A teacher is simply a student with unlimited chalkboard privileges.
• Sep. 16, 2006 - Seamstress wannabee
I would love to sew vintage clothes. I have a collection of photographs of clothing that I would like to one day sew for my daughters and myself. The wonderful thing about these fashions is that they are very feminine and can be quite beautiful on a girl or a woman. I simply love them! Of course, I have many, many more among my wish list. Perhaps I will have to resort to having someone sew them for me in the future but in the meantime I imagine myself a wonderful seamstress one day!
Does anyone have any suggestions regarding getting started with sewing clothing? Especially clothing that is made up of specialty/delicate fabric?
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• Nov. 15, 2005 - Lip balm, purses, perfume and vintage beauties...
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My
hubby picked up some photo paper with a sticky back and I have been
able to adorn the lip balm containers with some novelties. These
containers are not lip balm containers at all, but they work so
perfectly with the swinging hinge. They are eyelet holders from
the company "Making Memories". If you are a scrapbooker or
cardmarker you may be familiar with them. So, we filled the
containers with our lip balm recipes and will add vintage photos to the
outside. This one will be for a dear friend of mine who looks
much like this vintage beauty. You
can see a pink bottle in the second photo, which happens to be some
perfume we are making. I am not sure how it will turn out, but we
have about four weeks until we find out. You can see also in this
photo that some of the lip balm are colored and others are not.
You can do all sorts of things with them! The
third photo is the fabric we are using on our first test purse.
We used out least favorite fabric...which is still pretty, nonetheless
but won't cause a great tragedy if we mess it up! The outside
fabric is oriental and the inside lining has a sort of celtic
design. Shayla asked if we were making the purse for a Chinese
person...oh the mind of an eight-year-old. Of course, when I told
her we weren't she then asked if she could have it for herself. You
can see in the final photo, a closeup of the "Making Memories"
containers. They look so much cuter with the photo on top but I
wanted to show you a before and after so that you could see the
starting product. If anyone happens to have any of these
containers that they are wanting to get rid of...I would LOVE to have
them!
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• Nov. 5, 2005 - Crafting away or a long winter's nap...
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Here's
a few of the cards I worked on this last week. They are really
very ecelectic...much like myself. I prefer that things don't
match exactly but that they play off of each other. The first
card is really very happy looking...it says "and the earth sings" on
the vellum - naturish card. The second card is kind of royal
looking...paisley and gold with sheer fabric on the back. The
third card is totally eighties. It takes you back to psychedelic
color combos and suspenders (that is actually sheer black
ribbon). The last card here is very rennaisance. I really
like this one because it has a fuzzy pattern on the back. I'm BIG
on texture.
Well,
I am off to peel some apples. We are considering homemade apple
pie. We are also wanting to make the lipbalms for Christmas
presents. I am looking forward to a lazy night! We really
need to get on top of the purses. Oh boy...maybe I just need to
take a long winter's nap...
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• Oct. 29, 2005 - Christmas crafting...
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We
are making bath satchels full of chamomile flowers as part of our
Christmas gifts. The muslin squares are embroidered, filled and
stitched to be thrown into the bathtub. I am trying to decide if
I want to add a button top so that it can be reused and refilled or if
I would rather make tiny cloth envelopes and insert tea bags with the
flowers in them. Decisions...decisions...
The two cards you see in the middle were made for Christmas. They
are hard to see because they are so small, but the paisley card has a
burlap pocket that is fastened with eyelets and a small vellum flap up
top that says "with hope...". A note and photo will be tucked
inside the finished product. The silver sparkly card has a white
frame attached on the left side that says "God's Promise"
underneath. I will probably tuck a verse of scripture in this
frame. Tissue paper peeks through to make up a background layer of
irridescent pink.
Being
that these are the first cards I made, they took me FOREVER! I am
excited to make more though. We bought this paper kit from
JoAnn's for our wedding to make little wedding favors and have used the
remainder to make card designs. There are so many different types
and sizes of paper in the bag. Best $9.99 we have spent!
The brand is JoAnn Scrap Essentials...wow...I had no idea they made
their own products! I'm impressed!
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• Oct. 29, 2005 - Crafty Concoctions...
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First
things first...boo hoo hoo hoo! I took photos of participation in
these crafts and I lost them all through a series of Murphy's Law events
while trying to download them to the computer. So, my apologies,
these photos show only the products I could photograph thereafter since
they are all that remains of the process...well, these and the
dishes. Wanna do them?? The
first photo you see there is a set of homemade facial wash and blemish
treatment. If you can get past the fact that you didn't buy them
in the grocery store aisle and that they are HOMEmade, then you may
really enjoy these as much as I do! The facewash is so cooling
and soothing. I have had problem skin since I was about eleven,
and though I have tried nearly every product on the shelf, it wasn't
until I used this that I actually FELT a difference in my skin. I
had Shayla make
some today because I am anticipating that she may have skin problems
since both her father and I did. I want to get her in a routine
of cleaning her skin intentionally with more than soap and water each
night. The fact that she made it herself makes it more exciting
to use! It's
not expensive to make so give it a whirl if you are brave! All
you do is mix the ingredients together and store in the fridge...simple
as that... Oatmeal Wash - wash as normal and rinse 2 tbsp fine oatmeal (I grind it to smitherines in my mortar and pestle) 6 tbsp plain yogurt (the expiration of this item pretty much determines the exp of the final product) 2 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp chopped parsley 2 tsp olive oil (that's teaspoons in case you were in the tablespoon mode) Anti-Spot night cream - rub into problem spots and leave overnight 3 tbsp plain yogurt (again, this will determine your expiration date) 2 tsp lemon juice 3 drops tea tree essential oil 1
tsp Fuller's earth (this is simply like kaolin clay - I use the Burt's
Bees powdered form of their clay mask as a substitute and it works
great) The recipes listed above are from the book Natural Home Spa by Sian Rees and it is FULL of great natural concoctions. I highly recommend it as I have used mine a lot over the years. The
second photo is of the soaps and bath salts we made over the last
couple days. The soaps are peach scented and the makings came
from my dear Elizabeth for my birthday this year. The bath salts
are vanilla rose. FYI...we are gearing up for Christmas so we are
trying to get stuff done a bit at a time but it never seems we start
early enough. The
third photo is to keep you coming back! We are going to see if
these brown egg shells will work like white eggshells to make sidewalk
chalk. The girls will be able to give it away to their friends
and cousins as Christmas gifts. Just had a thought...I wonder if
we can add glitter to our sidewalk chalk... I have more to share...like
the fact that I have spent I-have-no-idea-how-long making a total of
TWO cards for Christmas. I have never made my own cards so this
is a learning process for me and I am a perfectionist. I'll show
them to ya'll tomorrow. However, I had better get off to bed - we
have a picnic with hubby's seminary buddies and their families
tomorrow.
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