makelifesweet

More Authentic Decor And A Sweet Sale

Another weekend- another project.  Here is a great idea for $10.  We found this lamp with the shade included at Wal-Mart (yes Wal-Mart) for only $10!  The shade was plain and kind of boring, so this is an easy way to jazz it up.  Besides the lamp, the only other materials you need are a small bottle of decoupage, fabric and some fusible web.  Here are the directions:

• Place a piece of paper over one section of the lamp shade and trace the curved lines with a pencil.  Cut out on the traced lines.
• Lay the pattern on your desired fabric and trace around the pattern.  Repeat this for each section in your shade.
• Cut out the fabric on the traced lines.
• Decoupage the pieces of fabric to the lampshade right over the original fabric.
• Cover the edges of each piece by ironing 3/4" wide fusible web to strips of 1" fabric.
• Cut the strips to 1/2" wide.
• Decoupage the strips over the edges that meet on the sections. The fusible web will keep the edges from fraying and gives it a finished look.
• For the top and bottom- iron fusible web to lengths of fabric that fit the circumference of the top and bottom edges, making the strips 1/4" wide.
• Decoupage the strips to the top and bottom of the shade.
• You can give the entire shade a final coat of decoupage if desired.

This week we are featuring our personalized stationery in our store.  Until September 7, our blog readers can take 15% off any custom stationery order.  To view all the styles, click here.  Each set includes 25 folded note cards and envelopes and are printed on a heavy weight linen card stock.  Please enter the code sweet123 at checkout to receive the discount.  Here are just a few examples:

 

By the way, the stationery makes a great gift for someone you love- or even for yourself!  Have a great Monday!

-posted by Lisa

Just A Reminder

Just so you don't forget, please have your photos of your flower table runner to us by August 31.  For more information on this contest, please click here.  You just might win an Authentic jelly roll!

Win Custom Kitchen Towels!

This week we are giving away a set of three custom kitchen towels from our gift collection.  We will select one random winner next Tuesday.  If you win, you get to choose the design of your choice. (Pick your favorite here.) You can keep them for yourself, or they make great gifts (Christmas is exactly four months away!).

Enter by answering this question:

Did you look forward to the first day of school- or did you dread the end of summer?  My niece and nephew went back to school last week and left all of us lonely.  Well, not exactly lonely, but I sure do miss their smiling faces. 

I always get a pit in my stomach when the "back to school" merchandise hit the store shelves, which this year happened to be July 5th.  It still bothers me- even after 20 years of not having to go back to school.  I think it may be because summer is my favorite season, and when I see the words "Back to School", I know it is almost over.  Back to school equates with back to the deep freeze. 

At least Bryce and Jordan take a really cute back to school picture.

Good luck with the contest- we will let you know on Tuesday!

-posted by Lisa

What To Do With An Old Baseboard

Two years ago we renovated a 100 year old house for a retreat facility and called it Sweetwater House.  A lot of changes were made in the process of tearing out and putting the house back together.  There were also a lot of materials left over that we saved to use someday.

Well- this weekend I decided to make a shelf above a sideboard that I inherited.  I already had a pair of iron brackets that I had been saving for something.  All I needed was the wood to put on top of them.  I didn't want to make a trip to the lumber yard, so I searched in the shed, and sure enough, found leftover baseboards from Sweetwater House. 

Baseboards 100 years ago were much wider than they are now.  All I had to do was cut it the right length, paint and distress.  I'm sure I'll rearrange items on the shelf many times.  Hopefully, I can come up with more ideas for all the rest of the boards I have!

The baseboard before:

And after:

-posted by Karla

Cutest Little Charms

I just got done ordering 3 of these cute, cute charms and just had to share them with you! (Not to mention that they are made out of fabric from our authentic line)

We can't wait to get them in!  Amanda Herring from The Quilted Fish (fun cute patterns and website!) posted information about these charms on her blog.  Her friend Missy makes them and can do custom orders.  If interested you can contact her at vintagebutterfly.missy@gmail.com

Have a great weekend!!!

The Easiest Thing To Do With A Jelly Roll- Plus Our Winners!

 Congratulations to our two winners of our latest contest.  They are:

Kristine Hanson who wrote:

I love to make quilts for gifts...ecspecially twin or throw sized...perfect for an adult to have, what adult still does not like to have a blanket on them while napping? LOVE your stuff..LOVE.LOVE.LOVE!

and Ariane who wrote:

I love these patterns. They are amazing. I like large quilt patterns and small projects. I always have a small projects on the go when I'm working on large quilts. Sometimes, I need a quick project, quick satisfaction to keep me motivated to get my larger project done. Thanks for sharing

Kristine and Ariane will both recieve our entire collection of Authentic patterns.  Just e-mail us at info@sweetwaterscrapbook.com with your address and we will get them to you.

Thank you to everyone who entered!  We certainly had fun reading your comments.

Now, for the Jelly Roll.  This may be the quickest and most simple quilt ever!  All the cutting is done for you, and you get all your quilting done while making the actual quilt.

For our quilt, we used one jelly roll plus about 1/2 of another.  Of course, we would love for you to use the Authentic collection. 

But any Moda Jelly Roll will do- such as this cutie from Camille and Bonnie:

Here are the instructions:

• Use 64 Jelly Roll Strips (this will make 32 rows).
• Cut 30 1.5” x 44” batting strips.
• Cut 2 pieces of batting 2” wide to be used at each end.
• Layer the batting between two jelly roll strips.

 

• Machine quilt down the center using a straight stitch or a curved one.

• The first and last rows use the 2” wide batting.  Match the batting to the edges of the fabric strip.

• After quilting all the rows,  sew together with a 3/8” seam allowance with a short stitch length.
• Clip the seam allowance 1/4” about every 1”.  Don’t worry if the sides are not even- you will need to trim them after all the rows are stitched.

• Bind and wash on the gentle cycle.
• After removing from the washer, you will need to cut off the raveled threads.
• Dry and enjoy!

Corn, Corn, Corn, Corn

OK you can say that I am spolied but I have a thing about eating canned corn or frozen corn from the grocery store - I just can't do it!  Canned corn always reminds me of the school cafeteria - something that does not bring back pleasant memories for myself.  So every year I gather up my family to clean, cook, cool, and cut corn to prepare ourselves for the winter.  This year was no exception -

I ordered up 21 dozen ears of corn ( I would love to say that I grew it myself, but I have quite a brown thumb - I will post about that sometime!)

Gathered everyone up to clean it -

 

Always when we start, I say to myself this won't take very long.  I seem to say something different when we are done.  The only one at my house that throughly enjoys this part are the sheep.  They get to eat all of the husks and we can't keep up!

Once they are all cleaned my husbands job is to start cookin' ( I am so thankful he helps me out!)

Of course we have to eat lunch - which is holey jeans boy favorite part!

I get to cut the corn from the cob.  Now this job is both a blessing and a curse.  First off there is nothing better than eating cold corn cut right off the cob.  However, the curse is afterwards - my tummy!!!

So glad we have that done - My freezer is full and my kitchen, clothes, etc were so full of starch from the corn that we could have starched 100 pairs of jeans! Took awhile to get my kitchen back to normal but well worth it!

posted by Susan

Eight Free Patterns To Two Lucky Winners!

We know some of you have already received pre-cuts from our Authentic line.  So---we thought you might like to win some patterns to go with it!  This time we will choose two random winners.  Each will win the entire collection of Authentic patterns:

Here is how to enter.  We just received our first samples from our next collection of fabric due out early next year.  The next step is designing patterns.  We would like to know what kind of pattern you use most- such as large bed size quilts or throws, or do you like to make smaller projects such as table runners, wallhangings and bags?   Let us know and you could be the winner!  We will announce the winners next Thursday.

-posted by Lisa

Holey Jeans and Contest Winner

No, holey jeans has nothing to do with the contest winner who by the way is #17 who happens to be Asiyah who wrote - My grandmother raised me so my favorite childhood activity was tending to the garden with her. I would love to win this because of that memory and also because we just redid my daughter's room in a Bloom theme. My husband event installed a little white picket fence to her wall. Thanks for the giveaway!  Congrats Asiyah, e-mail us at info@sweetwaterscrapbook.com with your mailing address and we will send it out to you.

Now on to the holey jeans! 

Here is a picture of my son Bryce -

and here is his jeans -

I know this may be the style to have holes in your jeans but I didn't buy these that way and yes I have bought some for myself with holes.  But for him, he wears the knees out of every single pair of jeans that he has.  I dug a few pairs out of the dirty clothes to take a picture of -

I know we have a few more pairs that look the same but you get the idea - they all look the same holes in the knees.  This is why we have holes in the knees -

he is constantly farming.  My living room is one big field and I don't dare move anything because he is usually in the middle of harvesting something or another.  You would think that I could do something with them like make them into shorts or something but he refuses to wear shorts!  So, I wanted to get him some new jeans for school.  I bought these probably a week and a half ago and guess what?

a hole surfaced - Oh well, I wouldn't want him any other way!!

posted by Susan

Frequently Asked Questions

We love when people ask questions- and it seems we get a lot of the same questions over and over.  So I thought I would start with the most popular three.  If you have a question, let us know.  It may be featured in our blog!

1.  How did you come up with the name Sweetwater?

This is by far the most common question we get.  When we started our scrapbook company in 2001, we wanted a name that would be memorable.  We also wanted the name to be versatile and reflect our products and style.  We knew that we didn't want to limit ourselves to scrapbooking products only, so anything with "memories" or "scrapbook" was out.

Then we remembered one of our favorite names of a fabric collection that my mom created for Clothworks (the fabric company we designed for before Moda).  The name, of course, was Sweetwater.  Unlike many of our big decisions, we all agreed on the name. We have also never regretted our name choice.

Here is a photo of the Sweetwater collection.

2.  Where do you get your ideas?

Shopping.  We don't live near any shopping malls- it is 80 miles to Denver- so a shopping trip is a big deal.  Our husbands don't believe us when we tell them we have to go shopping for "market research".  But it is absolutely the truth.  We find fun, interesting color combinations and get ideas for our graphic work on store and city signs.  The best is store windows.  A few of my favorite are Gap, American Eagle and J. Crew.  These stores have very creative and innovative store window displays.  Next time you are at the mall, check the windows out and see what you think.

3.  Do your houses have tons of Sweetwater products in them?

Ah- no.  Besides some quilts and pillows, we don't have much.  It's not that we don't want them in our houses, we just never have the time to complete anything for ourselves.  However, we do have lots of sample products that we will have to split up someday- they are just in our office now. 

Here is one of my favorite pieces in my mom's house.  She hung it in a bathroom and it is just framed pieces of our scrapbook paper.  It is so easy but I can't seem to get around to making one for myself.  However, I'm sure she will get tired of it and give it to me someday! 

There- the three most popular questions we get asked.  If you have a question, don't be afraid to ask.  It just may show up on this blog!

posted by Lisa