Vintage Baby Sweater, $12 from Bondplace Vintage.

Vegan Bag, $170 from Milk and Honey Handbags.

Japanese Cotton Fabric, $8 1/2 yard from Talktothesun Supplies.

Pillow Cover, $30 from Lynne’s This and That.

Doily Lace Ikebana Vase, $30 from Ken’s Garden Pottery.

Chevron Ring, $30 from Magasin.

Hand Dyed Cotton Floss, $8 from The Rainbow [...]]]>

Vintage Baby Sweater, $12 from Bondplace Vintage.

Vegan Bag, $170 from Milk and Honey Handbags.

Japanese Cotton Fabric, $8 1/2 yard from Talktothesun Supplies.

Pillow Cover, $30 from Lynne’s This and That.

Doily Lace Ikebana Vase, $30 from Ken’s Garden Pottery.

Chevron Ring, $30 from Magasin.

Hand Dyed Cotton Floss, $8 from The Rainbow Girl.

Cambrian Blue Clay Soap, $6 from Rocky Top Soap Shop.

Nani Iro Fabric, $10.40 for approximately 1/2 yard from Kicoli.

I recently ordered the latest issue of Fat Quarterly as I was excited to see an issue on paper piecing, so thought I’d share with you. Foundation paper piecing is simple with great results, but I’m afraid that many people are reluctant to try it simply because it’s difficult to explain. Here, you’ll find [...]]]>

I recently ordered the latest issue of Fat Quarterly as I was excited to see an issue on paper piecing, so thought I’d share with you. Foundation paper piecing is simple with great results, but I’m afraid that many people are reluctant to try it simply because it’s difficult to explain. Here, you’ll find helpful instructions as well as many projects to try out your skills. You’ll also find instructions and projects for English paper piecing and freezer paper piecing, other helpful techniques for piecing quilt projects with accuracy and efficiency.

Featuring some fantastic contributors, the issue contains a variety of projects. Pictured are: Robot Softie by Jenny Novinsky, Cozy Cottage by Charise Randell, Kingdom Courtyards Quilt by John Adams, Apple Pie Pillow by Tacha Bruecher, Quilter’s Clock by Sylvie Roussel, and Teapot Fancy Block by Kerry Green (this one has instructions for both the freezer paper technique as well as foundation paper piecing).

When I have more time to sew for myself, I look forward to trying out that clock project. The issue is just $8 and you’ll find it as a downloadable .pdf, which is quick and convenient. With 125 pages featuring instructions for quilts, pillows, blocks and other projects, I think it’s a good deal. You can read more about the issue here.

Yarn Wrapped Bottles from Penelope and Pip.

Woven Finger Knitting Hula Hoop Rug from Flax and Twine.

Truffula Trees from Zakka Life.

Needlepoint Purse from Danielle Thompson for CRAFT.

Paper + Straw Flower Tutorial from Just Lovely for Gussy Sews.

Garden Trellis PDF Quilt Pattern, $8 from Fresh Lemons Quilts.

And here are the ones we made with my seven-year-old. She drew the designs for these tattoos and we printed them on tattoo paper.

I ordered this Silhouette tattoo paper after reading the reviews on amazon, but you don’t need to have any special cutter to use this paper. Just an inkjet printer. I [...]]]>

And here are the ones we made with my seven-year-old. She drew the designs for these tattoos and we printed them on tattoo paper.

I ordered this Silhouette tattoo paper after reading the reviews on amazon, but you don’t need to have any special cutter to use this paper. Just an inkjet printer. I scanned my daughter’s drawings, reversed them (important!) and printed them on the paper. Then you have to wait for it to dry (which took almost an hour) and then ever so carefully apply the adhesive paper on top, and finally rub any air bubbles out. I was nervous since I only ordered two sheets, but it turned out fine and we were able to get 40 tattoos on two sheets.

So I took her drawings and added some typed text as I wasn’t sure how legible her writing would be on a small tattoo. Then of course she wanted to attach candy to the cards, and knowing how much parents love their kids to eat a teaspoon of colored sugar, I acquiesced and bought Pixy Stix, cut some slits in the card and my daughter attached one to each card. The heart paper clips came from Paper Source and were a bit of a splurge for me. As you can see below, the quality of the tattoo is just OK, but about what you normally see with temporary tattoos.

If you’d like the printable for this one, you can download the .pdf file here.

Today was Valentine Central at our house and the dining room table is now covered in bits of paper, ribbon, tissue paper and candy wrappers!

My nine-year-old and I got the idea a while back to make Valentine crackers (like Christmas crackers), and I found this tutorial over on Not Martha. Megan has also [...]]]>

Today was Valentine Central at our house and the dining room table is now covered in bits of paper, ribbon, tissue paper and candy wrappers!

My nine-year-old and I got the idea a while back to make Valentine crackers (like Christmas crackers), and I found this tutorial over on Not Martha. Megan has also made them for Valentine’s Day now, so you can read her great tutorial for those as well. I could only find the poppers on ebay, but you may be able to find some in one of the shops that Megan recommends. They took a while to get here since they came from overseas, but they were inexpensive and since we used gift wrap tubes (which were sturdier and looked better than the toilet paper tubes that we thought of using), the project itself was reasonable.

For my daughter’s crackers, she chose to fill them with candy, cut out hearts, ribbon confetti and stickers. I cut the gift wrap tubes into 2 1/2″ segments using a craft knife and we used tissue paper for the wrapping, so it was easy for my daughter to roll them up on her own. And the twist ties that Megan used are genius and so much easier for little hands. I had these silver ones on hand, but looks like you can find some red and white striped ties here. Once I got out the supplies and made a sample to see how to put it all together, my daughter was able to make them on her own.

We’ll see how the popping crackers go over with the teachers! I am planning to give them some warning. Here’s a printable for the labels we used if you want to try these out in the future. This makes 1 1/2″ x 7″ labels, which work with gift wrap tubes, but if you are using toilet paper rolls, they will need to be a bit longer.