This year, I’ve gotten it in my head to start preparing for the holidays early. I know that I’m going to be very busy as it gets closer to the end of the year, who knows what the economy will bring, and with many friends and family on the other side of the country - it wouldn’t hurt to start setting aside gifts now.

Last year, in keeping with the Buy Handmade pledge, we did alot of our shopping on Etsy and local small businesses. This year I’d like an even greater percentage of our gifts to be handmade - including some made by me!

Not too long ago I posted about this great canvas fabric that I purchased at The Quilting Loft.

The one on top is called “Sprig Canvas Green: 2007 Jessica Jones for J. Caroline Designs”.

The blue and green is called “Peapod Blue/Green Circles: 2007 Jessica Jones for J. Caroline Designs”.

Both of these fabrics had washing instructions on the bolt,

and the clerk recommended serging them before washing.

Here is what I did with them:

I cut them…

I stitched them…

I ironed them…

I pinned them…

And by the end of the day I had made four Market Tote bags!

Two will be Christmas gifts for my mom and two will be gifts for my grandparents.

They hold alot!

Two in this gorgeous green sprig pattern.

And two in this eye-catching peapod pattern.

The pattern I used was fantastic.

The bags were fun to make and not difficult at all.

These bags are reusable and washable, so my relatives will not only have a handmade gift from me, but they will be helping the environment by not using plastic or paper grocery bags.

By following the easy, step-by-step instructions, before I knew it - I had made French seams! That’s a technique that I’ve been hearing alot about but I had never tried before. Now I know how to create them and they are wonderful!

I got this great pattern from my friend Ginny and she has made it available to everyone through her iSew shop. I made the very basic bag, but her pattern also includes instructions for various pocket sizes and an additional exterior decorative band.

So, if you’ve been looking for a gift for that hard to buy for person - well, get ‘em going green with a gift of a reusable Market Tote. They’ll thank you, and so will the environment! : )

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Just one more quick note: I am getting ready to send out Issue #1 of my e-newsletter,so if you haven’t already, be sure to sign up!

Cheers!

Jenn : )

Earlier this week Josh and I went over to Evolution, where my business cards are being printed. We did a press check on the color for the back of the cards. I had to give the okay on the color, and I got to take one of the sheets home with me. The card stock is an oatmeal color that has tiny threads in it. This will be the back of the cards, soon we’ll do a check on the fronts.

Yay - I can’t wait to see them finished!

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If you saw my last post, I’ve been having some problems with uploading photos to my blog. For the last couple days I haven’t been able to upload them at all. Josh and I have gotten around this by using a program called Ecto. Ecto works with Flickr to not only make photo uploading easier, it also decreases the amount of time it takes to publish the entire blog post. Another problem I was having was that, on occasion I would upload my photos, type up all my text and get everything spaced and arranged the way I wanted it - only to discover that I wanted to include one more photo. If I then added any additional photos - all of the spacing in the blog post I was working on would be undone. Everything that I had typed would be mashed together in one big paragraph and I’d have to redo all the spacing. (Blog posting takes enough time as it is without that kind of hassle!) Ecto lets you create your entire blog post independently of Blogger. I can click and drag photos and play with the layout to my heart’s content and then publish. Adding photos doesn’t effect your text. Whew! I think this is going to work out much, much better!

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Since I couldn’t do any blog posting myself, I got to catch up on a bit of blog reading.

I was over at Mrs. Kwitty’s blog and saw that she’s been doing some spring cleaning, which inspired me to do some, too.

Mrs. Kwitty has been reorganizing her rick-rack collection (which is quite impressive, I must say!) and by coincidence, my own rick-rack has outgrown the glass jar I’ve been keeping it in.

Weeks (or maybe months?) ago I thrifted a long wooden box that was filled with projector slide boxes. Yesterday I decided that it would be perfect for keeping my rick-rack in. I lined the bottom with pretty paper and here it is:

Much better!

(Josh is using the slide boxes to keep Legos in.)

Thanks for the organization motivation, Mrs. Kwitty! : )

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Pooh what have you gotten yourself into?

Oh, this baby blanket is very warm and snuggly soft!

This lovely set is for friends of ours who have their first baby on the way.

When I saw this blanket, matching booties and bib in Ginny’s Etsy shop,

I had to scoop them up!

They are so pretty and well made! Right now Ginny has some very cute bibs in her shop.

I’m especially fond of this one !

Cheers!

Jenn : )

Jenn : )

Jenn : )

Jenn : )

It’s a little Monkey Key Chain from Ginny over at iSew!
She made it to match my Gadget Monkey, Daisy : )
(psst! Here’s where you can get a Gadget Monkey, too!)


And if the cuteness wasn’t enough…
I also got this lovely gift of coffee (if only you could smell it - ummm!)

This afternoon I’ll be baking cookies and then getting back to my mini quilts.

And tonight - the premiere episode of Hell’s Kitchen - loooove it!

: ) Jenn

Hello all! Here is another business card wallet that I’ll be adding to the shop later today.

Ah, Wednesday… the day of American Idol results and LOST - whoo hoo!

We are headed over to Sam and David’s for our weekly LOST dinner tonight. I bought a loaf of French bread the other day to have with pasta - but I didn’t end up making the pasta, so I’m going to make bread pudding with bourbon sauce instead and share it with the gang.

I was just over at my friend Ginny’s iSew blog - and you guys should really check it out - she is having a contest to win one of her adorable Monkey gadget cozies! They are so clever - and cute as the dickens. I already own one and I’ve entered the contest to get another - I couldn’t help it - who can pass up a Gadget Monkey?!?

Here is my monkey - her name is Daisy : )

Everybody needs a Gadget Monkey!

Have a great day.

Cheers -

Jenn : )