A little late...but one last wrapping idea

This is only 2 days too late haha...but here is another idea for wrapping gifts. I'm usually a wrapping paper and pre-made bow kind of girl, but this year I wanted to try something new.

The grocery store was selling these neat glass jars with twist-on, steel lids. I filled the jar with Turtles, and then taped on a cookie cutter and tied on a spatula and candy cane with ribbon. It only took about 4 minutes to do, and the nice thing is that the glass jar is re-usable so my friend can re-use it in her kitchen.

How to make Gift Tags from leftover wrapping paper

Gift wrapping continues - although I ran out of cute gift tags. My plan was to run out to Walmart and pick up a package...but then weekend laziness and the cold weather outside quickly overrode that idea. Instead, I decided to make my own gift tags. Here is a quick tutorial:

1) Find some scrap pieces of wrapping paper. I liked this blue penguin paper because the white area of the penguins' bellies is the perfect size to write a small message.

2) Cut out the penguin and using a glue stick, affix it to a piece of cardstock. Let dry for 5 minutes and then cut out. Punch a hole in the top of the hat, and then cut a small piece of string or yarn and thread it through the hole. You can use this to tie the tag to presents - or you can skip the strip and hole punch, and just tape the tag to your gift.

That's it. Pretty quick and easy, and a good way to use up those small leftover pieces of wrapping paper.

Ipod Greeting Card Tutorial

Only 6 more days until Christmas! I picked up an itunes gift card for one of my relatives and was trying to think of a creative way to package it. Using my dead as a doornail ipod as a template, I put together an ipod greeting card. Here is a quick tutorial:

1) Materials: Coloured paper (cardstock weight is best), small scaps of silver or grey paper and white paper, tape or glue, sharpie.

2) Cut out the body of your card. I just laid out my gift card and then folded the paper in half to ensure that it would fit.

3) Cut out a rectangle from the silver paper. Using a circular object in your house, trace out a circle on to the white paper (a baby food jar is a good size), then trace another smaller circle in the middle. Using the Sharpie, copy the ipod symbols on to the circle. If you wish, add a greeting to the silver rectangle piece.

4) Glue or tape both pieces to the front of the card.

5) Cut out a small square from the paper that you used for the body of the card. Now cut it in half diagonally so you have two triangles. Place a thin line of glue or tape on the two outer edges and stick to the inside of the card. You are leaving the "hypoteneuse" line (aka longest length of the triangle you've cut) untaped so that you can slip in your gift card.

1 gift wrapped and ready....several more to go...actually several more still need to be bought/made. Glad there are still 6 days left!

New drinks and ending off the weekend

Just discovered a new drink this weekend, Tropicana Tropics in Orange, Strawberry and Banana. It tastes like a mixed cocktail that you might sip at the beach...minus the alcohol and the beach. Which some people might argue are two important elements, but hey when you live in the suburbs you gotta work with what you got.

Well, I'm off to go put up my feet, sip some of my new found beverage and enjoy the last 2 hours of the long weekend. My cousin's wife just passed on a new copy of People magazine so I'm looking forward to catching up on some light celeb news before I have to convert my brain back to the land of offices, cubicles and emails.

Cupcakes Galore

We had a family dinner this weekend to celebrate the visit of our out of province relatives. I made Betty Crocker Yellow Cupcakes and frosted them with pink butter icing.
This is the fourth cupcake that I've eaten in the past 24 hours. Leftovers are a blessing and a curse.

Hemming -- Favourite Jeans

Hemming some new jeans. I always keep an eye out for jeans that fit "well". My favourite pair of jeans are from Uniqlo. I bought them in Japan 5 years ago and wore them until I wore a hole in a very obvious place. Luckily when I was in Korea they had Uniqlo stores too, so I was able to pick up another pair. Hopefully they last me another 5 years until I can somehow swing a return trip to Japan :)

You know how clearance racks here are usually full of the uncommon sizes like XS or XXL? Mediums don't show up too often. However, when I was in Asia, the sales rack was bursting full of my size. A size medium / or 29" here would be the largest size of jeans that they offered there (and this was from the larger chain stores, alot of the smaller stores didn't offer pants in my size). LOVED it! I was able to get jeans for $20 because they were too big for the rest of the population. A good excuse to keep pigging out on sushi, ramen and onigiri (or bibimbap and kalbi in Korea)!

I read somewhere that the average woman in the US wears a size 14. What's do you estimate is the average size of people in your area?

The upside of rain...and some sewing

The vegetable garden is growing like crazy thanks to all of the rain that we've had this summer. The big plants in the back are beef steak tomatoes and in front of that are the eggplant plants.

Big green tomatoes. I check them out everyday hoping that they have magically turned red overnight.

New pouches that have been added to the shop! One in Amy Butler's Temple Garland Sky and the other one in a Japanese cotton that I call Red Chrysanthemums. Click here to see more pictures of them in my shop.

Twilight and a new look

I have a new banner for my blog :) It's a bit short so I'm going to fix that on the weekend.

Made a quick stop at Walmart on my way home and ended up buying "Twilight". I'm not usually a fan of the vampire / sci fi books, but I've have heard lots of good things about it, so it's my new summer reading project. One of my friends said that once she started reading the book, she ended up doing nothing else all weekend because it was addicting. That's a pretty good recommendation. The book is around $12 in Canada, but Walmart had it on sale for $8 ish.

Anyone else read the Twilight books? Addicting? or too much hype?

Sunday Sewing

It's 4pm. I'm still wearing my pyjamas. Sundays are cool.
This is a picture of the zippered pouches that I was working on today and yesterday. I was experimenting with two different types of interfacing, iron-on and a lightweight non-fusible type. I always use the iron on interfacing for my wallets because it adds alot of stiffness and heft to the design. However, I realized yesterday that I prefer to the lightweight non-fusible type of the pouches. It gives it a more flexible feel. Click here if you'd like to see more pictures of the pouches in my shop.

Just looking at the clock now. I'm supposed to be at a family dinner in 30 minutes. Yikes...off to go employ some personal hygiene asap.

Weird happenings in the summer

Last week after dinner I heard a loud noise. It sounded like a gush of water falling in the backyard. The only problem with this scenario is that I don't have a pool and it wasn't raining.

Turns out the glass table out on the deck had spontaneously shattered! It was bizarre. The table is covered by a fabric gazebo of sorts, and the backyard is surrounded by fences and other backyards on all sides.

So we are now tableless, although I was thinking that it was lucky we weren't actually eating outside because we would have been covered in glass...and hungry :)