Happy New Year!!

God Bless Everyone! Be safe!!

Sticky Situation!

Looking for a way to keep all your metal sewing items close by? Try using a magnetic knife holder for your scissors and other metal items. This will come in handy for keeping all your stuff organizes and in front of you. No more searching around for your things! Yea!!!

Happy New Year! Cheers!

Tags, Tags, Tags, Buttons?

It is so frustrating for children to have a itchy back because of tags! Always cutting them off and never knowing which way is front?? So here is an awesome way to fix that problem! Buttons! We always have leftover buttons laying around, use them to for a tag. The tiny ones are perfect for that. There small enough to sew to the back of clothing and won’t bother the skin of your little ones! The fight is over!!

Black-Out

Have you ever had to rip out a black seam on black pants? It is mind dizzying trying to locate black stitches on black fabric! Try rubbing some white chalk on the black stitching and your seams will pop! No more dizzying stitching! This will work on other dark clothing also! Have fun with it!

Christmas Morning Fun!!

I had so much fun watching my girls light up when opening up their Christmas gifts! It makes me think of old time! I just love reliving my memories through them!! God is good!! Here are some Christmas morning pictures, Enjoy!

Christmas Eve Gift Opening!

Well, It is Christmas Eve and my girls got to open their traditional one present on this day. Well, would you know that they chose the dolls! So, here thay are with the dolls!! Aren’t that just beautiful!!

How to make Christmas Flowers

Merry Christmas!

Have a wonderful Christmas and a safe Happy New Year!! Lots of love and God Bless!!

18" Doll Dresses

Finally after 2 days of sewing, I have completed my 18 inch doll dresses for my girls Christmas gifts! I had to sew in front of them so they think I’m selling them on Etsy and they have been begging me to make one for them. LOL, they don’t even have an 18 inch doll. They will come Christmas!! With pretty dresses to go with !! I love my job of being a mom!!

Make Clothes for Your Barbie Dolls (Sew Cute!)

How to Design Clothes For Barbie Dolls

Super Easy Iron Cleaning

We have all gotten the wrong side of fusible interfacing stuck to the bottom of the iron. Try ironing over a dryer sheet. Grab a new dryer sheet from the box and ironed over it. It will work like a charm and won’t require any additional towels or wipes and it won’t smoke up your sewing room like the Dritz iron cleaner does.

Tip of the day (Electronic vs Mechanical Sewing Machine Pedal)

I just felt like sewing!

Having trouble working with felt? Use repositionable spray glue to hold down your template piece temporarily while you cut out the felt. You can also use a glue stick! When I make a stocking, I permanently glue my cutout piece of fabric onto my felt then cut the felt out. Makes it much easer to to sew together when not having to fumble with all those pieces! Happy Sewing!

Christmas Sunday

Church was very relaxing this morning! It was really neat to watch my little girls getting into the music they were listen to on stage. A vast array of very enjoyable music from little children to very distinguish ones. Piano to violin, singing to drums! BFC really made me feel like home today! My girls really looked beautiful today in their homemade dresses! I didn’t have to spend much! Everything thy had on I purchased at thrift stores!! So, My tip of the day is: keep check around, you can find really awesome thing to use for really cheap!! Thrift stores are awesome!! Most of what I work with comes from local thrifting! So, have fun and a Merry Christmas!!

Glow Tape

Another use for the glow tape is, cut a length about 5" long and place it over the line of instructions you are currently working on. When you come back to your instructions to see what step is next, you instantly know where you are at on the page and can simply move the tape to your next line. This will save you so much time, and tape will reposition about 10 times before needing to be replaced.



Tip of the day ~ Making a Christmas Stocking!

Pizza Anyone?

If your looking to trace your patterns quicker and more accurately, go to Walmart and purchase a small pizza cutter to use as a tracing wheel. The larger pizza wheels also traces fast and accurately. These are a lot easer to handle with the larger handles!

Centering Your Sleeve

Cut a notch in the center of the sleeve that your going to sew on your outfit. This will help you find the center much easier, especially with those bright and wild prints and gathered sleeves! When sewing your sleeve on, leave your side seams unsown on your outfit. Sew closed the tops (shoulders) where your going to connect the sleeve. Start sewing at the notch and sew down one side toward the bottom (armpit) and then repeat down the other side. When your sleeves are on, sew the sides (armpits down) of your outfits together. You will find that sewing your sleeves this way will make it so much easer! If your sleeve does not quite fit (to big, to small), You have room to play in the armpit of your outfit!

Christmas Skirt 4 School Play

Well yesterday my oldest reminded me that I needed to make a skirt for her play Thursday night. I can’t believe I forgot!! Sew, last night I measured out 3 strips of fabric about the same size. Folded them in half and sewed the loose seams together. When I was done, I didn’t have to finish around the bottom because the fold was there. The top strip was about 30 inches long and 44 inches wide. The middle and bottom strips were 17 inches wide and 44 inches long. I folded over the top and made a 2 to 3 inch seam, making sure I left enough room to insert the elastic for the waist. Sew down the seam in the back to close the dress. It took all of 30 minutes to make this skirt. It was very fun to do and my daughter LOVES it!! “Mommy, this is my favorite skirt now!” Always fun words to hear!!

Sewing Tulle Ruffles

You can very easily keep your ruffles from wiggling around when you are sewing them down to your fabric. Gathered your tulle in the normal way (using threads 1/8" apart) and pinned it into place on the underskirt. Then pin over the top of the ruffles with long strips of tracing paper, this allows the sewing machine foot to have a smoother surface on which to sew (rather than the bumps of the ruffles). When done, cut or tear away the paper.

Happy Birthday To Me Dress!

I just got done cooking up some cupcakes for the Good News Club and I was looking at the sprinkles on top. I think it would look really neat to make a dress with a similar pattern for my girls birthdays!! I’m going to have to keep my eyes out for chocolate fabric with rainbow sprinkles on it. I think they would love looking like a birthday cake for their birthday! A curly ribbon for their hair. Very cute!! It will have to wait till after Christmas though!!

Easy Gathering ~ Nancy Zieman Way

This tip was in 10, 20, 30 Minutes to Sew.

Put the fabric under the needle and turn the hand wheel one turn. Gently pull on the top thread, pulling the bobbin thread loop up to the top. Take one more stitch. Pull up the bobbin thread. Gently twist the 2 threads together and pull them to twice the length needed to be gathered. Change your machine to a zigzag stitch. Zigzag over the twisted threads, being careful not to stitch on them. When done, you can gather the fabric by gently pulling the twisted thread. They won't pull out because you anchored them in the first stitch.

Hot Glue Gun Helpers

Hot Glue just Got Cool with Hot Glue Gun Helpers! This new 7-piece set of craft tools will revolutionize the way you use Hot Glue.

Etsy Shop Click Here!

What Are They?

Craft mat and tools for working with hot glue.

Protect your work surface and your fingers.

Heat-resistant and non-stick.

Use a small drop of glue for tiny gluing.

Press into hot glue with no risk of burns.

Also works with Mod Podge, acrylic paints, ink pads, shimmer mists, markers, gem glues & tacky glue.


You will get 7 Pieces!!

1. Craft Mat: Cover and protect your work surface. Peel craft paint and cooled glue from the mat. Soap and water clean up. Rolls for storage. (measures 14.75" x 11.5")

2. Finger Caps (you get 3: 2 adult sizes and 1 teen size): Place on fingers to protect while gluing. Great with hot glue.

3. Tweezers: Pick up and place small items into glue. Non-stick tips. Great for working with gem glue.

4. Paddle: Corners pick up a small amount of glue. Paddle allows for a soft press. Great for gluing flowers.

5. Press Wand: Tipped end smears hot glue. Great for paper crafts. Blunt end allows for a firm press. Great for gluing embellishments.


Invented by craft industry veterans and HGTV's Creative Juice hosts, Cathie Filian and Steve Piacenza. After years of burns, they developed the tools to ease you woes and make working with hot glue easier.


Tools are manufactured by the trusted company Plaid Enterprises - Mod Podge and FolkArt paints.

Thanks for stopping by! Please email/convo with questions. International buyers are always welcome.

Cheers to no more burns!

Cathie and Steve

Tip of the day!

When cutting your fabric from your pattern, take fabric chalk and mark all your darts to be cut out. This way you won’t have to pull your pattern back out. This will also keep your paper pattern from being cut. This will save you a lot of time and frustration!

Tip of the day

Store your used pattern in a gallon Ziploc bag with the pattern envelope. It makes it much easer to look at the patterns. You have the picture on one side and the patterns on the outside of the envelope on the other (On the back side). Use a large shoe box to file them away and write on the Ziploc bag what size you cut and whom. You can also store the fabric already cut out with the pattern and buttons ECT… in the bag till later use. Keeping it all together makes for a much nicer sewing experience!

The Christmas Party

Well tonight Dan and I went to his works Christmas party and it was interesting seeing how people dressed! I loved all the colors and the atmosphere! I kept watching to see if there was anything I could mimic in clothing and I got a lot of great ideas! Now to go searching for patterns and having my youngest daughter help me with recreating some of the beadwork around the peoples necks! I loved all the shoes too! I wish I could wear some of those 6 inch stilettos!! I guess I need to go shopping soon! I just need to make some more money!

Quilting Video Lessons Online!

Quilting Lessons Online Click Here!!

Tip Of The Day

Most people pre-wash at least some of their fabrics, and there's always an inch or more fabric that's ruined by the fraying. Try this, sew a straight stitch close to the raw edges of the fabric before you wash it. the stitching will limit how far the fabric can fray and waste less. After it's dry, cut the stitching off.

Sewing For The Saints