Work-in-Progress Wednesday: Paper Medallions and such

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Juliet Tiu

Hi friends. My blogging sort of starts to take a backseat this time of year. Sorry. So you know it’s the end of the school year and Spring if you find yourself trying to enjoy the outdoors, and at the same time torn because you have chores, errands, teacher gifts to (buy, make, come-up-with, assist with).

I do so love this season though – when the leaves are all popping yellow-green, and like, overnight even! This is also the one week in the year that I think the front of our house looks the loveliest. It’s tough choice – enjoy the weather because we have so few perfect days, or work? I just keep trying to do both.

Current projects I’m juggling

Paper medallions for lapel pins, except that the pin part didn’t work as well as I wanted. I’m thinking pop dots (sticky dots) might suffice. It’s only going on top of regular name badges for this brunch I’m going to on Sunday. Lots of paper medallion tutorials around the internet like the one I used from How About Orange. It’s a great way to use up some paper scraps.

My mushroom print quilt strips in progress too. The inspiration for this is from The Cottage Home’s review of “Quilts from the House of Tula Pink” and the Totally Tubular Stacked Block Quilt.

Behind all this craftiness, I have a penchant for business development. Not so much running my own business (that’s still a dream!) but I help out at our church as a publicity chair – so, for those of you who follow the Facebook page, you’ve had a sighting of my other writing.

(You might ask, when do I sleep? I get anywhere between 5-7 hours of sleep.)

Have a great rest of your week! Follow me on Instagram since I might not be writing so much… but I’m always up to something. 🙂

Happy MAY!!

Making A Memory Pillow

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Juliet Tiu

… or you could call it a Keepsake Pillow.

Years ago, I wanted to make a memory quilt with prayers and well-wishes for my aunt and uncle. At the time, my uncle was battling an illness. Thankfully, he recovered – and then the project lay in my “to-do” pile. Fast forward to this year. We celebrated his 60th birthday. (Time has been very good to him. He stays active, keeps good company, and stays youthful with his 20-something-year-old kids.)

I resurrected the gift idea. You know, something thoughtful… but I downsized it to something manageable, like a pillow. A pillow cover, I could do; this time I added a zipper instead of doing an envelope enclosure.

Materials used: 20 in. square pillow form, fabric, iron-on sheets for an ink-jet printer, 22 in. all-purpose zipper

Wish I could say I documented all the steps, but this was really a free-flow, stream of consciousness project. No definite measurements, but I could probably go back and figure it out. Should I?

The front and back of the pillow cover are giant quilt squares. 20-1/2” square, to be exact. Something so heartfelt about handwriting on fabric. And, then to pair it with printed text… Kinda wonky, kinda cool. I worked out our family and friends’ names on wordle.net, and while I love color, I just ran out of colored ink for our printer. So black and white, it was.

(This zipper tutorial was really helpful.)

Hooray, it worked!

This is why you unzip before sewing

Another thoughtful project completed. On to the next one…

Mugshot Monday (on Wednesday): The Going-Ons

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Juliet Tiu

Surprise visit from my sis-in-law, birthday project, works-in-progress… no wonder I missed posting on Monday! Well, not totally. I did post my mugshot on Instagram. But here’s an “outtake”.

Here I have a mug of Café Maté from our favorite tea shop … a delicious alternative to coffee, lovely with milk. Almost enough to wake me up from the Daylight Savings stupor. What it as bad for everyone else? Awful.

Speaking of TeaLula, we did the Harlem Shake! Crazy tea shop friends.

So, what’s been churning in the craft room these days?

Here’s the finished nursery art project for my niece. I went with a monkey theme after the burp cloths I made for her, and she just loves her monkey “binky”. My daughter made the quilled bananas, and I found the little bugs on sale at Michael’s. I added some bling (what girl doesn’t like bling?) and buttons to add some interest. Want a closer look? I posted a picture at the Facebook page.
A Chicago Bulls fan, quilt in progress, read on!

DIY Water Carafe from Wine Bottle

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Juliet Tiu

What I thought was just a week or two has turned into a month! I promised a tutorial on this, um, a month ago? Sorry about that. To quote the great Alan Parsons Project, “Time keeps on slippin’ (slippin’) into the future…”

I wanted to make some cool upcycled (recycled) wine bottle glasses for some gifts. So I started ~~hoarding~~ collecting our wine bottles specifically for the project. After lots of You Tube viewing on cutting wine bottles, and a failure to purchase or make a glass bottle cutter, I decided to switch gears and try something else… etched glass.
Continue reading…

Crafting for a Cause: CuddLeS for Claudia

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Juliet Tiu

(I appreciate you reading this whole post. Happy Valentine’s Day. –Julie)

About a year and a half ago, I had an idea (and I have lots of ideas) to make some goodies, sell them and give some money to a good cause. Tons of people do this, but I wanted to do this in honor of a terrific girl out in California for her 10^th birthday. She turned 11 last September. OY!

The big idea: 10 for 10. I thought I could make ten blankets or maybe one item for ten months… for Claudia, the little girl in California. Proceeds from those ten items would go to the CdLS Foundation. They serve people with Cornelia de Lange Syndrome and their families. Why the CdLS Foundation?

Claudia. She lives with CdLS. She is my cousin’s daughter. My list of cousins – ridiculous! My mom, oldest of seven, and my dad is #9 (or #10) of 14. Compute.

So, Claudia’s dad – think back and remember your very first best friend. That’s who my cousin is for me.

Yes, I look like a boy in Swiss Miss gear. (1977)

Continue for the crafty idea!

Making mini cards and a printable template

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Juliet Tiu

I made some mini cards just in time for Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day. (Well, almost in time for Chinese New Year – it’s Sunday and I want to mail a couple out.)

Making mini-cards

Mini Valentine Cards with scrap paper and stickers

Rubber stamping for Chinese New Year cards: Year of the Snake

For that old-fashioned handcrafted card, just use what you have around your home, stickers, ribbon, glue. To make mini-cards, I took an 8-1/2” x 11” sheet of cardstock (this is Bazzill Pomegranate) and cut it in this manner to make six little blank cards. Just click on the picture below to print your own. From one sheet you can make (2) 3″ x 3″ cards, (2) 2-1/2″ x 2-1/2″ cards and (2) 2-1/2″ x 3″ cards. There’s a little 1″ scrap if you want to keep that for tags or tiny, homemade “Moo cards” (not a sponsor, just letting you know about them).

You’ll need to make your own envelopes. I think I have some doilies somewhere around here. Or maybe just tuck your cards with your gift, in lunchboxes, on the dining table… I’ll try to post a picture of the finished cards!

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