Friend Love is True Love

with everything that's happened over the past 3 days, i think we can all use some heartwarming happy thoughts. i've been meaning to post this for a while, but now i'm glad i waited - it's the perfect time.


i've talked about my friend j before. to say that she's amazing is a complete understatement. she's one of the most incredible people i know. she's thoughtful, kind, inspiring, nonjudgmental, knowledgeable, supportive, strong and gentle. and, on top of that, she's an incredible fibre artist. (i posted her wedding invitations, but i think that's all... i really need to post the amazing mini quilt she made me a few years ago)

one of the many wonderful things about j is that she occasionally sends me the most incredible packages. you all know how much i adore mail love, but j's packages go so far beyond just mail love! she's someone who takes such delight in the small details of everything, so every single aspect of her packages is meaningful and heartfelt, and that makes them absolute treasures.

just before valentine's day, i received a package from her, and she completely outdid herself.

i opened the envelope in the car, but made myself wait until i was home to actually open the package, knowing that j's packages often include small details that might be lost otherwise.




but the package was exciting! lookit the pretty ribbon!

and then i came home and opened it and it was even more exciting!


a bundle of valentine themed embroidery floss and the most wonderful needlebook


with a beautiful hand embroidered and beaded typewriter - the keys are beads!


when you open it up, the first page has a lovely heart milagro, a beaded border, and hand sewing needles.


the centre pages have pins and pockets


there's a little cupcake in the centre of a beaded heart outline, and matching red and yellow pins.


the pocket page held a little tissue package wrapped up with pink waxed linen thread and another little piece of cupcake ribbon (which always reminds me of j, i know how she loves waxed linen thread!)


the tissue package held more heart milagros, a small brass heart, and a lady of guadalupe charm


inside the back cover, there's another little heart pocket


with a little book folded up inside


the book used two kinds of paper, one that's very lacy


and one that can be written on, with a valentine's day message


on the back of the little book, she wrote all of the materials she used


and on the back of the needlebook itself, she embroidered my name

isn't that most amazing package ever?

love list, love themed!

a list of things i'm loving right now, mostly love themed:


Hexies. i LOVE hexies!

Heather Ross munki munki hexies (source)


omg, you should look at the other photos in this photostream... 2304 hexies!! (source)


these are like i spy hexies! (source)


pretty little box of hexies (source)


and on the hexagon vein, i LOVE the Hexagon Park quilt on Moda Bakeshop, designed by Lynne of Lily's Quilts, with large scale hexies and Sherbet Pips fabric. it's so freaking cute! and she's doing a giveaway!


i also love the craftyminx's heart grannies, for her granny a day project


and Pillow Month over at Sew Mama Sew, complete with contests, tutorials, and daily inspiration! The gathered heart pillow is hella cute, though white would be a bad idea in my house!


this awesome folded paper heart, perfect for love notes!


and the free bunny stuffie pattern from All Sorts. omg, the cuteness!



and these papercut hearts, complete with tips to make your own


and Urban Thread's latest anatomical heart design - ooh, i love the frame!



and this awesome double heart shaped potholder from Craft Snob



this super cute ruffled apron from Sew4Home - i'm really loving the Hoopla line, if you hadn't noticed from recent posts!


and Sonja from Artisania's latest paperpiecing pattern, the cutest little fox ever!




a bit late for valentine's Day, but i'm all for celebrating love everyday of the year anyway!

happy valentine's day!

valentine's day ends in about 15 minutes, but you know, it's the thought that counts. i actually sat down at the computer to write several blog posts hours ago, but between the distracting powers of facebook, a fabulous long chat with a friend, a heart breaking but also heart opening film (which i'll post about tomorrow), and way too many links to be checked out via bloglovin, here i am, half asleep, but determined to post some valentine love before going to bed.


so here are a few vintage valentines from my ephemera collection. if you'd like to see them bigger, or if you'd like to save them yourself, you can click on them to go to flickr. and you are TOTALLY welcome to download them, because it's very very frustrating when people upload vintage ephemera to flickr but don't allow downloading. it's completely illogical, and makes me very cranky. but that's getting off the point. (though if you know WHY people do that, please advise!)

anyway, aren't these freaking cute? i <3 vintage valentines.



and here are a few antique valentines - most of the postcards i have are from 1900-1910, so these ones most likely are too, but i can't actually remember if they were postmarked or not... several of the postcards actually have writing on them, i'll update flickr tomorrow with any info i find on them.

Cross Stitch Valentines

i missed last week's Iron Craft challenge, which was "Get Cozy" and was all about cup or mug cozies. i wasn't super inspired, and i didn't have the extra time/energy either. i don't drink coffee, and i really only drink tea when i'm settled in at home or at a friend's, not on the go, so i didn't have a travel mug to make a cozy for. my pottery tea mugs are specifically chosen by how they feel in my hand, so i didn't want to change that by adding a cozy! (what? i'm sure i'm not the only one who cups every mug and then walks around cradling their choice for 10 minutes before deciding for sure! maybe i am.) however, there were some fabulous cozies made, and i'll totally be reviewing them when i finally get around to making cozy for the family members who DO drink coffee (and starbucks hot chocolate) on the go.

so that was the last challenge. but there was NO WAY i was missing out on this week's challenge! the theme was "Be Mine", and y'all know how much i love valentines, as evidenced by the handmade ones i make every year!


at the same time, i also wanted to challenge myself to only use items found at the dollar store. this time of the year, dollar stores are full of valentine stuff, but that sort of felt like cheating... so i gathered up lots of things that weren't specifically seasonal, and could be found year round, but that i could use for valentine projects. i'll be posting more dollar store ideas in the next little bit, so check back soon!

for this project in particular, this is what i grabbed -

a woven paper twine placemat and a red beaded necklace


the same placemat, a beaded headband, and a small pack of no-name brand embroidery floss

and two packs of 6 blank greeting cards, one in red, one in pink.


i searched google for "simple heart cross stitch pattern" and used my favourite of what came up. i took apart the red beaded necklace to use the sparkly floss that it was made of, and used one of the skeins of embroidery floss.




after stitching a few solid hearts, i decided to start trying outlines, and adding beads. fun! i used beads from the red necklace, and from the beaded headband.




after i was done stitching, i cut out my hearts, leaving a bit of space around each one. because i didn't want the colour of the card to show through the holes, i glued each of them to small square of paper that was the same shade as the placemat. (i used one of the envelopes from my packs of cards, since i have other envelopes to use instead)


once that glue was dry, i used scrapbooking pop-up glue dots to adhere the squares to the fronts of the cards. (i didn't buy any, since i had them at home, but you can get them at the dollar store!)

and they're done!

i like finding non-aida cloth materials to cross stitch on, there are so many options out there!



what do you think? would you send them out to your loved ones? do you WANT to send them out to your loved ones? if you do, comment on this post and i'll send the set of them out to you!

simple little garland

now that i've spent way too long making the blog look pretty, it's about time i actually updated!

i've been working on lots of small things, ongoing projects, and things that i've forgotten to photograph, but even so, i'm super behind updating.

among others, i realized that i never got around to posting the garland i made back in february!

this was just a simple project, something that i could do while hanging out with friends and watching a movie (whip it - such a fun movie!)



i used a fiskars squeeze punch to cut the scalloped ovals (i love those punches, they're so handy, and they cut so nicely!) out of an old book, and then a cheapy punch to cut hearts out of the scraps. i ran the hearts through my xyron, and then used staZon ink and a makeup sponge to colour them red.


it would've been a lot easier to just cut the hearts out of red paper, but i like to complicate things sometimes. for that matter, it probably would have been easier to run a piece of paper through the xyron, and then punch out the hearts, rather than trying to slide teensy hearts through it, but again, i complicate things!

i stuck the hearts smack dab in the middle of each oval, and then ran them through my sewing machine, leaving a thread chain between each one. easy peasy!

i hung the garlands along my shelves, and they're still up here! i kinda want to make more garlands using different shapes and stuff, but then i'd have to take these ones down, and i haven't been motivated yet.

Mixed Media Heart Brooches (belated valentines!)

given that it's almost june, i figured it was about time i posted this year's valentines! (you can see last years, and the year before, and the year before that, here)

this year i was all determined that i wasn't going to go overboard, that i was only going to send valentines to people who i knew would really appreciate them, and i was definitely going to stay below 30.

that was all fine and good, until i had a brainstorm that ended up with them being the most time intensive valentines EVER!

this was the finished result - cause if i'm gonna go overboard, i'm gonna go all the way!


this is what i started with - fabrics in shades of pink and red, trims and tulle.


using spray adhesive, i laid out pieces of fabric onto a large piece of tulle and then used more spray adhesive and covered it with wash away stabilizer, which is seriously the coolest shit ever. i sewed the crap out of it (good time to use up bobbins and almost finished spools of thread!) to hold it all together, and then added some machine embroidered hearts scattered around it.


the next step was to remove the washaway stabilizer, so i filled up my kitchen sink with hot water and dropped it in.

i swished it around in there for a while, replaced the water at least once, and then tossed it into a pillowcase and put it in the dryer.

and this is what emerged -


and the back -


i started out cutting the large piece into smaller shapes, squares and rectangles mostly.

and that's when the REALLY time consuming brainstorm hit!


what if i cut out hearts and made everyone heart brooches!!?? how fabulous would that be?

so i drew up heart templates. i cut out hearts. i cut out backing for each heart. i cut little pieces of the backing to hold the pin on.

and i started embroidering. every heart is embroidered, some have beads stitched on as well. i collected fun floss in pinks and reds (including metallic and rayon), buttons, sequins, beads, etc and stitched them all on. some of them had 1" pins attached to them, with images of other stuff i've made. i experimented with different stitches, and played around. they were so much fun! i've been really wanting to do more art quilting and mixed media embroidery, and these were the perfect size to carry around with me to work on.

but they kinda took a long time - by the time i finished the decorating, it was march. oops!

i used my machine to sew the brooch pin onto the backing, and then the backing onto the hearts. just a zigzag stitch around, holding them together. because i'd decorated right up to the edge on some of them, it was slightly challenging, but i switched to the darning foot, and that helped a whole lot.some of them came out a little wonky from the fabric stretching, but that just gave them character.










they were difficult to photograph, given the variety of textures and surfaces that caught the light.

at this point i decided that not everyone would want to actually wear a pink/red heart brooch, which is perfectly valid. so i decided to make them multitasking hearts, and make them magnets as well.

i sewed little pouches out of lace fabric - it was thin enough that the magnets still worked through it, and sturdy enough to not rip, and slipped magnets into them. i stitched them shut, and pinned them onto the hearts.


the bigger hearts were a bit too heavy though, so i tried using two magnets, as you can see. it worked, but wasn't quite as pretty as i'd have liked! i went and found some larger magnets and redid them, and i liked them much better.

i also had to think about presentation, right? how was i going to mail these? hmmmm...

i pulled out some pink cardstock and cut it into rectangles that would fit inside standard card envelopes. i wrote up a message in word, and printed it out onto my favourite paper - vintage french pink paper with graph lines on it. i cut the pink paper into smaller rectangles, and attached them onto the pink cardstock. i punched holes in the middle to poke the brooch through, so that the hearts could be pinned on.




for the backs, i hauled out some rubber stamps and staZon ink and stamped away.


i stamped my blog address along the sides, a cute "handmade" stamp below the holes, and used a date stamp to stamp the month and year at the bottom.


i also decided that i should explain the magnet, so i wrote up a little message in word and again printed it onto my favourite paper. i cut out the little snippets and ran them through my xyron, then applied them to the backs.

and those were my 2010 valentines.

and despite how much i love the end result, 2011's will be MUCH less time intensive!