Bathroom Mural

Not the greatest pics but here's my new "mural" in the upstairs bathroom!

Welcome Home Baby Triton!

This was part of my "Welcome Home" gift for my new great nephew. Huge fleece blanket, burp cloth and bib.

Embroidered Birthday Gifts part 2

Here is the second series of gifts:

Embroidered Birthday Gifts part 1

I have three birthdays in July for nieces and nephews and beach towels and sports mugs are my go-to gifts!

KC Market Tote

I was asked to submit an item for a local charity auction. Originally, I was asked to do a jewelry set, but time did not permit. So instead I embroidered the local school mascot and school letters on a market tote.

Basket for Garden Bicycle

I decided my bicycle need a little more bling! I found the wicker basket at Goodwill for $1.99 and added some silk flowers from my stash!

Garden Bicycle

Now that summer break is finally here I am so happy to be working on all of my winter ideas! :) I've been wanting a bicycle for one of my flower beds for years, but have never come across one reasonably priced. I mean who wants to pay top dollar for something that's going to be a lawn decoration? Anyhow, hubby mentioned something to his parents a while back and lo and behold they had an old one sitting in one of the old outbuildings by the barn. Well, I was so excited! All it needed was a seat and TLC. Then last weekend we had town wide garage sales and hubby found another old bike for $5.00!!! WITH a seat! I haven't done a thing to it, other than park it in one of the flower beds by the studio! Now it just needs a basket with some flowers and a new paint job...pink? sky blue....hmmmmmm.........

"New" Sewing Desk

I found this desk at a yard sale for $7.00. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do the work on it to redo it...but thanks to my sister I bought it and It fit my embroidery machine perfectly!
After using it for a couple of months, I came up with a plan to "beautify" it. I used two sheets of scrapbook paper, left over paint and some glass knobs I picked up at a yard sale a couple of years ago. This is the result after less than $14!

Retirement Coffee Cup

A great teacher and colleague retired this week and I thought this would make a fun gift.

Embroidered Beach Towels

I found these great beach towels to include with the nephews birthday gifts. Just added their names and voila!

Embroidered Travel Cups

Two of my nephews had birthdays this month and I thought they'd enjoy these travel drinking cups. I purchased the "blank" cups and kiwi paper from Allstitch and used a free font I found on the internet.

Embroidered Market Tote

I just LOVE these collapsible market totes! I found this one at Allstitch.com and did the name in HyperFont. This too was part of my Mother's day gift collection.

Acrylic Gifts

I found these great acrylic blanks for embroidery at Allstitch.com. I also selected some Kiwi paper to embroider on and included these in my MIL's Mother's Day gift.

Embroidered Koozies

I have been wanting to try out making some koozies. I decided to purchase some from AllStitch.com and include them in my gift to my MIL for Mother's Day. I had some difficulties getting the letters to embroider on well. Turns out I had to select different fonts than my original choices. In searching for fonts I found a GREAT in the hoop file for koozies from AKDesigns Boutique, and let me tell you...it is FABULOUS!!

Ava's Embroidered Swimsuit Cover-Up

I found this adorable swimsuit cover-up at Kmart and decided it needed a little jazzing up! I found the sunglasses, sun and flip flop files at EmbroideryRN Designs. The Palm tree file came from EmbroideryDesigns.com I made the name file in HyperFont. I'm pleased with how it turned out!

Minky Embroidered Pillows

I found this super cute/fun fabric and purchased it..BEFORE I read up on how difficult it can be to sew! LOL! I did follow directions online that said to pin, pin, pin, and then pin some more. Which I did. Anyhow, I made these for my niece's birthday.

Embroidered Fleece Baby Blankets

I embroidered these pre-made fleece blankets using Sulky poly embroidery thread.

Toddler Embroidered Clothes

Although I have not posted in quite sometime I have been trying to make projects whenever I have time.
For my nephews birthday I decided to take the plunge and try two new "techniques".
Digitizing a design with my embroidery software and embroidering on clothing. Both of which were a learning curve! :)
I made a total of three outfits, but for whatever reason, one of them did not photograph well.
My first attempt at digitizing using the Autopunch software from Singer was on the gray shorts. I first scanned the pre-printed T-shirt into my software and then proceeded to clean up the design, finally adding Curtis Racing with HyperFont software.
The next outfit utilized a free embroidery file of a sock monkey found on the internet (sorry I didn't save the site) and HyperFont text used for the shorts. The colors look much more similar in real life!

Loving the embroidery machine!

This embroidery machine has been soooo much fun! I've got all kinds of future projects dancing in my head! These are not the best pics cuz I had to quick snap them before heading off to the baby shower! But I'm proud of myself because I've been trying to take more pictures of my projects.

New Toy!

I have been wanting to purchase an embroidery machine FOREVER!!!
I finally found a fantastic pre-owned machine on Craigslist. The lady I purchased the machine from is super talented and an awesome person!! She spent HOURS showing me how to run the machine and giving me tips for future projects. She included tons of extra stuff with the machine including bunches and bunches of beautiful embroidery threads...many brand new-I haven't counted the spools but I'd guess there are over a 100.
I haven't had nearly as much time to play with the machine as I'd like...so busy with family, work and classes. But I was able to do some practice projects, which lead to me creating these super fun appliqued burp cloths. My niece's babyshower is this weekend and I can't wait to create a few more to give her along with her gift!!

Paintcase

When ever I have a free moment and there's a Goodwill near by, I am magically drawn to visit! LOL! My last trip there I picked up this adorable little case for $1.99. I don't know what it was used for in it's previous life: but I seem to be obsessed with boxes, containers and such. I think it's my deep need for organization. At the time of purchase I wasn't sure what I was going to do with the case. When I realized it was the right height for paint containers I was eager to see if my meager paint collection would fit. Can you believe it...I have 22 bottles and they fit PERFECTLY into this adorable box! Successful shopping combined with organization...what more could a girl ask for?!

Craft Robo Vinyl Lettering

I am having sooo much fun with the Craft Robo!
My friend gave me oodles of vinyl pieces and scraps to play with.
I've love this saying and have been wanting to add it to one of my studio walls. The only problem, was that I insisted on centering the phrase...which put the last word smack dab over that knot in the wood. Oh well...over all I'm quite pleased!
So easy and so much fun!

Ruffle T-shirts

I've fallen in love with the ruffle t-shirts showcased all over blogland! So of course I had to recreate the idea. The general idea is to purchase two t-shirts of the same color and make the ruffles from one shirt to sew onto the other. But I was looking for a little more "POP" than the tone-on-tone. So I used patterned t-shirts to make my ruffles.
I made three shirts total. Two were for gifts and one for myself. On my shirt I made the ruffle longer-because it was a fave T of mine that had a small hole in dire need of being hidden! I hand sewed the decorations on the gift t's and used the sewing machine on my own. The difference? Well, it was actually faster to hand sew but neater to machine sew. Therefore, I would definitely machine sew in the future for gift giving!

What great way to recycle old T-shirts!!