I'm really excited to have my first guest post up at CraftPaperScissors, an Easter craft using bleeding art tissue paper. You might remember I used this for a Christmas gift using my Silhouette CAMEO and I think it's so much fun. Head over to read my full tutorial. I have some other Easter and spring themed guest posts coming up soon, so get ready! The weather has really been warming up here and I am fully embracing spring! ... Read More
I've had the same sewing machine since college, it's a little Janome that my mother-in-law got me for Christmas. It's always worked great but it is very, very basic. I've been toying with the idea of getting a new machine for awhile and finally pulled the trigger this week and headed to my local Janome dealer. This was the first time I went to Quilter's Destination in Arlington Heights, Illinois and I was very pleasantly surprised, they had a great selection. I went Wednesday night since they're open until 8 and I could go and leave the girls at home. ... Read More
I went to school for Illustration but I am terrible about drawing regularly. I figured making coloring sheets would be a productive way to get my act together and draw more. So here's my first one, an Easter themed one! I drew this girl a lot in school and she featured in a paper cut animation I did where she was entangled in a house plant. Thankfully this time she isn't in peril, just wearing some bunny ears! What coloring sheets would you like to see? You can save the jpeg or download a PDF here - Easter Coloring Sheet There are more free patterns to download ... Read More
When Evie was about 18 months old we went on a trip to California and I made this airplane busy book for the trip. It was the first busy book I've ever made and I wanted show it off, even though the project is years old and I would do a lot of things differently if I made it now. I wanted all the pages to be different aspects of travel so I started with a suitcase. The suitcase zips and inside are some different pieces of clothing that can be put on the little girl. Now I mentioned I would have done things differently, the biggest thing is that I would ... Read More
I was trying to come up with what this month's free pattern should be when Stephanie from Swoodson Says suggested I make a pattern to correspond with National Quilting Month. Apparently the third Saturday in March is National Quilting Day, this year it's March 21. Making quilt block cross stitch patterns was on my list but then I did the Quilty Stitches sampler and it fell by the wayside. I pulled out my copy of Modern One-Block Quilts: 22 Fresh Patchwork Projects* (you can read my review here!) and I picked out the Alternating Stars block to make a pattern ... Read More
One of my all time favorite things I've made is still my first iPhone case. I had to retire it though when I got my iPhone 6, it doesn't fit plus it got really grubby after spending a year being taken in and out of my pants pockets. All the way back in November I bought a cross stitchable iPhone 6 case and I finally decided I needed to stop thinking about it and just start stitching. The seller contacted me and gave me a coupon code for all of my lovely readers! If you buy a case use the code HUGSAREFUN for $2 off! I loved the triangles of my first case but ... Read More
When I started out with the TSNEM challenge I had a big list of crafts to try but I diverted from that a little this month and tried out baking macarons. I love macarons, in fact I even have an entire Pinterest board CALLED I Love Macarons (you can check out all the much prettier macarons than I made there...) I started looking at all the different macaron recipes and I got very, very overwhelmed and became convinced you would need magical powers to make a macaron at home. I was seeing such varying information, especially about the egg whites. Some recipes said to ... Read More
I love the simplicity of cross stitch, you make a row of diagonal lines going one way and then you go back the other way. It's easy to get into a rhythm because it's all the same, over and over. But embroidery is a whole different ballgame, there are tons of stitches. Apparently, far more than I even realized because A-Z of Embroidery Stitches* is full of ones I've never even heard of! I had a hard time even getting a photo of the contents pages listing all the stitches, there are so many! I counted and there are 84 different stitches listed, and that doesn't even ... Read More