Gift Card Holders for Christmas

I am giving a lot of gift cards this year as gifts, for 2 reasons. One is that my daughter's band has a purchasing program for them that fund-raises for her. Free money in other words. Buy a gift card, get x% deposited in the account. If I am going to eat at Chili's I might as well get a kickback right? :)

 The other reason is that they are easy to mail.
At least normally they are. Until you go all creative and paper-crafty and stuff.
But I saw these cute candy bar/gift card holders and just had to step up my gifting plan for a few of them.

 I started with a tutorial/template from Two Peas in a Bucket (now discontinued) for the card holder. Fairly straightforward, although my ability to cut on the lines with scissors was seriously challenged. I did shortcut after I made the first one, by measuring the straight sides and cutting the papers to size first then trimming the curves. (Measurements for holder are 4" x 6.75", with score marks at 4.25" and 1.5". Decorative layers: Large flap is 3.75" x 2.25" and small flap is 3.75" x 1.25".) She used ribbon to close hers, while I made a paper band that slid over the flap. (Paper Bands: 0.5" x 9.5")



Then I made the candy bar from a tutorial I found in my computer archives from my Stampin' Up Days. I think it is by Mary Brown who blogs at http://stampercamper.com/create-with-connie-and-mary/, but I am not 100% sure since my archived tutorial is from 2007!

Basically though, you just measure the edges of the candy bar (feel the edges inside the wrapper) to see how wide to cut the paper, then wrap the paper around, cut off the excess and stick down the edges with glue dots. Decorate however you like. Slide a ribbon that is twice the length of the candy bar, plus enough to tie how you want. Slide the ribbon under the paper and pull the end out the other side. Then put the gift card in it's cute little holder, without the paper band that holds it closed, put the ribbon under the flap, then slide the band up from the bottom to cover the flap and keep it shut. Tie the ribbon and you are all set.

Here are my paper cover measurements for the candy bars I used:
7 oz Hershey Bar: 7.5" x 11"
4.25 oz Reese's Peanut Butter Bar: 5.75" x 8.25"
4.25 oz Hershey's Special Dark: 7" x 8.5"

I mailed them in a plastic bubble wrap type envelope, with stiff cardboard scraps down the front and back to (hopefully) keep them from breaking too much.


Merry Christmas to you!

 

UFO number 2 in the bag!

When the cat's away the mice shall play. :)

My husband is gone to Arizona for the weekend for a funeral and that leaves me with free time in the evenings after the kids are in bed to sew. So... another one bites the dust!

The year old UFO Jolly Holiday Pillow is complete. (Well, minus a pillow form. The one I used is one of the pillows that decorates my bed and does not fit well at all!)

Jolly Holiday Pillow - 01/26/13 10:06 PM - Amy

It was my first time making pleats and I was very glad I had my cheap little seam-guide-maker-thingy.

 I don't intend to keep up this pace.This just happened because I would like to complete  2 UFOs a month and I am running out of month and have a couple of other sewing commitments to finish. So I picked a small UFO to see if I could knock it out. Yay!

 

FNSI results

In spite of multiple interruptions from a certain 3 year old who did not want to stay in bed, I accomplished a fair amount last night during my Friday Night Sew In time. :)
  

 For starters, I cut the infinity scarf I am making for my sister to give to her friend.
A little Prince Charming anyone? :) Her friend likes frogs and I immediately thought of this line. I was lucky enough to find some for a very good price and my sister liked it. I hope to get it stitched up today and into the mail.

The I finished quilting the last 6 squares on the Christmas Table Topper.

I trimmed it up and made the binding and attached it.

That is one UFO complete!  25 left to go. :)
 

 

Joseph

I was not his Father, He was mine.



Forgotten Carols

 

Fun and Easy Gift: Pop Top Surprise!

I have made these cans many times for many reasons and they make fun Christmas gifts for teachers, neighbors, and friends. I made these last year, but wanted to share again. The tutorial is here. Just change the papers and embellishments to suit the occasion.

Enjoy!

The Shepherd

Forgotten Carols

 

Homeless

More Forgotten Carols




 

Music: Let Him In

More Forgotten Carols.



 

Music: Handel's Dream

A song by Michael McLean, called Handel's Dream. This is part of one of my favorite Christmas stories, The Forgotten Carols . No visual, just audio. But a sweet story, worth a listen.





The music is available for download on iTunes, If you can find the version narrated and sung by Glenn Yarbrough, you get the whole story with the music.

 

WIP Wednesday: Christmas UFOs

Linking up these works in progress at Freshly Pieced

It's Wednesday and I actually worked on some long time Works in Progress that can be classified as UFOs, the Thangles Tree Skirt and matching Advent Calendar (Tutorial here). I finished the stockings in time for Christmas last year. I am hoping that at least one of these 2 will be done before Christmas this year.

The Advent calendar just needs to be bound. That means making binding.

November 2012

I know, it looks kind of atrocious. Apparently I am terrible at pressing consistent 1/2 hems. None of the pockets is the same size, exactly, so when I sewed them down, going up and down and the rows and across the bottoms of the pockets, the quilting lines went really wonky between them. (Yes I was being lazy.) I have not ironed it yet, so that might help. Or I may need to quilt the white areas to death to hide the crazy. :)
I had some trouble fitting them all on the background, probably from my inaccurate pressing. I had to trim the header a ton to get them to fit. I think if I made it again, I would cut the background a couple inches wider all around and give the pockets a little more room. I also need to ping Lee and see what batting she used. I used fusible fleece, which looks pretty darn bad. It only fuses on one side too, so I quilted down the middle and around the edges to get the front to stay down. I used the cruddy looking side for the back.



The tree skirt is transitioning to a quilt, or rather not transitioning from a quilt top to a tree skirt. I decided to keep it as is and use it to cuddle under and keep on the couch instead of under the tree. I can still put it down there, it just won't be so easy to do without the slit.

October 2010

November 2012

December 2010

December 2012

Did you notice that I put the corners on backwards? :) I noticed too late, but since it is not going to be a round tree skirt I don't mind, so they stay.
The reason it has not been put together is that when I trimmed the blocks, I had no idea what I was doing (still don't) and left very little seam allowance, which cuts off points. I put the rows together and lost the points. I ripped them out and packed it up. 2 years ago.
So this time when I put them together I used a very scant seam allowance and only lost one point, just barely. Of course, when/if I border it I might lose a few more.
I plan on doing a scrappy back with all the leftover fabrics.

I still have several scarves outstanding that I need to get going on. Then my holiday sewing will be done.

Have a great week!

This and that

My son requested a wallet so I made this for him tonight.
I made one of these for myself a while back and forgot that I wanted it to be just a bit wider. It is a little awkward to get coins out without just dumping them. The zipper needs to be a little longer to work well. Not much, maybe 1/2 an inch.

 I also completed 2 more infinity scarves with some Little Black Dress from Basicgrey for Moda. These will be gifts for family and teachers.










 

I did it! They are done!

Last week's WIPS

My MOTP LC QA Block 3 cut.


Tree Skirt


More tree skirt. This thing is kicking my butt! I have ripped out at least every other seam, so for every step forward on this project, I have taken 2 steps back.


Here is my progress on the advent calendar as of last Wednesday. Not much, but it is really going to be cute.


And the stocking progress. I had finshed it with French seams but when I turned it, the seam was totally puckery. It looked horrible. So it got de-constructed and pinned again to fix later.


My completed projects for the Ho-Ho Holiday swap, which I was thrilled to hear were loved by my partner.
I made the little block for her to commemorate the first quilt pattern she posted on her blog, The Kissy Fish quilt. I want to make a full size one soon. I made a test block before this one and learned a lot about quilting and binding just on that little bit of fabric. For example, read the directions carefully before beginning. I had never bound anything and so I was using The Quilting Answer Book. I had been flipping back and forth between sections and mixed up the directions, making my binding only 1 inch wide. So, when I sewed it on the front, it wouldn't even come around to the back. Oops. :) But I was able to fix it using mamacjt's single fold binding tutorial. It was a perfect fit for my messed up binding. I guess I should take a picture of it. I should have taken one before I fixed it. It was pretty funny looking.
When I planned the block I knew I could use Thangles, since it is a block using half square triangles. I used the smallest Thangles I could find to make sure it was ornament sized. Those papers made life much easier with those little h.s.t's. I was pleased with how it turned out.

The flowers were a technique I learned at my first Show and Tell meeting at Quilt Asylum. They always give you a challenge project to try before the next meeting and these flowers were the project they gave us. My little flower was so fun to make that I knew I would make them again. They looked a little poinsettia-like to me so they became ornaments for the Christmas tree.
There is a similar tutorial on A Girl in Paradise that you can use if you like these little flowers. The difference is mine used circles instead of squares to make the petals.
So now I am more or less caught up and ready for this week's WIP Wednesday. See you then!