Cell Phone Case

We've been at the Hawaii House for several weeks, but sadly it's getting time to close up the place and head back to California.  I aways like to leave my caretaker Audrey a small gift when we leave.  She was here the other day to see pictures of our new grand baby and mentioned she was always dropping her phone.  I thought a quilted Hawaiian print phone case would be a fun little gift.  I took scraps from other projects and quilted two rectangles (I just eyeballed the size an inch or two larger than my phone) I used a strip of masking tape as my quilting guide...just moved it after each row

Next I trimmed the quilted rectangles to 1/2" larger than my phone

(just enough for a seam allowance) and cut 2 pieces of lining

Next I sewed side seams and one end closed 

(right sides together) leaving an inch or so open

on the end of the lining piece (for turning)

Next turn lining piece right side out and stuff into quilted piece

(so right sides are together) If you want a small loop or hangar now

is the time to sew it between the lining and main piece

Sew around the top edge matching seams

Pull lining piece out and turn assemblage right side out 

through the small hole left in the lining 

Stuff the lining down into the quilted piece,

topstitch along the top edge to keep lining in place

and you've got a cute padded cell phone case

Ginger Watercolor

Got a happy surprise in the mail the other day.  My neighbors in Hawaii forward my mail to California when we're not there.  A check arrived from the gallery...I sold 5 paintings in January and didn't even know it.  How fun is that?  Kind of makes up for the slow sales (make that non-existent) at the Laguna Beach gallery.  So, I've had to get busy and paint some new inventory to take over next week.  We're heading to the Hawaii house for a few weeks of sun and relaxation.  I'll miss grand baby Kale but looking forward to being warm for awhile.  Here's one of my latest pieces...

Ginger 16x20

Quick and Easy Baby Gift

My friends are all becoming grandmas...it's SO fun to watch our daughters become mothers.  I've been going to lots of baby showers lately and usually try and give something that the mom-to-be has registered.  But, when I'm invited to come "meet" the new little one I like to take a small welcome gift.  I did these for Lucy...the new grandchild of one of my best buds. I got the onesies at Walmart for less than $4 each...
Using my Cricut I cut "Lucy" out of freezer paper in 2 different cursive fonts (thought they'd be more girlie) After ironing the freezer paper to the onesie...I just mixed up a cute pink in fabric paint and dabbed away.

This took no more that 20 minutes, waiting for the paint 

to dry took the longest.  

After heat setting the paint I

wrapped them up and went to visit Lucy!

New Doormat

My doormat has gotten pretty ratty looking...I knew it was time for a new one.  While at Home Depot yesterday I found this plain mat for $5.97...what a deal.  I knew I wanted to try and stencil my own design and figured I wouldn't be devastated if I had a project fail if I only spent $6.  So...being the irreverent person that I am I wasn't about to go the traditional route of "welcome" or initials or anything like that...instead, I opted for NICE UNDERWEAR.  The whole thing takes about 45 minutes and one is only limited by one's imagination for the design.  A cute nautical theme (lighthouse or shell motif), maybe paw prints if there's a dog in the house...lots of possibilities. I started with my plain mat

next, I worked out my text on my Cricut

(I had this brilliant idea to cut the stencil out of contact

paper like I use for silk screening)

Since the cutting mat format is only 12" square it

took 3 cuts to get my words large enough

I cut out each word, then pieced them together

I carefully peeled them off the sticky mat...keeping 

the centers of the D's, R's and A

I used a T square to make sure I was centered and 

straight before [adhering] the contact paper to the mat

I put that in brackets because the contact paper didn't

stick as well as I'd hoped :(

After masking off the exposed mat with tape and printer 

paper, I hauled the assembly outside and spray painted my words

I used chalkboard paint ONLY because I already had it

So, here's my front door

and here's my new mat...as you can see...there's a bit 

of overspray...I think if I'd cut my letters from vinyl it

would have stuck to the bristly mat better

Hat Model

Wow...I can't believe it's been almost 2 months since I've posted.  Where does the time go?  I've been to Hawaii for a month...no excuse there...I have been projecting up a storm just never seem to shoot while in progress or before I give them away.  Thought I'd share a couple of pics of grandbaby Kale wearing the hats from my last post in December.  He's almost 10 weeks old ALREADY!!!!  My daughter Kipp is doing a wonderful job as a mommy and husband Andrew is doing a great job as daddy),  it is really fun to watch your children become parents, an experience I highly recommend :)

Kale in his strawberry hat

Kale working the pumpkin look

This is another hat version I've done...

the basic beanie with pom pom

Baby Hats

Playing with my new grandson has been so much fun.  I knew I would enjoy being a grandma...I had no idea how special it would be.  I love every minute spent with this beautiful little boy.
As I said in an earlier post, most of the newborn clothes we made prior to his birth don't fit...
10 lbs 7 ounces is a very big newborn....  So, since the winter has been very chilly by California standards, I've taken to making him cute little hats to wear...I found a very easy but very cute hat pattern online...it's from Grosgrain, a smart well done blog I follow.  I found it in a round about way googling baby strawberry knit caps...it was just a coincidence that the pattern was on a blog I already follow...just several years back.  Here's the link to it if you want to give it a go, the color combinations are endless...as you'll see from the photos...you could make flowers for little girls...fruit...any holiday color combos...I was even thinking of doing red and white stripes with a blue "star" on top for Fourth of July!

And here's Kale "rockin" the pumpkin look

Watercolor Orchids

The weather is dismal, raining and cold.  My bright spot...our new grandson Kale.  He's a joy.  When I'm not visiting and playing grandma, I'm painting.  Working on a series of orchids to take back to the Hawaii gallery in late December. Here's what I've come up with so far