I hope you're not getting sick of all these giveaways I've been doing on the blog recently. If you are, you might not want to be around next week, as I plan on giving away something awesome every day! If you're interested in some calligraphy by yours truly, specifically a 5x7 piece with you & your loved one's names ornately calligraphed on it, Check out Jemma Coleman's blog. Jemma just launched her new look (designed by me!) and is celebrating by giving oodles of awesome stuff away. CLICK HERE to enter. From how it stands right now, your chances of winning are pretty good. So GO! Do I have to beg you some more to enter this giveaway? While your there, browse her archives. She's got some awesome photography up her sleeve.

So Sew Word of the Week: ORANGE

Sandy’s Project • Krista’s Project • So Sew Flickr Group

Since it snowed for the first time of the season earlier this week, I thought I'd make some mittens for Penelope. We've had terrible luck with mittens for the Nels. They're either too bulky for me to squeeze her hands into, or they're not warm enough. I need a pair that are easy to put on AND keep her hands warm.

On a whim I went to D.I. to see if I could find any sweaters that would work for felting. Amazingly, I found a 100% orange cashmere sweater for $3! Can you believe it? I was so thrilled. Oh my goodness this sweater is incredibly soft. If it weren't for the disgusting 90s shape of the sweater and my enormous belly, I think I would've kept it for my own. Instead, I machine felted it (twice) and sort of made up a pattern for some Penelope mittens!

Sadly, Penelope hates them. They're just right in the thumbs, but not in the fingers. I may try to make them a tad smaller to see if that fixes the problem, but Penelope just may be an anti-glove wearing gal. Who knows. I do know she appreciated how soft they were, just not while they were on her hands. Oh well. I tried. Here are some resources I used for felting & making up my own pattern:

Machine Felting Tutorial • Fleece Mittens for Kids • Making Mittens from a Sweater

Did you make something this week inspired by the word ORANGE? Please share! Add it to the So Sew flickr page.

I just finished a little quote for someone. I'm so happy with how it turned out, I had to share.

This is the last word of the So Sew challenge & the word that I chose:

ORANGE

I'm pretty sure I know what I'm going to do, it's sort of a gamble, because I don't really have a pattern for it. If all turns out well, it's going to be AWESOME. Did you do something for last week? Are you going to participate in this week's word? Add your projects to flickr! I wanna see!

Have you been following Project Runway? I have! I'm super jealous that Denver peeps can watch the season finale with my Project Runway fave: Mondo. He's the best! While I won't be bumping shoulders with my favorite designer, I will be with some of my favorite people. Susan's having a Project Runway Season Finale party down in Provo. You should totally come. It's free, but pace is limited. R.S.V.P. via email to suezpetersenATgmailDOTcom if you're planning on coming. It's going to be awesomel! Remember my awesome headboard from my old dungeon of a room? Well, sadly it doesn't fit in our new place. Our bed is a queen & the king-sized headboard doesn't fit snugly in the bay window as I had hoped. I'm trying to sell it, and I've listed it for a steal of a deal: $35. Check out the listing or Contact me if you want it! Also, remember the deal I got on my Mid-Century Modern Urban Outfitters couch? Well, we're getting rid of it, too. It's perfect for an office or formal living room, but not quite right for cuddling up & watching Modern Family on. As much as I like it, it's got to go. It's in great condition & totally rad. It's listed for $250. Check out the listing or Contact me if you want it!

This post is brought to you by legxicon tights.

Again, you know how picky I am about tights. After reviewing tights for Hanes, I was so glad to hear I'm not alone in my tight snobbiness! Shortly after the review, Legxicon asked me to try out some of their tights to see how I felt about them. Gladly I accepted! Legxicon has a wide variety of printed tights, which immediately piqued my interest. Do you see the above tights? They're perfect for jazzing up my boring black dress. Oh, and by the way, this is the maternity dress that Chris hates, if you wanted to know. He hates the polyester & thinks it's a witch dress. I love it. It was my mom's or at least I think it was. I rescued it from the Scott family dress-up pile years ago. I love these tights for their subtlety. Mixing & matching prints & patterns is so "in" right now, these tights while patterned are so perfect for pairing with even the busiest of prints. I also liked how surprisingly thick they were. I'm not seeing runs any time soon. Seamed tights are the BEST! They instantly add a touch of vintage flair to any outfit. I have a similar pair from Victoria Secret, but they don't compare. The waistline on my old pair is high, tiny (who has an 18" waist these days?) and not stretchy. Legxicon's waistband is soft, generous & low. I thought I'd try out some leggings as well, and I love them! They're a tad on the sheer side for me, so I wore black leggings underneath in this outfit. They're stretchy, comfortable, rouched at the bottom and did I mention comfy? So comfortable, in fact, I wore them to bed the other night. I'm very impressed with the quality, style & fit of Legxicon tights & leggings. I've had a lot of fun pairing outfits with them and I think you would, too! Legxicon is offering one lucky reader their choice of two pairs of tights. I know you'll all fall in love as I have. Here's how you can win:

• Visit Legxicon's site, check out their tights & sign up for their newsletter (at the bottom right) - it'll automatically enter you in their monthly drawing for a pair of free tights!
• Leave a comment on this post telling me what tights are your favorite
• This contest is open for US residents only
• Only one (1) comment per person
• Comment by 11:59pm (MST) Thursday, October 28, 2010
• No purchase necessary
• One (1) winner will be chosen via random.org & announced Friday, October 29, 2010

Good luck!!

Sadly the watercolor class scheduled for Art Weekend was cancelled, but you haven't missed the opportunity to learn it yet! Monday night from 7-9pm in SLC I'll be teaching beginning watercolor. You'll learn all sorts of awesome stuff about materials and about how to make rad watercolors for your own home. Let's be honest, this is not going to be your grandma's or your kindergartener's watercolor class. We won't be playing with saran wrap or salt; we'll be getting down to the nitty gritty of actual painting. You know you want to come. The class is $20 + $17 materials fee. Comment or use the contact form to let me know if you're interested. I hope to see you there!

So Sew Word of the Week: CIRCUS

Sandy’s Project • Krista’s Project • So Sew Flickr Group

This week's word had me completely out of ideas. All I could think of was Penelope's clown suit and possibly making another one. I love that little suit and I'm heartbroken she's grown out of it. Thankfully a few of you came to my rescue & gave me some more inspiration! I decided to run with the whole pennant idea & make a little shirt for Penelope with embroidered pennants on the front. Oranges & yellows also remind me of the circus, so that explains the color palette.

What do you think? I'm really happy with how it turned out, even though it took me 3 hours longer than I had anticipated. I think Chris was a tad annoyed that I spent the whole night glued to the sewing machine & ironing board.

I used the vintage pattern, Butterick 4782 (Tie her jumper over a T - awesome name). I can't seem to find it anywhere, so it must be out of print. I modified the shirt pattern by adding the tie, adding about 4" to the hem (so glad I did that! look how short it is already on Penelope!) and by adding the pennant iron on. Unsurprisingly I had a hard time fitting the shirt over Penelope's head, so I'm going to have to make a few modifications to the pattern if I make it again.

Have you made any circus-inspired crafts lately? Please share! Add them to the flickr group and/or include a link in the comments!

I've posted about this before in regards to my brother's wedding announcement. My mom is a card maker/scrapbooker extraordinaire. Birthdays, Valentine's, Anniversaries are always celebrated with a handmade card from mom. Chris got the sweetest card for his birthday, and it was almost entirely made out of my my sister's leftover wedding invitations! She's made all sorts of cards & gift tags using Linnley's wedding invitations. The repeat pattern I used on Lin's wedding invite was one of the first repeats I ever made. I hand drew all of the little elements, scanned them in & digitized them. It's just so satisfying to see them on paper & in card form! I think this is why I would love to be a paper/textile designer. I personally would love to see a settee upholstered in this print. I think I would cry if it actually came true.

I'm practically fresh out of Sunday clothes. Nothing fits! I borrowed most of my maternity clothes when I was pregnant with Penelope (best thing ever, btw), so this time around I don't have the same wardrobe to work with. It's good & bad. Now I only have two maternity dresses & no maternity skirts, oh and Chris hates one of the dresses. This pretty much brings back stressful memories of getting ready for church as a child where I literally had nothing to wear besides what I wore the week prior. But don't think I had a deprived childhood. I was just terribly picky with clothes. Still am. I have about 7 yards of this vintage jersey knit material that I've been meaning to make something out of and a maternity skirt seemed to fit the bill. When it comes to maternity fashion, my philosophy is: if you've got it, flaunt it. Show off that belly bump, don't hide it under yards & yards of fabric. When I try on flowy maternity skirts, I feel like they make me look 15 lbs heavier & 6 inches shorter, so I like the more fitted approach. I definitely use this when it comes to pants: HELLO JEGGINGS! You are my fave. Outfit Details:

• headband - Forever 21
• jacket - thrifted
• top - Forever 21
• skirt - handmade
• tights - Legxicon - c/o lexicon
• shoes - Aldo

So here we are. I now have 3 dressy maternity items in my closet. The skirt took me 2 or so hours to make, watching Friday Night Lights while sewing really slows down my process. It was a very easy skirt to make, I'm sure if I did it again, it'd take me less than 15 minutes. You want to know the best part about making this skirt? I didn't have to hem anything. It was pretty remarkable. Click on the button above to download the tutorial. This tutorial is free for personal use and should not be distributed without my consent. If you would like to use this tutorial for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks!

This week's word has me completely stumped. I have no clue what to do. Any thoughts? Ideas?

CIRCUS

I think I'm off to go look for inspiration.

It was Chris's birthday last weekend and boy did that one sneak up on me! We ended up celebrating his birthday all weekend long and it was great. At least I thought it was fun! Friday we went out to dinner without Penelope (thanks to my sister & Groupon!), Saturday we partied & Chris helped me organize the house and last night we had a couple of close friends & Chris's siblings over for dessert. It couldn't have been more fun to just hang out & chat (and give away half of the CDs & books we've been meaning to sort/donate!). I made a spicy pecan marshmallow cupcake for dessert They turned out pretty good, but the marshmallow frosting was really sloppy. I think I should've beat the frosting in my mixer rather than with my hand mixer so it would've set harder. Either way, they tasted yummy. I used Epicurious's frosting recipe. Yum! Chris is absolutely awesome. This weekend I've done a lot of thinking and I love this man so much! Here are a few things that make him awesome:

• He's hilarious
• He remembers all sorts of funny things and makes them into memes (thanks ants = Thants. Thanks Melissa = Thalissa)
• He has spectacular taste in music
• He drives a motorcycle
• He can dead lift 320lbs (or something like that, it's a lot)
• He knows exactly which buttons to push to make Penelope smiley & giggly
• He's good at his job
• He has good taste in clothes
• He's smart with money
• He's creative
• He's my Mr. Fix-it
• He can just "figure out" CSS
• He makes me laugh
• He gives me back rubs on demand

He's a pretty great guy, hu?

So Sew Word of the Week: Juxtaposition

Sandy's Project • Krista's Project • So Sew Flickr Group

I set up my sewing machine this week! I'm so excited that it now has a permanent spot in a well-lit room; a luxury I've always wanted but haven't had. So, yesterday afternoon I busted out my fabric, rotary cutter & recovered a pillow that I covered a couple years ago. Here's what it looked like before:

The pillow was looking incredibly ratty. I'm not so sure the fabric was meant to be used for a pillow. In fact, I'm not quite sure what that fabric was meant to be used on, it has torn & worn down so quickly. It looks pretty ratty on our couch & it's time to recover it. Gosh, it's time to recover all of the pillows on our couch.

I've had this ruffle fabric for a while & I've had a hard time thinking about what to do with it with my belly bump & all. It would make an adorable skirt, so perhaps after this baby comes & my baby bump goes away I'll get around to making one. For now, I think it'll work spectacularly on a pillow. I've also been thinking loads about the color gold, especially since two of my friends (Susan & Annie) are currently obsessed with gold leather. I sort of giggled when I found this gold fabric in my stash. It's gold silkscreened brocade. Perfect right? I think it goes smashingly with my angel lamp.

When constructing the pillow, I wanted to do something a tad different with the ruffles, so I cut the fabric on the bias. I love what it does for the pillow! I also love the contrast of the matted ruffles & shiny print. I think this pillow will prove to be the inspiration for decorating the rest my living room. We'll see. I am pretty anxious to get the house settled & together.

For a while now Chris has been considering switching up our entertainment system from projector to TV. I've held off on getting a TV just because they tend to take up so much space & always seem to be the focal point of a room. Meh. Whatever. I'm over it now. While Chris has been scheming, he and I have been looking high & low for a solid wood sideboard to house the TV, speakers, receiver, etc. With our budget, we've not found anything in the range of decent. It's incredibly sad. If it looks nice, it's constructed of a veneered MDF. If it's solid wood, it's completely disgusting. A shame, no? Naturally, making a console from scratch would be perfect in our new garage. I suggested that he check out knock off wood for some inspiration, perhaps he could find a design that he could modify to his specs? He did. In fact, not only did he find something, but he actually made the console all while I was gone at Art Weekend on Saturday. I was so impressed to see a practically finished piece of furniture in our garage when I got home! I'm so proud of my husband. Now that the woodglue has dried, we just have to finish sanding it & stain it. I'm thinking that'll be my task tonight while Chris sets up the TiVo for our new 50" plasma. Honestly I can't believe we just bought a TV that freaking big. Maybe we can get the TV set up in time to watch Modern Family? Oh, that would be dreamy.

I've been madly trying to organize this house as quickly as possible. It's slow going, but progress is getting made every day! Yesterday I attacked our "studio" and it's still in shambles, but I've thrown away a bunch of useless junk & I plan on giving away even more to DI. While organizing, I've been gathering together all of the miscellaneous bowls I've collected through the years & have placed them in different parts of the house for mini drop zones. I've got a silver serving bowl in the bathroom to collect my contacts case, perfumes & contact solution. I've used an old glass vase to store all of my nail polish & polish remover and I've used old metal school lunch trays to organize my earrings. One of the drop zones I hadn't considered yet was my bedside table. I need something pretty to keep my misc earrings, wedding ring & lotion organized. While looking around the house I stumbled upon this little bowl. It doesn't match any of my decor (or not yet, anyway), but there's something just so sweet & adorable about it. I got this about a year or so ago for $1. It's so sweet, the hoarder in me can't help but try to acquire every bowl, cup or plate out there that's just like it. Don't worry, Chris. I won't. I promise. Have any of you watched Hoarders? While at times I want to puke, watching it every once in a while keeps my thrifting obsession in check.

Art Weekend was a huge blast! I was only there for the Saturday festivities because I was in Annaheim on Thursday & Friday. I really wish I had been able to attend the art weekend craft night & social. I have a hard time missing social outings like that. The calligraphy class went off without a hitch. It was so much fun to see how much each student improved over the course of 2 hours! It was remarkable and oh so fun. I had a couple lefties in my class; it was very impressive how quickly they grasped the art of the pointed pen. We all had such a great time, I hope to teach calligraphy again soon! Jill rocked this class (check out her artwork, way cool). Her spacing, pen control & flourishes were fabulous! Don't you agree? I had the great opportunity to take a class from Brittany from One Charming Party. She shared with us tips & tricks to getting that picture-perfect party. She even brought a little craft for us to do: Birthday banners! I made mine in orange, green & blue - which happens to match our orange kitchen chairs just perfectly! Brittany told us she just grabbed what red, white & blue stuff she had at her house & threw together the above table arrangement at the very last minute. I hope to get to the point where I can arrange beautiful spreads at the snap of a finger. It does help that she has somewhere like 30 cake plates (she told us so!) and decorates parties for a living. I had a FABULOUS time at Art Weekend this year. I can't wait until AW2011!

This week it's my goal to sew something rather than cop out & come up with a less-than-inspired printable.

I'm desperately needing to sew some maternity clothes. Maybe I'll get something along those lines done. Anyway, if you'd like to craft along, this week's word is:

JUXTAPOSITION

Wish me luck!

This week's So Sew challenge has been rough. I have the most amazing black & white polka dot silk jersey that I've been meaning to use in my sewing stash, but I haven't put together my studio since moving over the weekend. So. . . in a nutshell, I'm cheating this week. I've not sewn a thing, but I've made something using polka dots that you can use on your sewing projects. With the gift-giving holidays just around the corner, I'm sure a lot of you out there are making gifts. Why not package your handmade gifts with a little hand-lettered tag?

This printable is free for personal use and should not be distributed without my consent. If you would like to use this printable for commercial purposes, please email me. Thanks! Be sure to check out the other 3 crafters participating in the So Sew challenge & add any of your crafts to the So Sew Flickr group!

Krista •  Sandi • Cheryl

I finished a little design project a while back & have been meaning to share it with you. No better time to share than when all of my sewing/craft supplies are who-knows-where, right? I designed blog graphics for the lovely Jemma Coleman, a spunky Florida-based photographer. She wanted her site to be bright & fun, so I did just that. I'm very pleased with how the paisley pattern worked out. AND, I have to mention the ProPhoto blog theme was SO amazing to work with. I'm no web developer, so I really don't like using CSS/HTML. This theme allowed to customize practically everything with the click of a button.

{here's a little close-up of the paisley pattern}

Currently, I'm using Canvas on my own blog. I like it, but it does have it's limitations. My next blog theme will definitely be ProPhoto for sure. You should head over to Jemma's new blog & peruse the archives of pretty wedding photos. She even has a drink recipe here and there.

Did you know that October is the most common birthday month? Sure, Chris's birthday is in October, but I had no idea this month was the most common month for newborns! Do you have family members who's birthdays fall in this blessed month? 1-800-Flowers.com recognizes that this month is popular for birthdays & is celebrating this month by providing Facebook & Twitter followers with exclusive deals. Great, hu! 1-800-flowers sent me this beautiful bouquet, which arrived fresh & beautifully arranged from one of my local floral shops. Many of the arrangements available on 1-800-flowers.com offer same-day local florist delivery. What a great thing to have the convenience of shopping online while supporting local floral shops. Who on this earth doesn't like flowers? Would you like your chance to win a $40 savings pass to 1-800-flowers.com? Thanks to 1-800-flowers.com, here's how you can win:

• Visit 1-800-flowers.com's Facebook & Twitter pages, become a fan if you'd like to stay up to date on their latest deals & fresh offerings
• Leave a comment on this post telling me what you'd do with a 1-800-flowers.com gift card
• This contest is open for US residents only
• Only one (1) comment per person
• Comment by 11:59pm (MST) Thursday, October 7, 2010
• No purchase necessary
• One (1) winner will be chosen via random.org & announced Friday, October 8, 2010

Best of luck!!

Deep breath. This weekend was insane with moving & a nasty case of the stomach flu. I'm so glad it's over! I haven't announced the winner of the Hanes Giveaway yet (soon, though!). I also have another giveaway to throw your way. Stay tuned. In crafty news, Sandi, Cheryl, Krista and I are doing a sewing/crafting challenge this month! Here's how it works, each Monday in October the four of us will be announcing the word of the week. On Friday of that week, we'll share our creations with you! The best part, everyone can (and should!) participate. I think it'll be so much fun to share our creations with one another.

This week's word: POLKA-DOT

So yeah. Come friday, you'll see a polka dot post from me & the fabulous ladies mentioned above. I suggest you join the flickr group & share your craftiness every Friday, too. See you then!

Visit Krista's blog to read more about the details of this challenge!