Designing cards for men...

My friend from college, Tony, has asked me to design some cards for him. Designing for females is easy: glitter, rhinestones, ribbon and scallops. Men are a whole other ballgame, though.

These are his requirements: he sends them for work so they have to be a little bit formal and classic, but he wants them to have a personal flair to them. I asked if kraft cardstock with black accents is too casual. He doesn't know what kraft cardstock is (it's like a brown paper bag, but not all wrinkled), but he's not opposed to black accents.

So far, I've come up with three; all of which are on kraft cardstock. One has engraved cork matted with black cardstock (love it!). One has black laser cuts (not my favorite). The last one has navy blue metallic accents with bronze eyelets in the centers (I really like it, but I'm not sure if it's too simple).

I also want to try a cream and brown card and a black and white card. I have several ideas running around in my head. I wonder if stitching is too feminine?

Jack's Quilt

Whooppeee! I'm just flying through Jack's Quilt. I should feel guilty that I'm making him such an easy pattern, but I really don't because it still looks nice and will be pretty when it's quilted. It's made from the Marcus Brothers and Wyndham fabrics I bought at Back Yard Fabrics in Farmington, KY for $4/yard.

Also, I called Back Yard Fabrics on Saturday and asked the owner to mail me 9 yards of the red Chanteclaire stripe that looks like eyelashes or centipedes or spiders. I want to use that for the backing and for $36 plus shipping, that can't be beat!

And... I don't know how much Warm and Natural batting is anywhere else, but I found it in both queen- and king-size on Overstock.com for $23.99 (queen) and $32.99 (king). I wonder if that's a good deal? I plan on long-arm quilting this quilt by myself, and I have to provide my own batting or buy it from the quilt store, and I just wonder which is cheaper?

Just Cards! Submission

I've tried to type this entry three times, now! The other two times got "eaten" somehow.

I finally picked up a copy of volume 11 of Just Cards! magazine yesterday afternoon. They printed three of my cards. The two they'd returned to me plus one other (below). Actually, the card below is cuter than the one I submitted. The submissions have to have readily-available products used on them. So, I used EK Success punches for the flowers and centers for the card I submitted. The flowers and centers below are LaserBeam laser-cuts and I'm not selling them to the public (yet).

I'm excited now, and if I have time, I'll submit some more to them!

Just Cards! Cards (I think...)

I submitted eight cards for publication consideration to Just Cards! magazine. I didn't ask that they return any cards to me, however, they returned two. I don't know if the two they returned to me are the two they're publishing or or the six they kept are...? These are the two they returned to me:

Just Cards Submission!

I am soooo excited! Yesterday I recieved an envelope from Scott Publications, and "one or more" of my cards have been selected for publication in volume 11 of Just Cards! magazine!

I submitted eight cards, and they returned two cards to me. I can't figure out if that means the two cards they returned to me will be published (why would they return them if they're printing them?) or if they're printing the six they kept (why else would they keep them?)?

Later today, I'll pull out the scanner and post pictures of the cards they returned to me.

Long lost friend!!!

My dear, dear friend from college, Nicole, found me on FaceBook! I vaguely remember signing up for a FaceBook account so I could spy on my nieces and little sister, but it's been probably two years since I logged on. It's funny because I've gotten a couple of e-mails that people have invited me to be their FaceBook friends, and I just deleted the e-mails because I didn't remember having a FaceBook account!

So, anyway, back to Nicole. I haven't heard from her in 7 or 8 years, and she was my very bestest friend in college! We found each other when our other best friend, Deonna, had her first baby, but somehow I managed to lose touch--with BOTH of them.

I finally found Deonna last year through her little sister's MySpace page (which I also signed up for to spy on my nieces and little sister!). I spoke with Deonna numerous times, but now when I call, her phone just rings and rings and rings and nobody answers so I gave up calling her anymore. It gets old being the one making all the effort. Which makes me feel horribly guilty. Maybe I should try to call her this afternoon. Or, I could track her down at her work and tell her to PLEASE answer the ding-dang phone!

So, anyway, back to Nicole. I am SOOOOOOO excited to hear from her! Her FaceBook profile says Lexington, KY, but I wonder if that's real or if she's protecting her identity? She was in Michigan last I heard. Our next move (we hope) will be to Lexington. That would be wonderful if we both ended up there at the same time!

I hope she can e-mail me a nice long book and let me know what she's doing. She said her only "me time" is at midnight so she hasn't been able to write anything substantial yet. I can't wait to hear all about her!

New ShopKo Cookware

There's a place called "ShopKo" here that I've never been inside. Being from the east coast, I'd never even heard of it.

The other day, I read their sales flyer as I was eating lunch, and they had a set of hard annodized non-stick cookware for $109 (regularly $219). We need some new non-stick pots and pans so I thought I'd go check it out. I walked out the door with the $149 set instead (it has an extra 4qt pan with a steamer and lid).

I'm pretty sure hubby will like the weight of it (that was his only concern--that they would feel cheap), but I'm not going to bother washing them until he gets home tonight and checks them out. If he hates them, I'll take them back (though I'm sure he'll be as impressed as I am).

We have one Calphanon pot that I bought him for Christmas. It doesn't feel any different than the ShopKo pots and pans. Then, we have the old T-Fal set I bought right after college, and we have a set of stainless steel pots and pans my parents gave us as a house warming gift. The problem with those is that everything sticks to them so we hardly ever use them.

That's the other thing: he WILL NOT get rid of the old green T-Fal. We have worn out that set completely, but he LOVES it and won't think about getting rid of it. He says the new T-Fal feels cheap! If he likes this new ShopKo set, maybe I should go buy another set and donate the old T-Fal to GoodWill next week while he's at work!

I don't know why this post is eating my paragraphs, but it is! That stinks! I can't fix it.

Kona bone

Per John's suggestion, I'm adding a solid Kona bone to my mix of fabrics for the SewConnected block swap. I checked out ivory and light blue, and neither of them was right (the ivory looked dirty and the blue was too bright). I just hope the bone doesn't have too much of a yellow cast to it.

More Fabric

Last night hubby let me know one of my fabrics is green rather than the blue I was going for. So back to the quilt store I went. I came home with two blues from the Sand and Surf collection. I didn't want the blocks to be too matchy-matchy, but I don't know how else to get colors that go together...? My color vision just isn't that good. I'm still using the oranges, though, and the dark brown from JoAnn Fabrics (even though I think the flowers on the dark brown are a teal color rather than blue...).

SewConnected Fabrics

Well... I decided to keep the remnant fabrics I bought at Hancock's of Paducah. I want to make a quilt out of it from a book I have called Modern Art with Fabric.

Because I'm keeping that fabric, I went fabric shopping again today. This is what I bought:

It's brown, blue and orange. It's a mix of Moda, Marcus Brothers, King's Road and Tracy Porter. I think I need one more blue so I'll hit the quilt store tomorrow and see what they have.

I bought a butt load because CraftWarehouse was having a sale: buy 2 yards, get 1 yard free! Can't beat that since the fabrics there are $9.50/yard.

The oranges are Tracy Porter fabrics from JoAnn Fabrics, and were $4.99/yard. They feel nice, and I think they compliment this mix pretty well.

Fabric Photos

Here are photos of the fabric I bought while I was at home visiting my mother. This first photo is stuff from Hancock's of Paducah. Most of it is from the remnant table, and I got it for $4.98/yard.

And here are four red, cream and blacks that I got at Backyard Fabrics in Farmington, KY for $4/yard! I bought 3 yards of each one.


Now I have to decide if I want to use the remnant mix for my block swap or the reds (plus a solid black Kona cotton that I already have). Or... if I should start all over with other fabrics...?

The dilemma is that I don't know if I have enough of the remnant mix to make a good-sized quilt. Plus, in my mind's eye, I have the vision of a really cool quilt I'd like to make with it. Second, I think I may want to make a quilt for my stepdad out of the reds (I hope he won't read this because if I don't make it, he'll be disappointed).

So... do I start all over with $9.50/yard fabric from the quilt stores around here (I'm leaning toward some orange Amy Butler I saw the other day) or do I go with what I bought while I was in KY? That is the question of the day!

SewConnected Assignments

John posted our SewConnected month assignments. I'm November! Yay! I can work on my quilt and, I hope, have it finished before the swap gets over with.

The swap is 14 months long. We're taking December 2008 off, and we're finishing in December 2009.

Fabric Shopping!

I'm at home visiting my parents for the week. They live about 45 minutes from Paducah, KY--home of Hancock's of Paducah which is a huge fabric warehouse with just about every fabric imaginable (very overwhelming).

So... we went there yesterday in pursuit of fabric for the SewConnected block swap I'm in. And, we found some really wild, but pretty fabrics for me to use. Most of it was from the remnant table. It's a mix of Joel Dewberry, Amy Butler, Kaffe Fasset, Moda, some Kona cotton and a couple of others I can't remember the names of. The colors are pink, orange, brown, yellow and green--like I said: really wild!

We also hit Eleanor Burn's shop: "Quilt in a Day". She had TONS of $4 bolts of fabric. And, we hit another local store called Backyard Fabrics that has TONS of $4 bolts of fabric. I would love to have gotten $4 fabric, but it was all very traditional prints, and not the look (for this swap) that I was going for. I want to know, though, why the quilt stores at home carry the very same fabric and sell it for $9.50/yard?

I did find some red and black fabric at Backyard Fabrics that I could use on a different quilt. I didn't buy it, but now I wonder if I should go back to get it. I won't be able to buy it for $4/yard at home, that's for sure!

I'll post pictures of my new fabrics when I get home next week.

SewConnected

Well... I'm excited. I've joined a virtual quilting bee called "SewConnected". It's 14 people and over the course of the next 14 months, we'll be working on each others' blocks (one person's per month). How much fun is that?!