Teacher Gifts

Merry 'almost' Christmas! Today I am sharing with you my super cute zippered pouches that my kids gave their teachers. I have to say I am hooked on making these. They are so quick and easy and turn out great!!

This cute polka dot one I was a little bit frustrated with. I accidentally sewed the fabric I wanted to use on the outside as the lining. But it is still cute and gives the lining a nice surprise. I think because I was using an invisible zipper it threw me off.

Next is my Freshly Squeezed bag. I loved this fabric from the day it came out, and when I was going through my scraps I thought it would be perfect. And I even had a green zipper that went so well with it!

And for the inside I have this fun dot print.

And lastly is this super cute red and turquoise pouch. I really wanted to keep this one, but I told myself no. I might be making one for me in the near future. There is just something about those two colors that I love. Well really I just love anything turquoise!

I used a simple turquoise for the lining. And I used some of the labels I made on the inside!

I even got a little bit fancy on the wrapping. I shared this picture on Instagram. I used simple gold tissue paper and some ribbon and then a monogram letter I cut with the cricut. It added just the perfect touch!

And the pouches were a hit! My kids teachers could not believe that I made these. One of my boys even told his teacher that he thought I bought it! hahaha!

Now we are on the countdown, my kids are going through the house singing "there is only 2 days till Christmas" I think they might get sent outside here soon.

Enjoy!

Christmas Tree Runner

Today I have a special treat for you! This super cute Christmas Tree Table runner. I am still trying to decide if I will keep this or sell it. Decisions, decisions!! And yes my table is super glossy!

I got the idea from Pinterest, of course! I didn't really need a pattern, I just cut some trees out of green and then the trunk out of brown. I appliqued them onto cream and sewed the red strip around it. Then it sat in my sewing room for a couple of months. We all get projects like that right?!

But once December hit, I busted it out again and added the final cream border and then quilted it up. I absolutely loved quilting this - I think that I could machine quilt all day long! I did pebbles under the trees - kind of like rocks, and then swirls in the middle, with lines on the outside. Simple but perfect!

I think I have mastered the swirls, but those pebbles were a little bit tricky at first, but overall I really like how it turned out!

And all beautiful with my ornament lantern in the middle of it.

I even love the back. Oh, and I quilted straight lines on the trees to just give them a little something extra. I wanted the straight lines to offset all the swirls and pebbles.

And isn't it just beautiful?! Really I do love this, but I don't have a need for it so I will probably list it in my Etsy shop. That is if I get any free time before Christmas!

I hope that you are all enjoying this season, I am off to bake some more cookies for my kids school parties tomorrow!

Enjoy!

DIY Fabric Labels

This past week things were crazy at my house. But Friday we found a new car, so hopefully things can be a little bit less crazy here. But with it being so close to Christmas, I am not sure! The other day while I was making up my zippered pouches for my kids teachers I had a great idea that I should put some labels in them! I even had this idea while there was still time to put them in without unpicking anything! That is pretty good right there!

But I browsed Pinterest looking for some good tutorials. I read a bunch, but just ended up kind of making up my own!

I took some freezer paper and ironed it to my fabric. Then I trimmed it down to 8.5x11, so that I could fit it in the printer. I wasn't terribly worried about how fancy it looked because I knew that I could iron it out later.

Then I designed my labels in photoshop and ran it through the printer. One worked beautifully and I was so excited that I ran another one through.

It was not as good - the wrinkles did prove to give me a little bit extra ink and I had to kind of feed it through the printer. But it still worked, I think that I will worry about the wrinkles next time and try to get a nice smooth one.

Then I ironed over the printing to help set the ink. I have not washed any of this yet so I do not know if they are washable or not.

I then cut apart the ones that I needed and sewed them with a zig zag stitch to the inside of my pouches and voila! They look great! And so much more professional now!

I've got these all finished up now, I shared a picture on Instagram the other day. Maybe I'll get a post written about them before I wrap them up!

One more thing I was able to cross off my list! I hope that you are all enjoying this wonderful time of year!

Enjoy!

Super Hero Quilt - Finished!!

My friend asked me the other day when I was going to blog about my finished super hero quilt, and it was then that I realized that I never shared this finished quilt with you. You have seen all of the pieces as they have been coming together, but not the finished quilt.

My boy loves this quilt and that makes me love it that much more! Here it is on his bed, he is on the bottom bunk, which does not take very good pictures so I apologize about that. You can kind of see some of the super hero symbols that I sewed into the blue triangles, but you can read more about them back here.

The triangles are super big, which is perfect for him because he loves to look at the fabric and point things out that he sees. (Some of this super hero fabric would be good for an I-spy quilt!)

Here is the binding and background fabric. I love the red stripe against the bright blue. I used minky for the back, as per my sons request. Or button fabric as my kids like to call it.

I quilted this with just straight lines along the print borders and then a triangle arc on the print triangle. I wanted to keep it simple and I think this did the trick. You can tell I forgot about this - I even had all my photos taken back when it was nice outside and you could see the grass. Now it is negative 20 and the grass will not be seen for another 5 months.

And another picture:

Here you can see the quilting and the backing.

And all rolled up with that beautiful stripe showing!

I hope that you all are enjoying this Christmas season and staying warm!

Enjoy!

Christmas Shopping - DONE!

 This past week I finished all of my Christmas shopping! It is glorious! I did most of it online this year because I live way too far away from any stores and when ever I go to them I always have a couple of kids with me. Now I just have to wait for all of them to show up! And I get to enjoy the rest of the holiday season without worrying about who still needs what!

This year I actually made our presents look cute! Instead of using a sharpie and just writing on them to/from I used my cricut and cut out letters for each of my kids, then taped that letter on the front of their package.

I love how simple and clean it looks. And notice that backwards J? My littlest was helping my husband wrap my present and he was in charge of taping the J on. He was so excited to help that My husband just let him do it his way!

I hope that you are all enjoying this wonderful holiday season!

Enjoy!

Pokemon Quilt

I got my Pokemon Quilt all finished this week! And I got it washed and wrapped up and now it is sitting under the tree waiting until Christmas!

I love how this turned out. There is just enough Pokemon characters to make it a Pokemon quilt, but not too many that it can grow with my boy. Pokemon is not my favorite thing, so this gift is a huge deal - I think he has been asking for it for a couple of years now!

I stuck with bright colors to go with all the bright characters in Pokemon. I backed it with minky fabric because that seems to be the favorite of all my kids right now - and who doesn't love a nice soft warm quilt backing!? I used the same red and white stripe for the binding that I used on my super hero quilt.

I quilted it with straight lines, and I like how simple and nice it looks. It ended up being just larger than twin size.

My Pokemon fabric only gave me a couple of different characters to use, so we used all of them twice!

Now I am off to finished up some other Christmas presents and house cleaning because today our temperatures are supposed to make it to 3!! Too cold to go outside!

Enjoy!

Sharing over at Quilt story, Freshly Pieced, Crazy Mom Quilts, Confessions of a fabric addict, and I have to say.

Easy Zippered Pouch

I am in love with this pouch!! This has literally been sitting on my counter since this past weekend so that I could look at it! For those of you who follow me on Instagram, you saw my picture of it this weekend. Today I have some more pictures for you.

First off I have to say how easy this was! I got the tutorial from V&CO she is so talented and I love her simplistic style.

I picked up a fat quarter of this awesome keep calm fabric a month or so ago from my local quilt shop, and I pulled the turquoise out of my stash. I went and bought a specific zipper for this! I just love the way that the turquoise just pops off the black and white fabric!

Here is the inside - nothing fancy. I sewed the bottom seam with my machine because I am not a huge fan of hand sewing!

I have already cut out three more of these in various colors for my kids to give their teachers for Christmas this year! They are just a perfect size for almost anything. I am thinking I should make a bunch and clean off my sewing table!

I am hoping to get some more sewn on the other ones today, but I have cleaning to do and unfortunately car shopping!

Enjoy!