Sweet Charli Giveaway

Let me introduce you to

SWEET CHARLI

another new Utah business that made me stop and look.

Why did I stop and look? Well.... there's just enough of a twist

to their products that it made me think, "Hmmm, clever, why

didn't I think of that?"

Twisted flowers out of printed fabric....

fabric ball necklaces with an attached flower....

Flower belts, but they are thick, rather than thin.

I like it when people take a trend and put a twist to it.

Sweet Charli is offering the chance to win one of the above necklaces simply for checking out their wares.

All you have to do is:

Visit their blog and tell me what you like

• My followers get an extra entry.
  
  If you would like more than two entries you can:
• Become a fan of Sweet Charli on Facebook
• Link to Sweet Charli on your blog
• Follow their blog

Make sure you leave a comment for each entry

DON'T FORGET TO PUT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN ONE OF THE COMMENTS

(giveaway ends Sunday 3/7)

Meet My Best Friend

I'd like you to meet my best friend... the rolled hem foot! Love this little gadget!!! The only problem is that sometimes getting her started is a little tricky. She likes to fiddle faddle around with the bobbin thread. Some times it takes her a good inch or inch and a half to get her groove on.

The other day I was getting a little mad at her (friends sometimes do that), when I realized that all I had to do was put a piece of paper under the fabric to get her going from the very start. In the above picture I used a piece of a grocery sack, worked great....no more troubles!

We're best friends again.....sigh :)

Lil Bo Peep Is In The Building

This is my little friend Katie....blue eyes to die for by the way...modeling "Lil Bo Peep" for you. I know you saw a little sneak peek last week, but I just had to share the finished product (because Katie is so stinkin' cute and because a real girl makes my skirts 1,000 times cuter)! I've had this pattern swimming around in my head for a couple of months now. It's funny how those things keep me from sleeping. I finally had to make it so that it would stop buggin' me at 2:00 am. This little skirt is now in the shop and unlike my other skirts it comes with its own iron on birdie applique. I'm hoping that with all those birdies spring will get the hint and come already!!!

Floral Wristband

Tired of wearing your headbands on your head?

How about wrapping them around your wrist.

My daughters LOVE shopping at thrift stores. Erika bought this old crepe dress from the DI a couple of weeks ago. We fixed the neck to be more modest and shortened the sleeves. I decided to make her a floral headband with the left over fabric from the sleeves (kind of like the one in this old tutorial).....she decided to wear it as a wristband instead!

Apparently it got a lot of oooh's and aaaah's at the Jr High!

I love how kids these days dare to do different, funky things with their clothes, I NEVER would have dared to be different when I was 15!

Oh My Heck! ....that's Utah for "get out!!!!!"

Let me preface this post by saying that I don't have a cool bone in my body!

Most people would have the ability to be all cool and nonchalant about this, but I just couldn't be cool if I tried.... so I'm not even going to try. I got an email yesterday from a producer at Studio5 telling me they'd like to feature my shop on their "things we love" segment in a couple of weeks! I am so excited! Studio5, for you non-Utahn's, is kind of like the Martha Stewart Show for local crafters. If you follow many Utah craft blogs you will read things like this all the time, "saw the cutest thing on studio5 today, can't wait to try it" or "learned how to make monkey bread on studio5 today". So, do you want to hear the extremely mature and nonchalant way I began my return email to said producer? Here it is....

"GET OUT!!! Really?"

(like I said, not a single cool bone)

Alice & The Queen All Done

Hope those little dollies have fun at the premier!

Design Audition For Letty

Letty....."Alice" is done and looks so sweet and cute, but I want a little more input on little miss "Queenies" skirt. I know you wanted it more understated, so tell me which of the following three you prefer (there are only two pictures, I just wrote down what idea #2 is).

1. Would be all black (the fabric is a black on black small floral print) with the white ruffle, as per our convo. I would add a big red heart shaped pin, so that you could take it off for regular wear.
2. Would be the same as #1, except that the bottom border would be a red on red floral print. (from far away it just looks red, close up you can see the flowers).
3. This one would use the same fabrics as above but I would round the ruffle up to meet in the middle front. Same heart shaped pin.

Let me know what you think and I will get on that tomorrow morning!

FYI...Another Giveaway!

Have you guys ever visited Tatertots and Jello? Love it...one of my fav's!

Sweet Jen, the Mommy of that blog, is hosting a gieaway for me this week. If your interested you'll want to hop on over for sure. And if your not interested :) you'll still want to hop over because she's one creative gal!

Alice and the Queen

I'm always up for a good challenge, in fact I love it when customers ask me if I can make something that they've had swimming around in their minds. I've got a customer who is taking her daughters to the Hollywood premier of Alice In Wonderland. She asked if I could make her two skirts, one that looks like Alice's (easy) and one that looks like the Queen of Hearts. The trick is that she doesn't want them to look costumey. I'm excited to try to figure out how to turn the queens outlandish skirt into a cute little girls skirt (not costume). Very fun!

Sneak Peek For Kathy

Kathy.... I am so excited about how this turned out that I can't even wait for the whole outfit to be finished to show you. Oh my goodness, it just tickles me! I will work on the top this weekend and we'll do our little photoshoot next week!

FYI... this little skirt will be in my shop in the next week or so for anyone interested. Keep your eyes peeled :)

Polka dot Shamrock - Tutorial

I recently had a customer ask me if I could make a shamrock to go on her daughters skirt instead of the usual flower. My answer was, "Sure, I don't know how I'll do it, but it will be fun to figure it out!" And sure enough.... it was fun figuring it out. Now that it's "figured out", I might as well share and let you have some fun with it too.
You will need:
green fabric
thread and needle
Clover yoyo maker is optional
(Clover is the brand, not the shape. They do have a shamrock shaped yoyo maker but I thought it looked more like a flower than a shamrock. I think the heart shaped one works better.)

Make 3 heart shaped yoyo's
If you're using the yoyo maker just follow the instructions.
(obviously)

When you take it off of the yoyo maker it looks like this, so I'm thinking you could just stitch around the edge of a heart shaped piece of fabric if you didn't want to get the yoyo maker.

At this point you'll want to just pull on the thread to gather the heart into....

...a smaller, rufflier version of itself!

Lay 2 of the hearts (RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER) and hand stitch them together. Begin about 1/3 of the way down and go all the way to the point at the bottom.

This is why I wrote RIGHT SIDES TOGETHER in all caps!

OOPS....just keepin' it real. Time out while I unpick and try again.

There we go, much better. Do the same thing with the 3rd heart.

You're almost done.

For the stem you will want a rectangle approximately 2.5 x 2 inches big.

Fold it in half so that the shorter ends are meeting.

Fold the two ends in a little bit. That way you only have one raw edge and that will eventually be beneath a little circle of felt.

Starting at one end, roll the piece of fabric into a stem.

Like so.

Hand stitch all the way down the back of the stem.

Then stitch the stem onto the back of the shamrock.

And there you go.... a polka dot shamrock!

To finish it off just add a circle of felt to the back. I added a pin, since they were going on skirts, but you could do so many different things with these. You could make a giant one for your door, put a bunch on a wreath, decorate napkin holders with them...just all kinds of things!

HAVE FUN!

MIA

Dear Blog,

So much to do....so little time! Custom orders backing up. Family room totally torn apart awaiting new paint (by me, not a worker guy) before furniture comes tomorrow. Somethings got to give, looks like it's gonna be you.

Love,
Me
PS...shop closed this week too.

A Little House

When I saw this giveaway on Tatertots and Jello, I thought of you and all of your cute little kiddo's! My kids are way too big for one of these, but yours are just right. Run on over here if you're interested.

Who wouldn't want a "blue bird cottage"

or a "cupcakery"?

Winner!

And the winner is....

minishoes1

comment #12

Chosen by random.org

Leigh will be contacting you via email.

CONGRATULATIONS!

And Yet Another Doll!

Sadie's Sweet Bloomers!

I love this picture of her (can't see the bloomers, but the frosting on the toes is to die for)!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SADIE!

Last day for the zpper headband giveaway.

I'd get on that if I were you!

(click picture on the left)

Adding To My Collection Of......

DOLLS!!!

(sigh)

Choices For Angie

Angie.... here are some onesies I made today.

Choose which 3 you want (put it in the comments section)

and then I will get them in my shop!

Post script: OK, so I'm looking at these and you can't really tell what color they are. #1 navy blue, #2 dark brown background, # 3 obvious, #4 brown background, #5 brown background.

No TV????

Last Saturday our two youngest decided they weren't

going to watch TV all day (it didn't last, I'm pretty sure I

remember hearing Sponge Bob by 4:00 or so). They

had great intentions though, and made this big long

list of things they would do together. Among the

adventures was "make crayons".

HERE'S WHAT THEY DID.....

They unwrapped a bunch of broken crayons

Broke them and separated them into little condiment cups.
They then melted them in the microwave.
VERY, VERY HOT...this is a big kid or mommy job.


They started with one color, poured a little in the bottom of
each mold and let it set for a few minutes before they
poured the next color.


....and this is what they ended up with!

TV IS WAY OVERRATED!!!

Latest Trend...and a giveaway

Here in Utah we have this daytime talk show called Studio5.

It's a crafty, DIY kind of show that often highlights the latest

trends in the creative/artsy world. Last week they did a little

spot on using zippers as embellishments. I thought...."Hmmm,

that's a new one to me!" Then what do you know, just like that,

I started seeing them everywhere!

That afternoon I took Liesl to the mall to get a dress and shoes

for the Sweetheart's dance, check out the shoes she fell in love with.

Yep, zippers! As we walked out to the car we passed a kiosk

filled with leather purses that were embellished with....

yep, zipper flowers. That night I searched etsy to see what

was going on in etsyland where zippers were concerned

and sure enough.....

I found zippers!

An unbelievable statement piece at Believe In Happy

(love that shop name!)


A big beautiful zipper brooch (love the leaf) from Handcraft USA


and last, but not least, a sweet demure little
zipper flower headband from Feathered Whimsy.
So ingenious....I wonder who comes up with this stuff?

HERE COMES THE GIVEAWAY PART!

You know I'm all about giving a nod to new etsy shops
and I'm kinda partial to new etsy shops from Utah.
So....guess what? Leigh from Feathered Whimsy just
happens to be a Utah girl and her shop is brand spankin'
new. She would like to give my readers the chance to win.....

The sweet little zipper flower headband pictured above.
So, here's how to enter:

Just hop over to her shop and check out all of her cute stuff.
Come back here and leave a comment letting me know
what your favorite item at Feathered Whimsy is.

My followers (as usual) get a second chance to win,
just for being awesome!! So, leave an extra comment
if you're a follower as well.

DON'T FORGET TO LEAVE AN EMAIL WHERE WE CAN REACH YOU IF YOU WIN!

GOOD LUCK!
(giveaway ends friday 2/12 at 10:00 mountain time)