Paper Fun, Simple Envelope Tutorial & Scrapbooking

I have so many things swirling around my brain that I want to make.  Sometimes I just have to do something quick and little to help quench my creative jumble for a little while.  This morning I decided to make an envelope tutorial, mostly pictures. Super easy and very chic when complete. I'm going to use this to put extra pictures in for a scrapbook in the making.

For the scrapbook in the making, I used a normal 3 ring binder (found in abundance at the stores these days because of Back to School shopping!)  I am currently in the process of creating the cover, need to do a little bit of inspiration searching to complete it. But hey, at least I started the first part of the process! I did sew it, now I just need to design it.  I've attached very small snippets of what is in the scrapbook from scratch, once it's gifted I'll show bigger better pictures.  Not a scrapbook in the complete sense but more of a scrapbook, photo album mixed with art book.  I love the new process of doodling on scrapbook pages. I think it adds a sweet dimension of creativity.

Anyway, the scrapbook will be gifted soon and my plan (though I'm not always good at following through with my plans!) is to add pages to it as I develop pictures..or for holiday/birthday specials.  We'll see how good I do. I have the best intentions though.

And finally, my brother and his beautiful Fiance` are getting married in September and I've been working on a cover for them.  Just a little bit more to go and then it'll be complete.

Until next time, have a wonderfully creative day!

Some funky craft paper, glue, an envelope and a pen 

 Carefully open up the envelope, and outline it on your craft paper...excuse the nail polish, my 8 year old daughter gave me a "manicure." 

 Trace it and then cut

 Time to fold, sides first....

 Bottom's UP!

 Add a little bit of glue....

 Seal and it's ready to go!

................The Scrapbook from scratch, peak below!...............

Searching for inspiration to decorate this cover. I want it to be whimsical, artsy and fun.

Strips and Strips and a tiny little star: Adventures in learning to piece and quilt.

I really haven't had much opportunity to create over the weekend so I was anxious to try something this morning.  I wanted to figure out how to create a tiny little center star using strips.  The outcome is not too shabby but I definitely need work on keeping my lines straight through-out.  I also think that the star will need to be a bit bigger next time around because when I finished up the block, not all triangles were the same size.

So I started out with 6 6" squares (you are only going to need 4 groups, with this you've actually made an extra 2 groups which I haven't yet figured out what to do with them.)  I cut each of them into 6" x 1" strips and then separated them into different groups.  I then cut 4 1" squares.  I attached the 1" squares on one 6" x 1" strip from each group, all going in the same direction, basically the same way you would make binding strips.  Cut the extra fabric off, pressed and then started attaching all the strips.

The strip that has the triangle should always be the bottom. I attached each 6" x 1" strip until 6 were attached, then I would do the same for the rest of the groups.

Pressed, remeasured and cut, lined up the center star and started attaching the blocks.

Once that was all done, I pressed again, and cut off the excess fabric. Put that aside and added it to the border.  I'm not sure that I would recommend using my measurements as my star is off, if you have advise I would love to hear it.  Anyway, pictures of my process. Another block complete for my sample Twin quilt.

Until next time friends, have a beautiful day!

                                                                               

started off making 6 (you'll only need 4)  groups of 1" x 6" strips  and 4 1" squares.

I attached the 1" squares on one strip from each group, I attached it as if making binding.

trimmed the excess fabric

I pressed each strip in the same direction

Then I started making my blocks, make sure you stitch on the 90 degree angle side

Pressed each group and then measured and straightened the blocks to attach to one another.

You can see my star is off a bit, I think it is just that one triangle on the damask fabric that is off though.

All attached, trimmed into a nice square, used the excess fabric for the border, see below.

Used the excess fabric to make accent the border here.  Need a lot more practice to get my lines straight!

Chevron Quilt, Part II

As promised, Chevron Quilt Part II.  I am officially obsessed. I have in my mind this grand plan to make everyone in my family some sort of quilted item! By Christmas!! LOL.  That probably wont happen but I'll still believe that I can.

With the help of an amazing tutorial found here on how to piece a chevron quilt together, I garnered up enough courage to make my first ever quilt.  I machine and hand stitched the binding.  I'm very proud of this quilt and I have already started cutting squares for a matching sham to go with it.  Looking back, a few things I would do differently:

• I did enjoy watching the rows of chevron come together but I think I would wait until I have all the squares cut out before piecing this together OR pay better attention to my seam allowance as all the squares did not match up perfectly.  The chevrons definitely matched up but for some reason, the squares did not.
• I would machine sew the binding on the back side and hand stitch it on the design side.  I like the way the hand stitched binding looks over the machine stitch.  This quilt I attached the binding with my machine on the design side. Though it does look nice, I prefer the look of the binding on the back side.
• I would definitely make sure to have extra back fabric over ALL sides.  This quilt, I lacked extra fabric on the right side of the quilt and once I stitched the chevron design through all 3 layers, I actually had to trim down the sides because there was not enough back fabric all the way to the edge.
• Finally, I would pin even more than I did before "quilting" because on my very last row there are 2 small areas where the back fabric puckered (ugh!)

                                                                                  -----

hand stitching the binding took a while but it was very much a zen like process

All in all, this experience helped build my confidence in quilting.  I just want to make more and more! It was very much a "zen" like process.  It took patience to complete.  It took some strength to pull myself away when I realized I had been working too many hours and was starting to notice imperfections.  Sometimes walking away from the project for the night is a good thing.  And it would be nice to start again after a refreshing night of sleep, a few hours at the beach, and some play time with the kids.

Thank you Nicole, for putting your tutorial out there for everyone to enjoy! And thank you for helping me build the courage to finish something I have long wanted to accomplish :)

                                                                                     ♡ ąlexąnʠяą

Chevron Quilt, a perfect tutorial

I saw a quilted chevron camera strap cover a few days ago and I put that on my sewing bucket list. Having some creative time put aside, I decided to go in search of a straight forward, easy chevron quilting tutorial to try to recreate my own version of a chevron strap.  Instead, I started cutting up my fabrics to create a chevron quilt for Miss M.   This is part 1 as I am obviously about half way through the top of the quilt. I still need to figure out the back, the stitching and the binding.

To see the amazing chevron tutorial, follow this link: http://modernhandcraft.com/post/48739677663/chevron-quilt-tutorial

Here is my progress to date, come back soon to hopefully see more (or see the finished product if I can figure it out!)  Remember, I am a novice at quilting. So, my chevrons pretty much match up but my squares, that is another story!  So far, I've cut 206 squares, I have about another 180 to go to make the top of this twin size quilt.

Row 2

3 rows attached

Deciding on the next color scheme, I went with blue

Ready to be split up, ironed and attached

Blue row attached

progress

My fabrics, trying to put some color order to them

Next up, turquoise again

I think I've decided this will be the backing

 Until part 2 friends, have a wonderful day and be sure to check out Modern Handcraft's Tutorial on making a chevron quilt!

                                                             ♡ ąlexąnʠяą