Sunday, October 31, 2010

Hallowen Garland

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!




I finished my little paper star garland and wanted to share.





I showed the first completed star a couple of posts back. Here are close-ups of the other three.







I hope you all have a spooktacular Halloween.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Crafting in Red


I love the look of craft supplies gathered together.

Stitching in red.



















Papercrafting in red.

















Happy Rednesday!

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Two Last Aprons and More

These last two aprons are from Retro/Vintage patterns. I can never keep track of how old something is to qualify as vintage. I hate to think that something printed after I graduated from high school falls into that category, but... could be.
This blue apron is from Simplicity #9209, from 1979. I've managed to buy this pattern in three of the four sizes that were produced. I love that I only need a yard of fabric and it makes up very quickly.




















This apron I made from a mail order pattern that I'm guessing is from the 1960s, judging from the artwork. I really like the lines on this pattern, very slimming.
















Once again, a couple of my favorite bloggers have inspired some new crafting. I missed out on all the fun Halloween swaps going on as I just couldn't commit to them at the time. But I still was yearning to make some cute paper craft with a few of the adorable images I've saved from FlickR. A vintage looking Halloween cat in a star was spotted a while ago on Paula's sidebar (at Paula's Palace of AltAred Art). Then, on Tuesday, Elizabeth (at Bluebird Papercrafts) blogged a tutorial for making Christmas paper stars. That was just what I needed to get me going. So, I dug out the glitter, pipe cleaners and glue gun and came up with this. I have three more in progress and hope they will be strung up before Halloween.











Today, my son asked to go down the street to one of our favorite indoor flea markets.He hurried in ahead of me while I stopped to read a sign taped to the propped open door. Unfortunately, the sign said that tomorrow would be their last day. One of the first booths I came to had mostly Autumn/Winter holiday decorations. I nudged in next to a woman who was looking for a price on something and saw a piece of vintage fabric on the table in front of her. I asked if she wanted it and she told me no. I unfolded 2 yards of the cutest Christmas snowman fabric ever! It was not marked properly with the sellers ID but it did have a sticker on it that said $3.00. It was coming home with me. You can probably see if you enlarge the picture some yellow staining, but I'm hopeful it may wash out. Even if they don't, I'm sure I will get an adorable Christmas apron from this piece (if I can bear to cut into it).

















I guess he's not actually a snowman or is it a she? Doesn't matter, does it? Love, love, love it!!!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Aprons and More

These two aprons are made with my own patterns.




I'm seeing more and more of this vintage Halloween print. I'm not much for putting on a Halloween costume, but I'd love to wear this to pass out treats.





You can't go wrong with vintage roses. Wonderful colors on this fabric.







I was lucky enough to get in on Elizabeth's (Creative Breathing) Christmas tag swap. Wow! These swaps sure fill up fast! If you're not on your blog soon after it's posted, you've missed your window of opportunity. The only reason I hesitated at all to sign up was the number of tags to make. 22 in all!!! That ought to keep me busy.










This is the image I've chosen as my starting point for my tags. I've got some cute paper to go with this and I bought a container of white flocking. I'll have to experiment with that first since I've never flocked anything before.(that didn't exactly come out right... LOL) I'm not sure where I'm going from here but it will come to me.

Freshly Made Aprons

On Tuesday, I took the time to put each newly made apron onto my lovely vintage dress form for a photo session. After putting everything away I was ready to load the pics from my memory card onto the computer. But... somehow the memory card reader had bent one of those little metal prongs and it would not read the card. Grrrr! So yesterday I made a trip to the office supply store for a new memory card reader and I am once again a happy blogger. I have quite a few pictures, so I will post a few at a time over the next week or so.

These three are all from the same new Simplicity pattern.





My favorite feature of this pattern is that the neck and waist ties are one long strip that feeds through a casing on each side from the top of the bib to the top of the skirt at the waist. Click on the picture to enlarge. This makes it very adjustable for different sized cooks.








The green cupcake apron was cut as a size Small and the red floral and the blue check/cherries aprons were cut as a size Medium. Now, I am an XL and had no trouble wearing the size Medium.







I've had request at my craft show to make aprons for men and boys. I think I will use this long strap through a casing to make a couple of BBQ style aprons in more manly fabrics. My next show is the weekend after Thanksgiving so I'll give it a trial run then. Has anyone else sold men's aprons? I'd love any input on this.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Hi!


I wanted to say "Hi!" and share this sweet vintage Halloween card for you to use in your personal craft projects. Click on the image to enlarge and save to your computer.

In case you have noticed my absence over the last weeks, I want to let you know I am fine. I have been stressing and worrying over some issues that life has dumped on me all at once. None of it is life threatening or anything we won't endure. God will provide, one way or another. Most issues have been resolved or are getting better. And since my favorite season of the year is upon us, I decided it would be a shame to waste more time being depressed and gloomy over things that I can't change. I need to get some joy back into my life. I need to spend time doing things that make me happy. I have been sewing aprons (need to take pictures) and working on some other craft projects that I hope to share with you later.

One thing I had been missing was time reading (something other than curriculum for my son). So I got online and searched for a nice light mystery that I might enjoy. I quickly came upon some reviews and a Halloween/mystery category. Perfect!! "Death of a Trickster" by Kate Borden sounded like just the thing. Hopped over to my library's website and picked it up Friday. I finished reading it this morning and I'm ready to read the other two books in the series as soon as I can get my hands on them.



I've got more sewing planned for tomorrow but I will be checking in on all my favorite bloggers to see what's new.