Charmless Holiday Glasses

I love wine glass charms, but more often than not, when I am at a party they're usually not provided so I'm left to cling onto my glass all night for fear of someone else grabbing my drink and drinking from it. Not that anyone is just standing by waiting to get their hands on my glass for a shot of my cooties.

So I decided to take this problem out of the hands of my wonderful friend who will be receiving these pretty glasses for Christmas. 

I cut out some designs on Oracal vinyl using my Silhouette Cameo.

Then I carefully placed them on inexpensive, but pretty glasses that I purchased. I placed the snowflake on one side and my friend's last initial on the opposite side, then I put a thick layer of etching cream on the stencil.

I left the etching cream on for five minutes, rinsed the etching cream completely off, and whala! Cute personalized glasses with no need for a charms. 

Obviously designs aren't limited to winter themes, nor do they have to be cut with a die cutting machine. If you're looking for a inexpensive, but charming gift that you can personalize, glass etching can be a fun idea. Oh and for the non-alcholic beverage drinkers, these would make great water glasses.

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Saved by Scraps

I was so excited this morning as I had scored these inexpensive sheets and I was going to embroider some Christmas designs to make holiday duvet covers for my girls.

So I set my machine to work while I did chores and it did just that. Only it was an "Epic Failure" as my girls would say. Because I am new to my machine, I didn't factor in shifting. My machine did what it was supposed to and I failed to secure the  parts of the sheet that weren't getting embroidered, so it caught some of it and embroidered onto itself. I know that explanation made no sense so just look at the picture please.

The great thing about $3.99 sheets, is that I wasn't too upset about having to cut it up. So I decided to make lemonade out of the situation and dug out my scrap fabric and an extra pillow form I just happened to have on hand.

And I made a pillow cover.

After it was all said and done, I realized that I probably shouldn't have used a couple of the fabric choices, but really I'm pleased with the results and so are my girls. It will go in their room to go with their holiday duvets, if I ever get them done. 

Another successful saved by scraps moment! 

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Mommy by Day Crafter by Night's Ta-Da Tuesday Link Party #12

Everything Under the Moon's Bedazzle Me Monday Linky Party #7

Mommy by Day Crafter by Night Ta-Da Tuesday Link Party #12

Sew Much Fun

For my birthday my husband and kids gave me an awesome new embroidery machine.  So I immediately put it to use and made a quilt for my Linus baby. I used a charm pack she chose from Wal-Mart. . . BIG MISTAKE!  I will stick with Moda from now on. Each square was so off. Unfortunately I didn't realize it until I was about half way through with the quilt and ready to piece my rows together. 

I was quite discouraged and the perfectionist in me wanted to abandon the project, but I had my baby asking me every few minutes if her new blankie was done yet. I not only failed to use a pattern, but I ended up having to improvise on all my measurements because of those horrible cheapie charm squares. It's quite possibly the sloppiest job I've ever done, but I kept telling myself to be okay with that fact. It was my first attempt at actually using the binding method. I will say that I proudly cut my binding, sewed it together to form a long enough strip to go around the entire quilt, and hand stitched it to the quilt. It's perfectly imperfect and I love it.  I'm also totally in love with the happy colors.

Oh and I've got a few other projects going.

So stay tuned to see what these are going to be!