XOXO Table Runner

You know when you are touched by kindness that you didn't expect but were so grateful to receive?  I received a message from Samantha Walker who knows how much I love to sew and quilt offering to send me some of her lovely Riley Blake fabric.  I received a gorgeous box of amazing fabric and for my tutorial for today I chose to use a Doohickey Designs pattern which you can find in the Digi Playground store.  

I love using my Silhouette to cut out fabric with fusible web on the back and then use simple applique on my sewing machine.  

1.  The pattern gives dimensions for you to cut for the pieces but I opted to make my pieces 6X6" so that I could fit four on my mat.  I used a Cricut Strong Grip mat which I only use for fabric.  

2.  I cut the fusible interfacing 1/4" smaller than the 6x6" square so that I don't get any of the fusible goo on my iron and ironing board.  

3.  Iron the fusible interfacing onto the back of the fabric squares.

4.  After cool peel off the paper and stick the fabric square down on your mat.

5.  Use a brayer to make sure that the fabric will not move when you are cutting it.

6.  Use a Silhouette Fabric Blade in your machine and I use the cutting selection for fabric and always have it double cut.  

7.  Check your cut before you take your mat out of your machine and cut again if necessary.

With this pattern you always have the option to cut the templates out of paper and trace them onto your paper backed fusible web.  I would then iron the paper web onto the back of your fabric square and cut it out on your pencil line.

8.  Carefully take your fabric pieces off your mat.  You might have to snip a few threads so have a sharp pair of scissors handy.

9.  Iron your pieces following the pattern onto the background pieces you have cut according to the pattern directions.

10.  I used a blanket stitch on my machine with matching thread to applique my pieces down.  You can see them laid out ready to be stitched above.

11.  Assemble the table runner and quilt and bind as desired.  I machine quilted mine using a paper quilting template of roses.

Table runners are such an elegant gift and brighten any room and don't take very much fabric or effort.  Be sure to share with  us if you try this one.

Hugs,

Happy New Year

Happy New Year all you Digi Playground loving crafters.  I hope that you have had a fabulous holiday season and are ready for an amazing 2016.  I love this sweet little card by Carina Gardner.  You can find it here in the Digi Playground store.  There is time to make some of these cards up to send out to family and friends.  

Here's to a happy and healthy 2016 for all your family and friends.

Hugs,

Holiday Card Trio

Hello and happy Friday:

I can hardly believe that Christmas Day is one week from today.  I whipped up these lovely shadow box Christmas cards designed by Carina Gardner which can be found in the Digi PlayGround store.  I am going to use these as thank you notes for holiday gifts that I will be lucky to receive.  I had fun playing with Stickles and Liquid Applique to take my cards to another level.  Samantha Walker is having a card challenge on the Facebook group and these cards would be perfect to participate with.

Multi Ornaments Shadow Box Card

Santa Shadow Box Card

Christmas Tree Shadow Box Card

Hugs,

Polar Bear Gift Tin

Hi Everyone:

Happy Tuesday.  I made an adorable Polar Bear gift tine using two different cut files from Digi Playground including: Polar Bear Hug Gift Card Holder by Jennifer Rush and the December Kit of the Month by Jamie Cripps and I used the snowflake and love banner from the snowman.  

Isn't this so cute.  This is for my brand new daughter-in-law who loves Frozen.  I made two of the gift card holders and cut off the bottom part to put it on the front of my tin.  Be sure to check out the Digi Playground store for these and other wonderful files.  There are so many to choose from to make your gift giving during this holiday season extra special.  

Hugs,

Thankful Silhouette Knife Tool Tutorial

Hello Everyone:
I hope that those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a great one.  I love looking through the Digi Playground store to see what other uses I can find for cut files.  I found this Weave Bracelet by Minilou and knew that I was making holiday breads for our local food pantry and wanted to be able to decorate the breads.  I used the bracelet cut file and worked with it to make a band to put around the bread loaf.

I took the bracelet cut file and put it on my mat.  I then chose the knife tool and cut the end of the bracelet with the side you put the tab into off.  I wanted two layers to my band so did the same to both files.  I measured my bread so that I knew how many of the bands I needed to cut.  

1. Ungroup your files

2.  Delete what you don't need

3.  Click on the knife too

4.  Place start cut at top of item to be cut and drag arrow down

5.  Use select tool (arrow at the top of your left side tool bar) to cut

6.  Move cut piece away

You can also use the eraser tool if you find that your line is not perfectly straight.  You can use the cut lines on the mat on your screen to guide you as well. 

Here is a close up of the band. 

 

I used the cut file called Thankful short envelope bag by Jamie Cripps for the top decoration.  I know that Thanksgiving is over but this would be a fun way to decorate your winter holiday gift breads.

Be sure to check out the Digi Playground store for these and many other wonderful cut files.

Hugs,

Bun in the Oven

My husband's cousin married the most wonderful lady this past spring and they are expecting their first baby this winter and this adorable card with the cut file designed by Jennifer Rush and you can find it here.  I used some vintage Doodlebug Design papers and embellishments and am so excited with how it came out.

  

Be sure to check out this wonderful cut file along with many other fun ones at Digi Play Ground.

Hugs,

Thanksgiving Treat Holders

Happy Halloween Everyone:

It's Saturday which means that it is tutorial day here at Digi Playground.  I decided to make some Thanksgiving treat holders as I am responsible for bringing treats and desserts as my assignment.  Did you know that many of our files include a full color cut file option which I just find so very helpful when planning out what colors/patterns of paper to use for my project.  I usually go back to the Digi Playground web site and take a photo of the original project and then reference that when organizing my cut mat by file and papers used.  I love this little turkey and cup cake wrappers are always so much fun.  This cut file was made by our very own Samantha Walker and is called 3D Cupcake Wrapper Turkey and you can find it here.  

 

I love making multiple different designs which are tied together by the paper line that I used.  In  this case it was Fall Friends from Doodlebug.  The cut file on the right is called Thankful Short Envelope Bag and is by the Uber talented Jamie Cripps.  You can find this file here.  I took the white patterned leaf and laid that cut file over the background file and made the leaf file larger but keeping it smaller than the background so that I could add the second leaf which is red.

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The file on the left is also from Jamie Cripps and is called Turkey Short Envelope Bag and you can find it here

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I hope that you have a great weekend and enjoy these projects.  Be sure to check out the Digi Playground store for many more wonderful files.

Hugs,

Anita

Halloween Popcorn Treat Box

It is October and time to start celebrating Halloween.  I love making adorable things for Halloween and fell in love with this Halloween Scene Popcorn Box by Jamie Cripps.  Jamie adores Halloween so I always look forward to seeing what she will be creating for cut files as well as the awesome decorations at her home.  You can find this cut file here in the DigiPlayground store.  I used some cute Doodlebug October 31 Collection papers and embellishments for this adorable box.

Hugs,

Autumn Leaves Boxes

Happy Fall Everyone:

Anita here with these adorable Autumn Leaves Boxes which are from the DigiPlayGround store.  They are by Carina Gardner and just so cute.  They are actually a bit bigger than I thought they were going to be and will be perfect for my best friend's daughter's care package which I usually send her shortly after school starts in the fall.  I used some fun Doodlebug Fall Friends Collection to jazz up the boxes.

Be sure to check out all the wonderful new files including many adorable Halloween files.  It's almost October.

Here is a close up of the top of the boxes.

Hugs,

M Photo Collage

Anita here hoping that everyone is having a fabulous Saturday.  My son is getting married 7 weeks from today so right now I am all about the wedding.  When I saw Carina Gardner's new letter albums I knew that I needed to make one for my son and his fiance to put out at the dessert buffet that I am hosting the night before the wedding for the out of town guests.

I wanted to just use the main part of the album so I used my knife tool to cut off the flap.  I used to feel so intimidated by all the tools on the Silhouette but am much more comfortable now after playing around.  The knife tool is on the left side of your Silhouette screen.

The file is in two parts so I grouped it together first and the moved it to line up with a vertical line so that I could make sure I was getting a straight cut.

The second photo shows my knife cut line.  I did a small line in the top left corner so you could see what it looks like.  I could have opted to use the eraser tool to get rid of the extra flap I didn't need, but I just left it there.

I cut two of the letters and use one literally as the template to place over my photos and marked the lines with a sharp pencil.  I then cut them all out one by one by hand.  I labelled the photos as well as the spot on the template to make sure I didn't miss any.

I love how this came out and it will be something fun to talk about at the party.

This is the cut file by Carina Gardner File #19418 which you can find in the Digi Playground Store.  There are lots of fun new cut files so be sure to check it out.

Hugs,

Apple for Teacher

In some parts of the country the kids are getting ready to go back to school.  This lovely treat box and pencil topper by Jennifer Rush is so easy to whip up and you know a special teacher will be tickled with a little gift to start the school year off.  It is called Apple Treat Box and can be found in the Digi Playground store.  The Apple Pencil Slide can be found here as well.  

I used some foam tape to pop up the apples on the front and back of the box and some Doodlebug Candy Sprinkles to jazz it up along with The Twinery twine.

I also put some two sided tape around the top of the pencil to hold it in the apple.

Thanks for looking and to all those going back to school soon, have a great year.

Hugs, 

Crown Card

My son is getting married in October and his fiances shower is this weekend and we are having a princess theme.  They are going to Disney for the first week on their honeymoon and she loves everything related to Disney Princesses.  When I saw Samantha Walker's new cut file in the Digi Playground Store I knew that I had to get it to make a quick card to go along with one of her gifts.  Here is a link directly to the cut file.

I absolutely love that you can get the SVG files in color which makes the layers so much easier to see.  I took the crown and ungrouped the layers as I wanted the top part popped up and glittery to give it some sparkle.

Once I had them separated I moved it around on my mat to conserve paper.  This card worked up so quickly and other than the glitter paper I chose to leave it unadorned.  I think she will love it.

Hugs,

Dad Happy Birthday TV Gift Box

My Father-in-law's birthday is Monday and we usually give him a gift card to a restaurant or a book store.  They love to eat out so it's a perfect gift for them.  I always feels a tiny bit bad just putting it into a card.  I saw this cute file by the amazing Jamie Cripps and knew that it would be perfect for his gift card.  The top opens so I will be able to pop a gift card right in there.  I think he will get a kick out of it.  You can see this and a lot of other wonderful cut files in the Digiplayground Store.

I added the word Dad although there are several different cut files available in the store and one does have the Dad word in a beautiful script.

#19274 by Jamie Cripps

See you around and hope you are having a great summer.

Hugs,

Summer Fun

Happy Saturday everyone.  I hope that your summer is off to a great start as we are getting ready to celebrate the 4th of July in the US.  I wanted to create a layout that would allow me to use the new Beach Bundle 1 by the ever so talented Jennifer Rush.

Here is the layout that I created.  I used October Afternoon's Treasure Map for my layout.  The first thing that I did was put the beach ball pattern on my mat.  I love that Digiplayground gives colored files which make it so much easier to plan out your project.

Here is the original file on my mat.  I ungrouped it and took away the brown circle.  I then regrouped the white base, beach ball stripes and the center piece and re sized them until they were the size that I wanted.  I wanted my beach ball to fill a large portion of my mat.

Once I resized it, I ungrouped it and put the circle where I wanted it on my mat.

I like to move the pieces back where they belong after I have done significant re sizing.  Once I was sure it was how I wanted it I moved the pieces to the side and started cutting.

Here are some of the fun pieces of this kit which look so sweet on my layout.  This umbrella is so cute.

Here are an adorable pair of flip flops.

I just love these sunglasses.  

I love how this came out and all the cut files are so easy to work with, totally able to be re sized and come out beautifully.

Here are all the files you will get in this lovely Beach Bundle 1 set by Jennifer Rush #19257.

Be sure to check out the store for the current summer sale including this wonderful cut file.

Hugs,