Give Away Day

This Give Away is now Closed.  

The winner, selected by random number generator, is lucky comment #21.

Congratulations Tammy.  You'll be getting an email soon.

Thank you to all who entered, and to Sew Mama Sew for hosting Give Away Day.

It's about time I gave something away.  I'm looking beyond Christmas with this selection.  And why not, once the holidays pass we all need something bright and cheerful to carry us through the remaining darkness and into spring.  I think these pretty pink and green prints will do the trick.

Would you like to be the lucky winner of these eco-friendly cloth gift bags?  You'll get:
- a Medium sized cloth gift bag in pink and green with pink ribbon tie,
- a Wine bottle cloth gift bag in green stripe print with pink ribbon tie and
- a set of three book-page gift tags.

All lovingly crafted by yours truly.



To enter this give away, please visit the Dapple Design Shop on Etsy and look around.  Then come back here and leave a comment telling me what you liked best.  It's that easy.

Contest closes Friday, December 13 at noon, Pacific Standard Time.
Open to readers in Canada and the United States.
Winner will be selected randomly and notified early next week.

Please Like my Facebook page as well.  It won't help you in the give away, but you'll be more likely to hear about future contests and events.

Good luck!

Linking to Give Away Day at Sew Mama Sew.

Birthdays

Last weekend we had a birthday party.  I had to double check that, but yes, it was only last weekend.  I would not have mentioned it except that I wanted to show you these.

I've been sewing lots of cloth gift bags for the Dapple Design Shop and the Craft Fair next Saturday.  It was fun to use them.  I love giving presents wrapping in something that will be appreciated and used again rather than clog the landfill.  I think of the gift wrap as part of the present.  These are for my sister-in-law and mother on their birthdays.  The bottle of wine is a thank you for my brother-in-law, who designed a business card for me.

For tags, I punched up the cover of an old book.  I got a lot of mileage out of Wuthering Heights, but the book is gone now -- all used up.  Sigh.

Crafting with Book Paper

A couple of people commented on the paper ball photo in a recent post, so I thought I'd take a better photo under real light and let you see it.

Do you remember my Wuthering Heights wreath?  This Christmas ball ornament is a riff on the same theme, though I ran out of Bronte pages and had to settle for Hugh MacLennan's Barometer Rising.  (In the spirit of full disclosure:  I have not read Barometer Rising and feel a bit guilty to have dismantled a book I don't know).  

I actually have a half dozen of these balls, which I'm hoping will garner interest at the craft fair in a week and a half.  They're a bit time consuming to make, but I don't mind a little brainless repetition in the evenings.  It pairs well with tea and chocolate.

Pleased with the wreath and ball ornaments, I carried the same book-page technique into gift tags, also for the craft fair.  When something is working, run with it -- right?  Or I'm stuck in a rut.  Either way, I'm amassing a nice selection of tags (not all made from book pages) to compliment my reusable cloth gift bags.

Would you be interested in seeing DIY instructions for either of the projects above?

In Defiance of the Season & an Update from the Dapple Design Shop

Tulips.  In October.  Not from my garden, of course.  Gary brought these home on Friday to help me celebrate the recent action over at the Dapple Design Shop.  More on that in moment.  

 

I took the flowers out to the garden this morning and pondered the bizarre juxtaposition of tulips in October.  Here, they're photographed against a clematis vine thinning itself down for winter.  Jarringly oblivious, the tulips beam their springtime yellow.  They join the host of unseasonable luxuries delivered by greenhouses and rapid transport.  Tomatoes all winter.  Bananas at any time.  Tulips in October.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy them. 

Returning to the Dapple Design Shop.  It's been an exciting week with packages dispatched to new and distant places.  Another package arrived -- full of Christmas fabric.  Don't you love the bright, cheery colours?  Which is your favorite?  Gift bags from these beautiful prints will soon be available in the shop, so visit often and stock up early.  

 

My New Venture

At the end of my last post I briefly mentioned that my new Dapple Design Shop is up and running on Etsy.  I'm actually pretty excited about this new venture.  Ideas fill my head.  Too many to execute, so I'm starting off simple with a product that I think everyone can appreciate:  gift bags.

I've been dabbling in alternative gift wrap for a while, mostly because I can't stomach the wastefulness of single-use, disposable wrapping paper and ribbons.  For years we wrapped gifts in nothing but the plain white paper scrap that the wide-format printer at my husband's office spit out.  That may sound dull, but it wasn't.  The bright white paper presented an ideal backdrop for stamping, painting, collaging or simply tying ribbons.  Sadly, a new printer at the office has dried up the flow of paper scrap, leaving me in need of a new, non-wasteful way to wrap presents.

My husband's birthday was earlier this week and these three presents were for him.  Don't they look nice?  The wrappings belong to my new line of fabric gift bags that can be used again and again.  Unlike paper gift bags -- which some people hang onto, while others chuck -- these cloth bags look and feel like part of the gift, not just the disposable packaging.  That makes them far more likely to be re-used.

These images are from the Dapple Design Shop.  I've only  just begun, but I'm working to add a deep variety of fabrics -- something for everyone.  If you haven't already, please drop in for a visit. 

Recent Happenings and an Announcement

The official start of fall is just a few days away, and I'm already getting into the spirit.  I savor the satisfying crunch of those first fallen leaves and the comforting weight of an extra quilt on the bed.  The days are still bright and warm.  The long rain has not yet begun.

And I'm busy.  Busy turning this . . .

 

into this . . .

At last count, my humble backyard had produced over 100 lbs of tomatoes alone.  Keeping up has been something of a challenge, but I think I am, at last, on the home stretch.

All that gardening and preserving -- and, to be honest, laying on the grass with Miss S -- has taken time away from other pursuits.  Like sewing.  This is what my sewing desk looked like early in the week . . .

 

It has since been excavated and recovered with different clutter -- the clutter of new and revived projects.   That brings us to my big announcement. 

I am very pleased to announce the opening of the Dapple Design Shop on Etsy.  I've launched a line of hand-crafted, reusable, fabric gift bags.  Please stop by to admire my first offerings and stock up on gift wrap.  There's much, much more to come.

Play Castle in the Sky

Kids love presents that come in really big boxes, but wrapping them can be a challenge.  There's always newspaper -- functional and uninspiring -- but for Little Miss S' first birthday I wanted something prettier.  I found a box that her new rocking horse fit into -- a toilet box leftover from recent renovations -- and gathered white paper, scissors, tape.  The plan evolved as I worked:  "Kids like the boxes best . . .  Miss S will fit inside this box . . . I could cut a door . . . and a window."

 

By the time I finished, I was more excited about the gift box than the gift, and when her birthday came, Miss S agreed.  

 

Is there anyone in your life who would fit in a box?  Here are a few castle construction details.

I used a large mixing bowl and a ruler to draw the shape of the door and window.  A serrated kitchen knife worked best for cutting the cardboard. 

 

I used a roll of heavy white paper and a glue gun to wrap the castle.  I wrapped the door and window by trimming away the paper in the openings, leaving a wide margin, then slitting the paper to the edge of the box and gluing the tabs to the inside.  This took a little while, but wasn't difficult.

Then I cut crenelations in the top flaps of the box and used chop sticks and hot glue to help them stand upright (see next picture).  The finishing details:  a cardboard tube flag pole and freehand stone work detailing around the door and window.  Ta Da!

 

This project is a classic case of making-it-up-as-you-go, so it's far from perfect, but Miss S doesn't seem to mind.  She has a cozy quilt and a menagerie of stuffed animals in her castle.  She loves opening and closing the door.

 

She likes crawling out the window too.

Do you ever make projects up as you go or do you always plan them out?  How does it go?

Linking to Everything Etsy.