Pearl Charm Bracelet

Hello!

Done with the summer festival that I work for and back in town from a trip to San Diego!

It's time to get back to crafting and blogging about it.

The latest project I did took me all of an hour (including the trip to the craft store... I ran out of headpins!) and was inspired by Honestly... WTF's most recent DIY. Their goal was to teach people how to wire wrap to make the charms for the bracelet. The DIY is easy to follow and has good pictures.

Here's Honestly... WTF's how to:
DIY Charm Bracelet

And here's my version of their bracelet.

My bracelet uses glass pearls from my bead stash, brass bead caps, brass headpins, and brass chain. I love how it turned out!

Happy crafting!

Camille

Christmas in July

I've been steadily working on these Magazine Christmas Trees, originally seen on Martha Stewart. It's a great project to do while watching a movie or tv. I also glittered some vintage Santa images from The Graphics Fairy, a great resource for vintage images.

I'm at an impasse as to whether to leave the trees plain or sprinkle them with glitter like Martha did. Either way, I think they'll be a great addition to my mantle this year.

Thank you to my husband, Tony, for taking the pictures.

Camille

Absentee blogger

I've been absent from blog land for a while because I started a new part time job! I'm working for a non profit summer festival and it takes what I love, event planning, and incorporates it into a great job.

In craftland I'm already thinking towards summer - 4th of July, camping, and I'm even thinking Christmas. I know it's only May but I know myself and I know if I don't start planning on Christmas gifts, favors, and decorations that I will lose all track of time and not do a thing. So, I think sometime in July I will start posting some Christmas items.

In the meantime, I will post in the next week or so what my husband and I designed for my friend's baseball themed baby shower. Lots of fun paper crafts!

Toodles,

Camille

Vintage Easter Lambs

I am hosting Easter luncheon this year and it will be an intimate gathering of four so I decided I want to decorate the table and dress up the place settings. Usually I have too many people to do this or run out of time, so I'm really excited I'm already done with this and I'm looking for other crafts to add to the table. This brown paper bag basket is also calling my name. :D

I visit The Graphics Fairy blog everyday to check out what new clip art is posted. This lamb was too cute to pass up and I thought I'd finally use some of my Martha Stewart glitter to embellish the collar and bell.

Here is one of the finished products ready to grace the table. If you are interested in doing something similar, check out The Graphics Fairy's Easter section and Gold Shoe Girl to see how she embellished a couple different Easter graphics.

Happy Crafting!

Camille

Singer Sewing Manual 1949

According to the Singer Sewing Manual, I'd never sew.

Friendship Bracelets

As many of us did, I used to make friendship bracelets out of floss and during my hippie stage, hemp. Everyday I visit the blog Honestly WTF and check out if they have any new DIYs. They usually post at least one per week. Last summer they posted quite a few bracelet tutorials including making chevron friendship bracelets, which I have never done. I always did the plain jane versions with all the colors in a row.

Here's the link to the tutorial and my first attempt at a chevron style friendship bracelet. I was going for nautical but it looks more patriotic and I think I should have used more than 6 strands of floss.

-Camille

Cutting hi-jinks

I have been remiss in posting this past week. I've been busy cutting all of my fabrics for the Nature's Gift quilt. So many 2-7/8 squares for the pinwheels!

As a beginning quilter I also got a little overwhelmed and confused by how much yardage I was supposed to get. 2 out of the 16 fabrics I purchased were short. Needless to say I went back to the store to get more fabric. Lesson learned about being more organized next time, especially when a quilt contains so many fabrics.

Also, as a beginner/advanced beginner quilter I didn't have one of the rulers I need to finish cutting one fabric. I think my next investment will be a square ruler.

Until next time!
-Camille

Fabrics for Nature's Gift

Getting to work on my first quilt of the year, Nature's Gift. The quilt was originally done in holiday fabrics but I've decided on brighter colors.

Here are my fabric choices for the quilt. 

Now, let the cutting begin!

Camille

25 Clever Ideas to Make Life Easier

I came across this blog post on another blog I read on a regular basis. Most of the tips are very useful and I've heard of a couple before. My favorites are hulling strawberries & storing linens for a neat linen closet.

Thank you Proper Prim for posting these tips.

Camille

Quilt Projects 2012

Well, it's almost the end of February and I'm just now writing about what quilt projects I'm going to work on in 2012. Originally I committed myself to make 5 quilts this year, spacing out the cost and giving myself enough time to work on each, but I think I've committed myself to at least 2-3 more. However many I would like to make, I want to make at least the original 5. Any additional quilts made will just be a bonus.

I will try to blog about the fabric and steps of each quilt. I must confess that half the time I get excited and power through stuff without slowing down to take any pictures of what I'm doing.

Here is the list of the five projects I have planned for the year:

Quilt 1: A simple square & pinwheel design called Nature's Gift from Deb Strain for Moda. This quilt is for me and will be in bright, cheery fabrics (red, aqua, yellow, green, pink). Trying to brighten up my atmosphere during all the dreary Oregon rainy season.

Quilt 2: A wedding/anniversary quilt for friends. Have yet to pick the pattern but I'm loving Swoon here & here.

Quilt 3: A Triple Irish Chain bed quilt for my husband's paternal grandmother. It will be done in 30's reproduction fabric. I'm basing it off this Triple Irish Chain on the Moda Bake Shop blog. I'm still not sold on the red flower with yellow centers in the quilt but I have yet to come up with a different color combo.

Quilts 4 & 5: Throw quilts for my husband's maternal grandparents. I haven't picked a pattern or colors/fabrics for these yet.

Other quilts on my mind: A double wedding ring table runner (taking a class on the technique), a quick and easy quilt done in the local university's colors, and something for a 5 year old boy.

That's all for today!

-Camille