TSUMAMI KANZASHI-STYLE FLOWERS

I ran across a really different technique for making fabric flowers called tsumami kanzashi -- don't know how to pronounce it, but it looks very interesting. Since I'm currently working on a new handbag pattern that needs a flower, I was naturally intrigued.

Spanglystuff (http://spanglystuff.blogspot.com/) has made some really beautiful examples.

This has petals made with single squares of fabric.

This has 2 fabrics on each petal.

And these are more whimsical.

And she has a tutorial at http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k297/JensMum/?action=view&current=MVI_2505.flv

I also found a youtube tutorial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJZFqOLKRNo&feature=related

I only had a few to spare to try out the first technique, but this is my first rough attempt. Looks yucky next to hers, but I'm liking it enough to give it another try.

Gotta go. DH will be here soon and dinner's not ready yet!

Easy Peasy Labels Tutorial - Part 1

Oh, the wonderful world of personlized labels!

Those of us who love to give handcrafted items sometimes need labels. For instance, at Christmas I used Nancy's recipe for handcream as stocking stuffers and I made personalized labels for the jars. Later I was asked ... How do you make those labels? That's what this post is about - making dirt-simple labels in Microsoft Word that look way doggies more complex than they are. The labels above were all created by me in just a few minutes time.

Now, I'm not an Microsoft Word expert ... I'm not really an expert at anything! But I've fumbled around and explored Word long enough to have figured out how to make my own "designer" labels. It's quite possible there is a simpler way to make them, but this is the only way I know, so that's what I'll share.

First, I'll show you the simplest label - a block label.

In Word, you'll need the drawing toolbar. If it's not open yet, go to View, select Toolbars, select Drawing. The toolbar should look something like this.

Select the Text Box button on the drawing toolbar.

A drawing area will appear on your page.

Within that drawing area, left click and drag to create a box the approximate size you want. Don't worry so much about the exact size because that can be adjusted later. Just make it big enough to work in.

Click the Line Style button and choose the line style you want - in this case, I'm using a double line.

Click inside the box -- you'll know you've done it correctly if you can see your cursor inside the box. If you don't see it, click inside the box again. I don't know how many times I've mistakenly "grabbed" the whole box rather than clicked inside the box!!

Now, enter your text and modify it however you want -- font, size, color, centering, etc. I used Harrington font, I centered the text and selected the color and size I wanted.

At this point, I adjust the size of the box if needed and change the line color to coordinate. To change the line color, you have to click on the box -- sort of grab it -- and then click the line color button.


You could also choose to have a tinted background by clicking on the box, clicking the Fill Color button and choosing a color.

To make multiples of your label -- all laid out side by side on the page -- you just copy the box, grab the new one and move it wherever you want it. You can copy by right clicking the box, click copy, click on the page (to get out of the box) and right click paste. That will put a copy of the new box sort of on top of the original box. Hope that makes sense!?!? This would be much easier to explain if I was sitting next to you! But I can't do that, so if you have questions, please just leave a comment and I will edit the post to explain it better.

BTW - you don't have to stay inside that larger drawing box. You can drag your labels wherever you want them.

That's it!

Now you can print your new labels on regular paper, cut them out and glue onto your jar, bottle, can, bag, whatever ... or you can print it on adhesive backed paper.

This is the easiest, fastest, cheapest way I know to make labels. I'll show the steps for the other labels in the next few days.

Sassy Matchbooks!

I don't know why, but I love sassy matchbooks. A plain matchbook is simply an instrument -- a tool. A sassy matchbook is a delight in a small - very small - package.


This is where it starts - plain old matchbook that costs about one dollar for 50 of them.

First I remove the matches - I suppose you can use a staple remover if you have one -- I don't, so I used a very small screwdriver and needle-nosed pliers.

Then I tape off the "striking" area -- that rough dark strip on the back. I use painter's masking tape that's been cut down to the correct size.
Next I spray paint the matchbooks with whatever pale paint I have around - in this case beige. Since it's so cold and humid out, I use a big box in the exercise room. I put the matchbooks way back in the back and then spray lightly. This is simply to lightly mask the original artwork -- we don't have to be Leonardo da Vinci (or even Jackson Pollock) at this point.

Then I remove the masking tape and glue a decorative paper to the back and the bottom of the matchbook. I use a glue stick for this project -- I think it's works better on papers than the wetter glues.

Re: the bottom, I make the paper a little longer than it needs to be and I glue it around the edge and to the inside. I just think it makes a neater edge. In the picture below, you can see how I've wrapped it around the bottom edge to the inside.

I've added a little design on the front that says blessings. I simply printed out the word in an oval frame on paper I created from free scrapbook paper designs at this wonderful site: http://www.scrapbookscrapbook.com/themes.html I cut out the little oval and glued it to the front center of the matchbook.

After I've finished decorating the matchbook, I staple the matches back in. I just use a regular staple, but I have to use a little more pressure than normal. And then I use a teensy screwdriver to press the staple where it protrudes in the back -- just to make sure it's secure.

This is how it looks when it's complete. I have also done some others with scrapbooking papers and I've used a printer to add initials.

I think these are great as a small "thank you" to an etsy order, or to a waitress who was especially kind or as an add-on to a candle gift.

Anyway, I LUV mine!

Chez Johnson

I'm not a perfectionist. Honestly, I'm not!

But sometimes when I set out to do something -- like give the kitchen a thorough cleaning, I get completely sidetracked and do one little thing ... perfectly! And the original task can go to h&ll in a handbasket. On the other hand, sometimes the resulting "perfection" is a fun little project. Okay, the kitchen's not perfect, but doesn't my recipe box look great now?! Know what I mean?

Well, the recipe box is in fact the subject of today's post. About a year ago I created a recipe card template for my favorite recipes and I've been moving them from all the scraps of paper and tons of bookmarked cookbooks to my recipe template in an effort to organize them. What I really want is ONE place to find all our favorite recipes -- and a few recipes that sound good and will hopefully become favorites. This is how my template (plus a favorite recipe) looks:

Recently I found a metal recipe box for $1.00 at a thrift store and at first I thought I would paint it, but I decided to paper it instead. It was originally drab olive khaki (no before picture - sorry) and now it's all perky and blue. LOVE IT!

Have a perfectly wonderful day!

Tissue Paper Storage

We're in the process of adding built-in bookshelves in the living room so we moved the old stand-alone bookshelves from the living room into my home office. During those changes, I decided to re-think how I'm storing/organizing some of my STUFF. This post is specifically about an idea I came up with on how to store tissue paper.

All my rolls of wrapping paper are stored very neatly by standing them up (cheek-by-jowl) in a tall open box. But how could I neatly store all those different packages ... and partial packages and single sheets ... of tissue paper? I happened to have a couple of empty cardboard cores from bolts of fabric -- that says something about how much fabric I have! -- and I decided to open the bolt cores up and use them for storage. I used 12 buttons, perle thread and the empty cardboard core and VOILA' - tissue paper storage!

For snug closure, I put buttons in the center and at each end of the container. To keep the buttons from tearing through the cardboard, I put a button on each side -- sort of inside and out, back to back -- and sewed them together right through the cardboard.

I just put all my lovely tissue papers inside - down the center, fold the sides closed and secure them and then fold the top and bottom flaps and secure them.

Each button-closure arrangement has 4 buttons -- 2 that are showing and 2 that are inside the cardboard container. The perle cotton is tied permanently to one of the top buttons and has been knotted on the very end so it won't ravel. I wind the string in a figure-8 around this button and that button and back to this button a couple of times and it holds very securely. It's a lot like those intra-company envelopes that large companies use.

It's not necessarily pretty -- I suppose I could have covered it in pretty paper or fabric -- but I was in a hurry and it works just fine for me.

And now I can stand it up next to the tall skinny box of wrapping paper! I love it!

It's another necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention kind of thing.

Bedroom Freshen UP

I was tempted to call this a bedroom makeover, but it's not a makeover - it's just a change. So I'll have to call it a Freshen Up.

Years ago (when I got my tax return - cause Lord knows my budget is usually tight) I bought a bed-in-a-bag sort of thing that I had been coveting. And we've been using that same comforter, etc for years. However, when DH and I bought a new pillow-top mattress a few years ago, suddenly the old comforter was too small to cover everything and the sheets were peeking out at us.

As a temporary (temporary as in - we've had it for 3 years now) stop-gap, I purchased a wheat-ish sort-of-matching satin-ish coverlet and shams. It coordinated with the old bedskirt & shams and it covered everything that needed to be covered. That's really all I was looking for at the time.

But I've been getting very tired of the same-old-same-old olive & wheat blah-blah-blahs!

So I made a little cranberry shrug for the throw pillow in the hopes of breathing some life into the arrangement. It was ...... okay ...... but still not what I wanted.

Then I found a bedskirt and shams at the thrift store in a taffeta (don't think it's silk, but it IS silky) and I loved them. The shams were $5.00 each and the bedskirt was $15.00. And there was a throw pillow in a corresponding palette for $5.00. It's a down pillow with a hidden zipper and the fabrics all have a good body to them, so I know they're high quality items, but there was no label in any of them.

So, here's my before with the olive and wheat blah-blah-blahss brightened (a little startlingly) by the cranberry shrugged throw pillow.

And here's my new color palette! It's sort of soft sagey/gray/blue with wheat and gold.

I LOVE IT!

Whatcha think?

Sumpn from (almost) nuthin

It's that time of year that gifts are given and baskets are filled. This year is different -- hello! can you say recession? - but it's not stressing me out. Having grown up poor -- which has a tendency to build your creative "muscles" -- I prefer giving humbler, but creative gifts.

In the past, we've gone a little overboard at Christmas. We were both working then and both made decent salaries. And Good Lord knows the economy was better. So, in our hurried forays into the shops, we would grab this and that and this and that and wrap it all till we were exhausted. And then just to make sure we didn't leave anything out, we'd fling a couple of gift cards in there. I'm not saying we didn't put some thought into the gifts, but who needs a mountain of gifts at Christmas? It always made me feel a little funny inside -- probably its me as a poor child looking through the window saying ... this ain't right! I find I PREFER fewer gifts! I love gifts that are homemade or purchased at a thrift store and cleverly upcycled into something else. I think a gift that includes cleverness and love is the best gift of all.

I remember the year Billie & Amanda gave us 2 special gifts. Amanda made some "trivets" of Christmas fabric filled with spice scented rice. And Billie made "Bailey's Irish Creme" from a recipe she found. She put it in a pretty bottle she got at a thrift store. They wrapped the gifts in white tissue paper and I think the ribbons were silver. It was lovely and meant so much to me. I still have the bottle and the trivets.

Now that we're adults and our children are grown, I find we need LESS STUFF! So we've encouraged the kids to give us consumables. Every year Erika bakes some wonderful breads for us - like Black Forest Chocolate Bread or Italian Olive bread. We cut the loaves in half, wrap and freeze them and then when we want a special treat, we pull out one of Erika's breads and it brightens our meal. And we love the thought that we haven't made a big dent in her economy.

Having said all that, I humbly present the baskets I sent to work with DH this mornining. I bought the baskets at Goodwill in Denton for $1.00 each. The one on the left was dark brown, the one on the right was mauve with a country style ribbon glued around it. I removed the ribbon, brushed them off real well, painted them white, stuffed white tissue in the bottom, covered that with a sheet of beautiful gold tissue, and tied a gold bow to the side. The bow is made up of 2 different ribbons and I wired 3 bells to the center. (I got the bells at Dollar Tree - 9 bells for $1.00). One basket has three books wrapped as one package and the other has a beautiful picture frame from Barnes & Noble. Each basket has a mercury glass votive with candle, a large loaf of rum cake, a package of homemade cranberry almond biscotti, and a package of Ghirardelli chocolates. DH added a really neat teeny-tiny flashlight that has a VERY bright beam (my sweet techo DH) and the funky-shopping-bag-chick ornament we found at Goodwill in Waco.

All in all, I'm pleased with the result!