Photo Floundering

Our weather is warming up.....finally!  At least today is nice : )  Seeing the bright blue sky today inspired me to take inventory of already embellished flip flops and to make a few more pairs.  My main task of the day though, has been researching how to take pictures of crystals.  I'm not that great at it and am looking for any imput I can get.  Here are some (experimental) photos I took today while trying to apply some suggestions from my intenet research.  My first goal is to not have all the twinkles and glare.

The pictures aren't perfect, but at least the crystals don't have as many twinkles and/or glare. And the colors look true to color now.  That's one small step for capturing crystals.

Sam's Pillow

I have an eight year old who thinks he loves to sew!  He's been interested since he was about 6.  I even have a small sewing machine that I've let him use to sew pillows, bags, and other creations with.  But somehow when I moved my "craft station" from one room to the other, I misplaced the cord for his machine : (   This didn't stop him though, he asked me to teach him to hand sew!  He's certainly an aggressive young man.

The other evening he found me sewing and of course asked if he could sew too.  I had been saying no for about a month now, but I gave him a yes this time.  Sam had his own fabric that he had bought a while back (yes, he loves the fabric store just about as much as I do)  and wanted to make a big pillow with it. 



Sam's "Leather"



 I let him look through my patterns this time.  This is actually the first time I've shown him patterns and let him pin and cut.  Usually he does his own shape and cutting. He chose to make a bolster pillow.



Pinning the pattern

I let him use my machine this time and he did just fine considering it is a lot faster that the small one he usually uses.  He sewed everything but the last round piece.  I helped him with this since it was hard to sew once it was filled with the stuffing.

This project was quick from start to finish.  I had forgotten just how easy it was to make such a nice pillow.

Yellow, yellow everywhere!

I finished Amy's yellow dress a few weeks ago, and I will post pictures as soon as I get around to taking them.  I'm hoping to make little sister something to match or at least the something with yellow in it also.  Last night I had "yellow" on my mind and decided to make a few different hair accessories in that color.  Here is what I came up with:

I made a few others that I gave away already so I didn't get pictures of those.  A few more ideas were flying around my head, but my stock of yellow ribbon is now depleted.  Oh well, I guess I have to go to the fabric store and restock  : )  

My Pillow Case Dress

I've seen many pictures for pillow case dresses and have always wanted to try to make one.  They seemed really simple to make so last night I finally got a chance to make one.  They are really easy to make! And fun!  You can do all sorts of things to dress them up.  I had such a hard time deciding which ribbons to use to dress this one up.  I finally decided on the lavender ribbon for the ties and a trim at the bottom.  I have pretty sequins to put on this dress too, or should I make some cute bows...........................oh well, I'll decide later!

Wedge Flip Flops w/ Swarovski Flowers

One of the first pair of flip flops I "decorated" was for a friend of mine as a birthday present.  I used an Old Navy Wedge and made flowers out of AB Crystals with a rose colored center.  I divided the flowers with blue zircon crystals which to me actually look more green than blue in color.  I thought the color combination turned out very nice.  Her flip flops turned out to be too uncomfortable for her to wear for long periods of time so she asked me to redo her flip flops on a more comfortable shoe.  This is a Reed Brand Flip Flop which is much more comfortable.  Don't get me wrong, there are certain Old Navy flip flops that are very comfortable and I still use them for embellishing, but this particular wedge just wasn't that comfortable even for me.  This is how they turned out:

I'm not sure yet how to get close ups of crystals with my camera and not get lots of "twinkles" in the picture.  So this close up is as close a I could get without them. :)  Hopefully you can get an idea of the patten I used.

Her Yellow Dress

My lovely daughter recently picked out some fabric to make a dress.  She picked out a light yellow fabric.
This seemed a little out of character for her (to me anyway) so before we had the fabric cut I asked her if she was sure she would wear it once it was made........................She really likes it!

I let her pick out a pattern and will let her (try to let her) do most of the sewing on it.  She wants to sew her own dress but I know it will be hard for me to not want to "just do this part," or "just help you with this section." She is going to make the green dress that is shown-without sleeves.  Sleeveless dresses seem to be

her favorite no matter what the season is.  We'll post the dress when we she has it finished. : )

Getting Ready for the Fair

 

We're getting ready for the next JBF sale in a couple of weeks.  This is a big sale at the fair grounds here in town, where people sell their childrens and maternity items. Here are a few items that I've made to contribute to this ever growing event: