How-To: Business Card Holder

With the Creative Estates coming up soon (as in, next weekend!), I thought I’d get on the ball and
have something to hold my “business” cards while I am there. 

Here’s how I made mine:
You Need:
2 fabric pieces cut 5 1/2” x 4 1/2” (one will be lining, one the outside. You can do the same fabric for both, or different fabric to mix things up)
2 fabric pieces cut 2 1/2” x 4 1/2”
1 fusible fleece piece cut 5 1/2” x 4 1/2”
Small hair elastic (I used my daughter’s) - not pictured

(Warning: lots of pictures ahead.  I had a hard time finding “white” on my camera today, so, just forgive me.)


To begin, take your 2 1/2” pieces and iron a double 1/4” hem down one long side.



Top-stitch your hem in place.



Then, place your beautifully hemmed pieces on top of your lining piece so your raw edges line up.  You can baste these together if you like using a 1/8” seam allowance.



Iron your fusible fleece piece to your top piece (no pic) and put it right sides together with your lining piece.  Pin these pieces together, but don’t sew yet!



On one of your 4 1/2” sides, insert your hair elastic in between the lining and the top piece.  The more elastic you stick in between the layers, the longer your loop will be when you turn everything inside out. I stuck it in about 3/4 of the way.



Then, sew around the perimeter of the whole thing using a 1/4” seam allowance.  Make sure you remember to leave a space for turning!  Clip your corners when you are done.



I used a dull colored pencil to get my corners all pointy.  Make sure they look nice and pretty :)



I gave it a good ironing, and then top-stitched around the entire thing to close the opening.



Then, sew down the middle of the piece.  This is totally optional, btw, I just liked how it looked and how it kept the layers together.



Now, find your button placement.  I folded the loop up and just put my button where the top of the loop hit.



Hand-stitch the button on, but make sure not to sew the pocket shut while doing so!



Annnnnddd…. you’re done.



You’ve got yourself a card-holding cutie.



Don’t have business cards?  How about gift cards?



How about making multiples and giving them as gifts to your friends?



Since these are so small, they are perfect for using up scraps.



Do you have fun buttons?  I didn’t.  These can be EXTRA fun with cute buttons.



Everything is more exciting in multiples.



Go ahead!!!  Make some! 

Don’t forget to link up to the Flickr group with any you make.

And since I know someone will ask, I ordered my cards through Vistaprint, although they aren’t superfab (c’mon, I just used Picnik to design them. They’re going to be lame!).  The holders can hold 24 cards- I am sure you can squeeze in a few more.

Sharing this with Sew Much Ado, Today’s Creative Blog, and Blue Cricket.

Your Cupboard Space

I know some of you have been hard at work, and some of you have been using tutorials found here on the Crafty Cupboard!  Nothing makes me smile bigger than seeing projects you’ve made that come from this little spot in the blogosphere.

Gabrial’s Mama got to work and made FOUR monster toys.  I love how the eyes are all different, giving each one a little personality! :

Cami from tidbits made THREE of the Lovey-Dove skirts, which turned out so cute for her three girls, especially since they had matching shirts and hair clips.

This skirt remains a favorite around here.  This one and the circle skirt always get first pick from my girls!

If you have made something with a tutorial found here on the Crafty Cupboard, feel free to add it to the Flickr group.  I can’t wait to see what you’ve been up to!!

Piggies

I’m still in Children’s Book Mode because of Katy’s Once Upon a Thread theme.  Last night I was reading Piggies by Audrey and Don Wood to my baby and the thought occurred to me that I had some piggy flannel in my fabric stash.

So, I made jammies.

I’m glad I bought lots of fabric in this print ( think it was $1.49/yard when I got it), so I could make two pairs of pants out of it.

And there is plenty of room in the baby’s hem for her to grow.  My munchkin and baby have nearly the same size waist because of the baby’s big baby belly.  :)

The book is a favorite!  It is fun to do the fingers with the illustrations,

And count the piggies as they add up, page by page.

I love the individual personalities on each pig; each finger has a boy and a girl representative.  The illustrations are so witty and detailed.

And of course, in the end, it wouldn’t be a great book if it didn’t include some piggy kisses.  “And two wee little kisses…

…goodnight.”

Not that my kids would go to bed in the middle of the day.  But, you know.  At least they pretended to snore.

Quilting Madness

I’ve been doing a lot of quilting lately.  More than normal, at least.  I finished all my scrap blocks, started Chain Reaction, and finished quilting this beauty. which you will find more about later and which I still need to bind:

Our family took a spontaneous trip to Utah last week.  Like, we got a call on Wednesday at noon, and we were driving North by 6:30pm.  It was crazy.  Anyway, I got to stop in on Material Girls Quilts with Char, and I was FLOORED by the amazing fabric options you people have in Utah.  And that was only one store; I know there are more.  Anyone want to open a shop by me with that kind of fabric?  I’ll love you forever, and keep you in business.  :)

Laundry Room Re-Vamp

We can’t paint in our condo, which leaves me with white walls everywhere I look.  So, I took our laundry room from this:

to this:

simply by painting some dove-tailed drawers and hanging them on the wall.

I “shopped” around my place to find other things to add to the room for a more colorful and fun experience while doing laundry.

And of course, it wouldn’t be complete with a pun involving drawers:

And, FYI, there is probably a desk still available at Goodwill without the drawers… perfect for a play kitchen!  Go get it!  :)

And a matching blanket (with free-motion practice!)

Remember this quick drawstring bag we made? We got another Tiny Prints fat quarter, and the munchkin requested a blanket in lieu of a dress and skirt. She picked out a pink backing fabric too.



I decided to go crazy quilting this, and ended up with a little free-motion practice. One half of the quilt looks kinda shoddy, and the other looks much, much better. Not perfect, but better.



She now hauls this blanket with her little pink puppy with her wherever she goes. The best part is we can keep the blanket in the bag with the puppy. How convenient is that?

St Patty’s Day Spirit… kind of.

I had a green shirt.  And a few minutes to spare.

So here’s a “kiss my I’m Irish” picture,

With diseased-looking clovers in white (reverse applique) on her shirt,

And a little sister who thought it was fun to see the poses.

I tried, ok?

Burn Prevention Program

I got a Chi for Christmas, probably as a subtle hint to actually do something with my frizzy hair, and it has been a wonderful addition to my morning routine.  However, I had one tragic incident where I left it on the bathroom counter to calm the natives and got an unhappy burn mark where it had been left.  That thing gets hot, people.

Since I am in a rental, I don’t want to get charged moolah for destroying the bathroom counter.  I have to plead my case here and say that a matching flat-iron burn mark was here when we moved in, so I know someone else had this problem too!!!

Here was my $4 solution from Ross:

A cute little trivet now serves as my Chi rest (I usually have more flat iron resting on it, but I wanted you to see the design).  I turn on my flat-iron before I blow-dry, so it heats up and stays hot for a bit while I get my massive amount of hair dry.  Then, when I’m done, it cools down on the trivet too.  When the flat-iron is put away, it is a cute, decorative part of my bathroom.

What, are you eye-balling my aquarium-esque Chi?  It was on sale.  Big sale.  Any guesses why?

Be back soon.  I have been painting furniture pieces again.  And by that I mean pieces of a piece of furniture.

BTW: The Shabby Apple winner was #4, Jen T!!  Keep your eyes open for other Shabby Apple giveaways in blogland, I have seen a few this week alone!

Sunday Dress

I decided to try out a new pattern this weekend.  Simplicity 2320, a Project Runway pattern (meaning, you choose how your end product will be using lots of different pattern options).  Let me tell you… that front yoke was a beast to put in.  It probably would have helped if my pleats hadn’t gone askew through the process, but it was still hard for me to get it right.  I think gathers instead of pleats would have been better.

Instead of slip-stitching the yoke lining down, I just top-stitched and caught the lining in the stitching.  No biggie.

I also got to use some matching scraps to make my own bias tape for the arm holes.  I think it adds a really great custom touch. 

Boy, this close you can see my little threads from unpicking the bias tape one time around.  Oops :)

The smallest one was Madeline

Katy at No Big Dill had this ingenious idea to turn March into a children’s book themed month, which she calls Once Upon a Thread.  You’re getting excited already, right?

Well, not wanting to miss out on all the fun, I thought and thought and then consulted my husband on what a good project would be.  He, unsurprisingly, suggested Go Dog Go!.  I almost did a little boy t-shirt with racecars on it (still might) but suddenly, Madeline popped into my head.

I suppose my fascination with all things French grew when I married into a family fluent in the language from spending some years there.  But this story has always been fun; I believe we had Madeline’s Rescue when I was a kid; that Genevieve!!! Lord Cucuface!! It’s a great story.

We got the book at the library, and I showed the munchkin the pictures and read the story.  We loved it all over again :)  So, of course, we had to make dresses.

This isn’t exactly the Madeline dress; hers is long-sleeved and has a cute matching over-coat thingy… but since the temperature is supposed to reach 90 degrees this weekend, we went for short sleeves and no coat.  Can you blame me?

I don’t want to talk about the collars either. Sabra gave me some tips in an e-mail, but my laziness totally made it go weird…  I know how it can be done nicely, but that would require more patience and time than I had available :)

My littlest one is not named Madeline, but sometimes she causes just as much trouble as the heroine of this book.  (And, FYI, the sleeves are even in real life.  I promise!)

This project was sooooo fun to do.  Really fun to take pictures of, even though so many didn’t turn out great.  The red ribbon was a fun story too… we got to my mom’s to take pictures and she wasn’t home, I didn’t have a key, and my ribbon was one long piece.  The irony of being at the house with the most pairs of scissors on earth without access was too much, so I ran to a neighbor and borrowed a pair to cut the ribbon.  Thus the haphazard tie job that made the collar skewompus ;)

My two little girls never stay in straight lines, but they are so enjoyable.  Two minutes after this picture, they were running around in their underwear as I sprayed them with a hose.  Good times!