Category Archives: solutions

Pop-ups: The Blog Hop

February 9th 2016

Have you made a Pop-up yet? They are so fun! During this blog hop you’ll get to visit various blogs to see all the neat ways you can adapt a Pop-up and get a chance to win some by just leaving a comment.

webbadge

First off, let me say how totally practical these things are. They come in three sizes and are great to use in the car for trash, to hold hair clips, craft items, keys, snacks, baby items, the uses are endless. But the best part is that you can make them as pretty as you want. Jo did an introduction of this blog hop yesterday on her blog, check it out here.

jo's pop ups

Today I am featuring my Duck Duck Goose pattern,

Duck, Duck, Goose!

and how nicely this large matching Pop-up (using XL spring) goes with it.

Ducky Pop Up

This makes a great Baby Shower gift, you can put the quilt and other baby goodies right in the Pop-up. It can be re-used as a waste basket in a bathroom or a baby’s room or fill it with toys, blankets or toiletries for baby. This Ducky Pop-up features two ducks and the pattern was easy to adapt. The Duck Duck Goose (PDF or paper) pattern is included in one of the giveaways. You can even customize the colors if you want. And who doesn’t love a rubber ducky, right?

For instruction sheet on how to adapt the pattern go here or click below.

Below is the Just Keep On Swimming quilt (available in (PDF or paper), it has a great “boy” or “summer” look to it that would complement any boy’s room and any age can be accommodated since this pattern comes with 3 size options. It’s perfect for a nautical or fishing theme.

Just Keep on Swimming, fish quilt

This Large sized Pop-up features 3 fish easily adapted from the pattern (PDF or paper) and it was a cinch! This design is great for mixing and matching favorite fabrics. For the inside, I used a fabric covered in little fishes, great for I Spy games too. This would be so cute for a beach home decor for a boy’s room.

Fishy 1

For instruction sheet to adapt the pattern go here. This Pop-up goes with a large sized spring not featured in today’s giveaway but available here.

To make this Extra large Pop-up, I adapted my Peppermints pattern and I love how it looks. It’s a great holiday gift idea, you can fill it with a Pop-corn tin and other festive snacks and just hand it over to your party host or family.

peppermint 1

Of course you can also put a Christmas quilt in it too if you want to, for that special family member or friend.

peppermints on the beach

For pattern adaptation sheet, go here or click below.

Other featured Pop-up Partners are:

February 8th: The Patchwork Pearl

February 9th: Me, Summercrafter YOU ARE HERE!

February 10th: Triangle Frenzy

February 11th: Seams like a Dream

February 12th:Custom Quilt Kits

February 13th: Cabin in the Woods

February 14, 15th: Surprise!!

February 16th: On Point Quilter

February 17th: Happy Memories Quilts

February 18th: Poorhouse Quilt Design

February 19th: Swirly Girl Design

For Blog Hop Headquarters head on over to the Fat Quarter Gypsy’s blog

There you’ll see who is next on the hop and have a chance at the Grand Prize. All grand Prize entry emails will be shared with 11 designers in the blog hop.

I will be having two giveaways, items shown above, as a bonus I have included my Watercolor Sea Horse pattern (which is NOT Pop-up friendly). All you have to do it leave a comment telling me how you would made and use your Pop-up!

Thanks you all for visiting and commenting and for the drawing….

popup winners Collage

Have You Made A Pop-Up?

October 20th 2015

This is a Pop-up. A fun little contraption that won’t stay down (unless you use your ties or elastic) It is so versatile it has tons of uses. Garbage caddy (with a bag) in the car, in a room, a catch all for toys, sewing notions, fat quarters, hair clips, candy, socks…you make it whatever you want! I can see how making these can easily become an addiction. My friend Jo from The Fat Quarter Gypsy invented these and they are “hot” right now. Check out the video on her facebook page.

If you want one for you, you can visit Whoopsa Daisy Farm online shop. There is the pattern with three different size pop-ups and the cost of the metal form spring sold as a refill.

If you want some for your shop Checkers has them!

You can also get really creative. See how well my patterns can turn into a pop-up?

Instruction sheets to adapt my patterns to come out soon. She is debuting those at Market.

So go on, make yourself a Pop-up!

More scrappy fun

March 18th 2015

Does this happen to anyone else? You get this little thrill when you make something really great with scraps? I know some of you do, fess up! Maybe you squeal or jump up and down or put it on Instagram. Yes, me too!

After I made this Mickey Bucket Tote, I had some squares and rectangles left that for the regular lay person would naturally be trash. But I saved them and hummed and hawed (is that a word?) until I created a fun design for another kind of bag. I have made cross body bags before, see here, so I kinda just repeated the same technique to make these. I just varied the patches and combined some other scraps and came up with 2 new designs. The squares in the center on the left are totally fussy cut, since the fabric itself is patchwork. Ha!

As I quilted the second one it occurred to me to hide some “mickeys” in the quilting.

Now the recipient can count Mickeys as they stand in line or something.

These were so fun to make and pretty easy. Helps that I have made them before.

I guess this would also count as a project for

Craft tools and gadgets

September 30th 2014

My dad has a tool shed. Well, he has three now. His favorite store is the Home Depot. He has everything ever made to do anything and he can tell you where it is, how many he’s got, who borrowed it and what projects he used it for. Heck! He probably even has the receipt, really.

Well, as I look at my craft corner and sort and reorganize, I too have accumulated many tools of the trade that I could not live without. Because as my dad says, “you never know when you are going to need it!” So this post is dedicated just to showing you some of the gadgets I have and use often. (Like father, like daughter)

If you are a hot glue gun user, this is one of the most useful investments you can make. It’s called a Hot Glue Gun Helper’s kit it comes with these set of tools to avoid glue gun burns, you can get it on amazon on that link above. It comes with tweezers, a heat safety mat, finger protectors (like rubber thimbles) and pressing tools to save your finger ends. It’s all made from silicon and is heat resistant! For more glue gun safety tips you can visit Pretty Handy Girl‘s blog.

Is this little kit below familiar? This great kit is a companion to the Cricut. You Scrapbookers will know what I’m talking about. It has these great “dentist” type tools to pry and press small pieces of papers, scissors, rulers, extra blades, a folder and a smoother/scraper (?) I still haven’t quite used everything in there yet.

I can’t live without these below. The air gun is for quick clean-ups of thread and lint in the sewing machine. The basting sprays is for smaller projects too cumbersome to pin and the lighter is for those ribbon ends that like to unravel.

Below are my hand tools, labeled for your convenience.

Some of my most recent acquisitions are for quilting. The binding clips help keep the binding in place while hand stitching it to the quilt and the larger clips I just started using when prepping a quilt for quilting.

I use the binder clips to attach all layers to the craft table, then I pin or spray and I didn’t have to get on my knees. See a video of that here.

This is one of my oldest tools. For years, I have always felt the need to keep sheet or pillow case bags they come complete with zippers, why would I throw these out? I use these for scrappy ribbons, loose spools, batting strips, just about anything that you can imagine.

As I was taking pictures for this post, I realized that all my glue guns have been given to me by great people who thought I would get much more use out of them than they would. Thank you! And I have put them to good use indeed. But I think it’s time, that I should buy my own, I am thinking about a cordless variety or a designer style that’s decorated and that would mean that I could also get a cute glue gun stand. That’s the next gadget on my list. This one below has a tutorial so you can make your own.

or maybe you prefer this style, below tutorial here.

Or if you are not wood handy, like me, you may prefer to buy a similar one on Ebay over here.

Decisions, decisions…

Pretty and Practical Storage

September 17th 2014

Look what I got yesterday! Look again, compare to the business cards. These are “mini” storage cubes that can collapse and be totally flat. What’s the perk about that? Let me explain. I am a VISIONARY: adj. 1. characterized by vision or foresight. 2. Having the nature of fantasies or dreams; illusory. So as I get ready and think ahead to Quilt Market in the Fall and then possibly having my own booth in the Spring (God willing) I thought these caddies are perfect and compact to set up in my booth with patterns or whatever else I want to use them for. Since they collapse they’ll fit perfectly in my suitcase!

I got them at Target.com and they come in various colors not to mention how absolutely cute they are because they only measure 7 x 7 inches. I thought this color goes best with the “Summercrafter” theme. You can see there so many ways to use them!

Then I thought about sorting my scrap disorder

by doing it this way…

It was just the motivation I needed to “weed” through my earliest collection samples in the fabric stash and get rid of all my non-cotton, non-designer, inventive/inexperienced quilter baby fabrics and discount store selections.

Look how adorable these cubes look on my shelf. I can double them front and back too.

One bin can hold BOM patterns for the whole year! (See on the right below)

And I labeled them easily with those adorable clips my friend gave me. Thanks Amy!

I even have one filled with fabric for my next quilt, so they are really practical.

I think I can keep up with this type of organization.