Happy 4th of July — Part III

Just a quick post today to show you guys the finished products from baking!

I know I said I was gonna make some cookies, but what I made instead was patriotic brownies & raspberry crumble top with blueberries. The patriotic brownies were inspired by this post here (check out the awesome America cake!!!)

I’ll be sure to take awesome fireworks photos tonight! That one up top is a compilation of a few I took last year & the previous year.

Well, y’all have yourselves a fun night, & be safe everyone!!
Cheers!!
— Elise M. Gross

Happy 4th of July!! — Part II

Good morning!! Happy 4th of July, folks!!!!

Alright comrades! I promised you a looksie at what I ended up doing to that rad button, so drumroll, please, & without further ado, I present to you all….!!

Ta-daaaaa!!!!!!!

Isn’t it just FAB.U.LOUS???? I adore how homey it looks/feels. I feel like I’m looking at one of those crafts you find at the state fair, haha!! And it’s so BIG! (Insert joke here.) Seriously, it’s almost gaudy (the button alone is about 2.5″ across!) But it is very patriotic, no? Looooove!!!! Look, you can even see the threads where it’s sewn together! (Honestly not intentional, but I just adore how kitschy it feels..!)

I took some ribbon I had from the mass of sewing notions given to me last year & created the ribbon circle & ribbon strand (the blue with stars). The red “ribbon” is actually some binding I had, also from previously mentioned sewing notion stash. The ruffled part was done by simply sewing (set to 4 width stitch) a straight line down the binding, no backtacking, then grabbing one of the strands & gently maneuvering it down the other thread to get it ruffled. Sew it all together & huzzah! Then I grabbed a sweet flag print wrapper that I have had in my scrap box for years & sewed it on top of the ribbon strands. For a final touch, I snipped all the ends of the ribbons to get that cute ribbon shape!

Now, in other news… I know I had stated I’d make cookies tonight, but I was so in to sewing that I totally got side tracked… You see, if you weren’t already aware, I own an adorable Rat Terrier who was bequeathed to me with a… {shudder} …really obnoxious purple “Princess” shirt. Seriously. I had never owned a dog who wears clothes before, let alone who enjoys wearing them!! Like, seriously, she tries to dress herself all the time — this usually results in her having a paw through the head-hole with her face, haha!! (It’s been a very strange thing to get adjusted to, admittedly, but I’ve embraced it now.) In fact, now that I’ve learned to sew, I’ve even toyed with the idea of making her some clothes (not that she doesn’t already have a mini closet full… -_-;; ), so I went ahead & tried my hand at making a double layered patriotic-like bandana for her. Nothing super special, but cute enough. (Most of her other clothes have skulls & such…not particularly patriotic like. Heh!) So, here’s my slap-dash attempt at making something cute for my pup:

And here’s our lovely model:

(Pardon the messy carpet…it needs a good vacuuming!)

A close up of the bow:

And all together now!!

Aaaah….a job well done. Probably worth not baking tonight, but I’ll try to bake in the morning. 😉
Good night, all!!

Cheers!!
— Elise M. Gross

Happy 4th of July!!

As many of you may or may not be aware, tomorrow is the United States’ Independence Day. I’ll be with Boo & his fam, participating in the typical celebrations include barbecuing, being outside, sparklers & fireworks! Ooooh…and swimming!! If I’m able to, I’d like to try my hand at sewing myself a swimsuit tonight, but I doubt I’ll have enough time! 😦 Well, we will see!

In honour of the celebrations, I wanted to post a picture of one of the NEATEST little accessories EVER:

This is SO. FRIGGIN’. CUTE. My lovely co-worker, owner of Deb’s Silks, made these hair clips for herself & her daughter — I wish she’d made more so I could totally sport one at tomorrow’s festivities!! 😦 [sobs] Well, I’ll come up with something…

I did make a pretty awesome button, though. Okay, well, I only made the button…the graphic is a cut-out from a magazine that Mrs. Debbie found & gave to me. (She’s awesome like that, always giving me random things to use for projects!)

Here’s my totally rad, patriotic button:

It’s not finished yet, though!! Mrs. Debbie’s hair bows inspired me, so I’ll do something neat to it when I get home tonight.

Oh, drat! I forgot, I planned to bake cookies tonight for tomorrow’s celebration….hmm…guess I’ll make a swimsuit another time, then. Drat. Oh, well. I’ll post pics of my cookies & what I do with the button later tonight or tomorrow for y’all’s viewing pleasure! 😀

Until then, everyone celebrate SAFELY & COURTEOUSLY (no blasting fireworks out of your back yards at 4 a.m.!) Also, make sure to abide by your local laws regarding fireworks. 😉

Peace out! Cheers!!
— Elise M. Gross

Junk journal designs

While at lunch the other day I was inspired by a someone’s post about a quilting technique. (I’ll need to locate & post the link later..!) I’ve been wanting to create a junk journal for some time now, & have plenty of scraps to get started, but this neat idea for quilting a rose made me want to try out a junk journal with a fabric cover, so that I could sew on this style of rosé! Here’s the sketch I came up with using the Paper app on my iPad:

Using that same quilted rose idea, here are a few more (surprisingly girly/elegant for my own tastes) ideas I came up with — mostly just working out layout… It probably won’t turn out this…pink… If I were to create it.

That second one is NOT something I’m fond of…that layout bugs me to no end. However, in the interest of sharing my process, I’ve decided to share even the ones deserving of the bin. 😉 Perhaps it’ll be suitable if I played with that arrangement more…it’s just too….(shudder) centered. Where’s the rule of thirds in it?!?? Oh, well. I do like the last one, however.

I then got a bit side-tracked coming up with journal ideas… -_-;; (If you haven’t noticed by now, it’s difficult for me to stay on just one task..!) So, without further ado, here are more (Nintendork) sketches of journal ideas:

This Chomp Chomp one could use some more tweaking, as well…

I love the quilted look here. I’ll have to make this one cloth cover as well. 😉

Lastly, someone mentioned to me today that I should continue to use my full name for all of my work, even my blog, since I use it for everything else, so from here on out, I’ll sign off as I do for everything else! 😀

Cheers!!
— Elise M. Gross

P.S. Ehh…not sure…what do y’all think?