cards.

coffee cozies.

I am seriously in love with my latest craftydo. After seeing one of these made up at Archiver's the other day, I just HAD to make one! They were kind enough to run a few more copies of the how-to for me. Now I can't stop thinking of new paper combinations to try. I hope to have a nice little paper pumpkin patch for the Murray House Fall Festival this weekend!

New cathedral window pillow! Well, not so new, but I finally got it to its rightful owner, so now I can post for all to see! ;] Similar to the very first one I made, (the original is on the bottom in the picture below) with the addition of a few new fabrics tailored especially to the lovely lady who ordered it. She is a [[stellar]] photographer and wanted a window with camera fabric after seeing the scissor fabric in the first pillow, but after searching high and low with no luck, I made my own! Yellow polka dot fabric + retro polaroid stamp + Blazing Red StazOn ink = custom fabric. Woohoo! I hope to play around more with that in the future. I have to say, "premium" fabric is worth the few extra bucks. The yellow polka dot is one I picked up at Sew to Speak, and in addition to feeling much softer and smoother than cheaper calicos, it took the ink shockingly well. I got the stamp at Wholly Craft in Columbus and the ink in the scrapbooking section at Hobby Lobby. Shout out to Liz of Poshta who was working at Wholly Craft and suggested the StazOn ink for the project when I went in grasping for straws during my camera-fabric hunt.

Need a little bolstering today?
This did it for me.
Now "go forth, and be awesome."
:]

Cozy? Cozie? However you spell it, coffee/tea hand warmer thingamabobs are in major production mode over here!

Have to get ready for the Urbana Oktoberfest this Sunday, the Murray House Fall Festival next Saturday, then my craftiest holiday season yet after that! ;] Follow the fun here on my blog, on my collective's webpage, and on our facebook! We've got some exciting news due out any day now!!!

Quick snapshot of a few things I've been working on...
Coffee cozies based on In Color Order's tutorial and little owl ornaments I spotted on pinterest. Just need to add something across the tummy... rick rak, stitching? and have my momma help me blanket stitch the whole thing up. :] Next I think I'm going to try this little owl ornament... wouldn't it be fun to have a whole tree of of owlies??! Speaking of owls and Christmas, how about these owl scissors?! ;D

Anyway, here's another close up of my owl-in-progress and one of the cozies I've got going. Anyone made these before? I'm having trouble deciding what to line them with. Fusible interfacing wasn't thick enough to actually do the job of keeping my hand coolish, Insul-brite seems a little thick and crinkly, and I haven't gotten out to pick up fusible fleece, ala the instructions, yet... but gosh I do love a covered button or two, don't you?!

One of many things I've been working on lately is a decorative piece for a cute vintage yellow lemonade stand on wheels. You can see it this weekend at the Country Living Fair in Columbus, Ohio, at the Historical Society off of I-71. For dates and times, click here, for directions, click here, and for ticket information, click here. If you click on one of the first two links, there will be lots of other linky goodness about the fair. Looks like a fantabulous time! Antique, vintage and handmade shopping, good food, demonstrations and more... I'd be there in a heartbeat, but I'm jetting off to New York for the weekend, so my cathedral window banner will have to tell me all about it.

It's kind of hard to explain what it is exactly. The flower and butterfly fabric shower curtain (West Elm, I believe) will come off the top of the trailer, like to make an awning, and the black strip will hang down as the front of the awning. Ok, maybe this will help...

The poles that will hold the awning up weren't there when I dropped the piece off today, this is just to give you an idea, hehehe. That's Tangela on the right, she is the decorative mastermind for her son's concession business. Sugarey lemonade shake-ups, mmmmm! Anyway, this was a really cool commission, it was fun to work with Tangela because she's uber creative and flexible, which is always a plus. We connected last year at the Springfield Farmer's Market, where she sells beautiful flowers.

This banner was made using the same general technique I use to make the pillows, but with felt as the base! Much, much, much, MUCH quicker. And a bonus in this case, much lighter. I'll definitely be playing around with this idea and seeing if it can translate to decorative pillows.

Has anyone been to the fair before? Pretty cool that Country Living holds one of these shindigs in Columbus (the only other is in Atlanta, Georgia)! If you stop out, let me know how it was, and snap a picture of the lemonade stand all set-up, while you're at it! ;]

***UPDATE 9/26/2011***
I found a few pics on facebook of the finished set-up thanks to Kerry from Trendy Bindi's Boutique... so fun!

Have you ever heard of caffeinated water?

Maybe you've seen it at the grocery and thought, 'seriously, who drinks that?!'

Well my friends, I have to admit, I do.

In an effort to drink less Diet Coke, *note I did not say cut out Diet Coke, just drink less, I was browsing the flavored water aisle at Meijer and in addition to some Vitamin Water (yum!), I also brought a new little friend home with me...

Meet Water Joe. (I think the name is somewhat lacking, but hey, it's what's inside that counts!)

As much caffeine as a cup of coffee or can of soda.

But it tastes JUST. LIKE. WATER.

No lie.

I don't claim to understand how that works, but I'll take it. I realize my caffeine addiction may be mostly psychological and media/marketing fueled, but I think there are worse vices, and all those pillows aren't going to sew themselves! (whew, I did manage to bring it back around to sewing, go me!) ; D

Be honest though, what's your take on Water Joe?

Man, I wish I had gotten a twinge, a feeling the other day when I was fabric shopping. But I honestly can't say I paused for a second when I bought that gray and blue polka dot fabric pictured in the last post. (No need to go back and look right now if you missed it, I am going to show it to you again...)

Why is it in two pieces though, you ask? Wellllll.... ummmm.... that's because I bought the same print the last time I shopped at Sew to Speak. Not only the same print, the same. exact. amount. of it. Seriously?!

While working on some more key fobs tonight, I suddenly remembered that I had restocked on the bird ribbon pictured above that was so popular on the fobs, but dangit, where was it?! Lo and behold, I had never unpacked my goodies from the Granville expedition. That is ridiculous. I know. I sometimes justify my excessive shopping by saying "well, at least I'm not a hoarder. I've seen hoarders/shopaholics (on tv) who don't even put their purchases away when they get home. Just throw the bag in a room with a mountain of others and shut the door."

Can we say red flag? Yikes... Takeaway from this? Boy I really do need to head to Ikea to get the rest of the furniture I want to help organize this cluttered studio ;]

New subject! (heeheehee)

How about this? I love this little bird stamp! I think it's so great because it's an all-year, occasion neutral card... you know, the best kind to have a little stock of so you don't always have to run out for specific cards. I think the manufacturer intended it for Valentine's day, but it definitely isn't limited to that, especially in chocolate & lime!

I'm curious, are you a 'buy as needed', or 'keep a stock on hand' kind of person when it comes to cards?

And for one more totally random tidbit- as I was typing the 'tags' for this post so it can go into the categories listed over at the right, I was scanning the ones already established. You know... Shopping, Cardmaking tips, Fabric, Family, Beans, wait, BEANS?! ha, must've been from the posts on Beans 'N Cream coffee shop, but it had me totally bewildered for a moment!

Time flies. I got my first check from key fob sales at Beans 'N Cream in the mail today (yippee!), and went to post about something else, realized the last time I wrote was when I dropped the darn things off! whoopsie : /

Moving on...
My mom and I had a great time in Granville celebrating her birthday. Delicious lunch at the Granville Inn, where we had a noon cocktail (it's ok in a place like this! :) and imagined our beloved Dorothy sitting at the best table, a round one in a windowed alcove while we indulged further in a lemon cheescake sent straight from heaven. (see picture)

We then continued our little shopping trip (although we picked up less in Granville's cute shops than we had on our way when we hit Sew to Speak) and then enjoyed our afternoon iced coffee on the drive home.

That Saturday, after our farmer's market stint, we celebrated Dayton's (most awesome) Neff family at our yearly reunion, and I sold twice as much in less than fifteen minutes (literally! twice. as. much.) as I had all morning at the market. My mom and I debated the whole drive to Dayton whether it was tacky to also take my key fobs into the reunion (casual affair, mind you) in addition to my greeting cards, which my mom's cousin (is that my 2nd cousin?) had asked me to bring so she could pick out a few to buy.

Tacky or not, I'm glad I took a little bucket of them in! My aunt joked that next year we should rent out booth spaces for the night!

Jump forward today! Another trip to Columbus just had to include a stop at Sew to Speak, mainly to pick up the bolt of Kona white that I had special ordered, (Cathedral Window pillow factory, opening soon!) but also to nab some of the yellow and green woodgrain they had just gotten in from Joel Dewberry's Aviary 2 collection. I just have a thing for woodgrain fabric I guess, I have a hot pink, a very light khaki, and several different browns in my stash already, but I just. can't. get. enough. Maybe here soon I'll actually put them to good use, while I was getting the fabric cut I thought of a gift they would be perfect for!
I also picked up the last they had of moda's Charlevoix, which my mom had gotten last time for a skirt update she's doing that I think will be a good staple to have. Just for fun I got a little bit of a new line called Peacock Lane, by violet for Michael Miller. You can visit the designer's blog here, I've linked to the post where she introduces this line. Mainly I just want to frame some of the elephants and peacocks! There were sooo many new elephant prints. I think we'll be seeing more and more of one of my two favorite animals in the fabric world! :]

Finally, I couldn't pass up this too-too-too cute vintage bias tape at Wholly Craft. Ever since I saw this great DIY project on pinterest.com, to fab-u-lize a pair of plain 'ol heels in a snap, I've had bias tape on the brain (more so than usual :) and although what I got today probably won't be gracing any shoes, I'll make something extra special with it. Eventually... :]

I can't be the only one who buys supplies with no specific intentions, right? What kinds of things are you powerless to resist picking up for "a yet unnamed project at a yet to be determined date"???!