Tutorial Tuesday!

It's Tuesday again and I have searched through every blog on the Internet to find you another wonderful tutorial to feed your DIY needs!

This project is great for gifts or storage in your office. I love how you can completely make it your own by using any combination of paper and embellishments. Leah is the owner of Life of Lou where I found this wonderful project. The Magic Box tutorial looks pretty easy and has numerous uses throughout the house. Check it out and get working on one today!

PS. Can you believe it - I made it two weeks in a row!

It has arrived!

Of course I had to order Martha's new book, I have the crafting encyclopedia so as a sewer of course I must have the sewing and fabric crafts encyclopedia too! So it arrived yesterday and I dove in as if it were a pile of warm cookies and I was a fat kid at dessert time. Yes, you could say I was a bit excited.

So on to the review. I have a subscription to Martha Stewart Living and I am also subscribed to the Martha Stewart Craft of the Day emails so I have seen LOTS of Martha's projects. As I flipped through the pages I will admit that I recognized many of the projects from previous issues of the magazine or email blasts. There were many projects that were new to me so it was still a lot of fun to take a look through the pages. Although there are some projects that can easily be found on many websites and other projects that I had seen before I still always love looking through Martha's publications. They have wonderful photography, great directions and I am always inspired after looking through the projects.

Overall I am really happy with the book and I can't wait to get started on a few projects!

Tutorial Tuesday!

I don't know how long tutorial Tuesday will last but it is here for this week. Since I have been working (slowly) on getting my studio in order lately I have been loving looking at new crafty projects that I can work on when my room is all organized (someday!).

So here is the first installment of Tutorial Tuesday!

I found this pattern on a fun blog called Pearl Street Interiors. I love roman shades and I would love to have them all over the house but I haven't found some that are in the fabrics that I love and that I can afford. So I stumbled across this tutorial where I can easily make my own roman shades out of any fabric I want to make the final touches to my rooms perfect every time. Check out this tutorial for a little DIY decorating for your home. Here are the final photos from Jenny's project, check out her blog to see the full tutorial and more beautiful photos and decorating ideas!

Spring is Here!

I can't believe it, after months and months of grey weather day after day we have finally had a few days of sunshine here in Ohio. I even have bulbs coming up throughout my yard!

What have I got myself into?

I started this weekend in my sewing room with the plan to organize one of my closets. It was a bit of a disaster so it needed some help.

The previous home owner had wallpaper EVERYWHERE, including the closet and the ceiling in the closet. So there was a little piece sticking up and I pulled on it - big mistake. So a few hours later I was sitting in a pile of stripped wallpaper and new DIY project on my hands.

So, remember my studio that was coming together and getting clean? Well, this is what it looks like today:It's a crazy mess! But I am actually excited about the hopeful outcome that I will have. I am planning on painting it a nice clean white and doing some stenciling on the walls. Then I will organize it perfectly and it will be an amazing closet that I will be so happy with rather than the dark messy closet it was before.

I have these printing books so I plan to use the tips I find inside to make this closet beautiful.

Have you ever tried stenciling your walls? Any advice?

Lonny magazine

After admitting to my magazine obsession recently I have been taking a look at Lonny magazine and wondering if this is where the future of shelter magazines (or all magazines) is heading. Lonny magazine is created by a group of designers, writers, photographers and other creative folks who have come together, many of them where formerly at Domino magazine. Lonny magazine is completely online, no print versions available. You can virtually turn the pages and if you are interested in an ad, a website or something in the photo they are all hyperlinked so you can go directly to the site and read about or buy the product you are interested in. I think this is a wonderful idea, they don't have to worry about paper quality, printing costs or many of the other issues that come along with a printed magazine. The magazine is on its third issue and I am loving it so far. Great articles, awesome photography and it's free! You can't get much better than that.

So, if this is the future of magazines what is going to happen to my stash? I like this new magazine but I love having actual magazines in my hands. I don't think I'm ready to loose print magazines forever but in a world of blogs and twitter it seems that it may not be totally unrealistic. What are your thoughts on virtual magazines?

Organizing my craft room - Before & After - My Book Shelf

My next makeover target was my book shelf. I love craft and sewing books, really any type of book that has to do with these subjects is welcome in my book shelves at any time. Before my bookshelf was just that a shelf with all of my books tossed in.

Now it is a beautifully organized library of craft!

I spent the time to organize my books into different categories so I can easily find the book I want when I want it.

The top shelf includes all of my general sewing books:

My book shelf also has my little collection of vintage toy sewing machines!

The next shelf includes all of my bag making books, needle art books (knitting, crochet and embroidery) and all of my general craft books.

The next shelf has all of the jewelry/button crafts, paper crafting and business books.

The next shelf has a small storage unit and a collection of my journals that are just too pretty to use and write in so I just keep them to look at.

The final shelf has all of my sewing patterns (divided in two boxes, one for purses and one for everything else) and the rest of my miscellaneous books - fashion, decorating and a few others.

I have tried to keep a little extra room on the shelf because I am sure there will be more books to add to my shelf soon. Like Martha's new Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts that is coming out next month!

To see all of these images and the rest of my before & after studio photos you can visit my Flickr page.

Organizing my craft room - Before & After - Fat Quarter Storage

We all know that I have a small obsession with fat quarters. I love to collect them, display them and just have them in general. I have a few areas where some of them are on display and before they were just kind of there. Not much organization or interaction with my other sewing notions so I did a little re-working the shelves, no huge deal but it makes me feel better when I walk in the room to have little pockets of organized, nice looking areas. Here are a few before images of the disaster areas:

And now, the after photos:
The "pretty" areas inspire me to keep on working on other sections of the room so eventually there will be one big inviting, inspiring room for me to work in.

Visit my new Flickr page to see a few more detail shots of each of these shelves.

Creative Organization

Since I have started working on my sewing room I have been obsessed with finding photos of other organized spaces to find new storage ideas. Apartment Therapy, one of my favorite blogs, has tons of great posts about organizing and storage to keep you busy for hours. Here are a few posts that i have been oogling over:

Double Duty work spaces

Bright White Sewing Room

Martha's Craft Room

Colorful Craft Room

Wall Mounted Craft Stations

Tofu Studio

Fabric Organization

Industrial Chic Organization

Organizing my craft room - one step at a time

I did a little organizing work in my studio this weekend and it was fun and felt great to start getting things organized. The bits and pieces are coming together and soon enough my studio will be a place where I can actually get work done and find what I need when I need it rather that spending all day looking for my zippers or sifting through piles of fabric to find the "perfect" piece. So I have a few before & after photos that I will be posting throughout the week of a few of the shelves and nooks in my room. I'm still far from finished but it's getting closer! So keep posted for all of the "after" photos to come this week. Here is a sneak peek of a few of the before photos of the disaster of a craft room that used to be upstairs.

Obsession Confession - Magazines & Catalogs

Hello, my name is Mallory and I am addicted to magazines...

I haven't done one of these in a while but you may remember that past confessions have included fat quarters and craft books. Today I would like to talk about another obsession of mine. I have tons of magazines and catalogs, it was honestly a small workout to gather all the magazines from their various locations around my house and get them all to my studio. I love looking through them, some are for keeping some are just for perusing and tearing out what I like before they hit the recycling bin. But, I love them all. In today's era of magazines folding faster than your husband after getting kicked in the junk, I cherish each of these issues and take my time devouring each page. I pull inspiration for new projects from the fashion and craft magazine and I love grabbing ideas for my house from the decor and shelter magazines.

Another great thing about magazines and catalogs is when they arrive in the mail. You know the scene in Billy Madison where Adam Sandler sings a song after finding out that it is nudie magazine day. Well, that is how I feel when a new issue of Martha Stewart Living hits my mailbox. I am also a sucker for the BH&G SIP publication at the check out counter of the grocery store or drug store. 100 decorating ideas - Great! Easy Storage Solutions - Fantastic! I am always sneaking those into my cart and it just gets added into the grocery bill so nobody needs to find out. I love my magazines and no matter what my husband says about this obsession I believe it is here to stay.

Are you also obsessed with magazines? Share your stories, it's ok to admit it!

Organizing my craft room

Although I said that I was going to have a very productive weekend in my studio last weekend I will confess that I did not. I went on a road trip to Pittsburgh instead. But this weekend is a whole different story. I am far from being done with the organizing process and showing you amazing before and after photos but I have a good start. Actually my studio looks like Martha Stewart threw up all over the place right now but I keep telling myself that it needs to get messy before it will be clean. So, I guess this is just a boring post to tell you that I did what I promised I was going to do, just a little later.

I will do the big reveal in a few weeks when I have time to make the room all shiny and beautiful, for now I will show you just two of the projects I am tackling. We moved into our new house about 7 months ago. I took over one of the extra bedrooms as my studio and while we were renovating the house I literally took most of my fabric and other crafty goodies and tossed them into a crawl space in my studio. Before this weekend it looked like this:

There is also a small closet where purses, bags, buttons and other items are being stored. It currently looks like this:

So, as you can see I have a lot of work ahead of me. After my cleaning process is complete I hope both spaces will look a bit more presentable.

Monsterous shopping!

I received many wonderful gifts for Christmas this year but there were 5 times when I opened small brown, familiar boxes that got me quite excited.

These little guys all represent a gift card to Anthropologie, one of my most favorite places. I happened to wander into the wonderful store over the weekend and found a few goodies that had to come home with me right away.

This awesome carafe was on sale, I got the largest size.

This book is fantastic, I am addicted to craft and design books so I had to pick this one up.

I also got a sweater. I decided to save some of my gift cards to do a little shopping before spring quilt market so I can have some new fun items for the trip to Minneapolis this year.

New projects complete!

I finished 2 new bags over the weekend. My new year's resolutions are off to a pretty good start.

First was a custom diaper bag. The new mom-to-be gave me a general idea of the shape and size and I took it from there. It is a pretty simple bag but I really like how it turned out. There are two pockets on the outside with coordinating piping along the top. I also added two pockets along the inside so she can keep organized all the time.

The second bag was an order from a shopper at Bazaar Bizarre. She saw some of my duffle bags at the show and didn't get a chance to come back and buy the one she liked. Since I sold out of this particular design I made a custom one for her with additional pockets on the inside. I have had lots of requests for pockets on this style of bag so I was happy to be able to test this out on the new order.

Both bags turned out well, one has been shipped off and the other is posted on my etsy site now waiting for it's new owner to take it home!

I have another weekend of work in front of me over the next few days so hopefully I will have some fun new items or an organized studio to show for my work next week. Heck, I might even post over the weekend to send out an update - I know, I know more than one post a week! It would be crazy but I think I am up to the challenge.

Who's the boss?

I went to the library today and got a big stack of books to give me some inspiration for the week and something to do while it continues to snow outside. Mostly just design and craft books but I also picked up a great business book called The Boss of You: Everything a Woman needs to know to start, run, and maintain her own business by Lauren Bacon and Emira Mears. I've been reading (and writing) for a few hours now, I am only on page 38 and I am already feeling more inspired than I have in a long while. I have read a few other books about small business marketed to crafters and women but for some reason this one is really clicking for me. You know how these books always tell you to make lists and think about what you want your business to be, well, I actually did that. I am writing lists and giving a lot of thought to my business and how I want it to be perceived by others and what I want it to be. So far I am really enjoying the book and hopefully this creative and inspirational mood will stick for a while so I can get through the book and get my business going this year!

As I was writing this post I googled the name of the book and found out they have a blog too! Now I know that I won't be able to get anything done at work tomorrow.

New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's January so I figured I would go ahead and post some of my new year's resolutions. I didn't post any last year but I'm pretty sure that most of these were on my list for 2009 so I hope that I do a better job in 2010 of getting a few of these taken care of.

1 - Spend more time in my sewing room - I don't have to be sewing or creating a specific project, just spending time in my creative space often inspires me and makes me happy in general. I spend too many days coming home from work, eating dinner and heading to the couch.

2 - Spend more time working in my sewing room - this is kind of part two of my first resolution - hopefully when I am spending all of the time in this room I will start doing some work as well. I already have two orders for the new year so I need to get cracking!

3 - Organize my sewing room - I have been living in my new house for about 7 months now so I need to get this room under control. I have A LOT of stuff but I should have enough room to store everything so I need to get organized so it will be easier to accomplish resolution #2. As you can see from the photos below - this room could definitely use some help.

4 - Blog more - of course, not much else needs to be said about this, I think it speaks for itself. (by the way it is the 7th day of the year and I'm already on my 2nd post - not too bad!)

5 - Apply for more craft shows - I have done three shows so far, two last year. This year I would like to attend a few shows in the spring and a few shows around the holidays.

6 - Spend more time on my Etsy store - pretty self explanatory - I can't sell items that aren't in the store, so I need to get them up there.

7 - Network more - I don't have many friends that sew or craft so I would like to meet a group of people who I can learn from and connect with in this industry. On this note, I can mention that I got word today that I have been accepted into the Etsy Team Columbus group so this resolution is off to a great start!

8 - Start working on my book ideas - like many people I have a few ideas for fun craft books. I would like to start working on researching these ideas and getting them written.

So in the spirit of resolution #2 I spent about an hour in my sewing room tonight organizing a few shelves and putting away a few Christmas presents. Speaking of presents, I got my mom's vintage Singer featherweight sewing machine as a gift this year. I was so excited to be able to call it mine - I have been lusting after it for years!

My Year in Cities 2009

I hope that everybody had a wonderful holiday season and a very happy new year! I had a great season spending lots of time with family and friends which is what it's all about. I had fun last year looking back through the year to see where my travel took me, I think 2008 was a little more interesting in travel but this year we bought the new house so that was pretty interesting as well.

Here is my year in cities for 2009:

Columbus, OH - old house
Pickerington, OH - while we renovated the new house
Westerville, OH - New house
Cleveland, OH - visiting with my parents and family
Lansing, WV - white water rafting on The Upper Gauley
Pittsburgh, PA - Spring Quilt Market
Houston, TX - Fall Quilt Market
Rock Hill, SC - Visiting my new niece
Buckeye Lake, OH - Vacation time
Orlando, FL - Vacation time
Cincinnati, OH - Weekend trip with friends
Davis, WV - Ski trip at Canaan Valley

Bazaar Bizarre 2009

I'm a little behind on this post I guess I can use the holidays as an excuse - there has been a lot of shopping and crafting to prepare for this Christmas. Bazaar Bizarre was two weeks ago and it was a blast! I had a great time, met some wonderful people and sold lots of stuff. The weather was great, which can be a big problem in Cleveland this time of year, but it was sunny on Saturday and just a little rain on Sunday. Luckily that didn't deter any of the shoppers. I don't think there is anything else I could have asked for. Overall it was a great weekend! Thanks to Shannon and all the vendors and shoppers for making it such a great show!

If you stopped by my table during the show and picked up a card, thank you so much and welcome to my blog! I hope you stay a while and come back often.

Happy Holidays to everyone!

How does it work?

I found this awesome animation on Swiss Miss of how a sewing machine works to create a stitch. I never really thought too hard about it but this is pretty fun to see how it works.

click here to see it!





I am busy, busy working on finishing touches for bazaar bizarre that is this weekend in Cleveland. If you are in the area you should stop by to see all of the awesome vendors!

Regretsy

This is definitely my new favorite website. Regretsy is a blog that posts recent posts from etsy that may have been best left unposted. Just a little warning that many of these are adult products and adult language so if you are easily offended you may want to stay away. The best part is many of the sellers who have had their crazy items posted on Regretsy have had an increase in visitors to their stores and many have sold the crazy items too.