One of my favourite aspects of Christmas time is partaking in holiday cookies. I love to bake cookies for my friends and coworkers. This year I’m participating in a virtual cookie exchange with a few other craft bloggers, and for the exchange, I’ll be sharing not one, but two cookie recipes! These cookies are both delicious and pretty to present on a plate to your cookie exchange recipients. One recipe is for Candy Cane Cookies, and the other is for Chocolate Snow-Top Cookies. The candy cane cookies are more labour intensive but are very fun to make. The snowy cookies require some resting time for your dough, the perfect amount of…
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VIDEO: How to Make a Repeating Pattern for Spoonflower
This video tutorial will teach you how to create a seamless repeating pattern with Photoshop, using a scanned doodle as a base for your creation. You can then use this repeating pattern to create custom fabric using a fabric site like Spoonflower. Other ideas of how you could use your repeating pattern include using it as desktop wallpaper or printing it out on card stock as custom scrapbooking paper. So many possibilities! If you’d prefer to read written instructions rather than watch a video, view the original article How to Make a Repeating Pattern for Spoonflower. This is the first of many videos I’ll be creating for my new YouTube channel for my…
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What Tools Do You Need to Start Quilting?
Quilting is one of my all time favourite crafty activities. I’m always trying to get my friends started on quilting (with a few successful recruits, hooray!). What do you need to get started quilting? You don’t really need much to get started. People have been quilting long before fancy sewing machines have existed. You can cut patches out of fabric with a standard pair of scissors, and sew together by hand with a needle and thread. So the bare-bones list would be: fabric, scissors, needle, thread, and batting. But I’ll be honest: I hate hand sewing, and cutting out fabric patches with scissors would drive me crazy because it is…
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How to Save Money on Craft Supplies
A popular crafting myth is that you can always save money by making your own home decor items. While this can be true in some cases, I know that most quilts I make are going to be more expensive than any mass-produced quilt I can find at a store. Not only do some crafters not take their own time into consideration (we are all valuable and skilled!), but in some cases, the supplies themselves can be more than the cost of buying a ready-made item. The key is to keep your craft supply cost down to a reasonable level. If you follow my blog, you’ll know that I love to…
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Cinnamon Toast Crunch French Toast
My husband often makes me French Toast on Saturday mornings. The recipe I’m sharing today is my husband’s idea and was inspired by one of our favourite restaurants that dips their French Toast in panko bread crumbs. Instead of panko, he dialed up the sweetness factor by using crumbled Cinnamon Toast Crunch as the breading. You could modify this recipe by switching it out for any other sugary cereal. There’s nothing healthy about this recipe, but it’s a lovely treat! Yields: 6 slices of toast Ingredients: 3 eggs 1/4 cup milk 1 tablespoon vanilla extract 6 slices of bread 2-1/2 cups of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal 4 tablespoons of butter maple syrup, as desired for…
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How to Sew a Colour Block Tank Dress
At seven months pregnant, my belly is getting larger and my wardrobe is getting smaller. Time to sew some new clothes! I picked up a few scraps of two different solid knit fabrics (one grey, one blue) from the thrift store on the cheap – not enough to make a full dress, but enough to make a shirt and a skirt. I prefer dresses to separates, so I decided to combine these two textiles together into a simple colour blocked tank dress that’s easy to wear. This tutorial will teach you how to make a stretchy tank dress with an empire waist, using a tank top as a template…
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Silhouette Cut Out Canvas – Vintage Sewing Machine
This project was inspired by Ashley (of Joyfully Jenson)’s cut canvas project. When I saw her project, I decided to add it to my 30 Crafty Projects to Complete Before I’m 30 list, with a small twist: a silhouette instead of an all-over pattern. I decided to do a silhouette of a vintage sewing machine. I looked online for some silhouettes, but I didn’t find anything that I liked (too complex, too simple, not a model that I liked, etc). I decided to use a photograph of my Singer 66 sewing machine and turn it into a silhouette myself. Want to make a cut out canvas like mine? Here are the step by…
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Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
What tastes better than peanut butter and chocolate? I was in the mood for some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but I was also in the mood to make something peanut buttery in the kitchen. I followed Nicko’s Kitchen’s recipe to make these, and they turned out great. Below the picture, you can watch the video that shows just how easy this is. No baking is required, but patience is needed to wait for all the layers to set. Is anyone else addicted to watching those short and sweet recipe videos? This is the video below that inspired me to try Nicko’s recipe: Recipe Video My Attempts at the Peanut Butter…
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Sewn Knitting Needle Roll Up Case Tutorial
I’m getting really excited about knitting. I mentioned in my previous post about cat themed knitted dish cloths that I purchased a set of bamboo knitting needles in various sizes so that I would be good to go for a variety of knitting projects in my future knitting life. I ended up buying an inexpensive set from AliExpress with 18 different sizes. How could I store all of these knitting needles so that I wouldn’t lose them, and also in a way that I could add more knitting needles to my collection with ease? Behold: the knitting needle case! This project is very quick to sew up and holds at…
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Diagonal Slice Diamond Block Baby Quilt in Grey and Mint
Last year, I traveled to the fashion district in downtown Toronto with my mom to check out the various fabric shops. We didn’t go with a specific project in mind, instead, just enjoying the experience of touching all the different fabrics. I picked up two quilting cottons on my trip that I fell in love with, knowing I would come up with an idea for them later. I discovered two other fabrics in my stash that coordinated well, two prints that I had ordered from Connecting Threads a few years back. I wanted to make a quilt that had big blocks so that the fabric prints could shine. I decided to make the…
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Mirrored Heart Valentine’s Day Table Runner
This table runner is a great gift for a loved one for Valentine’s Day – or even yourself – for some festive February decor. I participated in a Valentine’s Day swap on an online quilt group and designed this pattern from scratch. This tutorial combines two basic techniques: the half square triangle and quick corners. Let’s get started! About the Table Runner Tutorial You’ll need five fabrics for the design. One red background fabric and four pink focal fabrics. The finished table runner will be 11″ x 317/8″. Materials: Backing Fabric: bare minimum 33″ x 12″ Batting: bare minimum 33″ x 12″ Red Background: Cut 4 squares @ 45/8″ each Cut 1 rectangle @ 7″…
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DIY Pretty Page Reinforcements
Am I the only one who finds it easier to use a planner if it’s been personalized with decorations? This useful decorating idea is so simple but so effective! Some pages of a binder get much more use than others, leading to the requirement of using page reinforcements, those white utilitarian stickers that protect the holes in your paper from being ripped out of the rings. These DIY sweet stickers help add strength and style to hard-working pages. All you need to create your own pretty reinforcements are small circular stickers in any design you prefer and a single hole punch. These sparkly circular stickers are from Sandylion Stickers. Step 1: Align your hole…
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How to Sew a Lined Coin Purse
A few weeks ago, I purchased a metal purse clasp on a whim. I had never made a coin purse in this style before (I’m more of a zipper pouch gal), but I figured why not dive in and see how it would go. The construction is similar to making a lined zipper pouch with the added benefit of no zipper to install (yay!), but the added headache of handsewing the finicky frame (boo!). Let’s dive right in! Supplies You’ll Need lining fabric exterior fabric batting, fleece, interfacing, or some other fabric to add shape to your purse sewing machine, thread, pins, etc hand sewing needle strong thread in a coordinating…
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Bowling Themed Applique Mini Quilt with Printable Templates
I recently participated in a quilting swap online where each participant made a mug rug for another participant’s husband. Each woman provided a brief description of her husband’s interests, then we made a mug rug (mini placemat) that we thought he would like. These mug rug projects are a great way to practice your skills in a mini quilt format. This post contains affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a little commission at no extra cost to you. I was so happy with who I was matched up with because her husband was interested in bowling. I’m a league bowler with…
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Quick! I need a Halloween costume!
I love costumes. In my younger years, I did cosplay at anime conventions and at event meet-ups. For the past few years, my priorities have shifted and I haven’t been focusing on sewing costumes. This year, Halloween really crept up on me and I didn’t have a block of time to make a costume. I was scrambling to finish my pumpkin quilt. At work, we could wear costumes on Friday for Halloween so I decided to pull together something. I have this fantastic appliquéd anchor skirt my sister made for me years ago that happened to coordinate well with a striped blazer I often wear to work anyway. Time to…
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How to Make a Quilted Pumpkin Wallhanging
Two days before Halloween, I was scrambling to finish up a festive Halloween wall hanging. I’m thankful to have finished it in time to hang up for Halloween.t Now it’s one day before Halloween, and I’m scrambling to finish up this tutorial. You might not have time to whip this up before Halloween 2015, but please pin or bookmark this tutorial for next year It all started with a sketch. I originally wanted to make a larger quilt as pictured to the right in my sketch. It had a centre medallion with bats on each corner with an ombre style border. I cut out all the fabrics but I wasn’t loving…
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How to Sew an Organizer for Your Planner
I carry around a day planner in my purse that includes a handy slot for a single pen. However, one pen just isn’t enough! I wanted to have with me a few writing utensils (pens of different colours, a marker, a pencil crayon for shading, etc), but I didn’t want these rolling around loose in my purse. I tend to lose items like these so I wanted a way to keep them right inside my planner. This tutorial is for 5.5×8.5″ planners, but you can easily use the same concepts to make one for any size planner or binder by adjusting the measurements to your taste. Let’s get started! I made…
