makelifesweet

What to get...

I have been on the computer since Friday morning.  I'm not one of those Black Friday shoppers.  Well, honestly, I am a Black Friday shopper, but I don't set foot in the mall.   Or Target. Or any other place I love to shop.  I try to figure out all of my Christmas shopping from the comfort of my own home.  My goal is to get everythingh done by the end of this week- on the internet.  

Then...I go to the mall!  On a Tuesday.  When hopefully, all the pressure of trying to find something is over, and I can just enjoy the experience.  Keep in mind that I live about 2 hours from an actual mall.  I can't just hop on over there.  But I do love going during the holidays- the decorations, the hustle and bustle of shoppers, the music.  And going to my favorite stores like Pottery Barn, J Crew and Crate and Barrel.  Just to see their holiday displays.  It really gets me in the mood for Christmas.

But sometimes on that carefree trip to the mall, I still don't have a gift for someone.  I walk around aimlessly with a blank look on my face because I.  Have.  No.  Idea.  I'm sure everyone has that one person (or 10 people) they just don't know what to get.  

So here is just a suggestion.  For your Grandma, who doesn't need another candle.  For your Christmas party hostess that will pile all the baked goods she receives in a "don't have time to eat that" pile.  For your son's first grade teacher who has a lifetime supply of bookmarks.

Our personalized canvas art prints take very little effort but make a big impression.  Like you actually took the time to think about the gift- even though it is sooo easy.  We have shown these in year's past, but just to remind you, we have selected a few to show you again.

 Here is our customized "Hometown" print:

 

The Custom Zipcode Print:

 

One of my favorites is "The Top 15".  Great for a family.

 

My most favorite:

Here are some that celebrate the season:

These look great in the kitchen:

One of our most popular gifts is the custom recipe print.  In black and white or color.

These are fun for the kids;

And for the sewing lover in your life (like yourself):

These are just a few- we have lots more in our shop.  

Now, for the good part.  We are having a huge deal on our prints!  You can choose any three 8" x 10" from our shop for $39.95.  The prints range in price from $19.95- $24.95, so you are could actually get $75  worth of prints for $40!  

If you would like to order, make sure to find the listing that starts with "Christmas Special".  If you can't find it, simply put "Christmas Special" in the search box and it will come up.  Make sure to leave us a comment when ordering which 3 prints you would like- any of the 8" x 10" ones are eligible, including anything that is personalized.

This offer ends Friday, December 6.  Have a great week and good luck at the mall!

 

The Porch

My mom has always wanted a screened-in porch.  And now she actually has one!  It may be my most favorite part of her house.  A perfect night would be curling up on the daybed and watching the latest episode of "The Bachelor".  Guess I just did that.  Perfect night.  

Anyway, I thought I would show you what she has done with it.  It isn't quite finished- she still needs to paint a little (as you will see in the photos), and add a few more accessories.  But this is what she has so far.  

The favorite spot is the daybed:

Especially for this guy.  Who, by the way, turns 10 today!  I took this a few days ago when he had a 3 hour nap.  Yes 3 hours for a ten year old.  He was a tired boy!

This is on the opposite wall.  I'm hoping she will make me an "America" sign.  Probably not going to happen.

Here is a table she made.  We have lunch on it quite regularly.

Love the chairs.  I am kind of obsessed with the whole industrial design trend going on.

Got this cute little fan at Walmart.  Yes, I said it.  Walmart.

The red stools- not sure where she got those.

Same with the rug.  Who knows where she got it.  But it is really cute!

This chair has been many colors.  I think it was last a dark brown.  But I really like the pretty blue color she painted it.

Ok.  Think I've been at my computer too long.  My turn on the daybed!

Noteworthy...

So here is a full look at our next collection. First, I will explain how Noteworthy came to be.  There were two ideas behind this collection.  We sort of combined them.

First has to do with our love of Pinterest.  I actually don't spend much time on there anymore (mostly because I was wasting a lot of time), but when we were working on this I was on Pinterest everyday.  I noticed a lot of pins had to do with "Bucket List" items.  I loved reading those and thinking about things that were on my bucket list.  This led to the print I showed you last week:  (Remember you can click on the photos to get a larger picture)

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We listed a lot of our personal bucket list items and hopefully some that you find inspiring.  I was this close to asking our blog readers (you) what was on your bucket list so I could include them in the design, but I ultimately decided that particular activity wasn't on my bucket list (it could have killed me) so I refrained from doing so.

The second thought in this collection is that we wanted something that was completely fun and reminiscant of doodling. Remember when we actually took notes in school?  Like with pencil and paper? My high school and college notebooks were filled with swirls, lines, flowers and a lot of these:

I used to love making those curly-q things.  I also remember our phone book received a lot of doodling when I was growing up.  (On a side note, one of the kids asked me the other day what a "phone book" was.  I had to explain that we didn't keep "contacts" in our smart phone.  We actually had to look them up in a book.)  At any given time, the outside would be covered in this (I call these chicken scratches):

Another favorite shape to doodle was circles or bubbles.  I never knew that someday these would make terrific fabric backgrounds:

I finally got to include my favorite flower in a collection.  We actually designed this print a few years ago, but didn't use it because it just didn't "fit" into a collection.  I think it finally works!

Here is one of my favorite prints in the collection:

Here is a close up.  The white one is my favorite.  It looks so pretty in real life:

And just some more photos of the collection:

Oh, I almost forgot to mention the birds.  Love the birds.

We just happen to have some pre-cuts of this line and we are willing to part with one (or two) of them.  If you would like to win one, simply leave us a comment.  You can comment on the collection or better yet, tell us something that is on your bucket list.  That would be fun to read!  It's a little late to include them in the fabric design, but I still want to read them!  We will choose a winner later this week.  Good luck!

 

Almost forgot- the fabric will be available early next year.  I'm thinking about January.  Perfect.  I'm sure by January, I'll be needing some of this to get me through the winter!

Some Good Some Bad

Just a few things today.  Two very good things.  One not so much.  We will start with the not so good.  

We generally (like always) use our blog for positive subjects.  Today, I'm venting.  Just for a little bit and then I'll be over it.  Here's what happened:  Last night I had the sudden urge to see what was happening in the scrapbooking industry.  The CHA convention is held every year around this time, and because we used to be in scrapbooking we had a booth at the show for 8 or 9 years.  I sometimes miss it, especially at CHA time. So I was just interested in what was going on.   Which led me to several scrapbooking sites.  When I opened one page, I couldn't believe what I saw.  Our fabric!  This one:

From our Authentic collection.  Designed by us in 2008 and in stores in 2009.  Only it wasn't fabric.  It was paper.  And it didn't have our name on it.  It had another company's name on it (which I had never heard of).  And it was being sold.  For money.  By someone else.  To be fair, the "designer" added the word "enduring" to our design.  I guess that was his/her insurance that they weren't copying.  If you are interested, you can find the image of the paper design here.

I don't get outrageously mad very often.  But this was one of those times.  Here's the thing.  I totally understand that we are all influenced by what we see.  I am.  In designing, I'm influenced by magazine covers, store windows, a font on a billboard, a word in a book, lots of things.  I'm also influenced by other designers.  It is impossible not to be.  There are things I love and things I don't.  But...it can only go so far. It is totally unethical, not to mention illegal to copy someone else's work and claim it as your own.  For goodness sakes if you are going to copy, change the words.  Or the fonts.  The style it was put together. The color.  Seriously.     

I also get that there isn't a copyright on words.  Or numbers. Or stripes, dots, plaids, whatever.  But this is ridiculous.  I know there will be people thinking "why is she making such a big deal about one paper design?".  There are about a bazillion patterned paper designs out there.  This one isn't going to make any difference.  I get that.  But I also know we spend hours upon hours trying to come up with unique collections that represent our style.  It's just the principle of it.  Ok, I'm done.  Here anyway.  I will contact that company, give them my view on it and it will be over.   Thanks for letting me vent.  

Now, on a lighter note, we are so excited to be a guest blogger today over at A Little Bit Biased (Amber at GiGi's Thimble).  Actually, Susan was the guest blogger.  She is extra excited today that Amber gave her the friendliest designer award.  She let us know about it first thing this morning.  Anyway, Amber is totally sweet herself.  Check out her blog, and a few photos of our studio here. 

The last good thing is that we have a winner of our latest contest.  Congratulations to Karen, who wrote:

Always love the charms ladies, soooo cute!

Just e-mail us at [email protected] and we will get a charm in the mail to you.

Oh, one more good thing.  Mom is working on yet another Valentine project.  Thought we were done with Countdown to Kisses, but I guess not.  We will show you later this week!

Day #2

For our second day of our "Countdown to Kisses" series, we are featuring 3 new prints in our Etsy shop:

Love Is All You Need:

Love Lives Here: (those are the words printed around the square):

And simply Love:

They are available in our Etsy shop now.

Tomorrow we have planned a fun project that uses a new technique that we are so excited to show you.  See you then!

New Subway Art...

Last week my sister promised we would have some new quilting subway art in our shop.  We did have it started, but not nearly done!  I wasn't aware of the post until I read our blog a couple of days later- which made me get in gear and actually finish it (there's nothing like announcing something to the world to motivate you).  I thought we would probably have it done on Friday, but to my surprise, we finished today! 

We designed the print around classic quilt squares.  We have one in black and white:

 

And one using our Hometown colors:

 

They are on our Etsy site now.

I hope everyone is having a great summer- sometime we will catch up on our blog and actually tell you what we've been up to.  Right now, I have 2 anxious kids who want to go swimming- so off we go!  Have a happy Tuesday.

3 Bits of News

New News, New News!

1.  We are in a book - Countown Calendars to be exact!  This is a fun book from CT Publishing. You guessed it right, it has projects all pertaining to counting down to an event.  Check out the Book Trailer above to see some of the projects.  Be sure to watch the entire video.  You know why????  Because our project shows up at the end with #1.  For more information about this book you can click here.

2.  Countdown to Christmas is here! And we are featured today on Fat Quarters Shop Jolly Jabber.
 

and finally #3 -
3. My flowers have survived another week! Yes the automatic sprinkler is still working!!

Have a Great Monday 

Are You Ready For Quilt Market???

I really need to ask myself that question!  And the answer is sorta.  We are still busily preparing trying to remember everything and get everything done.  One thing that we have been working on for awhile (not just for this quilt market but for many many quilt markets) is jewelry.  We came out with some charms for our "Make Life" collection but were not completely satisfied with them.  This time around we are happy, happy, happy!!!!
Here is a sneak peak of our Hometown Charms that will debut at Sample Spree -

 
Each of the little charms will be sold separately -

 
 
 

You will also have the option to put them on a necklace
 
or bracelet

 

OK - I have to get back to work!!!  And don't worry if you are not going to Quilt Market we do have plans on putting the charms on our Etsy site.  Sorry -  not before Quilt Market or the day we get back but soon I promise!!!!!

 

Win A New Hometown Print! (And Get One For Your Mom)

We had so much fun and success with our "Sunkissed" art prints, that we knew we would do some for our latest fabric collection, Hometown.  We created these to take with us to Quilt Market next month because we think stores would love to display (and sell) these alongside the Hometown fabric.  But we also wanted to let you be able to customize them and put them in your home.  Oh- and we think they would make a great Mother's Day gift.

There are 4 new prints.  The first is my favorite.  It is simple but really cute.  It is called the "Hometown Definition Print".  My sister is putting this one in her yet-to-be redecorated guest room.

 
 

It looks even cuter with a Hometown quilt:

 

The second is called the "Hometown Bunting Print".  I think this is really funny because a few months ago we didn't even know what a bunting was- until we asked all of you!

 
 
 

Next is one similar to one of our Sunkissed prints. 

 

 This circle print has been very popular, so we did one for Hometown:

 
 

The last one is my favorite (yes I have 2 favorites).  It is a larger print (16" x 20") and celebrates all of your favorite things about your hometown.  It is called the Hometown Alphabet Print:

 

Each letter can be customized, or you can customize a few and leave the rest of the letters and words as what is pictured in the sample.  I love the idea of giving this as a housewarming gift- whether someone is moving to a new city or just across the street.  My mom thinks she is getting this one, so I guess my Mother's Day gift shopping is finished!

A few other Hometown prints that we have shown before would also make great Mother's Day gifts.  The custom Zip Code Print:

 

And the Custom Subway Art:

 

So, while you have to wait until August to get the Hometown fabric, the prints are available now on our Etsy site.

If you would like to win one, simply let us know which of the 4 new Hometown Prints is your favorite, and where you would hang it in your home.  You have until Monday.  Good Luck!

 

 

 

Update...

It has been a whole week since we blogged.  Oops.  Sorry.  But it has been a very productive week.  Last Thursday I went home a little frustrated and a bit lost about designing our next fabric collection.  What a difference a week makes.  We just finished up and and we are getting ready to send it to Moda.  I can't give you any peeks but I will say we are very happy with it.  It is our collection for next spring (2012) and it is well, very "springy" (not sure that is a word, but you get the idea).   Those collections are always my favorite.  Happy, warm and summer-like.  Can't wait.

But back to Hometown.  We have been super busy getting ready for Quilt Market in May.  The binding is all that is left on 3 of our quilts.  I thought I would give you a little glimpse of  them.  I love, love, love the quilting on these.

 
 

 

This one is my favorite.  When I get a little stressed or the slightest bit unhappy, I just look at these circles and smile.

 

We plan on taking photos of the quilts in one our favorite hometowns, Fort Collins.  It isn't really our hometown, but since Susan and I went to college there, we claim it.  Besides, it really is much prettier than Fort Morgan- and Old Town Fort Collins will make a great backdrop for the quilts. 

We can show you our next Label Crew project.  It is a sewing organizer that allows you to keep all your necessities in place- and it is great to travel with.

 

Simply open it up and find pockets to hold all your goodies.

 
 
 

If you would like more information about the Label Crew, visit our website.

Okay, we can breath now.  The fabric is designed, our quilts for Market are almost done and it's snowing outside.  Yes snowing.  Not too happy about that, but 2 out of 3 isn't bad.  Oh, and we have so much planned for Hometown - quilts and other things, too!.   We will start letting you in on it next week!  See you then.