When I started my shop, I was always looking for ways to make something different.  When I decided to start painting cosmetic bags and lavender sachets, I hoped that other people would find them interesting.  I love painting flowers and birds, but I wasn't sure that it would "go over" well.

Recently, I was included in a Top Ten Wearable Art list.  I can't even tell you how happy I was to be included in that list!  The lovely and talented Hannah Williams from Hannah Mae Illustration was kind enough to include this item in her list:

...but I've been busy!  I love to explore new things and I got on a bow tie kick. I did a ton of research on how to make them:  what material to use and what kind of interlining to give them a good full look without being too thick and cumbersome around the neck.  Finding the hooks/closures for them took a bit of time and coming up with a good, flexible design that could accommodate multiple neck sizes also took a little doing, but I finally came up with a good do-able design.

I added a new tutorial today - this one is on how to make personalized labels.

When I first started my shop, I had a hard time with labels.  I tried a ton of different methods, and finally stumbled upon this technique. After a quite a few disasters and a lot of fine tuning , I am able to print out labels now rather easily.

I've made these into my shop labels, but also personalized them for weddings (I made a couple sets of bridesmaids bags and had labels with the bride and groom's names and wedding date on them), a set of tea wallets for sisters with a saying on them, and for items in collaboration with a photographer.

This technique can be used to personalize lots of things, or just add sayings or quotes to something (like a tea mat!)

I hope this tutorial is helpful!  Personalized Label Tutorial

Owl Tea Wallet - Label says "Owl be thinking of you while I sip my tea"

I finally got around to adding a tutorial on fabric painting!

Once I got the idea to paint on fabric and turn these mini-paintings into accessories I just had to figure out how to do it.  I tried a bunch of different things. I mostly had trouble with getting the paint and brush to move easily across the fabric.  Once that got worked out, I was able to get much better results.

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Good Morning!

A good few months ago now (more than I thought when I went and actually checked how many!) a very nice lady messaged me and let me know she mentioned me and my shop on her website. She had purchased a tea wallet from me and wanted to share it with her readers. It made me very happy that she was so pleased with it. But once I visited her site, I was bitten by the "need to do this" bug. She had a wonderful place to go for years - sharing her thoughts and her projects.

I wanted to be able to do that too.

When I first started my shop, I was constantly looking for ways to do things better. I would spend forever online pouring through websites looking for ways to do everything to achieve a more professional look. I don't have the best sewing machine (in all fairness, it's a great sewing machine, it has just been used to death), so I need all sorts of tricks to get things accomplished. So that's what I want to share here - all the things I have learned along the way. I figure there must be someone else out there who needs to be a perfectionist, but just doesn't have the time!

So I set about setting it up - and honestly I should have a website on how to start a website. It took me forever! Okay - slight exaggeration. However it did take months. Actual months. But it's done and here it is. It's in the beginning stages, but I'll keep adding things and refining things as I go along.

If you've stopped and read this - thank you! There is a spot on the right hand side there to join this page. And please leave any comments or suggestions you may have!

And thank you Danette for inspiring me to take this on! You can visit Danette here: Danette's Website and here: Danette's Shop. Danette makes beautiful knit and crocheted items and shares beautiful thoughts on family and life and her website.

I always liked painting. I used to paint actual "paintings" but I have a real short attention span. Its' the same reason the quilts I make started going from blanket size down to placemat size. It just takes too long! So for a while I always painted small things - decorative things. After sewing for a bit, and looking for a way to make my things different from everyone elses, I started to paint on fabric and sew them into wallets and cosmetic cases. Actually, this is perfect for me. I get to paint and I get to sew - my two favorite things. I mostly have been painting flowers as that seems to translate well onto fabric that will be made into accessories. Things like this:
Those are lavender sachets on linen and muslin. But as i looked online at pictures, I kept running across birds and thought I should try that. So I started with sketching chickadees. I wish I took some pictures of the process, and i think I'll do that as my next tutorial as the process isn't difficult at all. So I promise next painting project I'll be ready and take pictures as I go. But here is the final results of the chickadee project:
And here it is turned into some zippered cases:
I think they came out kind of cute! I think their personality is all in their eyes! So, now I'm off to figure out what other birds I'd like to try. Thanks for reading! Meryl