Fire Truck Birthday Shirt Embroidered for Landon

Today I spent my birthday playing with my birthday present -- my new embroidery machine.  I wanted to try doing a combination of appliqué and embroidering on the embroidery machine, and thought a t-shirt for Landon's 3rd birthday would be the perfect opportunity.  So I searched the internet and found a reasonably priced design at Stitcheroo Designs that incorporated the number 3 into a flame with a firetruck.

Here is the T-shirt I made:

Here's a closer look at the design:

The embroidery machine program file can be purchased here.   (The purchase actually includes the design for numbers 1 - 6!)

I also found this tutorial from the blog Love from Texas that walked me step by step through the applique embroidery process.

Lesson learned from this project is that I need to use a little stiffer stabilizer (like a medium weight cutaway) in place of the tear away stabilizer that I used on this project.  This would clean up the puckering that I got at the bottom of the t-shirt.

Considering it was my first appliqué project on the embroidery machine, I am quite pleased with the results.  I can't wait to surprise Landon with this birthday surprise tomorrow morning.

Heart Shaped Wedding Vow Scrapbook Layout

Now that we are approaching our five year wedding anniversary, I am finally starting to make progress on my wedding scrapbook.  I am now up to the vows and exchange of rings.  And here is the 2-page layout I created.  I scrap-lifted this idea from Scrapbooks Etc. magazine.

The version from the magazine was only a 1 page layout for the wedding vows, but I quickly transposed it into a two page layout by mirroring the images and using the second page for the exchange of rings.  

All the paper came from Hobby Lobby and is either Paper Studio or My Mind's Eye.  I used one of the cricut wedding cartridges to cut the templates for the hearts, and the Plantinum Schoolbook cartridge for the blue lettering.

I hand-wrote our traditional wedding vows on strips in the bottom corner to make sure we always remembered exactly what we promised.

And I did the same with the priest's words during the exchange of rings.

So I hope you liked today's project.  I am making myself a promise to set time aside each week to do scrapbooking so I can start to get caught up.  So keep checking back for more scrapbook layouts.  And until next time, have a Sew Scrappy Day!

Little All Star Baseball Burp Clothes

As I was unpacking and organizing the baby stuff, I realized I needed more burp clothes.  So instead of going out and buying them, I decided to make my own.  So I googled ideas and came across this tutorial.

And this is what I came up with:

I used left over fabric from the baby blanket I made earlier (to see post go here).  For the backing I used terry cloth fabric I bought at Joann's to add extra softness and absorbency to the burp clothes.  I cut that fabric into 10" x 18" rectangles, then embroidered "Little All Star", added the vintage baseball accent fabric, and then sewed the front to the back.  

I can not wait for our new little all star to arrive (1 month away!) so that we can use these!  And they were so simple I plan on making a bunch more with my fabric scraps, and maybe even a couple of matching bibs.

Valentine's Day Tie Appliqué Shirt for Baby Boy

This weekend I welcomed the newest addition to my craft room -- a new embroidery machine.  My wonderful husband bought it as an early birthday present.  My birthday isn't until the end of the month, but he knew that with the baby coming I would have lots of opportunities to use it since I have been planning on working on burp clothes, bibs, and baby blankets.  So I spent the afternoon learning how to use the new machine.  And I even got an embroidery project done.

Here it is -- a Valentine's shirt with a tie appliqué for a baby boy.

I've been wanting to make a tie appliqué shirt, and decided to use the embroidery machine to make it a Valentine's themed shirt.  I found the template for the tie at the blog Crap I've Made.  I copied and pasted the template into a word document so I could make it a little bit bigger.

I used the embroidery machine to make the words "Be Mine" before cutting the tie shape.  Then I used paper back fusible webbing (also known as heat and bond) to adhere the tie onto the black shirt and used a zig zag stitch on my regular sewing machine to give the edges of the tie a finished look.  Here's a close up.

I think I still might add some suspenders and a few hearts to make it more festive, but considering I spent most of the day getting a feel of the new embroidery machine and figuring out how all the features worked, I am pretty happy with the product.

And here is my new addition to my craft room - the Brothers PE770.  I was very impressed with how easy it was to use.  I literally opened the box and was embroidering 20 minutes later.  

And with that, I'm going to get back to crafting.  I've got to finish dressing up this t-shirt.  Until next time, have a Sew Scrappy Day!