More Embroidered gifts

 I embroidered this sweat jacket for our receptionist at work for Christmas.  She rides a purple Harley, so I thought this would be great for her to wear.  I haven't seen a whole lot of purple Harley logos, and I love that you can substitute colors when you're embroidering to make a really personal gift.

This is a close up of the embroidered logo.  I really love how it turned out.  I hope she'll like it too!

Embroidery designs

 I've been slowly getting back into embroidering.  I don't have the time to do much after I get of work most days because we're working longer hours.  So I've decided to take more me time to do my crafty stuff again, especially before Christmas.  Here are a few things I've stitched out.  I've got to actually stitch them out on the final products, but just wanted to give you all a look as to how they were turning out.

The CAL logo is for a co-worker.  I found this online, and will stitch it out on a sweatshirt.  The colors aren't quite right yet, the yellow isn't the right color yellow, so I'll be off to the sewing store tomorrow or the next day.  Turned out not so bad though, I do have to tweek the settings because the bobbin thread showed through in a couple of spots.

 My sister-in-law works for a company called D.Hill Trucking, so I thought I'd try a little applique for her, I still need to practice a bit on the applique part. I  finally bought the fancy pair of applique scissors because they were on sale at JoAnn's. They work really well.  I just have to learn how to cut closer to the stitches so the fabric doesn't show through.

Lastly, is the hand towel for the Louisiana Family members.  Lately I've seen this saying all over, It's a Melanie Thing, it's a Cheryl thing.  So when I saw the Louisiana thing saying, I iknew I had to make those for the family.  I had a Louisiana State Applique that I found on Etsy at Rouge Embroidery.  I think it came out really cute.

I've got a ton more things to stitch out tomorrow.  Will post again with finished projects soon!

Advent Calender

 A friend at work asked me to help her find an advent calendar this year for her two grandkids.  She didn't want what she called one of those "Hokey Advent Calenders that you buy at (Enter Generic store name here), where they have chocolate inside, but they all fall down before you can open the doors, and you have to try to get them out of the bottom of the box.  I want a cool one."

Yes, she actually said that more or less.  LOL

I'm thinking, I can make this:

Then I'm thinking, I have a week, and I have to find all the stuff to put in the box too.  So I found this on pinterest:

How easy can this be?  I mean I have the cardstock, I can get this printed, and then cut out all the boxes.  How hard can that be?  Of course, it wasn't hard at all. With all the paper tools that I have, it was easy to cut the boxes, score the fold lines, then use the sticky back tape to tape all the boxes.

And the great part about this, when they've opened a box, you turn the box around, and it's the same drawing, just without the number.  And even better yet, we can save these till next year and just refill them!! 

I think the best part about doing this was the shopping for all the little things to go in the box. I had to alternate between something for a boy and a girl.  It wasn't hard to find little things to put inside.  I went to Talbot's Toyland in San Mateo for some of the little toys and candy.  And also to Diddams.  I had so much stuff, I can now make stocking stuffers! 

This totally has gotten me into the mood to get creative again.  Will be in the embroidering mood in the next couple of weeks.  I'll keep you posted as to what I've created next!