It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Anita here with a fun tutorial to make this gift set.  I love to quilt and embroider as much as I love to paper craft and I was thrilled to recently discover that Lori Whitlock has embroidery files that she has designed, many of which mirror her paper craft SVG files.  You can find her gorgeous embroidery files at Embroidery Online.  I will give you all the links in the post .

I bought shrink film from Amazon and used Lori's Print & Cut Stamps Christmas Cookies which you can find here in her store .  I resized the image of the gingerbread man so that it would come out the size that I wanted.  I then printed the image onto the shrink film through my laser printer.  Just let it dry for a few minutes before coloring it.

I then used my Copic markers to color the shrink film.  I knew that the colors would deepen once I shrunk the image so chose my colors with that in mind.  I used R37, E11, G14, G07, E99 for the gingerbread man and Y08, E99, R37, G07 for the Gingerbread house.  Be sure to punch a hole in your shrink film before you put it in the oven and remember that the hole shrinks also.  The directions say to bake the film on parchment at 300 degrees for 2-3 minutes but I found that my heat gun worked much better as I could control the plastic as it shrank.  Below is the before picture.

Here is the photo of the shrink plastic after it was  done.

I went to Embroidery online and bought the bundle which had all the Christmas embroidery files that I wanted to use for this project.  It is called Christmas Time by Lori Whitlock.  You can buy the collection or the individual embroidery files.  I embroidered the phrase It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas on a piece cotton.  I then finished the edges and glued it to the front of my tote.  I also embroidered my daughter-in-law's name on the top of the apron as this set is for her.  She is an amazing baker.

I then strung my two adorable gingerbread embellishments on some yummy twine, added a bell and glued that down as well.

I really love to match things and  have been so excited to make this project.  Here is a close up of all the goodies that I put inside the basket.

The last thing that I did was made a card that used the SVG cut file which matched the embroidery.  I used Lori's new Christmas collection called Celebrate Christmas.  The cut file can be found here in Lori's store and here in the Silhouette store and is called Look a lot Like Christmas Phrase.
That's it for me.  Hope that you have a wonderful holiday season.

Hugs,

Anita

Flag Day Banner Tutorial

Hi Everyone:

Happy Flag Day.  Anita here with a banner that you can use for Flag Day as well as for the Fourth of July, Memorial Day and any other day that you want to celebrate our great country.  I used several different cut files of Lori's to create this banner.

Happy Birthday Banner - 2            Lori's Store          Silhouette Store

Layered Pinwheel                                                            Silhouette Store

3D Lori Whitlock Spiral Flower     Lori's Store          Silhouette Store

5X7 Box Card 4th of July                 Lori's Store          Silhouette Store

American Flag                                                                   Silhouette Store

3D USA Décor Blocks                        Lori's Store         Silhouette Store

I love mix and matching Lori's cut files to create new projects.  I am going to show you how I prepared the fabric for cutting in my Silhouette machine.  Here are the supplies that I used for this project.  Terial Magic is a wonderful product that comes in a spray bottle and you can get it on Amazon or at your local quilt shop.  I sprayed the fabric liberally and checked the back side to make sure that it was soaked on both sides.  I hung them up on my shower rod as you have to let them drip to just damp.  Put something under where you hang the fabric so that it doesn't make a mess.  It's sticky, and rubber gloves might have been helpful to use as well.

Here is a photo of the fabric as I was in the process of ironing it.  You can see the bottom left looks still darker and wet and the right part is done and the fabric feels like paper.  I ironed my fabric on a towel to absorb any extra of the Terial Magic Fabric Stabilizer.

You can see how this fabric stands up once it is ironed.

I used the strong grip mat from Cricut and a brayer to make sure that the fabric didn't move.  You will want to slow down your cutter in addition to choosing fabric as your material to be cut.

I laid out the blocks to see how they would look and switched around the banners and embellishments.

Earlier in the week on Tuesday we had our June blog hop and I have included a photo with the quilt block centerpiece and the banner that I made.  I am going to put this out for the 4th of July.

Hugs,

Lori Whitlock June Blog Hop

Hi Everyone:

Can you believe it is already June.  Welcome to Lori's June Creative Team blog hop.  I used Patriotic Quilt cut file by Paige Taylor Evans and you can find that block here in Lori's store and here in the Silhouette Store.  I will be doing a tutorial on Thursday for another fun patriotic project and will show you how I stiffened my fabric and cut it out with my Silhouette.  Be sure to come back then. 

You should have come here from Kathy's blog and next you will be going to Brandie's blog.  If you did not come here that way you should go to Lori's blog and start at the beginning. 

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That's it for me today, be sure to check out Lori's store for all your summer crafting and celebrating needs.  Also come back on Thursday for my tutorial.

Burp Cloths Tutorial

Hello Everyone:
Anita here with a tutorial to make these adorable burp cloths.  Someone dear to me is going to be a grandmother in the next four months and they just found out that the baby is a boy so I was inspired to make these burp cloths.  Did you know that in addition to creating for Echo Park and her own cut files, Lori also designs fabric?  I used a layer cake called Fine and Dandy and comes in a 10" square pack and I also used a print from her Oh Boy collection for my elephant.

The cut files that I used are called:
Baby Boy Onesie Card                                    In Lori's store                                      in the Silhouette store
Baby Elephant                                                In Lori's store                                        in the Silhouette store
A2 Baby Bottle Shaped Card                        In Lori's store                                       in the Silhouette store
Lion                                                                                                                                    in the Silhouette store
The are the materials that you will need to make this project.  I used Heat N Bond Lite and of course Lori's awesome fabric.  I also used my Silhouette Cameo and the fabric blade to cut the fabric.  I used the Cricut Strong Grip mat which comes in their multi pack and a brayer.

I used my cutting mat to organize my cut shapes.  I decided which fabrics I wanted to use for which parts and then put them together on a mat to determine the size of fabric and Heat N Bond I needed to complete my project.  I grouped the shapes together and then figured out the dimensions to cut my interfacing.  I cut that first and then labeled it, including any directional hints to pay attention to.

Here are two that are ready to go.  The onesie has a directional arrow and the elephant didn't.  I then ironed on the interfacing and cut around the fabric leaving a 1/4" border on all sides.  To prepare your fabric to cut, you should peel off the paper backing from the interfacing and place it with the fabric up on your mat.  Then use your  brayer and on a flat surface make sure that the fabric is well adhered.  I set my Silhouette to thin cotton fabric and a blade depth of 3.  The more fabric you cut at one time, the greater the likelihood that you might have to increase the blade depth.

Here is what it looks like after it was cut.
Once everything was all cut I pressed the burp cloths and without steam adhered the pieces that I had cut out for each design.  Next I headed to my sewing machine to use a blanket stitch to adhere the fabric down to make sure that it could stand up to the many washes that I am expecting them to undergo.




There you have it.  There are so many cute burp cloths out there and you can also use the thick Gerber cloth diapers to delight new parents.  Lori has so many wonderful baby cut files to choose from.  Be sure to check out her store for these and many more awesome files.
Hugs,

Lori Whitlock August Creative Team Blog Hop

Welcome to the Lori Whitlock August Creative Team blog hop.  We have the new girls hopping with us for their first time this month.  I hope that you will hop all the way along and leave them some love.

Here is what I made for my project this month.  Someone who is dear to me is waiting patiently for her first grandchild to arrive and I made this cute shirt for her daughter.  I used the cut file called Coming Soon and you can find it here in Lori's store and here in the Silhouette Store.  I used Cricut White Glitter Iron on Material for the shirt.  It is so easy to make and such a cute file.  Be sure to check out Lori's store for this and other really cute files.

You should have come to my blog from my dear friend's blog, Kathleen Skou.  If not you can go to the Lori Whitlock Blog and start at the beginning there.  Next you will be going to one of our newest team members blogs to see what awesome project she has created.  Her name is Brandie Harding Adams and you can find her blog here.  

Here is a close up of my project.  You can't really see the glitter aspect but it is subtle.

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That's it for me today.  Happy hopping.  Have a great week.

Hugs,

Big Congrats and Silhouette Letter Placement Tutorial

Design ID #1568 

2/08/2008

 Hi Everyone:

Happy Sunday.  I decided to play around with my Silhouette Cameo today to make some flour sack towels for a friend's daughter who recently got married and is expecting a baby.  This is not someone I know personally so I am extra excited to surprise her.  I used the Silhouette Brand Heat Transfer Fabric Interfacing which is so easy to use.  I manipulated the design a bunch for the monogram.  But today wanted to share how I used my Silhouette mat as a template for correct letter placement.  After I cut my letters out of fabric and gently pulled them off the impression was left in my mat of the sentiment.  I laid my mat on top of the towel and slid my letters under the mat until they were in the correct place.  I was so happy to have found this trick for getting my letters straight.  Love this Lori Whitlock card too.  So elegant.

 

Design ID #49546
10/01/2013 

This above photo on the right shows the letters a little off so that you can see how I moved them into place and even though my mat is getting pretty aged I could still easily see my words which made placing the letters a snap. I made this set for two challenges, both of which are ironically Anything Goes.

Cut It Up Challenge

Silhouette Challenge

Hugs,

Heart Full of Love Pillow

 Next to Christmas, Valentine's Day is my most favorite holiday.  I decided to have some fun playing with twine from The Twinery.  I finger knit 7 different colors of twine together to  make the chain to form the heart.  I also used those same colors to create the tassels as well.