*** SALE ***

Cyber Monday Sale.

Use Coupon Code CYBER15 during check out in either of my Etsy shops for a 15% discount. Discount applies to anything and everything in my shops. EVERYTHING!!!!

Kindershop
KAY-Kreative

This coupon will be good through 11:59 p.m. EST tonight.
Happy shopping. And check out all the other great sales on Etsy as well.

Twice!!!!

Just a wanted to pop my head in very quickly!
I am very excited: My snail messenger bag was featured in TWO different Treasuries this weekend. Thank you Ladies!

Meet the Testers' Elise Dolls - and receive a Discount

First of, thank you again for the great response to my first pattern. You are all such nice bloggy friends.
All the testers' dolls are in. I love how each one of you put your personal spin on the pattern.

So, first meet Suzanne's Elise:

Don't you just love how comfy she looks in her flannel dress. And it even has sleeves!

Now, here is my dear friend Lauranie's cowgirl:

I don't know how she found the time to test my pattern with all the things she had going on. But, I think she is super cute with her patchy dress and accessories.

And, here is Freda's Suzie Q:

Love her cherry dress. Makes me think of summer....

And, one more! This is Lisa's Elise, all dressed in a Amy Butler designer frock ;-)

Thank you so much everybody for helping me finalize the pattern.

I took everybody's comments into consideration and made a few updates to the pattern files. The pattern is now for sale in my Etsy store. Yippie!
Please go! Get one! You know there are a few girls in your life that would love to get one for Christmas :-)
I know, I will be making more!
I am offering 2$ off the pattern (Sorry, electronic files only. Not for a printed version) for all my blog friends from now until Christmas Eve, December 24th. So, you only pay 4.95$! All you have to do is mention code "2OFF" in the message to seller box. I will send your refund through PayPal right away.

Nikolaus Day and Pattern Testers wanted

UPDATE: I have received an overwhelming response regarding pattern testers. Thank you so much. I have selected three lovely Ladies, who will receive the patterns later tonight. Everbody else; I will keep your emails for possible future patterns. Thank you so much again.


So, yesterday was Nikolaus Day. For those of you who do not celebrate this day, here is a quick link.
In Germany, where I come from, it is custom for the children to shine their boots the night of December 5th and set them outside for St. Niklaus to come and fill them with candy and small presents. So, all three of our children did just that and this is what they were going to wake up to:

They loved every bit of it and breakfast for the girls was basically candy and gingerbread cookies.

Notice the dolls in the pics?

Meet the ELISE DOLL.

(The girls renamed theirs into "Hockeypuckus" and "Ketchup"....). The doll is about 18 inches tall and made from fabric and felt, with an embroidered face. I have drawn up a pattern and written instructions for it. I am thinking about making it available for sale in my Etsy shop. Before I do so, I am asking for a few pattern testers. So, if you are interested please send me a quick email to "beatrix dot sadek at yahoo dot com". I am looking for a pretty quick turn around time.
I know everybody is busy with Holiday preparations, but maybe you are still missing a gift for a little girl and would have time to make one of these before the end of the week?!
Looking forward to hearing from you.

SMS Giveaway Winner - and Nikolaus Day

You guys are all sooo nice! 165 entries to the giveaway! WOW! I am overwhelmed.
And you all gave me so many great ideas for gifts for our male teachers. My favorites were:

- coffee/tea cup cozy with coffe shop gift card
- lanyard for the PE teacher
- bookmarks
- journal covers

I am swaying between the cup cozy and the lanyard. I may even make both. So, thank you everybody for playing along and entering in my giveaway.

Random.org picked number "25" as the winner. And that would be Karen from Twiceasniceboutique. She said: "Chocolates, or baking- Men love to eat right?"
If you have a minute go check out her blog and Etsy store. She makes the coziest sleep sacks. If you have a little baby these are a must-have. I have been using sleep sacks for all three of my children and they are the best thing to prevent SIDS and you don't have to worry about thrown off blankets at night.

So, now where does the second part of the post title come in, you ask???!! This is the reason why I am posting at this ungodly hour already! The kids woke up at 6:15 a.m. in order to check out their boots. More on that tomorrow! Have a great second Advent Sunday everybody.

I made it to the Front Page on ETSY !!!

If you are looking for my SMS giveaway post, click here.


Guess, how excited I am...! -------- T       H       I       S ---------- much!
One of my quilted Memory Games made it to the front page on Etsy. It was in a Treasury picked by Etsy. And because of it I had close to 900 visitors to my Etsy shop last night.
Thank you, ETSY!!!!

A Miracle and A Tutorial

The Miracle: John cleaned out his closet without prior bickering on my part and on his own initiative.


In the process he came downstairs with three pairs of cords, ready to throw them into the trash. Luckily, I caught him in time and had the instant idea to repurpose them: into skirts for the girls. Honestly, these are the cutest skirts I have made in a while and they cost me NOTHING! (Well, let’s say, I didn’t have to go out to buy anything for this project.)



So, here comes a little tutorial, showing what I did. You can use cords or basically any adult pair of pants that has a decent width around the thigh area. Skinny-mini-stretch-pants are probably not going to work.

You will need:

1 pair of pants

Approximately 1.5 yards of trim

¾ inch elastic

Appliqué or other embellishments (optional)

Matching threads and all those other sewing essentials (sewing machine, scissors, safety pin (to insert elastic), pins, etc.).



1. Turn your pants inside out and cut off the legs just below the crotch. If your pants have back pockets make sure not to cut into those, since we will reuse them. The top of the legs (widest part) will become the bottom of the skirt. If you have back pockets use a seam ripper to carefully remove them.

2. Cut away the inner leg seams on each of the legs (see pic).

And open them up (one will be the front and the other the back of your skirt). Lay both together right sides facing matching all edges. If they are not, trim to make them equal. (Sorry, no pic. Just imagine two big trapezoids laying on top of each other, just like a pattern for an A-line skirt: wide on the bottom, tapering towards the top).

3. Now we need to cut away on the top in order to make the skirt fit your girl. I measured my skirts to fall below the knee. My girls are almost a 4T and the skirt when finished should be about 11.5 inches long. So, the calculation goes as follows: 11.5” + 1” for bottom hem + 1.5” for elastic casing = 14” = height of the two skirt pieces.

My front and back were about 25” wide at the bottom and 22” at the top. This gives the skirt a nice twirl.

If you are making a different size than a 4T, here are my recommendations for how long the skirt should be compared to the height of your fabric pieces:

Finished Length/Length (height) to cut

2T: 9.5”/12”

3T: 10.5”/13”

5T: 12.5”/15”

4: 14.5”/17”

5: 15.5”/18”

6: 17”/19.5”

Because regular cord is so thick and heavy I would not recommend to go any smaller than a 2T



4. Sew your two pieces together on the short ends, the side seams.

5. Fold the bottom edge over ½ inch to the inside and ½ inch again for the bottom hem and pin in place (see pic).

6. Fold the top edge over ½ inch and 1 inch again to form the casing for the elastic. Pin in place.

7. Sew the bottom hem. Sew the casing at the top close to the lower folded edge leaving an opening of about 1.5 inch for inserting the elastic later on. See pic

sewing hem

sewing casing

8. I now added a ½ wide woven Matryoshka trim around the lower edge. You could use any kind of ribbon or trim you like.

9. If you decided to add one or two of the pockets, pin them in place to the left and right of the front center. See pic. Sew in place following the same double-seam that they were attached by on the pants.

I also added an appliqué to the pocket. If you have a sew-on, attach it before pinning the pocket to the skirt. An iron-on can be added at the end. Sew pocket in place.

I used a contrasting red thread to attach the pockets. Gives it another interesting little detail.

10. Insert Elastic. My girls have a 19.5” waist. Due to the cord being very heavy and it stretching the elastic inside the casing, I cut my elastic pieces about 17.5” long. You may have to experiment with the length a bit to see what fits best.

Using the safety pin insert elastic, overlap the two ends by 1 inch and sew together. Stitch the 1.5” opening close.

Congratulations you are all done and have just made another cutesy skirt. And you have been a little bit “green” in the process. How great is that! If you have any questions or trouble understanding my instructions, comment in this post or send me an email. I will be happy to help.

And don't you just love those cute Matryoshka iron on patches I added to the pockets?! They are so darn cute. They will be available in my Etsy shop later tonight. Super easy to use: just peel off paper, place on fabric and iron on for 15 seconds. No sewing required!

Lots of Patchy Scarfs

I am making progress on my Christmas Gifts List. I mean, I am no where close to being done, but it's nice to at least mark off a couple of things:

I started making a few patchy scarfs, for the shop, for the girls and some as gifts. The ones for the shop have nice cozy pockets:

Anika's and Kordula's are made from Michelle's Shade Garden fabric and have cute little owl appliques. I also added a loop for hanging them:

And here a couple of Christmas gifts with Valori Wells' Olive Rose Posies in two different shades:

I really like making these. They are relatively quick to sew up and I am in love with this super soft fabric I found at Joann. It's called "Soft & Fluffy" and comes in white, brown, fuchsia, light blue and black at our store. It's much, much softer than fleece or minky fabric. You should try it.
If you are planning on making these kind of scarfs yourself, I found that for the child sizes a finished width of 4.5" and length of about 56" is optimal. My adult sizes are 6.5" wide and 60" long (width of the backing fabric).

Houses and Owls and such

You may have noticed on the sidebar that recently I have added a couple of new items into my shop. Besides working on dresses for my girls I have been really into making garlands lately. Garlands for every day decoration in girl's rooms, boy's rooms, hallways, play rooms, any room.

Or even your fireplace mantle. I particularly, think that the Owl Garland would look great as Halloween decoration along a mantle.

These garlands are so much fun to make, because it gives me the freedom to change up the fabrics, patterns and colors as I go along. There is no wrong way to do it.
Next, I am thinking a banner with just woodland creatures: owls (of course), squirrels and trees.

If you would like your very own garland but don't have the time to make one, head on over to Kindershop. Come to think of it, they would look really cute as decoration above a new baby's crib in the nursery. If you like a garland in different colors than shown, contact me, I can make a special one just for you.

On another note, once and a while I browse Anthropologie and find really cool designs (and prices out of this world!). Have you seen this Orimono Flower Pillow?!

I think it's totally awesome.
It inspired me to make a set of placemats, which I ended up listing at KAY-Kreative, since pink, unfortunately, is not liked by all household members here....

And, I am really liking this skirt from Anthropologie.

But, at 98$, just not affordable. I may try my luck at making one myself.

Until later! Tonight, I will get back to working on another set of the Jumper Dress for the girls. This time with a "little twist".
Happy Friday, everybody!

Little Shop Feature

I am so excited! Aimee from Creativitae has featured Kindershop and my Numbers Game on her Blog today.

Go on over and check out her other unique Etsy finds and for your chance to get 15% OFF any purchase at either of my two Etsy Shops now through Friday.

I will be back shortly to share some recent sewing related projects of mine.

9-0-2-1-0

Growing up I was a big fan of the show "90210". I was watching it religiously. I could not really identify with any of their issues and problems, but I liked it nonetheless. And, seriously, who doesn't like looking at Luke Perry???!!!

Anyway, nowadays, when I calculate my shipping charges for the items in my shops I always chose the 90210 zip code as the destination code. I figure it's far enough away from Michigan, so the cost USPS gives me will for sure cover my expenses.

Now, waking up this morning I see that somebody ordered something from Kindershop. Regardless, of how big or small the order is I always get super excited when an order comes in. It's a great feeling to know somebody trusts the stuff you make is nice enough to spend money on. But, what a bigger surprise to see that the person actually has a 90210 address!
I cannot believe, that I am actually shipping things to Beverly Hills, California 9-0-2-1-0 !!! That really made my day.

Have a great one yourself.

Can you say HOOTILICIOUS !!**??!!

Look at this cute turquoise owl print! It's a pinwhale corduroy and available at Joann right now. I have no clue what to make from it yet, but I just had to get me a couple of yards:

Talking about owls; check these cute ones out in my shop (klick on the pics for a closer look):

PS: Don't forget to sign up for my giveaway. You still have until Saturday.

We have a Winner!!! - And another Giveaway!!!

This was fun! The first ever giveaway on my blog. Thank you all for your comments. I read every single one of them and went to your blog, if you have one. Some of the blogs I found are quite interesting and I added them to my feedburner.

So, with the help of Mr. Random, the winner of the children's apron is:

Congratulations, Christie. She wrote:

"I have a three year old little girl who follows me around the kitchen, wanting to do everything I do. This apron is so cute! I know she's love it!"

Now, on to the second part of this post!!! I have been hinting for a few weeks, that my 100th post is coming up soon! Well, this is it.

I never thought, I would have so much to talk about, or get so addicted to sewing, that I have all these many projects to share with you. Also, I never imagined that there would be anybody out there, who would read my blog (except for family - but they are forced to, because they get automatic emails everytime I blabber). I think, I have four or five Sweeties, who stop by on a regular basis. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Okay, now on to the giveaway: I have been thinking back and forth about what to do: Fabric?!, something handmade?! and combination of the two?!. In the end I decided to give away one of my Sewing Books. It is brand new with all the patterns still sealed in the pocket inside the book. I will also throw in a couple of cute Baby Buttons.

Here is what you have to do in order to have a chance to win:

1. Leave a comment on this post and tell me what your next crafting project will be (1 entry)

2. Make a purchase in any of my shops between today and this coming Friday (8/14/09) (5 extra entries).

If you mention "Giveaway" during check-out, I will give you an extra 10% off your purchase. This offer is only for you, my bloggy friends and does not include shipping cost or custom orders.

Etsy Kindershop, Etsy Kay-Kreative, Artfire Kay-Kreative.

I will leave this Giveaway open until next week Saturday, 8/15/09 and have Mr. Random draw a winner. Good Luck!

Memory

...not as in "CATS" the musical, but as in Toy!

Working on the quilted letters and numbers earlier this week sparked my creativity a little bit and I started thinking what other toys I could make using fabrics. And I thought of “Memory”. You know, the fun classic childhood game were you have to find and collect pairs of identical images.
This was such a fun project that I decided to write up a little tutorial.

Material:
- Scrap pieces of cotton fabric with different prints. I used 10 for my set, but you can certainly use more or less if you wish to.
- About 8 inches of 42” wide quilt batting (I used thick cotton batting)
- About 8 inches of 42” wide solid colored fabric for the back (I used red flannel)
- Matching thread
- Sewing machine
- Pinking shears

The game pieces in the end will be 3 inch squares.

To get started cut 10 pair of 3.25 inch squares of your different cotton fabrics. If you are using fabrics with images try to make sure that the image is in the same spot within your 3.25” square on each of the two pieces that belong to a pair.

Now lay your back fabric (red flannel for me) right side down onto your sewing table, lay the batting on top and then pin all your game pieces right sight up onto the batting/flannel. Just, like you would, when making a quilt sandwich.

Sew around each of the game pieces with your sewing machine using a ¼” seam allowance from the edge of each cotton square.

It is your choice to either sew all of them first and then cut them out or cut each separately after sewing it.

Cut your game pieces out with your pinking shears making sure not to come too close to your stitching.

Now, if you still have energy left from all this repetitive work, make a little drawstring bag for storing your new, ecofriendly, childfriendly and unique toy. Make a few for Christmas gifts, too. Or come on over to Kindershop and grab one there.

Happy Sewing!

Tea anybody?

The title of this post has little to do with what I want to show you. I just couldn't think of anything better...

Yesterday I was browsing Etsy for some inspiration and potential Christmas gifts. And I found this very pretty dress:

Cute, isn't it?! I thought to myself, this fabric really makes the pattern work. Something like the style of the dress compliments the fabric's pattern and the other way around. Than it dawned on me that I had seen this fabric before!

Exactly!

It is the same as on the vintage bed sheet I used for the girls' peasant dresses. Just in a different colorway.

Now, does that mean I can use the leftover fabric I have to make a dress for myself?! Probably not. It would look kind of tacky to match with the girls.

Anyway, I thought, I share this little story with you. 'cause I think it's neat...

PS: By the way the dress is by Sohomode and you can find it here.