FABRIC ROSES, SPRING, and a GIVEAWAY!

Spring is just around the corner - it's less than a month away.  At least the official first day of spring, that is!  When I think of spring I think of tilling up the garden, planting flowers, and smelling the earth!  Finally!  Well, speaking of flowers, I saw this pillow on Pinterest the other day.  

It originated at this blog and she gives a nice little tutorial on how she made it.   So, today I got out several fabrics from my remnant pile and put one together.  This was so fun to make - just free-form stems and leaves - all one continuous line from one side of the pillow to the other.  You just keep turning . . .

 Plenty of overlapping makes it interesting!

 Then just start rolling those fabric roses and use hot glue to adhere them to the top of the stems.  Did you know that they make hot glue for fabrics?  I think the difference is a slower drying time (so you can make adjustments) and more flexibility when dry (making the project a little softer to the touch).

 I also added a few scrap booking "buttons" to the center of some of the flowers.

 More flowers . . .

 And more flowers . . .

 And even more flowers . . .

 And I'm done - 21 in all!  I used green thread for the stem and leaf stitching - burlap, canvas, grosgrain ribbon, and twill for the flowers.

 It's a very heavy pillow top loaded with texture - I love that!

All put together with an envelope closure in the back.  I think this would be a perfect gift for a spring giveaway.  It's full of flowers and spring colors.

And . . . once again, there will be a little extra surprise tucked into the prizewinner's package.

An appropriate time to pull a winner would be on the

FIRST DAY OF SPRING - MARCH 20TH!

So, to enter the GIVEAWAY:

Just leave a comment on this blog post letting me know you are already a follower of You Could Make That, OR please let me know if you are a new follower.  Only followers can win!

OPTIONAL extra entries - do any or all!
1.  Mention my giveaway on one of your blog posts
2.  Do a whole post about my giveaway on your blog.
(The button on the top sidebar is there for you to use.)
3.  Mention the giveaway on your Facebook page with a link back to this post.

Just make sure to leave me separate comments for each extra entry.

REMEMBER!  If you are an anonymous user or have a private profile, please include your email address in your comment so I can contact you if you win!  Or you could email your email address to me if you'd rather stay private.


Good luck!




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VINTAGE PRINTED RIBBON TUTORIAL AND A GIVEAWAY!

Here's a fun little tutorial for personalizing your own ribbons.  These would be pretty tied around a bouquet of flowers or a gift for a special friend.  The first time, we made our own ribbons out of torn strips of white linen.  Just tear strips about 1" wide (or whatever size you need to fit the stamp you're using), pull off the loose threads, and start stamping.  I used permanent black ink for mine but this ink comes in lots of colors. These linen ribbons were wrapped around the tags (shown below) we put at each place, the night of our craft get-together in McKinney.  We wrapped a fabric rose out of the same linen to decorate the tags.

Then we moved on to printing on some vintage ribbons.  These came from a bundle Jan found at an estate sale recently.  She got the whole bag for only $1!!!  What a great find! 

    

 There were tons of colors and the brand, "HugSnug", is still around today. 

 

We printed on some pale blue . . .

red . . .

and cream.

So, once you have the materials, there's nothing to it.  You need:
*ribbon (I think vintage is the best), or torn linen strips
*a permanent ink stamp pad

and
*a stamp with a phrase that will fit on standard 5/8" seam binding ribbon or your ribbon of choice

Just roll out the ribbon and start stamping.  You'll want to line up the stamp to the center of the ribbon, of course.  Don't press too hard or the edges of the stamp will come off on the ribbon too.  It's good to practice a bit on scraps first.  Give it a try!  There are so many great stamps out there - you can make ribbons for every occasion.

You can give the ribbons as a gift - just wrap your stamped ribbons around a vintage postcard from Karen, at The Graphics Fairy and your friends can use them for their own projects.  Or wrap it around a bouquet of flowers.

NOW FOR THE GIVEAWAY!
Expired!!!  Come back for the next one soon!
(International friends - this is for you too!  This will be a very 
light package to ship, so please "follow" and enter!)
These ribbons are so pretty I wanted to share them with a couple followers.  On February 14th, using random.org, I'll choose 2 winners.  Each winner will receive approximately 3 yards of stamped ribbon (either seam binding "ribbon" or fabric "ribbon") wrapped around a bundle of 5 Valentine "Hare" gift tags . . .

This tag is on brown craft paper card stock and printed with the "HARE Dictionary Page" from the Graphics Fairy.
Here are the tags without the ribbon.  They're large (about 3 x 6 inches) and the back is blank, so it's ready for your written sentiments.

The winners will also receive this paper heart swag made with antique book pages,
and . . .

a little something extra!  

Just a little something, but it will remain a secret until the winners open their packages!  Here are the rules to enter:

Just leave a comment on this blog post letting me know you are a follower of You Could Make That.

OPTIONAL extra entries - do any or all!
1.  Mention my giveaway on one of your blog posts
2.  Do a whole post about my giveaway on your blog.
(The button on the top sidebar is there for you to use.)
3.  Mention the giveaway on your Facebook page with a link back to this post.

Just leave me separate comments for each extra entry.  That's 2 winners and 4 different ways to win.

REMEMBER!  If you are an anonymous user or have a private profile, please include your email address in your comment so I can contact you if you win!  Or you could email your email address to me if you'd rather stay private.

That's it!  So easy!

Just a little way to say thank you for all of your kind comments and encouragement along the way.   From California to South Africa . . . it's been fun to get to know you through your emails and your comments over my first year of blogging!  I hope to see some familiar "faces" in the entries!







Sharing on:
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Wow Us Wednesday
Flaunt It Friday
Sister Sunday
Metamorphosis Monday

BIRD PILLOW and MORE

I've been working on lots of pillows.  Some are finished and some are in the works.  Below is the bird pillow I spoke about in my previous post.  The bird is from the Graphics Fairy - printed, cut out, and ironed onto script background fabric that is described more below.  

Below is a  sampling of some other pillow tops that are sitting in my sewing room - waiting to be assembled.

 Another hare on burlap . . .

an "old" pumpkin label on burlap - perfect for Fall and Halloween . . .

 . . . a large crown on burlap . . .

 . . . a nest and bird on burlap . . .

 . . . and a small little hare on canvas.

All of the graphics are from - who else but the Graphics Fairy! 

The burlap bag with fabric roses is also in progress.  It was a frustrating sewing day, with broken needles and a lot of mistakes which led to a lot of seam ripping.  But, below are the fabrics that make up the bag.

 

 A Waverly fabric with French script.

 The fabric roses made of a green linen. . .

  . . . and the burlap in the background.

Will I ever run out of burlap?