Silhouette Challenge: Fall

Teabag boxes, Silhouette Challenge: Fall 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Earlier this summer, I harvested a bumper crop of mint. (Garden goodness this way)  I dried and then ground up the mint - both peppermint and spearmint (the mint is on the tray hiding behind the lavender) and now I have tea for the fall.  I planned on sharing the tea with friends, and used the "Fall"  Silhouette Challenge to kickstart my big presentation plans.

I already had a cute teabag holder with some hexies on it.  I opened up a new project with just the teabag shape and added the maple leaves.  They are all the same leaf, two are 100%, two 75% and two of them are sized at 50%.  The original design had a hexagon tag, and when I deleted it from the new project, I saved the hole for the string, so it was easy to add to some of the maple leaf shapes.  Others I left intact so that I could glue them onto the bags.  I cut several colours, and mixed and matched the leaves.

Here is the finished product - I put the tea into little plastic bags and tucked them into the teabag boxes.  Love this sweet little Saturday morning project!  I can't wait to give them out as little unexpected gifties.  These would also make really fierce place cards at Thanksgiving dinner. 

Oh no.  The wheels are turning again. 

Monday Morning Star Count: Back to School Edition

The Whole Glorious Pile of Hand-Piecing

Today marks the unofficial end of summer for our family and many other families.  Two of my children are now in high school, and the last one is powering along in elementary.  I'm heading back to my own courses toward the world's slowest degree.  I'm still working on paper piecing and a few other quilting and other crafty projects.  I'm starting to think about making some Christmas gifts.  Maybe cards too?  First, there's a baby quilt for a friend to start...there's always some fun to be had, and some new shenanigans to start.

I enjoyed dedicating myself to sewing and especially quilting this summer.  I intended to finish a couple of quilts, but well...I would up not finishing those, but starting many new projects.  Some I finished, some are in progress.  I wouldn't change a thing.  I'm just enjoying the whole slightly chaotic process of creating and learning.  And shopping.  I rather like that too.

As far as the english paper piecing (epp) goes...the new grand total of stars is 11.  I still have quite a few more  diamonds all basted and ready to go from my basting-before-piecing phase earlier this summer.


I've found many opportunities for summer piecing and quilting by taking on a
hand-sewing project.  Recently, we spent some time in the US-Canada border line-up, and that gave me a whole hour or so of piecing little diamonds together.

I still haven't really made any big design decisions.  Right now, I'm thinking about my fall schedule and reminding myself to use time that I normally spend waiting for appointments or sitting in the car waiting for kids at lessons or after school.  I could probably fit in a little sewing while listening to online lectures. 

Thanks to Jessica at Life Under Quilts for hosting the very inspiring Star Counts.  They kept me hand-stitching over the past few months!

Silhouette "Thanks" Card

Silhouette "Thanks" Card

I love all things crafty.  I love quilting and sewing and I love my Silhouette Cameo.  If you landed here via a quilting or sewing site, you might not know what that is.  It's a super-duper paper cutter -  Cameo 

I use it all the time for scrapbooking (well, I would use it for that, but I'm about a dozen years behind - I have recently used it to cut cards for Project Life albums - more on that another time), card-making, and kid crafts.  I'm a Spark leader (5-6 year old Girl Guides) and lead Craft Club at my son's school, so it gets a good work-out.  I put it through it's paces for sure, but if I'm honest, I mostly grab a shape online, pull it up from my library and send it to the machine.

The thing with the Cameo is that while the software is powerful and very user-friendly and easy to use, I rarely sit and play long enough to really figure out what I can do with it.  I know that you know how that goes.  Sigh.  I'm going to master cutting vinyl, printing and cutting - all that good stuff.

I am.

Maybe I should do that by December 31 to make room for those unrealistic New Year's resolutions.

Anyway, back in reality,...today I needed a card, and thought I should flex my Silhouette muscles to use the sketch pens feature.

I watched a tutorial on you-tube and figured I was good to go.  I ungrouped the word from the rest of the card, and then cut over it with the oval shape.  To give the slider a little more gravity, I cut out the shape three times and stacked and glued them together to create a chipboardy vibe.  Things were really cookin' in the craft pit!  I added a sheet of AC paper that I bought while I was with the person I was making the card for - she'll recognize it, I'm sure. 

I'm happy with my first try.  Word to the wise though - be sure to watch more than one you-tube video before trying anything new.  I stumbled upon a written tutorial on the Silhouette site a little later on only to discover that you can actually use a "sketch" tool in the designer edition (yeah, I've got that. oh my.) which only goes to show that I've got a little more playing to do to make sure I'm really using all of the bells and whistles.


I'm tucking in a Project Life card outlining the thought process that birthed this little project.  My friend will probably get a little chuckle out of it, and I'm sure you can relate.

1. I should email _______ and thank her.

2. No. I should send a card!  I've got cards.

3. Oh. A handmade one would be nice.

4. I can use my cutting machine.  I've got a thousand designs.

5.  None of those look right.  I'll just buy a new one.

6. Sketch pens would be even better!

7.  Now to find the sketch pen tutorials...