What you’ll need to make one pouch:

Print the PDF pattern pieces from here. (Make sure that the 1″ box on the pattern actually prints at 1″ square.)

1 Fat Quarter (or 1/4 yard fabric) per pouch front

1 sheet coordinating felt

1/2 yard lightweight fusible interfacing (I used Pellon SF101, my favorite!)

1 – 12″ (or longer) coordinating polyester zipper

EDITED:

You can also use scrap fabric for the front and back, and fusible fleece instead of the Pellon SF101. Pictures are from one of the first ones I made, but everything is the same. If you use the fabric on back instead of fleece, just be sure you attach fusible fleece to the back of this piece also.

Cut out the following pieces:

Heart Top – 1 Main Fabric, 2 Interfacing

Heart Bottom – 1 Main Fabric, 2 Interfacing

Apply Interfacing:

Following the directions on your interfacing, iron the pieces to the back of your main fabric. By adding two layers we get a good thickness, without using the super firm interfacing that’s more difficult to sew with.

Attach the Zipper

Lay the zipper, right side down, with the pull on the right, along the top edge of your bottom heart piece.

Use your zipper foot on your machine and attach the zipper to this piece.

Fold the zipper up and press the seam flat.

Place the heart top face down, on the other edge of your zipper.

Attach this side of the zipper to your heart. Press this side up as well.

Top stitch on your machine (or do a running stitch by hand) along the top to hold this seam down.

Cut the Back

Zip the heart up and use this as a guide to cut the back felt piece.

Make the Arrow Pieces

Cut out the arrow tip pattern piece. Place small edge along the fold of your felt. Pin the pattern in place.

Stitch around the pattern.

After you’ve stitched it, go ahead and cut closely around your stitching line. (It’s easier to stitch this way!)

Repeat the process to make the arrow zipper pull.

EDITED:

After making this project with my after school group yesterday we found it easiest to attach the pattern to the felt,

sew directly on the lines,

remove the paper,

then cut out your shape. (If you use this method, don’t worry about placing the pattern piece on the fold, just sew along that line instead.)

Finish Up

Unzip your zipper half way. (Don’t forget this step, otherwise you’ll be stuck with a pouch that’s inside out!) Place your front, right side up, on your table.

Place your arrow tip piece lined up on the edge where your zipper is on the left side of your heart. Pin.

Place your felt back on top of this.

Pin.

Stitch 1/4″ all the way around the edge. Clip off the extra zipper ends. Finish your edges with pinking shears or a zig-zag stitch on your machine. (I forgot to do this on the one pictured.)

Clip the bottom excess fabric and snip around the curves. Turn right sides out through the zippered opening. Press flat.

Attach your arrow tip to the zipper pull. I used a little jump ring on the one above. Needle and thread works just fine too!

Happy Sewing,

Erin

What?  You don’t see it on my table?  This is what my table looked like while trying to figure out the pattern for that little box!  (I’m not a clean crafter, that’s for sure!)

Then I took a nap-and my brain kept working on it.  I love how your brain is always working on solutions to problems, even if you’re not consciously working on it!  I woke up with the perfect solution and sketched it out right away:

Want to make one?  I’ve got the template for you!  Just download the pdf, cut, and trace onto your best black spider paper, attach ribbon legs underneath and you’re done!

To hold it shut black velcro works perfect!  It’s a great size for a small message and a piece of candy!  Doesn’t it look cute perched atop this jam jar watching over the treats?  I wrapped the jar in white organza to give it a little spider web feel to it.

Ready for the next project?  Need some easy to make drippy and spooky votives for your Halloween get together?

All you’ll need are some glass votives and red acrylic paint.  (I used the Christmas Red Folk Art paint from Plaid.)

Wash your votives so they are free of fingerprints, oils, and dust.

Hold the votive at an angle and put a bead of acrylic paint around the inner top edge of the votive.

To get it to get a good drip shape just tap the bottom of your votive on the counter top.  The drips will appear on their own.

Just let them dry and drop in your LED tea lights!  Easy peasy!

Happy Crafting!

Erin

In case you were wondering, yes, those are ALL brads!

But don’t worry I’ve made things easy for you!  Here’s the layout I did in Illustrator!  Just print it here and you’re ready to go!

I have lots of brads, and for some reason I had a TON of brass colored brads, which is weird because I think it’s safe to say I NEVER use brass colored brads on my projects!  I wondered if I could maybe, just maybe, make them any color I wanted.  Copic markers didn’t work too well, but you know what did?

How about some 99¢ nail polish!  It worked fantastic!  And for some reason the cheap nail polish comes in some great colors, including candy corn colors!  Let’s paint!

The easiest way I found to paint those little brads was to put them all into a block of craft foam.  (You don’t even have to unwrap the block from it’s plastic wrap.  Why have foam pieces all over the place if you don’t have to?)

Aren’t they cute all lined up waiting to dry?  Imagine all the colors you could make those little brass brads!  (I’ll be on the lookout now for brads in not so popular colors on clearance!)

While it’s drying, print your candy corn template and use this paper piercing tool:

I promise this paper piercer will make your job a whole lot easier!  I also use it to set my brads.  (I’ll show you how in a sec!)

Poke holes in your template directly on top of your little colored circles and add your brads.  (I set my template on top of the foam so it was easy to punch the holes in it.)  I found it easiest and faster to put in about 10 brads then turn it over and set them all at once.

To use your paper piercer to set your brads on back  just do this:

1. Use the tip of your paper piercer to start separating the brad back.

2. What it looks like after step 1.

3. Use the other end of the paper piercer to finish off setting the brad.

Keep going until you’re finished.  Honestly, setting all the brads didn’t take as long as I thought it would!

Happy Crafting!

Erin

Inside this little house folder is an entire packet of information to welcome your new neighbor!  It’s got 5 illustrated pages of information that you can customize to your specific town or city!  There’s places to put your local grocery stores, favorite craft stores and places for important information such as the nearest hospital, closest library, and trash day!  You don’t need any specific software to type in your custom text, just Adobe Reader (which is free).

Love Copics?  Want to color your own?  I also have a B&W version!  (This is also a great one to get your children involved with!  Just print and have them color to their hearts content!)

You can find the downloads in the shop.  The fully colored and illustrated one is here and the B&W version is here.  The project sheets are $5 each.  You can use them as many different times as you’d like and save so once you take the time to fill it out once, it’s ready for the next neighbor as well!  Happy Crafting!

You can download the full set of instructions and patterns for each (for FREE!) directly from BurdaStyle.  Enjoy!

Erin

Download the PDF here.  It includes the Strawberry boxes in a light and dark pink, 2 different cards, and the blank template if you want to use your own patterned paper to make the boxes!  (Have a Cricut and the SCAL software?  You can download the box template here and the leaf template here to let the Cricut cut it out for you!)

Instructions:

Print the entire PDF out onto white cardstock.  There are 2 cards on the page, cut in half so you’ve got two pieces that are 8 1/2″ x 5 1/2″.

Score at 4 1/4″, and fold.  Your cards are done!

To fold the box see the video below.  (It was going to be a little tricky to show you in pictures so I made a quick video instead!)

See, it is pretty easy!

If you are using your Cricut and SCAL, or the blank template to use your own patterned paper, just cut the base out of a strawberry colored paper, and the leaves out of a leaf colored paper.

Layer and glue the leaves onto the base.

Fold according to the instructions in the video above.

Let me know if you enjoyed this and Happy Crafting!

Erin

P.S.  Have you registered for CraftyCon yet?  It’s going to be awesome!  There’s even a special code right now for an additional $50 off of registration!

Be sure to check out the speakers too!  There’s lots of great crafty business minded people and we’re adding more almost daily!  Hope to see you there!

Download the Sherbet one here and Download the Jewel one here.

But wait!  Before you print them out try this:

It’s called a Color Check!  Print this out first on your printer, then you can see how the colors will come out on your own printer, before you print the full sheet of cards!  I know that it can be annoying to download and print something, only to have it come out different colors than you wanted it to because of differences in printers and computer monitors.  Now you won’t waste paper or ink!  Download the Color Check here.

Don’t want to use them for a card?  Try cutting out just the front of the card and putting it on a gift, or printing at a smaller scale for use as a tag or label for Valentine’s Day Dinner!

What you’ll need:
A few sheets of patterned paper (Trimmed to 7 3/4″ x 3 1/2″)
Orange Cardstock (Trimmed to 2 3/4″ x 1 3/4″)
Light Ivory Cardstock (You’ll print on this so make sure it’s trimmed down to 8 1/2″ x 11″ to fit into your printer!)
Coordinating Ribbon

Score along the lines of your patterned paper as shown below:

Fold along the lines and adhere the flap to make your triangle shaped place cards.

Type into the free PDF (available here) what you’d like the place cards to say.  You could also use these for labels for all the different Thanksgiving dishes!  (If the font isn’t one you have on your computer-Download the free font here, follow the directions on adding it to your font library, and reopen the PDF.  You’ll be able to use the same font as I did in the example!)  Print and trim the pieces on the dotted lines and mount on your pieces of orange cardstock.  Tie a simple ribbon bow to the left side and mount on one side of your place card with foam tape.  You’re done!

To make the napkin rings, just cut a few strips of paper and hold them while setting the eyelets!  (I used my Crop-A-Dile to make it easier!)

Now you’re well on your way to a beautiful Thanksgiving!

P.S. Here’s a funny little conversation my husband and I had.  I was leaving to go to teach a card class and my husband was helping me get everything loaded in the car and was making sure I had everything I needed.  (Isn’t he sweet!)  The conversation went something like this:

Christian:  Do you have your adhesive?

Me: Yep!

Christian: What about all your stamps?

Me: Yep!

Christian: What about all your paper?

Me: Yep!

Christian: What about all your animals?  Do you need those for this class?

Me: Huh? Animals?

Christian:  You know, your Cricut (cricket), Crop-A-Dile (crocodile), Cuttlebug (bug)…

I just started laughing…  

Have a great weekend Everyone!

I’ve had this idea bookmarked for a while and have been mulling over the best thing to do with it.  I figured that since it’s back to school time there are lots of lunches being made.  One of my favorite things growing up was that my dad hid little notes in our lunches for us to find.  Based off this memory, I made some cute little joke cards for you to sneak in your child’s lunch!

So gather up your supplies and let’s get going:

1 Free Joke Card PDF printed on white cardstock (click the link to download)

Foam Paint Brush

Acrylic Paint in coordinating colors (I used Pumpkin and Paradise)

Coordinating Glitter (I used Martha Stewarts Goldyn Beryl and some red glitter I got from Jenny On The Spot at BlogHer)

1 Transparency Sheet

Some dishwashing liquid-not pictured (like Dawn, any color works fine, I used green and it doesn’t affect the color of your paint at all!)

1. On your transparency, put a puddle of paint and a smaller puddle of dishwashing liquid.  Mix it up with your foam brush.

2. Spread out the mixed up paint/soap mixture into a even layer.  It may have lots of bubbles in it and it’s ok if it does, they will slowly work their way out on their own.

3. Sprinkle wet paint with glitter and let dry.  While you’re waiting for the paint to dry, trim your cards out on the gray dashed lines.

4. When your painted transparency is completely dry, carefully cut out some rectangles that are 2″ x 1 1/4″.  The easiest way to cut these without scratching off the surface is to use scissors, a paper trimmer may scratch off the paint. 5. Put clear tape inside the box on the card.

6. Stick your scratch off piece on top of the tape.

7. Scratch it off!  Yea!

I hope you enjoyed this project!

Erin

This package and a card are available for download over at Christy’s site!