Your final dress is so pretty!  I would have given up halfway through your trials.  I'm so glad you could persevere through sewing something that big and time consuming. 

Everyone's suggesting that you to finish off you muslin-- I say hem it to something manageable and wear it to your wedding rehearsal!

Congratulations and good luck on your big day!

Hey, thanks!  I've been google-ing these things for so long I think my brain got stuck on the same words.  Huh.  I looked at those pictures, and it seems like my machine does a lot more than just simple stitching!  I never knew that!  I'm curious as to the 3rd row, 3rd thing in my picture is.  I think it might be for holding an extra spool of thread.  I know I can use twin needles in my machine, perhaps I can do some serger like stuff!

Just a thought, but does velcro retain it's stick ability after getting wet?  I've never really noticed if it does or not.  That might be something you want to check before you make your decision!

Plus, the rough side might stick to whatever you're putting in the bag and snag it.

I guess I'm anti-velcro today.

One way you can make gift bags more sturdy is to use felt as an interfacing layer.  I just made a gift bag with it in the middle.  It made the bag stand up, but it was still pretty floppy.  To me, it was perfect.  Of course, I just was gifted 10+ yards of acrylic brown felt.  Needless to say, I've definitely been trying to find some creative ways to use it up.   

Interfacing is expensive, so maybe you might want to try it out! 

Here's the story:  I have this machine I sort of stole from my mom.  Now, I know it's at least 23 years old, because she bought it before I was born.  The sewing machine is a Singer Athena 1200, if that makes any difference.  I have no clue what most of these feet/contraptions are, and google-ing just turns up people selling them. 
1025002100.jpg by mandamouse123, on Flickr

I think the second row 4th one might be a 1/4 inch foot.  Can anyone help me identify these things?  I'd love to know what they are!

I ended up making a fabric basket.  I felt so stingy asking for the basket back!

I ended up using light brown paper and yellow twine to make all of the labels.  I wish my phone was working to have taken pics!

Thanks for your replies!

Hey all!  I'm making a basket of baby shower stuff to give to my boyfriend's sister.  I'm just going to put everything in there nicely, because I'm trying to to go the wasteful route of wrapping paper.  Of course, the basket I found in the garage is PERFECT, but my mom insists that I put a tag in there saying something about please returning the basket. 

So, my question is, how do I nicely/cutely write please give me my basket back?

I was thinking of stamping something like, "Don't want more junk?  Don't have a use for this basket?  Give it back!"


Tell me what you think!

Thanks!  All the domo and charmander were a pain in the butt to make-- to many layers of stenciling.  I'm not too sure about the domo one.  I might go back and fix the edges and paint the eyes/teeth.

To get the edges crisp, I make sure the iron is really hot.  I use the very tip of the iron to go around all of the edges a couple of times.  You want to make sure its really sealed.  Another thing you can do is paint the edges with up and down motions, instead of back and forth.  Lastly, I try to wait (so hard!) until the paint is completely dry before peeling the stencil up.  Hope that helps!

My friend is having a baby!  In honor of this event, I made her some freezer paper stenciled onesies: Babysaurus Rex by mandamouse123, on Flickr 

baby domo by mandamouse123, on Flickr

Pokebaby by mandamouse123, on Flickr

tell me what you think!  I'm pretty proud of how they turned out!

Jeeze, you told me all about the skull bowl, but it looks so much better that I imagined!  The glaze job is quite nifty!  Just imagine white with purple speckles. . .  or teal.

Yay thinking about an etsy!