Urban Threads

 

One of my favorite sites to purchase machine embroidery designs is from Urban Threads.  I just love their designs, and there are so many different types of patterns.  Cute ones like the panda above, goth, steampunk, dragons, ninjas, fairies, monsters, and so much more!

One of my favorites is her breast cancer one.

 

 I have this on a sweat jacket, and I get so many compliments on this one.  I did change her hair to be black like mine, and for her complexion to be a tad more tan so she'd look a little more asian.  :)

If you're an embroiderer, check out her site, she also has some really great projects on it as well!

Raiders embroidery and Bullet Casing Jewelry

Anyone who knows me knows how much of a Raiders fan I am not.  My family has always been a big SF 49er family, that I think they would disown me if I ever thought to become a Raiders fan.  But one of my best friends from high school is a big Raiders fan, so I thought I'd make her a Raiders Scarf.

 The emblem I found online, and it was pretty big.  But it was the right size for the scarf.  I think it turned out pretty cool.

The scarf is a fleece scarf, so it was really easy to embroider.  I've learned to use tear away stabilizer, I really love the stuff, our JoAnn's stopped carrying it, so I'll have to search around for another source.

 

I also found some really cool teardrop shaped beads from my flea market bead seller lady, and they fit perfectly on the bullet casings that I'm turning into jewelry.  I did one of each color to see how they would look, now will have to either make the other side or use those as charms.  I really like how they turned out.

Laura's Baby Shower

 Yesterday was Laura's baby shower, and it was so much fun!  My friend Debi made so many cool and creative things for the shower!

 We were welcomed at the front door by the coolest Stork that Debi made herself out of paper mache.  I love how it turned out with the baby diapers!

I noticed on the table that she had a baby sticking out of a bowl of candies.  I thought that was so clever!! 

 One of the games we played was to decorate a bib for the baby, the best one would win a prize.  Course I had to make the Captain America one.  LOL

Just love all the cupcakes and cake pops!  Delicious and cute!!

 

I made Jackson this banner from Big Dreams Embroidery . I just love how easy they are to make and how nice they turn out.  I need to make them in all the different shapes and sizes now. :)

I just love how everything turned out!  Congratulations to TJ and Laura!!

Bangle storage

 It's been awhile since I've posted.  And they've changed the way you post on blogger now.  Interesting.  Love the way you can choose multiple photos at once, just took a bit to figure out how to post them.  LOL

I've also figured a way to store all of my bangle bracelets that I just LOVE.  Found some really great bangles at Forever 21 for $1.80.  Who knew that they had such great jewelry for really cheap.  Ok, well, all you teens and tweens out there knew, my nieces, etc.  But I had no clue.  So I was very excited to find them, but when I brought them home, I realized I had no where to put them.

I was thinking I could go to Bed Bath and Beyond and maybe get a paper towel holder.  Then I looked over and saw my almost empty CD case.  Hmmm, that would work!  So now I have storage for my bracelets, and it's covered so I don't have to worry about dust.  And I can stack multiples!  I'm so excited!!  

 I just now have to use up more CD's so I can use the cases.  :)

 Last night we had yummy Carne Asada!  Phil's Carne Asada is my favorite!  He got the recipe from an old friend of ours who's family used to make it for our BBQ's at a company I used to work for.  We'd look forward to these BBQ's every year cause of the meat!  And now we make it at home.  One of the ingredients is worcestershire sauce.  And at Safeway, they carry a thick worcestershire sauce.  And that made the carne asada even better!! Hmm, think I need to have some for lunch.

And it's Cherry blossom time.  I just love the cherry blossoms!  Our street is lined with Cherry Blossom trees.  And when the petals fall it looks so much like a blanket of pink snow. :)

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

8th Street Surf

One of my co-workers has designed these really cool surf shirts. Love the designs.

These are two of my favorites. Check out his site at: http://8thstreetsurf.bigcartel.com/

Being a little more creative

After a non-creative January and February, I'm getting back into the swing of things thanks to one of the girls on our tournament softball team. She asked if I'd help them out with some embroidery for her high school team. Here are a few ideas that I came up with using a pawprint from embroiderydesigns.com and script font.

The top one is my favorite.
But I like this one too. We're still tweaking the design, I think we're going with this:

I'm so excited that I finally figured out how to outline text. Since I've been embroidering, it's been helping more of my creative juices flowing.

We've been looking at different ideas on etsy, and came across bullet casing jewelry. What's cool about it is that they use spent casings. Kind of recycling if you think about it. And luckily my bf had some that he didn't need anymore, so I decided to make some of my own.



These are some of the ones I came up with. I have more to play with, so I'll be doing a lot of playing, it's so good to be back in the swing of things!!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! This holiday season just flew by too quickly for me, with blankets that I've been embroidering for my gifts to people and for other people's gifts, I've been a bit too busy to post. Thankfully the season is over and I can get back to doing other things.

Some of the things I've been making lately are earrings. I just love making jewelry, and it's been fun making earrings. I love long dangly earrings, so of course those are what I've been making.

I've bought a lot of fun low priced earrings that I know I can add beads to. Like the above pair of earrings I found at Target for $5.99. I added some glass beads I found at the flea market. The above is the before and after.

These two earrings (the other halves aren't in the photo) I got at Old Navy for $2.99 for both pair on sale. I really like the jewelry that Old Navy has been carrying lately.

But I thought I'd add a few more beads to the earrings to make them a bit longer. And I like the look.

These are a pair that I gave to one of my co-workers. I just love them and will definitely have to make a pair for myself.

I'll post a bit more as I make more. Sorry to have been away for so long!

Trip to Reno

We spent this weekend up in Reno. The Big Reno Show was this weekend, so we wanted to go check it out with a few other outdoors stores. Phil's daughter Ashley and her boyfriend Alex met us up in Reno, and we had a great time all together.

While driving up, we saw a ton of snow. Luckily it wasn't snowing during the drive, but it was really pretty to see the snow on the mountains.

We stopped for breakfast at Jax at the Tracks. We saw them on Diners Drive-ins and Drives awhile ago, and went to visit them for the first time on our last trip to Tahoe. Their breakfasts are amazing! I had the Corned Beef Hash, which was the most delicious ever! And they also serve it with toast and homemade strawberry jam. Oh yum!! I am not a fan of most strawberry jams cause they just taste like feet. LOL But this one was the yummiest ever. I think they need to bottle it and sell it!

Phil had Eggs Benedict. I'm not into the eggs, but it looked really yummy!

If you have a chance, Jax is a MUST stop!

Raining Hope & Kanzashi flowers.

My sister has a charity called Raining Hope that helps out families in need in Uganda. They had a charity event at Macy's last weekend, and I made some of the Kanzashi flowers for them to use as gifts to those who donated.
I was able to make some into hair pins and to pins. They came out pretty cool.

They're also having an Avon event through the internet at Tina Shadowen's Avon site. If that link doesn't work, you can also get to the event through Tina's Avon site link to the right.

Kanzashi Flowers

I've seen the templates for the Kanzashi Flowers on different sewing websites, so when I saw them in Beverly's when we were in Modesto, I knew I needed to have them. They said they were easy to use, and they weren't kidding.
You pretty much place a piece of material on the template, then close it. Cut around the template, then with a needle and thread, you follow the numbers. Easy peasy. Once you get to the last spot, you'll undo the template, and pull on the thread. This gathers the material into a petal.
Mine are all the smaller templates. I should have bought them all, but I thought that of course I'd not use them. Boy, was I wrong. I can see using these with some machine embroidery to make different gifts.

We'll see what types of things we can create from these!!

Heart chain necklace

My sister-in-law wanted me to update this heart chain that she found at the bead store. She loves the chain but thought it looked a little too plain. So she purchased some crystals and asked to see what I could do with it. And this is what I came up with.
Since the beads she purchased were the same size, I thought I'd add the larger pink glass beads to it because the crystal beads looked a bit too small.
And she had some beads left over, so of course we needed to make her matching earrings.

I hope she likes it.

Giants and A's Earrings

A few years ago I made some Giants earrings for my cousin using Giants earrings she had from her store. They were just the Giants logo with the earring wires. They were pretty popular, so I decided I wanted to make another set. But I couldn't find the earrings I quite wanted to use.

So, while at the flea market this month, I found these:
I thought to myself, man, those just aren't cute, and what is up with the big gold bars and the hoops? But then I had a lightbulb moment. I didn't care what parts they were on, I just wanted the Giants/A's logo. So I bought them. And turned them into these:


Much better! I love the crystal beads way better than the gold bar and hoop. Now I have a couple of pair of great big hoops that I'll figure out how to incorporate into another project. These are gonna make great Christmas gifts! ;)

Oakland A's

Now that Baseball season is over, I'm finally getting around to posting my A's pics. LOL We actually went to a game a couple of weeks ago, and Phil went with us! He hasn't been to a game in years, so it was great that Ashley took him for his birthday. (although we didn't get around to going till now).

Here's Phil with his dapper hat. ;)

This photo I took right when the player (who I can't remember who it was) hit the first home run of the game! It was really exciting. There were 4 home runs that night by the A's, and they actually won against the Tigers.

Yes, I'm both an A's and Giants fan. :) I loved the movie Moneyball. It was great seeing what happens behind the scenes.

Another couple of pair...

And here are a couple of other pair I worked on. Guess I was in a green mood today. :) I had the Asian coin beads for awhile, and thought this would be a good use for them.

I just love these large green crystal beads. You can't see the sparkle from the photo, but they're really sparkly!

New Pliers and earrings

One of my favorite places to find tools is at the Gun show. Yes, the gun show. There are dealers who sell different pliers, dental tools, drills, etc that I love to look through to find something that I can use for some of the various crafts that I make.

One of the best finds ever were these pair of pliers:

They are part round nosed and part curvy. I haven't seen these before and thought they would work well for wire wrapping jewelry.

And they are fast becoming my favorite pair of pliers. They make wire wrapping beads so fast and easy! Why didn't I think to invent these!! Now my loops are coming out evenly.

So I made some earrings, the above pair are purple and clear. It's hard to tell from the photograph.
I love these Celtic heart ones. I have to find more of the Celtic heart beads so that I can make these for other people.

I will have to post more of the ones I've made so you can see.