The Quilted Fish

Bazzill Release Party!

I am so excited that today I get to share with you a sneak peak of my  new paper line, Avalon.  It is a bit of a mash up between my upcoming fabric line Apple of my Eye and my current fabric line Delighted!.  Since today is the first day of CHA, Bazzill has decided to share a little bit of it with you.  You can see it here.  And if you want to win some from Bazzill, you can go here.  AND, if you want to see the other lines that they are releasing, you can see them here.  I will say it again, because I have said it before, I love love LOVE Bazzill.  They are an amazing company with amazing people.  I am so honored that I get to work with them.

Shock and Awwwww….

Hi!  Remember me?  I know.  It’s been a while!  Shocking, isn’t it???  (okay, there is the shock part.)

We are quickly approaching February, my favorite month of the year.  Why?  Well, three reasons.  #1 There is a lot of pink and hearts are oh-so-stylish.  #2 It is Valentines day!!! #3  It is my birthday!  So bring on the pink, the love and the cake.  I love it all.  We have a table in our entry that I use to set up vignettes to reflect the season or holiday or complete lack of motivation (those are the months that it is empty).  My desk faces this little table and I get to see the cute things on it for part or sometimes most of the day.  Here is what it looks like for Valentines day:

I love that framed word art.  You can find it here at the Bonjour! Blog.  She even has it in different colors!

Here is a little close up shot of what I did with it….

An IKEA frame, some heart doilies, so handmade flowers, yo-yo’s, buttons and a glue gun.  Super simple and oh-so-PINK!!!!!!!!!! (that’s the awwwww part!)

I must admit that I enjoy months like these when I have a bit of free time to do little projects like these.  It seems like so much of the year and many of the holidays fly by without so much as a nod from me.  I am going to make this year different!  In fact, we are already working on Valentines for the kids to hand out and Valentine boxes to receive all of their love notes.  Usually this is a night before gig for us, but not this time!  We don’t have any Valentine’s traditions at our house, but I would love to start some.  Do you have any that you could share?

What? December is over? How did that happen?

Are you feeling the same way?  I feel like this entire month was packed with hustle and bustle.  I barely finished my decorations and it was time to open presents.  Someone said that the older you get the faster time goes.  I guess I am getting a lot older!

We had a lovely Christmas here.

Full of surprises and joy.  My favorite part was that Christmas was on a Sunday so we had church.  What a lovely way to remember what Christmas is all about.  I am grateful for the little baby that was born on that special day.  That is the greatest gift of all!

Even though the Christmas season is packed with activities and to do lists, I still had to get some work done!  I have a major deadline for my next line of fabric.  January 15th!  Knowing now how fast time flies, I didn’t take much time off.  I think I am close, though, and nearly ready to reveal the name.  I am excited to finish it up and get ready for the new year.  I don’t believe in resolutions, but I do have a couple of things I do.  One is that I pick “One little word”.  (Just a brief little side note… I LOVE Ali Edwards.  She is amazing.  And HUMBLE. How refreshing.)  My word for this year was fearless.  It made a HUGE difference for me and resulted in some amazing changes for me.  Having one word to focus on was very powerful for me.  I haven’t settled on a word for this year, but I do have some thoughts.  Self-control?  Dream?  Focus?  Change?  So many words.  I will have to narrow it down.  The other thing that I do is really take stock in myself.  What do I want to change?  How am I going to do that?  What is it that makes me do the things that I don’t like?  Then I make the change.  I guess that could be considered a resolution, but I don’t like to call them that because resolutions never last.  Don’t you think? 

I have some really big goals for this year and some super big and scary dreams.  What will this year hold for The Quilted Fish?  We will just have to see!  What about you?  What do you plan to change?

Let's wrap it up, people!

So are you wrapping up your Christmas (or other holiday) gifts?  Have you been looking for a fun way to wrap them?  Something cute and unique?  Maybe even handmade?  Well, Alicia has made another wonderful tutorial for you!

Look at this fun project!  

 

What a fun way to wrap up your Christmas.  You can download the tutorials below.  Thanks to Alicia for her hard work and creative ideas!

Download All wrapped up gift box tutorial

Download Paper Bow Tutorial (2)

Christmas Blocks

Hello, and happy December!  I am finally starting to get in the spirit of the Christmas season.  How about you??  So I thought I would share a cute Christmas craft made by my Myra from Michigan.  That has a ring to it, doesn't it??  Myra from Michigan! She has made a darling little project to show you....

I hope you are having a wonderful time decorating!!  Have a great week and I will see you soon!

Studio tour

Hey there!  I would like to invite you to join me at Ambers (Gigi’s Thimble) blog today!  I give a little tour of my studio.  Amber’s blog is fantastic, too.  You will love her blog!

Sharing some love from my friends!

My amazing friends at Lizzie B Cre8ive have released their holiday issue of their emag Dream Laugh Create!  I am so excited for them.  They are amazingly talented and the nicest darn people you'll ever meet.  Not to mention they are hilarious.  You may notice a couple of projects in here from team members, too!  Enjoy!

Open publication - Free publishing - More craft

Audrey is back!

Audrey here again with my last post sharing all the things I created with the beautiful Divinely Sweet and Holiday Style collections. I don't know about you, but I am already starting to get into the holiday spirit!!  I never got around to doing much with last year's Christmas photos, so I decided to use the Holiday Style papers to make a little mini album! This album is a mixed album which includes pages that are chipboard, cardboard, canvas, and acrylic.  I took the pages apart and added some 4x6 cards from the Lickity Slips papers and punched them with my Bind It All to slip in between some of the pages.

I plan to do my journaling on the front and cak covers and on some of the 4x6 cards.

On this cardboard page, I tore away some of the top layers of the cardboard to expose the corrugated lines and painted them red.

Back of the cardboard page, and front of the felt tag.  I machine stitched around the large felt tag and created a pocket with patterned paper and ribbons.  The pockets hold a lot of the larger photos that I didn't put onto the pages.

Back of the felt piece and another 4x6 card.

Back of a 4x6 card and front of a chipboard piece with 4 photos.

Chipboard page with a banner that I cut from patterned paper and the facing page is actually acrylic, but it is a bit hard to see from this view

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Banner detail.

 Acrylic detail. I stamped the acrylic with Stazon ink with some Christmas trees and stars.  Then I painted the backsides so that you could still see the ink patterns.  I splattered some blue paint as well.

Back of the acrylic page and another 4x6 card.

back of 4x6 card and front of canvas.  I misted the front size of the canvas with green mist and a mask and stitched around the outside with black thread.

On the back of the canvas, I misted some red stars and handstiched around them with green thread.

Details on the misting and stitching.

This is the back cover where I will finish my journaling!  :)

I just love this album and wish you could see it in real life! And lastly, since I had a few scraps left over, I did a few quick cards!

I want to sincerely thank Amanda for having me as a guest designer and perhaps you will see more from me in the future!!!!  THANKS!!!

Delighted! Magazine No. 1

I am doing a little dance as I type this post.  I am so glad to finally have the first magazine ready to show you.  I have learned a lot as I have put this publication together.  It has been stressful and fun.  And now, it is done.  I am so happy!  All of this happiness isn't just because I finally figured out how to do what I wanted to, but also because my team has put together some AWESOME projects to show you.  Well, not the whole team.  I divided the team into thirds this round, so this is the first group.  That means that there will be 3 (YES, 3!!) magazines about Delighted!.  And if you like the new way we are going to present this, you may see even more in the future.  So without futher ado....

May I present...

Delighted! Inspiration for your Kitchen

 

Open publication - Free publishing - More crafting

Happy looking!!!

Download Delighted Potholder

Download Delighted Mug Rugs

Download Delighted tabletopper

Download Ruffle Apron Tutorial

Download Delighted Oven Mitt Tutorial

Download Scalloped Delighted Apron

Vegetarian Veterans

My son’s school is doing a program for Veterans today. My sweet and amazing husband is a veteran (something I am VERY proud of).  So this morning my son was talking about how excited he is that it is vegetarian’s day.  I had to smile.  And chuckle!  So cute!  SO if you are a vegetarian veteran, today is YOUR day!  LOL!

Here is a picture of Mr. Fish when he joined the military.  Isn’t he SOOOO cute? 

And here is a picture of him shortly before he got out. He served on the honor guard for the Air Force. 

I sure did love it when he would go do honor guard things.  He looked SO good in this uniform!

To all of you veterans, a special thank you.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.