fabric contest

WOW! I just got an email from the wonderful people at Spoonflower giving me the heads-up that they are running my fabric design for this week's contest, along with other wonderful designs. I have been waiting for this e-mail for so long! (a little bit of exaggeration here :) Just too excited). OK, here are some images of my fabric design already printed. Many of you ordered a little piece from my shop already and I got nice feedback, thanks! The designs are not up yet but sometime this Friday they will, so go and vote for your favorite fabric at www.spoonflower.com (Hope is mine though, just kidding :)

better

I just added to the shop this rubber stamp. This stamp is not hand carved but it looks just like my 'little girl' personalized hand carved rubber stamp. These are way better and I love the fact that they look more professional without loosing the hand made feeling, besides, I am more productive this way and I will have more time to come up with more and new designs with the same hand carved look.

blythe

I am so busy as usual and I am grateful for that, but I could not let my blog without a little post. This time is to show my mom's exquisite crochet. She fell in love with Blythe (more than I did, I think) and started to make beautiful crochet outfits. She made several for my own Blyhte and now she expanded and opened her own etsy shop called Blue Nest Boutique. Here is an etsy mini from her shop for all the Blythe lovers:

Etsy: Your place to buy & sell all things handmade BlueNestBoutique.etsy.com

And here is her FLICKR gallerie for more beautiful crocheted designs. LINK: Blue Nest Boutique

stamps galore

This time I just want to show some of the new custom stamps I have been designing, I think they look neat and I could not stay behind so I designed a couple for myself as well. They come really handy when packaging all my orders.

thanks!

I have to thank all the wonderful people that commented on my post about the baby food jar pincushion tutorial, I am glad you all like it. I too need to thank to the ladies that kept pressuring and asking to post that tutorial because without that I would probably still be avoiding it, no because I am a slacker but because as I have said before I get easily distracted by new projects and I tend to forget. But it needed to be done because I promised it to my blog readers before and because I wanted to share it, and I am happy about the response from all of you.

Elaina from Sew ducky! gave us a very useful tip too. She suggested to fill the pincushion with a steel wool pad sold at the hardware store because fiber fill tends to make the needles dull with time, I think that totally makes sense. Thanks Elaina!



Another thing I wanted to post about is that the reason for me making and sharing this tutorial is because back in July of 2007 I participated in the Fabric Addict Anonymous Swap at flickr and I made this pincushion with a matching fabric sewing tray for that swap and here are a couple photos from that set back in 2007.



After my flickr friends saw it, many asked me to create a tutorial for this pincushion, and after 1 year and 8 months exactly (oops) I finally finished it (YAY).

Thanks again and there will be another tutorial coming soon!

new stuff

Hey everybody, this is just a short post to show my new stamp and fabric! The designs are the same as in my hand carved stamps but they will come on a regular red rubber material, making them more durable and more professional looking, the wood is better too and for a more comfortable grip when stamping. The nice thing is that they will still look hand carved, I can make the font a little shaky too but my daughter wanted a more "clean" looking font.




And here is my new custom printed fabric that I ordered from spoonflower. It is wonderful! And I will have some fat quarters available in the shop.

tutorial - baby food jar pincushion

Finally! After so many months of procrastination I managed to finish this tutorial and share it. A few of you were begging to hurry up and post this tutorial already, sorry about the delay ladies.

OK, let's go directly to work. For this pincushion your will need...

Any size baby food jar (empty and clean of course. I like the tiny ones), glue gun, thread and needle, poly fill (that is how is called, right?) or fluffy pillow stuff, a piece of fabric cut in a 5" diameter circle and some ribbon (enough to cover around the jar lid).


Make a knot at the end of your thread and needle so it does not come off the fabric. Take needle and tread and sew around your fabric circle over the edge, DO NOT finish off. Use a simple stitch because you will be pulling the thread to close the circle. While you do this your glue gun should be getting hot and ready to use.


Place the handful of fluffy pillow stuffing in the middle of your fabric and gather by pulling your thread with the needle.



Use you hand to squish the fabric and stuffing to give it some shape and to continue sewing around.


Secure with a knot, and finish off. Cut your thread and the top of your pincushion should look like this.


This is how you will place the pincushion over the jar lid (please ignore that pink thread coming out from under the lid).


With your glue gun ready, pour enough glue on top of the lid. Be careful because the lid gets hot (I know, my poor glue gun looks disgusting. I will get a new one, I promise)


Immediately after you put some glue on your lid, place the pincushion on top (stitched part down)and press firmly to glue it to the lid. Keep pressing until the hot glue has cooled down and the pincushion stays on there neatly.


This is how the jar and lid should look after gluing the pincushion part.


To conceal the messy part of the pincushion and lid, we are going to glue some ribbon around the lid. Use a wide enough ribbon so it covers part of the lid and part of the pincushion edge too. Work this part little by little to make a neat finish and be careful with the hot glue.



Glue all the way around the lid, secure and cut the excess ribbon.


Voilà! Our pincushion is finished :)


I hope you enjoy this tutorial. If you have any questions or there are some typing mistakes, please let me know.
Thanks for stopping by!

again

Well, one of my New year's resolutions was to blog more often, at least 2 times during the week, I told myself. It is just too hard to organize myself and do everything in a more structured manner, I am just so busy trying to catch up with work and the everyday chores. In addition to that, I get easily distracted by ideas and want to try them right away, I am just too impatient at times. Anyway, I am finally catching up with work but I am so behind it won't surprise me to get a few negative feedback comments at the shop (crossing my fingers so it does not happen). I have been sending extra goodies along the orders just to make up for the delay, hope that helps a bit. I am just too perfectionist at times, and concerning work everything has to be perfect and that takes time.

But in another note, I have been very fortunate about custom requests. I love designing and drawing, and that is what I have been doing besides carving stamps. here are a couple ready carved stamps.






This next image is of a soon to be stamp and I designed it too. I can't wait to see how this one turns out! Oh, and I will be making some t-shirts with this image as well, love it!



And last but not least, here are some ceramics I made. I made some Valentine's day heart pins but they did not sell. I think I was too late to add them to the shop, but they are pretty and will stay there until they go.







I will be back with more. I am so impatient to blog some tutorials that I have ready but need to edit them. I need to finish making stamps needed to go to their respective homes and then I promise those tutorials will make it here for me to share with you.