new valentine and french charms

I am loving these stick charms - especially pairing them with larger charms on my necklaces. I made a few today for the shop. I plan on making many more. Here are a few of the ones I listed.

gifts from mom

My mom is amazing in so many ways. To be honest, I love being the beneficiary of her talents. Last summer she came up with this cool camera bag (she needs to make a pattern for it!). I saw the one she made herself and wanted one. I knew I wouldn't sew one for myself. I had forgotten about until I opened up my birthday gift last week. Yippee! I have one and I love it. She made mine from decorator weight fabric (Amy Butler, I think?). It has a pocket on the inside and I love the detachable strap. It sits right on my hip when I wear it across my body. Perfect.

And, if any of you have been reading this blog over a year, you will know that I had great intentions of making this bag - the Amy Butler Birdie Sling. I had most of it cut out and even had the fusible fleece attached. But, it sat on my sewing table for too long until my mom came here in August. She took it home with her. She still has to clean up after me! She finished it for me (really, made the entire bag) and sent it back with my dad when he came to visit in November. I had forgotten about it (I tend not to remember much!) and when he pulled it out of his suitcase, I was in shock. It looked much better completed than sitting in pieces on my table.

christmas card 2010

front
back

I like to see every one's Christmas Cards and try to get ideas for next year. I didn't have a family photo taken this year, unfortunately, but I was able to find a cute photo of each of the kids to add to this one. I ordered my cards at OvernightPrints.com as 4X6 postcards with envelopes for such a reasonable price. I love that they offer a gloss sheen and rounded corners. It's the reason I chose them for my business cards as well.

shop reopened and updated just a bit

I put the shop in vacation mode for the past week and a half to spend time with my family. It was so nice, but when I looked for my shop on etsy - vacation mode means your shop is like a black hole. So, it was time to bring it back to life and this time with a few more charms. I have tons more initials to list as well, but as I was listing the current ones at midnight, a child woke up at that time sick. The poor boy was up all hours of the night (as were his parents!) and I hope he gets better soon. We have avoided sickness all vacation...until now. Hopefully, we will all be recovered for a New Years Celebration (or my birthday tomorrow!).

I have some new pendants/charms I am going to be working on for Valentines - the stick sized ones (1/2"X 1 1/2") with some cute sayings and maybe a little glitter. I'll work on those when the kids get back to school. In the mean time, we will work on recovering.

easy last minute gift - key fob

I am have made some key fobs in the past and even gave many away. I still have pieces of the key fob hardware stored away. You can buy it on ebay pretty inexpensively. Well, I realized on Tuesday that I still needed a few teacher, visiting teaching, and bus driver gifts this week. It was time to make some more key fobs, but just a bit differently than the last time.

I cut out a piece of 5"wide X 11"long fabric and then another piece of extra stiff stabilizer of the same size. I ironed the stabilizer on the back of the fabric. Then, I ironed the fabric in half lengthwise. I opened it back up and then folded each end in to meet that folded line in the middle. Lastly, I folded it in half so it was a nice folded 1 1/4" strip (the correct width of the fob hardware). I sewed a top stitch (1/4" from the edges) down each side and then attached the key fob hardware and key ring. Viola - a quick, yet cute and usefull gift to give.

I made one of these for myself last spring and it is still holding up. I love the stiffness of the stabilizer because it makes it like a loose cuff around your wrist - making it easy to hang on to my keys. I made all of these with Amy Butler's Love fabrics.

cyber monday special at etsy shop

CYBER MONDAY SPECIALS AT OUR ETSY SHOP -
*MAY AND MAE*

Free 24" silver linked chain with each charm purchased today Monday, November 29th!

Many new Christmas, Santa and Holiday soldered charms to choose from.

Melissa is having a special on her patterns!

Go here to check out the specials.

open house report

Where am I? I have personally turned in to a solder factory over the last few weeks. Well worth the effort. The open house was so much fun. I enjoyed talking and eating chocolate. But, what's new? I appreciate all who came that night. Here are a few photos.

jewelry open house

I am having an open house for my soldered pendants. I have a list a mile long of ones that I want to make sure I get done by then! Please come if you are in the area. Just email me for directions!

halloween tree ornaments

I saw this tutorial and thought these would work great hanging from my black Halloween Tree. The stickers in the center are from the Martha Stewart line. Really easy to make. I need to get working on a few more.

enjoying autumn

We thought this pumpkin looked like Pac Man

I know this is my favorite time of year because each day that I see the colorful leaves all over my yard, I am excited and don't even want to rake them up. Once when we had just moved in to our house, I had a lady stop by and I apologized for all the leaves everywhere and she said that I was lucky because I had my own natural Fall decoration. I have taken it as such ever since. Sorry to my neighbors who get all my leaves on their lawn!!! We have made our pumpkin cookies, breads and muffins. We have visited pumpkin patches, apple orchards, and have taken hay rides. I have made a few new Fall decorations. Yes, it's a great time of the year. Here are a few photo from our pumpkin patch trips, field trips, and back yard leaf playing.

custom charms

I love making custom soldered pendants. And, I really love when people have me make them for special occasions. This one was for a friend's sister's 50th birthday. It has a photo of her and her sisters at the beach many years ago. She added a quote about sisters and another initial charm. I added the silver key and extra beads.

my parisian dress from mani mina patterns

I bought the pdf pattern for My Parisian Dress from Mani Mina Studio on etsy. I wanted to make mine out of corduroy and after searching a couple of stores for print corduroy and not finding what I wanted, I ordered this Robert Kaufman cord on ebay.

Changes I made - (not very many)

*Added jumbo rick rack to the bottom hem

*Added 1/4" elastic to the cuff of each sleeve

another bib

I made this one too. From the same pattern as this one. I think I made the Scottie Dog from clip art I found on Martha Stewart website.

a few new things

I really am here. I keep wondering when I am going to post like I used to. I think life has a way of going in cycles and right now I seem to be busy with kids even though three of mine are in school all day. I can't explain it, but it's true. I have made a few things and haven't even taken pictures of them. Maybe that means I don't just make things to blog about them, but I am still not sure that is completely true. It's something I am trying to figure out for myself!


I made a few bibs for new babes over the past few weeks and took a photo of one of them. I used my owl applique pattern for the owl on the front and just used terry cloth for the back. I got this bib pattern from juicy bits blog. Mallory is wearing the bib in these photos and thought it was so funny to wear a baby bib.

I made this hair bow last Halloween. I just ran a long stitch along the length of grosgrain ribbon and pulled it taught so that it formed a circle. I made a smaller one for on top and then added a Halloween button I got in a package from Hobby Lobby. Simple and sweet. Mallory will now wear hairbows - sometimes. That's better than never I guess. Here is a photo of her with the wooden candy corn man I bought at the Country Living Fair two weeks ago in Columbus, OH (that I went to with Melissa) from company called Fried Green Tomatoes in Burlington, WI. He welcomes everyone as they come in the front door.