Hey, Des Moines! Come downtown today (from 9–2) for Market Day’s special September Suitcase Showdown. Be sure to hit up the Farmers Market while you’re at it … we’re right next door. Thirty vendors with everything they can fit into suitcases or whatever they can find. Don’t miss it! See you there.
I’ve got another great tutorial I’d like to share with you. It comes from Sew Mama Sew — camera case/iPod cozy tutorial.
This is a great project for beginners. It takes a little amount of fabric and a small investment of time. I like this project because it takes me as much time to make one of them as it does to make 5 of them, so it’s great to make a ton of them for craft shows.
Here’s one that I made [there's a ton of these in this post as well].
If you make one of these, send me a photo of your finished project and I’ll feature it in a gallery of reader submitted crafts from tutorials I’ve shared.
Hello bloglings. Tomorrow is my first Market Day of the season. They’ve been going on since May, but I’ve not had a chance to do much crafting until this last month.
For those of you who don’t know and are around Central Iowa, you should come check it out. It’s pretty awesome.
Actually, for you newbies, here’s a description from their website: Market Day is an indie craft market: their vendors craft — but they don’t make your grandma’s crafts. At Market Day, shoppers find screenprinted posters and tees, postcards of monsters, stenciled paintings of mermaids, kawaii earrings, macabre pottery, and more. And? They’ve got their share of vintage housewares, clothing and jewelry, too.
Find Market Day at the Des Moines Social Club in the Kirkwood Theater — at 400 Walnut Street in downtown Des Moines, IA. Click here to get directions.
What am I selling? Why dishes of course. But actually, since I moved twice since the last craft show I did, I don’t have any new dishes. I do, however, have a metric butt-ton of new zippy pouches because these are super easy to transport and are reallllly fun to make.
Zippy pouches are $10 (at Market Day, $12+shipping on etsy). Dishes range from $5-15 for single items and $35-75 for sets (again, 10% more expensive on etsy + shipping).
Also, did I mention that Market Day is from 9 AM-2 PM? COME ON DOWN.
I’m moving again — and it better be the last time for a LONG time.
To celebrate … I’m having another moving sale on my etsy shop. Use the code BIGMOVE2011 to get 10% off anything.
As always … free shipping to Des Moines and Ames.
Here are [some of] the goods:
Stripey Little Zippy Pouch $12
Sofia Oversized Wallet $20
Little Birdies Cup and Saucer Set $10
Bonjour Beads and Lace Dinnerware Set $45
Happy shopping! Sale lasts through August 2.
You should check out my friend Calee’s etsy store.
Yes CALEE — and she pronounces it the cool way like I do — Cah-LEE. I met her at the dawn of facebook when I was curious as to how many Calee’s there were that pronounced their names like I do. It was about 50/50 when I did it (there were about 20 on there in 2004). I’ve stayed in touch with Calee over facebook and twitter because it turns out we’re like the same flipping person. She runs all the time, we both have a really odd sense of humor and apparently we like the same hair styles.
She only has one item listed so far, but she’s doing subversive cross stitch. Which I would do if I had more time, but she does a fabulous job.
Also, can I just say, I definitely would like one of these hanging somewhere prominent. I feel this way a lot (not that I suck. other people suck!).
We are moving again soon. And this weekend is the last weekend that I don’t have plans before the move, so I’m getting my last hurrah out of my system because all my crafty stuff has to go in storage as soon as possible.
I started going through my craft stuff and decided to finish off some UFOs this weekend.
I started with some bags …
(geometric little zippy pouch)
… and some more — 17 to be exact — quilted cards …
… but then I found a whole mess of white fabric, which I had no idea I had — my granny had left it in a bunch of unfinished projects she ultimately didn’t get to finish and her craft supplies were gifted to me. So, I decided it was time to finish my vintage scrap fabric (courtesy of Adria) strip quilt.
I’m still in progress today. I could have finished last night but I really don’t have room in our tiny apartment to lay out the quilt, and this is one that I have to lay out and think about. Here’s a photo of the progress. I’ll post a tutorial once it’s finished. It’s really quite easy, but takes a bit of thinking.
Here’s what I’ve done so far:
Here’s what I’m doing today:
And that’s my day today! Patchworking and probably running 6-8 miles. If I finish the quilt top in just a few hours (hoping so — I got where I currently am now with this quilt top in 3 hours yesterday), I’ll work on some more bags. I found the motherload of scraps I was saving of Wonderland …
… so I’ll probably be making some more zippy pouches out of that. I’m loving the zippy pouches. I need to make some more wallets, but I like to make the zippy pouches so much more. I figure I’m doing this for fun and not for money, so if this stuff sells, great, if not, I’ve got Christmas presents taken care of. Or maybe I can keep something for myself for once.
It’s been a VERY long time since I’ve done a giveaway. (In case you’re curious, I did one at the beginning of June of 2009, another in the middle of June 2009, one at the beginning of July 2009, one in the middle of July 2009, one in July 2010, one in August of 2010 and one in September 2010).
//EDIT// I posted this giveaway and realized that today is also Giveaway Day on Sew Mama Sew. I’m featured on the handcrafted items page.
Last time I did one, I had a trivia question. But I’m going to make this one really easy.
First — the prize?
A teeny tiny wallet of your choice — one of these two:
What do you have to do to win, you ask? Simple. Just comment on this post with which one of these you prefer if you win. Make sure your e-mail address is correct when you fill out the comment box or I will have no way of contacting you if you win. Want another entry? Tweet or facebook about the contest, and leave a comment on this post with a link to the tweet or post. Want yet ANOTHER entry? Follow me on Networked Blogs (check out the sidebar over here on the right).
Contest ends on Memorial Day (Monday, May 30). I will randomly choose a winner by using random.org’s generator. Good luck!
I decided this weekend to start curating things on my blog kind of like I do on pinterest — but only the top 5. Show you people some pretty things. I’ve got a LOT of stuff lined up (if you’ve seen my pinterest boards, you’ll understand).
1. Sweet Heart Button Purse by nonsuch on Etsy | 2. Kathy Van Zeeland French Kiss Sachel | 3. Halston Heritage Jenny Fold Sequin Clutch | 4. Bloom Small Leather Wallet by sewzinski | 5. Felix and Jayne Clutch
This is probably going to be my last wedding invite update post for a while. I really probably should have spaced them out more, but now I’ve hopefully created interest and suspense. 
I have a Vegas invite but I need to tweak the size so it’s the 5×7″ size I’ve been working with. I’d like to stick to one size for invites until I get a few orders out the door.
These are the Chelsea Invites — custom illustration and invite created for my sister’s friend Chelsea. I want to do a couple more invites with my little birdies illustrations.
I’m thinking I should probably quit posting these or else you’re going to expect a new invite every week from her on out.
Sorry — I’m not going to post one a week. But I have a few that I wanted to share NOW.
I created a text-only invite after seeing a few really pretty ones on the web. This one is by no means finished … it’s a draft. It’s the Tory Invite.
I want to make a few changes to this one — maybe make the names the biggest thing instead of the word “marriage”. One thing I love is the bigger margins around the outside (esp. on the RSVP).
I’d love suggestions on this because I’m not 100% satisfied with it. It’s also almost too similar to some of the ones I was looking at and I don’t want to copy anybody else’s design (first of all it’s immoral and second of all it’s illegal*). This one would have custom colors but not custom fonts.
*speaking of copyright infringement, check out this doozy of an invite with a HUGE copyright infringement. This person is lucky she doesn’t have a lawsuit on her hands. Nike doesn’t allow licensing on things like this, and I’m guessing that she didn’t go through the proper channels to obtain licensing. Nike’s site says fair use of their logo is fine — but that’s for things like textbooks in which their logo and brand is used to educate. If it was a textbook called “Nike’s Just Do It Running” and it wasn’t really from Nike, that is an infringement because the book is making money off the logo and brand — just like these invites.
