Finally, some new aprons.

My Pretty Ditty shop is happy now that it is clothed with some new Ditties. Lets see..... we have the happy Cinnamon Sweet reversible apron (first pic), the thankful Thanksgiving apron, and the naughty and nice Candy Cane Girl apron. Oh, and I can't forget about the Pop Apple and Sway Dot aprons, which I have previously posted about. For the next week or two, I will be working on the finishing touches to my apron pattern. This means I will not be able to take any custom orders until I'm finished with the pattern. Bummer =( but I have to focus and finish =).

*** Fabric news ***

Kim over at True Up is having a HUGE fabric giveaway to celebrate her 6 month blog anniversary. The giveaway closes on Wednesday the 22nd, so hop on over and enter to win. One of the giveaways is a $50 gift certificate to Phatfabric.com. Yeeeeeah Baby!

Have a delightful weekend!

Jamie

Photography and Blogging

Today, I thought I'd share with you a couple of photo/blogging links that I find useful. If you're like me (not fluent in the language of HTML), you probably find it difficult to break free from the basic photography editing tools and the generic blogging templates. If that's you too, below are a few links that I have found extremely helpful in these areas.

First of all, while it's important to have a good photo editing software program, it's equally important to also understand everything your software is capable of doing. I have Photoshop Elements 6, and I've found the Learn Elements Now online tutorials to be very helpful. You have to pay for the tutorials, but it's money well spent (for me at least). Fortunately for me, these tutorials were clear and thorough with their instructions. Here are some links to both Photoshop and Elements tutorial programs:

Learn Photoshop Now

and blog

Learn Elements Now

and blog

Digital Scrap-booking

Digital scrap-booking is a great way to dress up photos, make photo albums, and make a blog banner. I used Shabby Miss Jenn digital scrap-booking gear to dress up my banner. Here are three links to my most favorite digital scrap-booking shops.

Shabby Miss Jen Designs

The Shabby Shoppe

Sweet Shoppe Designs

All of the shops offer blog banner gear. Also, be sure to check out their tutorials. I learned how to photo tent (used in the above pic) by using this tutorial by The Shabby Shoppe.

Photography Lighting

Storbist has a great tutorial on how to make a light box for under $10. This can be useful for both a blog and an etsy shop. It's always nice to capture good lighting when you're trying to show off a product or craft.

Blog How To's

Lastly, these next two sites have everything you need in regards to customizing your blog, from how to make your own background to turning your 2 column blog into a 3 column blog.

Tips for New Bloggers

The cutest blog on the block

I hope these links make blogging and photography just as enjoyable for you as they did for me.

AND if you have any suggestions for me, I'm all ears, as I am still a newbie =).

Jamie

WARNING: the following cookies are highly addictive.

If you should make these delicious cookies, I will not be held liable for sabotaging any pre-holiday diets. I made these Iced Pumpkin cookies the other night and had to fend off the little cookie thieves just so I could get some decent pics of the cookies. Let me tell you how good they really are. Basically, up until I first made Iced Pumpkin cookies, I was strictly a chocolate chip cookie girl (occasional sugar cookie). Then, a friend of mine (Mary) introduced me to this recipe and I have been unfaithful to the chocolate chip cookie every since =) You can get the recipe here, but Mary modified it by adding 1tsp of orange zest to the ingredients and using orange frosting (super yummy). Here's the recipe for Mary's orange frosting:

2 cups of Powdered sugar

3 tablespoons of orange juice (fresh is best)

2 teaspoons of grated orange peel

1 table spoon of melted butter

Directions:

Combine all of the above ingredients. Add orange juice as needed, to achieve drizzling consistency.

The fall pumpkin smell these cookies produce is intoxicating.

*** Tagged ***

Alrighty, Deborah over at Comfort Joy Designs (very cute blog) tagged me. I'll make this short but sweet for you all.

Rules:

1) Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2) Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3) Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.

4) Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

7 facts about me:

~I'm a Christian

~I can still do the Worm (a break dancing move).

~I love really bad reality shows like Sunset Tan.

~I can't stand the noise or sight of paper rubbing paper. It gives me the chills, similar to nails on a chalk board.

~I like "old people" candy (big red cinnamon gummy bears and chocolate buttons covered with sprinkles).

~ Favorite all time book is Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers.

~ I married my husband the day after I turned 20. I met and married him in a year. Usually, when I tell people that, they get a puzzled look on there face like "Really????" I then respond with something like this: "Well, at the time I had 8 kids. All with different fathers, except the last 2. They may have had the same father. I'm not sure. Anyhow, he was the only man that would marry me." I then pause for about 3 seconds and finally I'll tell them "I'm kidding.... I know who the daddies are." Yes, I'm still joking =)

I tag:

Jewelry by TKG

Housework Rules

Noble Knits

Life is sew complicated

... and if anyone else wants to be tagged, let me know in the comments section. I have to pick 3 more blogs.

Jamie

Aprons for the shop

In about a week I will update my Pretty Ditty shop with new aprons. Here's a little sneak peek at a few. Well, two to be exact.

No, I didn't flunk elementary math (actually, I flunked 2nd grade and then skipped 3rd, so it all equalled out). The above aprons are reversible! The first one is called Pop Apple and the second apron is called Sway Dots. Both of the aprons, along with a few others, will be up in the shop next Friday. I'm going to try something new with the shop by holding off on posting aprons as soon as they are completed. Instead, once I have completed about 5 aprons, I will update the shop with the new Ditties. We'll see how it goes. It's hard for me not to list an apron when it's completed, because I get so excited about them! I've never been good at keeping secrets.

*** Phat Fabric update ***

New sale items in the shop. 15% off Echino fabric. Rarely, does the Echino go on sale. This is only the second time in the last 2 years that Phat Fabric's Echino selection has been on sale. The sale will end October 24th. AND there is now a Clearance category for all fabrics on sale at 40% off or more.

***********

The weekend is here, time to relax, time to catch up with friends, time to watch old movies, time to work on my embroidery, and.....

time to do the laundry =)

Have a great weekend!

Jamie

Stand alone paper trees

A Little Hut has a great tutorial on how to make these stand alone trees (i added the root system and owl to mine). She uses recycled junk mail for her trees. I didn't. I went to Michaels and bought some nice thick black card stock for mine. Shame on me for not being resourceful. The tutorial is well written and quite easy to do. It took me about an hour to complete. I'm excited about these trees, because I haven't yet decorated my house for Halloween and these trees are perfect to get the party started. Every year I get ambitious about the up and coming holidays and I usually say something to my husband like, " this year I'm going to really get into decorating the house." Or, " this year I'm going to do up the house like Christmas at Anthropologie." And every year I get as far as putting the Christmas tree up and decorating it.

BUT, this year will be different.

Notice the fall foliage behind the trees. I'm on it!

One more thing. If you like paper craft tutorials, check out Folding Trees blog. She's got every thing from how to make paper cranes to paper cutting.

Jamie

A California fall/winter jacket

I made this jacket for my little one. I have been meaning to make a jacket for some time now, or at least since I viewed Amy Karols fall coat, which she made for her daughter. It wasn't until I saw this picture that made me stop wanting and start doing. The pattern is McCalls M5697 and the fabric is from Phat Fabric. (Hey! How did you know I was going to write that ;) ?) I would rate the pattern at an intermediate skill level. There wasn't any acrobatic sewing involved. However, there were a few curve balls in the directions that made me have to stop and walk away from the pattern to ponder "What the heck does stitch invisibly mean?" Once I got through the sticky points it was simple and fast to make. I even added a birdie friend to accompany my shooga booga as she goes to school. Hopefully the teacher won't be upset, because I did attach the bird to the jacket, thus making it non removable (again Amy Karol's idea).

I call it a fall/winter jacket, even though there isn't anything fall or winter-y about it. First of all, my daughter gets hot in just about anything she wears. A wool, or any heavy weight material for that matter, would never work for this little oven=) Secondly, I've never been a fan of color and season rules. I believe that if you want to wear linen in the winter, then you should be able to wear it in peace. If you want to wear white in the fall, then so be it. And if I want to make a fall jacket out of light weight cotton fabric with summery happy colors, then by golly I will. But don't pair it up with Bermuda shorts and crocks. Right? I mean....because... that would look tacky.

Jamie

Winner, winner, winner

Random Number Generator, would you please tell me who our next winner is? What's that? .... It's Melanie! Melanie, you have just won yourself a brand new Pretty Ditty apron. Congratulations!

I think game show hosts must have one of the best jobs around. You get to give people gifts and enjoy their reactions. Basically, you're job is to be Santa to grown ups. How fun is that?! I was actually on a game show once. Yup! The game show is called The Price Is Right. You may have heard of it, although judging by the comments, some of you don't watch Survivor =) Anyways, I attended the show with my husband and family. I was quite optimistic that one of us would be on the show. I made sure we all brought our social security cards so that we could claim our prizes and later be taxed on the winnings :( I was the 3rd person to be called to "Come on down," as a contestant. I was ecstatic! As I was rushing through the isle my huarache sandal (Hey, the year was 1996, huarache's were in then) flipped off my foot and out into the middle of the isle. Lovely. After finding my shoe, I was able to make my way to my bidding station. Starting out, I had a couple of miscalculated bids. Then, on the 3rd bid, the lady next to me did the $1 more than my bid. That upset me to say the least. She didn't win the item. However, at commercial, I had to use every bit of resistance within me to keep myself from leaning over to tell the lady "if you do that again.....". BUT I didn't. Eventually, I bid on a huge carousel horse music box (i thought the same thing "what am i going to do with that) and won. Which brought me to Bob Barker's embracing hug and my stage game. The game I had to play was Freeze Frame. Basically, a series of numbers rotate around a frame and you have to freeze the frame on the correct price of the prize you are playing for. My prize was a jacuzzi. I had no idea how much a jacuzzi was, so I mouthed the words "how much?" My shopping savvy husband new the price and I froze the frame and won! I did the classic hands on mouth, total shock look when I won. To make a long story short, when it came time to spin the wheel (contestant's spin a huge, heavy, rotating wheel, hoping it will get to $1 or as close as possible to $1 without going over) I spun 90 cents. Pretty good huh? Well not good enough. The next guy spun 95 cents and went on to win his showcase. In the end, it was a complete blast. Maybe I'll try Survivor next or better yet, I'll try to convince my husband to go on Survivor. Yes, much better idea to have the husband do it, besides I already did my part with The Price Is Right =)

While the giveaway was going on, I got a whole bunch of new stuff for Phat Fabric. I am really excited about the Sublime Stitching Embroidery kits. I've already opened up one and started embroidering. I am extremely green and unskilled when it comes to hand stitching, but the instructions in the kits are very easy to understand. I also like the way Jenny Hart writes. Sort of like reading a crafting blog =) The kits come with everything to get started embroidering. It even comes with a tea towel or a half apron to embroider on. Here are a couple of the kits:

The Black Apple



Forest Friends


and more.

Other new additions to the Phat Fabric family are Robert Kaufman's Cool Cords corduroy fabric collection.








Lastly, I'm a huge fan of the Eco-friendly fabrics by Robert Kaufman. They are 53" wide as opposed to the regular 43" wide and they are very soft. Here is Panda print in green.



Thank you to everyone who participated in all of the giveaways. It certainly won't be the last giveaway here in the land of Pretty Ditty where I can pretend to be a game show host =) Thanks for the designer suggestions and the one Survivor item ideas. Thank you Jennifer for putting our minds at ease with the whole feminism issue. Apparently Survivor supplies that "stuff" for the women. Phew!

Jamie