iLove Jelly Beans

My 12 year old has a few dance classmates that she wanted to give valentines to so we made these rock candy valentines from Family Fun. Instead of conversation hearts (which seem to be made in China now) we got small boxes of Jelly Belly jelly beans and instead of the peanut butter cups we used chocolate kisses. Also we taped the cord to the bottom because that's where the headphone jack on my iPod touch is.


cardstock is from Stampin Up and the labels are from the Family Fun website.

Another pincushion

So I'm in a sewing mood lately. I go through these moods. For a while I'll be in a mood to make cards or scrapbook and right now the mood is sewing. To celebrate I went and spent way too much money at the local quilt shop today...but they were having a sale. So that makes it okay. So anyway my new cupcake pincushion got filled up with pins pretty quickly and I realized I may need more than one. Before this I just put all my pins in an empty butter tub and would poke my fingers getting them out. It is convenient to just throw the pins in, but like I said, getting them out is another story. I liked using a real pincushion so well I decided I better make another. I saw this one in a Quilts and More magazine a couple of years ago. It's also online now-you can see it here. Very easy to make the actual fabric part but the ribbon was a little bit of a bear because I didn't have a proper doll needle and the buttons were tricky because they're so tight against the fabric. But it came out pretty darn cute, I think. And it holds pins, which is what's really important.

TV Tray-repurposed

I saw this post at the Oh Fransson website the other day and I just knew I had to do this. My room is so full that I can't fit a real ironing board in there (which is a shame because I have a cool antique one) so I have always had to go through two rooms to get to the room with my ironing board in it. This was such a pain for when I just needed to quickly press a seam or two on a small piece. So I made this to keep next to my desk and I can just fold it up when I'm not using it. I will still use my big board for big stuff but for the times I just need to iron seams in a single block this should be perfect. The only things I did differently: I used two layers of insul-bright thermal batting (which I had leftover from when I covered my big ironing board), no batting, and a layer of canvas under the fabric. Also instead of stapling the top fabric on, I stitched a casing and put elastic in so that I can take it off to wash or change it. I made sure it was pretty tight but I'm not worried that it's not super tight since it'll only be for little things. I did get the same exact tv tray-it was still $9.99 at Walgreen's. I apologize for the weird reflections (I used flash) and the hideous carpet (someday...).