Queen of Hearts

I know this post is a little late, but this was one of my biggest projects last year. It couldn't be forgotten.

For Halloween last year, I wanted to really break in my new sewing machine and make my costume. In my excitement I picked an overly ambitious project, especially considering this is the first dress I’ve ever sown.

I also didn’t measure myself and relied on the size chart to pick my pattern. Big mistake. After spending untold hours cutting fabric and sewing the bodice, I learned that sewing sizes are completely different than store sizes. My dress was 4 sizes too small! I was devastated. I’d spent too much time and money to just quit, so I was convinced I would have to sell my dress on ebay because it would never fit me. The husband gave me a good pep talk shortly after this discovery and reminded me that I am the MacGyver of crafting and I could make it work for me. I took that to heart, ripped a few seams, and added fabric inconspicuously. It worked! If I entered a sewing contest I wouldn’t win any prizes, and perhaps it's slightly ill-fitting, but as a Halloween costume, I think it was stunning.

Plus it was fun to spin in, and that, truly, is the measure of a good costume.

On the plus side, I now have a good understanding of clothing pattern sizes, pleating, bunching, working with brocade, lace and ribbing, among other things. Good stuff to know for next Halloween, he he he.

Quiet Book

For Christmas I made the Babe her very own quiet book.

I wanted something that would keep her happy and quiet for an hour of church. This is close.

The first page is a mailbox with removable envelopes.

In the envelopes I put flat things, like buttons and fabric flowers and stickers. She loves taking stuff out and putting it all back together.

Next page is colors and numbers. The color balloons are velcro and the numbers are flaps with fruits and vegetables behind them.

This next page is my favorite, but also the most frustrating. I never worked with metal eyelets before, but I now know they are no good on felt. They need to be used on stronger material (like canvas) or they will just fall off.

This page is also frustrating for Grace, cause she can't quite get anything on her own yet. The button is hard, the zipper has to be held at the top with one hand while you unzip with the other, the snaps are too hard, and of course she can't tie shoes yet.

But the prize for opening each element is a fun texture. In the shoe is a fleece mouse which you can't see in this photo.

The next page has a lot of potential and I plan to build on that. At this point the Babe doesn't spend too much time on this page, but when I get more clothes done, I hope she will.

The last page is a shape tree. All the shapes come off and can be put in the little blue pocket. Or piled in the corner of the closet in the office, which is where I found all the shapes last week. That is one disadvantage to having removable parts - they're bound to get lost. Luckily, these are all pretty easy to make again if it comes to that.

That's it! I made two of these books at the same time, which consumed TONS of my time right before Christmas. I didn't get any pictures of the second book, but it's basically the same. In the future, if I ever make one of these again, I need to remember to reinforce the fabric for the pages. The thin fabric needs a thick interfacing or I need to use a thicker, stronger fabric. This just feels too flimsy to stand up to some of the velcro dots, unfortunately. I hope it will last, anyway.

Valentine Cards

I {heart} fonts. I know a lot of people who shop at my work site do too, and it's my job to keep that love alive. Here was some inspiration I made on how to use fonts awesomely for V-day.

Check out the blog here.

I got Jimmered

We're big Jimmer Fredette fans around here. I made these shirts at the request of my husband. We used printable iron-on fabric transfers and I designed the graphic.

If you are a Jimmer fan, I am happy to share my images with you if you want to make your own shirts just let me know. Go Cougars!

Psion Beta

My Husband has a friend who is an aspiring author, and he is fabulous. He decided to self-publish his first novel last year and asked me if I would be interested in doing the cover art. What a neat opportunity, I thought, so I accepted.

I've done commissioned pieces before, but this was the first book cover. When I originally thought of cover ideas, they all had scenes from the book or action poses of the lead character, but my first instruction was: NO humans. Humans are kind of my forte, so this posed a new challenge for me. I decided to do the cover graphically rather than in paint or other raw media.

I worked really closely with the author to get a look that he liked. It was kind of refreshing working for a "client" whom I had to please with my work! My current job has a lot of freedom, well, essentially I can do whatever I want. I don't always feel like that helps me grow artistically, so this was a really good experience for me. There were times that I liked things that he didn't and vice versa, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Since my field of work is designing fonts, I thought it would be fun to design a title font especially for this book. After I showed the author the title, he asked about using that font throughout the book. I made a quick mock-up font of what it might look like, so he could plug it in to see if it would work. I made it clear that the font was incomplete, and if he liked it, I would polish it up. He told me not to bother with the font after I sent him the mock font, so I didn't. But then when he sent me the proof, he had used my un-polished font!

I know most people probably won't even care, or notice, the font, but I see it and all I can think of is all the work it still needs! Oh well. I also designed a progressive swirling "blast" graphic for the head of each chapter.

If you are a bookworm, I recommend this book. It's similar to Ender's Game and Hunger Games and is geared towards a juvenile audience (so it's not too graphic or inappropriate). To learn more about it, check out the site here, and you can buy it here.