Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Wedding cake topper

My boss (one of them at least) is getting married soon, and she asked me if I could make her a cake topper. She knew she liked the idea of having the love birds, but didn’t have any real restrictions. So…this is what I came up with. Luckily, she and her fiancĂ© both love it!


The wood and lighting look so different because one picture was taken on a dark wood table and the other on lighter wood floors.



I tried to keep the birds fairly simple since the tree’s already a big statement, but I really couldn't resist the top hat.

Monday, July 19, 2010

The first butterflies of the year

Or at least the first big butterflies of the year. I think it's too hot, even for the butterflies! I've mostly only seen ladies, skippers, and a couple of buckeyes so far. I did manage to catch a couple fancier ones in action. Here is the monarch and, I believe, the black swallowtail.


Saturday, July 17, 2010

My very own panty liner set!

I’ve wanted to buy/make cloth pads for a while now, but this Craftster post finally kicked my butt into gear. I recently got the Diva cup, so I don’t have a need for regular pads. However, I do need daily panty liners and hate, hate, hate using and throwing away one every day. Compared to pad patterns, there aren’t many out there for panty liners. I did find one liner tutorial that I used for the base of mine.



I changed the shape to something that I think will work best for me. I used two layers of cotton for the base and wings, and three layers of thin cotton flannel for the top (two would work fine for the most part, but why risk it when it’s still really thin?) I sewed the back sides of the base together, leaving one wing open to turn inside out. I probably should have curved the wings more as they get to the liner because there is some bunching after turning out, but you don’t notice it when the wings are folded over.

I thought the idea of cutting down the middle of the top pieces seems to defeat the purpose of the liner altogether. Maybe it works fine, but it just seems weird to me. I stacked my layers and used a zigzag stitch to attach them to the base.



I realized later that I put two channels down the middle of my trial liner (not shown) and didn’t with this batch. I’m going to try these without it first to see whether or not it makes a difference. I am very excited about these! I probably spent about $3 making seven of these. I only used about 1/2 yard of the cotton flannel I bought, and I bought the snaps for the wings (Michaels coupon!). The base fabrics were leftovers from other projects.