Personalized Tape Tutorial

Maybe I have too much time on my hands...but I say I'm just having TOO much fun.  I bought some double-sided tape.  You can find it here.  I was thinking how much fun it would be to have tape with the grandkids' pictures on it to use when I wrapped their Christmas packages.

Here's how you do it.  Find a picture that you want to use and duplicate it (so you don't lose the original one.)

Crop the picture using the Square constraint.

Select the area that you want on the tape.  I used a close-up of her face.

And crop the picture.

Open a Word document and change the Page Setup to landscape.  I did this so I could have longer pieces of photos for the tape I was making.  Change the margins as shown below.

Insert the picture that you cropped.

Format the picture so the layout is set to "Tight..."

and the size is set to .5 inches (or whatever the width of your tape is.)

Drag the tiny picture to the top left corner of the Word document.

Copy the picture and paste the copy beside the first one.

I placed 4 side-by-side and then copied the four together (so I didn't have to copy and paste one at a time.)

Continue until you have a string of pictures all the way across the page.

(I then copied the whole row and pasted another row below the first one, so I could have two rows for my tape.  You could make as many rows as you wanted, of course.)  

Print out the page.

Cut the rows apart.  (I used my rotary cutter.)

Cut a piece of tape the same length as the pictures and place the picture strip on  it.  Be careful because the tape is very sticky and the pictures cannot be moved once they touch the tape.

 And then...

have fun wrapping those presents!

Christmas Tree shirts for the girlies

 From this...

 ...to this.

I used red and green ribbon to make the tree

and put a yellow star button at the top.

Hee Hee

So I've been working on Christmas projects.  Can you tell?

What you can't see is the big pile of ironing  in the background

waiting for someone to rescue it from its wrinkles.

Christmas Table Runner

Tutorial here

Skirts and more skirts

 I made skirts for Zara and Claire for their Horn of Plenty.

Since I forgot to take pictures, I'm using some that Amanda sent from the big day.

 I used three different fall prints, making each one into a ruffled layer.

Zara's had a ruffled underskirt, too.

And this is Sophie's Christmas skirt.   Fun!!

I made each layer out of 4 inch squares and then added an underskirt.

Finished this week

Another bag for church...different style this time.  I like it!

Idea came from a picture on a blog.

For the flower, I traced circles on the wrong side of the doubled fabric.  Then I sewed on the line I traced, leaving an opening to turn.  I trimmed close to the seam, turned it, and ironed it flat.  Then I hand-stitched a gathering stitch using embroidery thread.  I just stitched from one circle to the next and pulled the thread tight.  I  made a few stitches on the back to hold the circles in place better and added a fabric-covered button.  I sewed a piece of felt on the back and attached a pin so the flower could be removed easily (to wash the bag?)

 Inside pocket

Fun detail...the blue piping around the sides and bottom

 I also finished another little doll quilt using a Hideaway charm pack.

 Just happened to find this material for the back that matches so well.

Who knew I was so partial to dots?  Love them!

I've also become a fan of scrappy bindings.  I make them really narrow on these little beauties.  And since I just ordered some new charm packs today, there might be more dolly quilts in my future.

This 'n That

I haven't posted for a long time, but have been doing lots of little sewing projects.

 A few more diapers and purses for the girlies...

 Some clothes for a cabbage patch doll I was given...

 In love with these fun and easy drawstring bags...

 especially with this fun Golden Book fabric.

 Another doll blanket, just knotted and backed with minky

Fun, fun, fun!