Crafting

Here are some things I've been working on lately-I made my Mom a set of 16 cloth napkins, She got 12 for Christmas and these are the final set. There are 4 of each color- lake blue, sage green, pale yellow and finally beige. You can't tell at all but these are monogrammed with her initials!

I learned to make tea towels before Christmas and gave out 2 sets as gifts to my friends- which I have NO photos of...but they were adorable prints with polka dot ribbons. These are Holiday themed and I have one more set to do that is waiting on me to get around to.Finally, I went all out on Valentine's Day this year for my gift exchange with my friend Shelley. She's so fun to make things for and I go crazy trying to come up with new ideas- but I am so thrilled when they turn out well. This year I saw a mason jar like this and the price tag was ridiculous for something not even filled with anything! I said- "I can make that!" and so I did. A little fabric, imagination, monogramming sewing machine and hand stitching on the hearts. SO CUTE!I ended up with two jars (one test subject) and enough material to try making this gift bag that I saw on another blog. This is my recreation of it- but I'd just assume try it a different way next time. However, I love how these two materials played off each other. I tied the bag up with a black ribbon with white polka dots on it and put the same ribbon on the jars too. Very sweet! The little printed Chinese take-out box was a Target dollar find that got filled with brownies and taken as a house warming gift for Brenda and Keary.

Following all my sewing machine time, I made hand made Valentine's for the family! It was so fun to cut out the hearts from left over fabric and coordinate paper colors. I had a ball. All the ribbon was scrap too- came together really nicely!

My last plan for Shelley's gift was to make big cookies that looked like conversation hearts candies! I mixed the pink coloring, iced and then piped on the phrases.

I also did some other sizes with some of Mom's nested hearts cookie cutters that I borrowed. I did a different icing color/pattern on each one. Medium sized have baby pink frosting and large sprinkles. Smallest sized cookies have white icing and colored sugar dusted over. YUM!Final packaging looked like this! I sent these to my Sister and Family and my nephew called me totally surprised! Such a sweet ending to the day!