sides of the grippy material and fabric together and sew around the edge but leave a few inches open to allow for turning the fabric. Turn fabric. Tuck the seam edge in and finger press at the opening. To finish each gripper top stitch along the edge all the way around back stitching at the beginning and end to reinforce stitches. (The sewing machine method will be used when I make the coasters to match my table runner since the runner was top-stitched.) Sewing these grippers had me inspired and I've been a busy bee. Check-in with me to see what's next 😁!

How To Make A Gift Bag Out Of Wrapping Paper

Have you ever experienced this?I have made or shopped for the perfect gift..I prepare to gift wrap my carefully selected gift and my thoughts go to the typical question. Do I have the right size gift bag? This video dempnstrates how to make your own so there will never be that last minute frustration...Problem solved, Yeah!!!

Embrace a 2024 of Infinite Possibilities - ONE WORD

Embracing a year of POSSIBILITIES...just thinking about this topic causes my spirits to rise in expectation and my heart to race! Were your plans to bring in this new year simple or perhaps well planned with much to do and fanfare as the night passed? Do you love fanfare and celebrations, parties and lots of hoop-la, or perhaps quietly relaxing in a bubble bath or your pj's while watching the ball drop on Times Square? 

For us ringing in the New Year most years has been rather uneventful, often quiet... watching a Christmas romance or playing a game of Scrabble...this year was just that. Celebrating the new year for me is so much more a time of looking forward-it has prompted me to focus on ONE WORD. 2024's word...

INFINITE

Thinking about the word itself, INFINITE stirs so many thoughts...about personal aspirations, about business, and about my desire for spiritual growth. Most of all I am excited and cannot wait to see the fruition of Infinite Possibilities in 2024. 

I Want {to Make} a Box

Sometimes I am looking for just the right package to share those lovely items I've just created... Nothing seems just right, Arg!! I was so excited to come across a website to help me with that! Templatemaker allows  you to put in your specific dimensions to create your perfect size! Isn't that awesome!!

These look perfect for card organization.

Little milk carton shaped boxes are perfect too.Maybe yours will look like a little house instead!

I like the pull out drawer that this match box features. It could have a rope pull, notch for inserting your fingers or a pretty knob.

This is the classic lidded box called the Rhombus Box.

I love that you can select whether to print out a pdf or create an svg from the formula you have selected too. 

Let's Get Crafty, Its World Cardmaking Day

Card idea cased from Victoria Calvin

 

TRYING CUT SETTINGS FOR DOLLAR TREE VINYL WITH CRICUT

Working with Dollar Tree Vinyls successfully can be tricky. Early on,learning how to use the Cricut with different materials a great tip or hack was remember to test cut the material. This also applies from machine to machine because each handles product slightly differently. My most recent project this summer required making some labels. A design I really liked had a decorative shape I found on https://www.mapleplanners.com/download/svg-label-templates.

I designed this project using a label template that now adorns my recycled containers & holds and protects my surplus sugar. The letters and design cut away like a stencil and reveal the base color. I am very pleased with the result, what do you think?

The negative space (letters) were used on the project below. The font perfectly matched my Tea Box. I can now display it on the vertical when desired and still identify what the container holds easily.

While working with the Dollar Tree products I became frustrated and shifted to some Jolee Vinyl to get my project done but then I wanted to revisit the PROBLEM of the vinyl cutting and dragging on the mat and messing up my design. What possible SOLUTIONS could be done. Below are some solutions that I found and will/ have tried out. 

First there is the Cricut FAQ'S.

The main difficulty there is they do not address other products and their best settings. A great takeaway from my research was to successfully cut the vinyl on the Cricut, you are going to want to create a custom setting. If you are doing a large shape, you might be able to get away with the vinyl setting but for anything even a little intricate they would suggest changing the pressure to 145.

 

This video addressed general problems with cutting words and had really great information.

All in all I had a good experience learning how to tackle the challenge of finding solutions to varieties of materials. 

WHEE Time Moments

 This morning as I was going about my morning routines I thought about my sweet friend MD and the cards she brought me. It has become a bit of a ritual  that my tribe of friends who love to make handmade cards often make multiples to share with each other.  Looking through this stack I a commented about my friends choices of design often including the playful, and often humorous designs. She noted that she enjoyed whimsy...I like that word and even though when I design my designs do not include whimsy I enjoy the people in my life that do and because of that bring whimsy to my life. It reminds us to allows for that play time we all need...moments of pure joy and bliss...Tickle Hill moments. (The crazy steep hill that we love to ride or drive fast downward on yelling WHEE!!)