Having fun with beads

We are still camping in tight quarters while we figure out the house situation... and since small projects are easier to tackle in small spaces, here are a couple of things I have been working on:

I am not sure what I will do with this piece of lace now that I have added all those pearls: a bib necklace, a cuff, a corsage embellishment?? I'm open to suggestions.

Still loving making those simple ribbon flowers. This one will be perfect for the winter :)

Evening ruffled wrap

This project is a commission for a dressy wrap.

I used a black satin damask and married it with light-weight ultrasuede and organza. Again a good workout for my ruffler foot (Love it!!). This was so easy to make and looks very dressy, just perfect to cover when wearing a sleeveless gown for a cocktail or evening dinner in the colder weather. Here is Amie modeling it for me. Even with jeans and a sweater, I think it looks smashing!

To glam it up, I added a hint of gold with an embroidered border.

Design dilemma in my living room

Do you remember this photo ?

On a sunny day

Yes it's my dining room table, just before Christmas. I don't have a dining room per say, it's a combo dining/living room. While the above photo was taken in broad daylight, this room turns into a dark pit as soon as the sun is down and is sad and gloomy when the weather is overcast despite the cheerful wall colors (see proof below).  The biggest problem we have in this room is : lighting. 

See what I mean ? Same table, Christmas Eve just before dinner

Why the previous owners decided get rid of  the only ceiling light in this room and cover it with wallboard is still a mystery to me but my hubby and I found it {yay!} 

So as soon as the light box is rewired properly I can go shopping for a new fixture. Well I already started. I need something contemporary with a classic feel and that doesn't hang too low because the ceiling isn't that high either. 

This is what I found so far : 

What do you think ?? 

Cute little credenza

 My house is pretty compact and the architect certainly didn't waste any space for the entrance hall. It is tiny. After looking for months for a piece of furniture to fit in that limited space I finally scored this sweet little credenza. Even my hubby approved. It's a creamy yellow with grey panel and an antique glaze and goes perfectly with the existing color of the walls and trim. I'm still debating whether to leave it as is or repaint the panels.

I'm not a huge fan of the flower design there.

New Year, New Look

I've been pondering a little blog makeover. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what I wanted. I went for a retro newspaper headline look with a twist. It is still a work in progress as I'm doing all this by myself and I don't have much experience in graphic design. So please be patient while I'm  figuring this out.

PS: Suggestions and comments VERY welcome. Thank you in advance for letting me know what you think and making suggestions for improvements

A little bug growing up

There is a big project in my future (near future). My little girl just turned 4. I can hardly believe it. Only yesterday she was a toddler, and the day before that a baby!!

Time to move out of the tiny nursery with fluffy ducks and bunnies and on to a big girl bedroom with a big girl bed and tons of room for play (and storage for toy).


The project has been maturing in my head over the past couple of weeks.  What would make her happy ? How to make it girly and cheerful but not a pink explosion ? The answer was right there in front of me. My little bug loves Tinkerbell, flowers, butterflies and ladybugs. Her bedroom will be a meadow in the spring.

I'm planning to paint at least one big mural with grass, blue skies and white fluffy clouds. And of course flowers, butterflies and ladybugs. I still have to figure out a few details but we are ready to start on the room, starting with the ugly and dirty: some of the wallboard needs to be replaced. Ugh ! The hubs and I are going to empty and gut the room as soon as possible. We will leave wallboard and mud job to someone with a bit more experience to save ourselves a lot of time (and aggravation).


In the meantime, I got started on the accessories.

Getting organized

To my great surprise and delight, I have received a lot of comments on my posts this past 10 days. I've been trying hard to keep up and respond to everyone... and failed. Sorry dear readers. I promise to do better. 

I am a mom, work a full time job and even though the hubs pitches in, there are all the household chores to be tackled. I don't want to neglect all of these things. But I don't want to let my readers down either. The blogging universe is still very new to me. Time to learn to be better at it. Off to Borders. I bought a book about blogging. Verdict is: I need to be more organized to keep up. I've been working on it little by little over the past 3 days, I made progress. Not only do I have a posting schedule setup, but I also spent quite some time sorting and tidying my crafting and sewing supplies. 

No before pictures .. too embarrassing.  But here are the after pictures of my fabric stash:

Fat quarters on the bottom shelf

Chiffon and brocades on the top left

Satin on the top right

Cotton prints by color on the top left and bottom shelf

Special prints/fabrics on the top right (seasonal, japanese inspiration, wool cloth)

All the fabrics that are earmarked for special projects are now set in big zipper bags together by project in a separate bin. 

I also :

- Sorted my trims and ribbons in plastic bins. 

- Put elastic, velcro tape, grommets and zippers in plastic zipper bags

- Gathered all buttons and snaps in one location

- Sorted glue and paints in a plastic bin trolley with all the paintbrushes, foam and other.

And since all of my crafting is done from my (walkout) basement and it is also my little bug's playroom, I also organized all the toys.  

Then the hubby got the power tools out and helped me with my computer mess by drilling a couple of cable management holes through my countertop. He also dug up a wireless keyboard and mouse that I can just put away in a drawer when I don't need them. Much better. 

New look

After testing a couple of test layouts, here is the new look of my blog, at least for now. A big thank you to my talented friend Petra that gave me great advice about the color scheme and the logo's design. Her blog is way cooler than mine but ... it's all in Swedish. No matter, her beautiful photos are worth the detour!

Thanks Petra, you are the best!!

Honeycomb pillow

There, it is finished ! 

Ok, I'll admit: Turning the honeycomb into a pillow was no picnic. The fabric I chose is a bit stretchy and made things even more challenging. I've learned my lesson for the next time : once it is done it needs to be sewn on stabilizer. But hey, it didn't turn out too bad. 

See the tutorial for honeycomb tucks here

Tutorial - Deco honeycomb tucks

This is how you can make this happen :

* On the backside of your fabric, trace evenly spaced parallel lines - Here every 2"

* Trace perpendicular lines with the same spacing

* To get started and check you like the spacing, at the grid intersection, pinch your fabric every other square, alternate for the next row

* If you are satisfied with the appearance it's time to start stitching each pinch 

Here I pinched 1/4" on either side of the lines

Depending of your fabric and the desired effect you will have to change the spacing

Here is a close-up of the result

See what I did with it in a future post !

Update - see the finished project here

Update : 

I've been featured

 See it here 


See it here

Progress report

Today, I took a quick side trip to JoAnn's to grab some odds and ends : velcro, elastic band, snaps. And like that I stubbled on this little jewel:

It's a chalk marker that WORKS. 

Why I know this? Well, I recall my grand-mother using one when I was little(Not quite like that one, she had a dressmaker tracer, but same principle: her only had the wheel, this one drops a thin line of chalk). After testing various tracing methods like dress maker pencils, crayons, soap (yes soap), I have to say this is the bomb!

It's just the thing I needed to get over my quilter's block. 

Looks what I was able to free-hand trace on my quilt project : 

It's my on-call week at work so I'm stuck with little projects I can drop in a heartbeat. Quilting will have to wait next week. But I'm getting excited about it! 

Quilt in progress preview

I'm putting this small quilt together for someone at work that is always cold even in the summer. She said she likes brown, pink and green. I have had this project brewing in my head for weeks trying to find the right balance between the colors. Finally it came together tonight. I started cutting after dinner and ended up piecing the top, the back and most of the binding. I was on a roll!

Tomorrow I will finish to piece the binding, iron everything and take some better pictures.. these do not do it justice!

Baby activity blanket (past projects)

I made this activity/sensory blanket  in January 2009 for my second niece, Manon 

I used fleece for the background, padded the inside with 3 layers of quilt basting material and then went through my stash to get as many different textures as possible for the flowers. I also used various techniques to create additional textures. I was a hit!

You can see bigger images of the flowers below

This is the resverse side  

And there is Manon taking a snooze on it

Creativity reborn

My name is Caroline and I am a craftaholic. 

The past 6 years I have been working full time in a rather stressful environment for a technology company. I'm also the mom of a 4 year old, the wife of a great guy that is a complete technology geek, and the owner of a fixer-upper house. All of this happen to suck in a lot of energy and I had been denying my creative side an output for a while. Those days are over. Not only do I paint, cook and bake. Now I sew and quilt. I even have a great creative space just for it.

Late last year, I stumbled into the craft blogging world. That's when the dam broke lose. I was addicted. Since then I've been needing my daily dose of blog reading and my crafting fix too.  It didn't take very long until I naturally had to start a blog. At first it was only an output to my daily frustrations, and it still is sometimes. But it is so much more. 

A couple of months ago, my sweet old grand mother passed away. Combine this with a pretty nasty phase at work, I was in a depression tailspin. No energy beyond that needed to care for the bare minimum. For weeks I stayed cooped up at home. Not one bit of creativity left. Not even enough for cooking. 

Enter Craftaholic Anomymous (a blog I have been following for the past 6 months or so), and Linda, Craftaholic in Chief. In the deep of my slump I stumbled on her "Christmas in July" gift exchange. Somehow the post stuck something else in me. I do love challenges. And this was one. Create something with a deadline. And suddenly, the creative me was back at the wheel. Since the gift exchange, the mojo is back.  I've been tackling at least a project a week since mid-june. So I recently divided my blogging in two outputs: the original journal/relief blog and this one, the creativity blog...  I feel reborn

This is what I made for Erika, my "Giftee" - An evening clutch 

And these are the cute hair clips I received from my "gifter" McEnzey

They were immediately adopted by my little Princess

Thank you Linda, Erika and McEnzey