The sTate of Things - Creative Outlet

Making presents

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 12:29:19 -0500

So I've made a few presents recently, besides the quilt for Brittaney. The first one was for a recently turned 5 year old little girl from Alex's preschool class. Abby Sue was SO upset that it wasn't for her. I promised I'll make her one soon, just different fabric Though it does look awesome, I don't think I want glittered fabric to deal with.

This one was for a baby shower. They don't know what they are having, so this pretty shade of green was the ticket. Everyone seemed to love it, my kids included.

I had so much fun making both of these, and they were super quick too. I've got to make a few more!

Jelly Rolls, Layered Cakes, Turnovers

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 21:30:38 -0600

So I've recently jumped into quilting, and still trying to stay afloat. Awesome patterns are EVERYWHERE. Then come the challenge, finding those perfect fabrics. Sometimes I'm completely lucky. A friend introduced me to www.aboveallfabrics.com and there I found Popp'n Posies. Yes, Abby Sue will have a quilt for a big girl bed before she is out of a crib. The best thing, they have a fabric kit. True it doesn't come with everything I need, it comes with enough (and it was on sale right now too!) to get started. I found another pattern that is jelly charm friendly. For you, and for me I went ?. Apparently quilters not only have a love affair with fabric, but for sweets too. Jelly Rolls refer to lengths of fabric cut into 2.5 inch strips (all off one collection). Turnovers look just like turnovers, triangles. Honey buns are 1.5inch strips. Desert rolls are 5 inch strips. Then you have your charm and your flat quarter packs.

Boy, this gets confusing and hungry. So I munch on a cookie or two and try to search for something that is impossible to find, boy friendly fabric. And rejoice when I think I found two Jelly rolls to decide from, but atlas no matching charm pack. And it is hard to tell online if things match or even close enough.

So I'm no closer to finding my fabric and still want more cookies!

Latest Projects

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 22:17:19 -0600

Memo to self: I must remember to take photos are all those handmade presents. But here are a few of the rest things.

A baby present for a good friend who is due with a girl in about a month.

Teagan's turtle blanket, he is still learning to love it.

Abby Sue has a lady bug

Alex's dinosaur, and Teagan wants a green one
.

Latest Mischief

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:57:35 -0600

My SWEET neighbor has taken quite a few nights out of her life to teach me how to quilt. Let's just say I'm hooked, and I love it. This is the first of many quilts. This one is for Alex. And he is SUPER excited about it and loves it too. Makes all the work more than blissful. Sorry just realized my lens needs to be cleaned.

Next project is already in the making. It is a turtle shaped rag quilt, and yes it is for our turtle lover Teagan. This has turned into a saga. I've been to three fabric stores searching for the perfect flannel. And I have all the flannel I need, but I'm not happy with it. So being married to an internet dude, I search the internet and found this cool website. quilter search engine It has given me so many more options without having to search each individual website. Now I've got the tough choice of what to keep and what to get. Fortunately my mac comes with "Numbers" a spreadsheet software (but does so much more). I'm using they remodel template to display the finished picture, and all the fabrics I have and all I like. That should help me to decide (fingers crossed).
Continue reading "Latest Mischief "

Mass Production

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:27:00 -0500

I've been busying working on mass production items: birth announcements and thank you cards. And they are FINISHED (minus 3 more thank you card I need to make)! I hope Abby Sue appreciates all I do for her. The birth announcements were very time consuming. I stamped, water color painted the two flowers and then hand cut one of the two. I was luck there was a punch that fit the other. I did enjoy making the first 12, but after 35 I don't want to make another. So it took me a while to work up the gumption to make 15 out of the 19 thank you cards (one for her scrapbook). Maybe that is why the thank you cards are so simple, but simple is very pretty too.

What I go through to teach my kids good manners.

Finally Selling!

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 22:34:14 -0500

I've finally have been able to get two of my finished blankets up for sale on etsy.com! I'm very excited. I'm hoping they will sell, they are quite cute. So go to etsy.com and check them out. I'm tatemommacrafter. Here they are:

Destruction

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 08:03:37 -0600

No, this time it wasn't the boys. It was me.

I have collect quite a few craft magazines, mostly cross stitching. But recently Joseph FINALLY talked me into downsizing my stack. I find this hard to do. What happens if one of the patterns I threw away I'll need? Then I got practical in my thinking. No more ads and the stuff I don't like. So I've done most of my cross stitching magazines (I get three different ones and they pile up fast) and then last night I went through my scrapbooking ones. I've been though these dog earring the pages I liked or stuff or techniques, but last night I had to think more. What do I like about this what don't I, would I use this as a scrap-lifting page? But I'm pleased to announce the magazines have been downsized, minus the ones in the living room. Now I want to take notes on what I like about each page and file it in a three ring binder with page covers. (I love those plastic page cover. They are wonderful for cross stitching, keeps them clean, dry, and I can mark on them with a dry erase marker and wipe off when the chart is done.) Now the question is how intently do I want to organize them? I better decide fast I need to work on my cross stitching magazines asap, they are piling up again! And before Alex and Teagan can ruin the magazines (Teagan loves looking through my magazines).

Penny a Print

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 20:52:17 -0500

For all those Scrapbooker: Clark Color is running a AWESOME special. one 4x6 print for a penny. You can order up to 50 prints per order. BUT you can reuse the coupon, over and over again. You'll end up pay about 2.95 for shipping. I love their quality, I've only had one print that came back fuzzy, and they immediately reprinted and mailed it to me. I think with first time users you'll get some free prints too.

Craft Update

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:36:18 -0500

I'm hoping the recipients of these gifts have received them and I'm not ruining the surprise, which is one of the reasons I've waited so long to post them. The pink blanket was hemstitched and then crocheted edge with a shell design. The flower towel design was from one of my cross stitch magazines. I hope they like them.

Photos

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:46:20 -0500

I love to scrapbook, but try to cut cost corners here and there (typical of every stay at home mom). So I hold off ordering photos till I have 100+. I think one time I ordered nearly 400, so lots of photos to work on at once. I am so happy that clarkcolor.com has a new product, they have collage prints! The only thing that really sucks is that you can't move the photos on the print, but when you don't have the fancy expensive software you take what you can get. So this time instead of ordering 250ish photos to them crop, place and glue, I ordered a few 4x6 prints and several collage 8 x 10 prints. The best part is that I save a bunch of time in the prep stage and get to having fun faster. I've tried this feature out a few times, and since have found it wonderful and look for excuses to use it. Thanks Grandma Betty for wanting a poster size of our last beach trip, I had a blast playing with the border size and colors. I hope you like it. I just recently finished a 8x10 print of our recent Moab trip. I used the sepia filter on several of the photos and then left a few in original color Boy those really pop. As soon as I get the print I'll have to upload a picture of it. I think it will be great especially to scrapbook. Maybe I can ask my honey for some awesome photo software for Birthday/ Christmas, but with my luck he'll find some complex free software that I'll never use (he has found several that just 'collect virtual dust' on my computer. What is the good of free if you have to have several different programs to use to accomplish the same thing as one? Especially if they have different user set ups and confuse me?).

PS I'll be posting my lastest finished projects for those who would like to see them soon.

Pink Dog

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 21:25:41 -0500

One of my friends have been gently poking me to add my finished craftiness to the blog. So I gave in tonight. This is my latest project, a pink dog. It is for a sweet little baby girl in my ward, Caroline.

Christmas

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 13:23:43 -0500

I've been very excited. I've finished the second biggest homemade Christmas present I've ever made. And all I have to say is she better like it or else. It has taken me about 6 months to make. Now on to the next two. Boy, I'm going to need a few extra months before Christmas comes, can we repeat September and October. That should give me enough time to finish these and start the others and finish before Thanksgiving. Though it has been fun looking at cross stitch websites for stuff. I've found so many pattern books I want, and I've only been looking in the Christmas and transportation sections. I've noticed I've changed my liking in crafts too. I've never been a girly girl, I've always been a sort of Tom boy, but now I want to stitch cars and trains and frogs and all those boy stuff. It is a different challenge than the normal flowers and butterflies girly stuff I've been doing. And I'll enjoy every minute as soon as I can sit down to make it.

Strawberries

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 21:47:30 -0500

Today was the first day I've had all year to go to the farmer's market and reap a sweet sticky red reward. So after Teagan's nap, Alex put Gus in his crate and we put on shoes, buckled up and headed out to the farmer's market. Alex loves strawberries and he loves begging strawberries off all the farmers, and they love giving him as many as he wants. After an hour of stall surfing, we loaded up the van with 12 quarts of jam ready strawberries, 2 quarts of eating strawberries, several pounds of sweet potatoes, two sweet onions, and four HUGE tomatoes. So all afternoon and evening, I've cleaned, cut, mashed, stirred and finally the reward: 13 quarts of strawberry jam. 10+ hours of work. I'm exhausted. Good thing tomorrow is park day and the kids can wear themselves out and I can socialize with the other moms, or at least that is the plan.

Magic Ring

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:26:34 -0500

I've been loving making these amigurumis. Today I discovered the magic of the magic ring. Before I would either make the beginning ring as small as possible and force all the begining stitches in it or a little too big. Neither worked very well, all the creaters had a bald spots (aka holes where I would start each body part). Today I started working on a monkey for Alex and was told to google crochet magic ring. I did. I found a wonderful website, www.crochetme.com, that explained everything very simply and had pictures. And now I'm happy to say that my monkey will have no holes. And that my future creaters won't too. Alex is very excited about his future monkey. Got to get crocheting.

Great History

nospam@example.com (Nichol Tate) — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 21:43:20 -0600

I must admit, I love history. Always been a big fan. I've also enjoyed the story of Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. So as I browsed the local news web page, this story caught my eye. http://wral.com/news/national_world/national/story/2530945/ I think it is so cool to have such a gem of history pop up and in such good condition. Just another reason why I value scrapbooking!