{Giveaway}: Shabby Apple Dress **ENDED**

One of my favorite sites is Shabby Apple Women's (maternity, kid's, etc.) dresses.

You may or may not remember that I got to review one of their maternity dresses a few months back?

I still love it and still wear it – a lot. It’s my favorite dress because it’s SOO comfy and yet so stylish. Nice for someone who’s 8 months pregnant.

Anyway let’s get to the part where this gets good for you, shall we?

How does winning your very own dress from Shabby Apple sound?

Awesome, right?!

Well that’s exactly what one of you lucky “Sew Dang Cute” readers gets. Let’s take a look at the incredible dresses you get to choose from.

Happy Talk – yellow, need I say more? I can’t wait until I’m not pregnant anymore so I can get one of these for myself!

Trapeze – love that belt and the cut seems so flattering. The colors are absolutely beautiful, but what else would you expect with fabric by the amazing Amy Butler?

(sizes are limited)

Bonheur – so light and airy. Perfect for summer!

Bon Voyage – such a clean, classic look. I’m loving the pleats at the bottom.

They are each stunning, aren’t they? Here’s how you can enter to win:

(sorry U.S. shipping addresses only)

* Like Shabby Apple on Facebook. Please come back here and leave me a comment letting me know you did.

* Visit Shabby Apple and browse around. Then come back here and leave me a separate comment telling me what your favorite dress is.

That’s it! Pretty easy, huh?

Get ready…. set….start entering!

Giveaway closes Monday, June 6 @ 8 pm MST.

***DISCOUNT CODE FOR 10% OFF: sewdangcute10off ***

Epic Combo Kit Winner

The winner of the Epic Combo Kit from Lifestyle Crafts is:

Congratulations Amy! Please email me to claim your prize (sewdangcute@gmail.com).

If you didn’t win, remember you can still use code “SEWDANGCUTE” to save an additional 20% off any Lifestyle Crafts products.

Code valid through June 30.

“Keep Calm and Carry On” Sign

Guess what?! I’m still working on my guest room.
For The DIY Club in the month of May, I received a vinyl decal from Ten23 Designs. I chose the “Keep Calm and Carry On” in white (green is shown in picture below).

I knew I wanted to make it gray and yellow somehow to match the room, so my next task was to find a frame. I found this one at my local thrift store for $3. Whenever shopping at a thrift store, you must think about POTENTIAL!!! This frame had it.

I bought it solely for the size. There was one little problem, and that was the dimensional issue.

It wasn’t really a frame yet. So I got out a butter knife and pried off that top part.

There we go. I had to remove all the little industrial staples that was holding that other picture to the frame, which left a lot of holes. No worries. I fixed the holes with some painter’s putty and now had my frame.

This is where the yellow came in. Bright Idea by Krylon to be specific.

To create the actual sign that goes in that frame, I trimmed my vinyl and a piece of posterboard down to size.

Don’t you love that bright green? Remember I had gray in mind, so I grabbed some DecoArt Slate Gray I had leftover from this plate and covered up the green.

Once that was dry, I applied my vinyl decal on top.

The last thing I had to do was staple the completed sign to the inside of the frame since I didn’t have backing or glass to support it. I just used a regular paper stapler and voila! Sign complete and one more decoration done for my guest room – yay!

Simple enough, right? The finished room is coming soon (I promise)!!!

As Promised: Epic Letterpress Giveaway & Tutorial **ENDED**

Ok, I promised you guys earlier this week that a giveaway for the Epic 6 Letterpress Tool by Lifestyle Crafts was coming and here it is!!!

One lucky reader is going to win the Epic Combo Kit which includes the following:

Epic tool
Cutting platform
Cutting mat
Embossing platform
Letterpress platform
Ink base
Ink brayer
Black ink
Printing plates
Paper placement guides
A2 paper pack
Adhesive sheets
Nesting Circles cutting dies

A $169 value!!!!

I’ve had fun playing with mine (you can see my Mother’s Day cards here), but I wanted to share with you some other fabulous projects I’ve seen made with this neat tool.

Easter banner by Crap I’ve Made

“Hop” frames by Less Cake More Frosting

Plus loads of Creative Ideas like this Teacher Treat Bag found on Lifestyle Crafts’ site.

I was pretty hesitant to use mine because I feel so inadequate when it comes to papercrafting, but I am happy to admit that after a few runs I am genuinely excited about it and find myself thinking of new ways to use it.

If you are already familiar with how it works, feel free to scroll on down for the giveaway requirements and get yourself entered to win.

However if you are like me and like to see EXACTLY how it works, here is a basic tutorial for a Graduation card.

One of the sets I was sent is the Bubbly Printing Plates, so that’s the one I used for this card.

First I took an adhesive sheet and peeled off one side of it, stuck it to the back side of the plate, then removed the other side of the adhesive, and stuck it to the letterpress platform.

Next I squeezed a little bit of red ink onto the ink base.

Take your ink brayer and roll it through the ink to coat it.

Then roll the ink brayer on top of the printing plate.

Place a white piece of cardstock on the opposite side of the letterpress platform.

Close the letterpress platform and feed it through the Epic Tool.

When you open it up you’ll see your ink embossed paper.

Cleanup is a breeze with their cleaning cloths. Wipe off the plate, platform, ink base, and brayer.

I repeated this procedure on red cardstock with the graduation cap and black ink instead of the dotted plate and red ink.

Then again on gray cardstock with the “Congrats” and white ink.

The last thing I did was take my red cardstock and emboss it without ink for the card part.

(Not sure why the color is weird in this photo).

After that it was assembly and my card was done!

Another great thing the Epic Tool can do is die cutting. Using the metal die cuts, you can cut out all sorts of shapes. I used mine for some basic tags.

Hope that helps a bit!

TO ENTER:

(Must be a U.S. shipping address)

• Visit Lifestyle Crafts and browse around, then come back here and leave a comment telling me your favorite project or how you would use the combo kit.

Giveaway runs until Monday, May 30th @ 8 pm MST.

Also use code “SEWDANGCUTE” to save an additional 20% off any Lifestyle Crafts products. Code valid through June 30.

Sunny Side Up Pillow

Hey guys! Remember the pillow I made with my Accuquilt fabric cutter and circle dies?

Today I’m over at the Moda Bake Shop sharing the tutorial for it.

Thanks to my Facebook fans (specifically Kerri Clark and her cute son), the name of this pillow is Sunny Side Up.

It goes perfectly in my guest bedroom (which is coming soon I PROMISE)!!!! You can see a little glimpse of the duvet cover that the pillow is sitting on, and that tutorial will be revealed shortly.

Don’t you just love yellow? I DO!!!

Full tutorial (originally appeared here on Moda Bake Shop May 24, 2011)

• 1/2 yd fabric
• 1 jelly roll (I used Sweetwater’s Sunkissed)
• (1) 16” pillow form
• Starch or fusible interfacing
• 3” circle template {included in the Printer Friendly Version at the bottom of the post}

1. Cut (2) 15” x 15” squares from the 1/2 yd fabric. If you have a pillow form that is a different size than the 16” I used, just cut your fabric 1” smaller than your pillow.

2. Select several strips from your jelly roll. Cut them different widths ranging from 1” – 2”.


3. Sew your strips RST (right sides together) using a 1/4” seam allowance. Press the seams open.


4. We are going to use these sewn strips to cut our 3” circles from.

5. You have two different options at this point – 1) you can use starch or 2) you can use fusible interfacing. If you choose to use starch, go ahead and starch and iron about 4 times so your fabric is really stiff and easy to cut. If you choose to use fusible interfacing, go ahead and apply that to the wrong side of your sewn strips.


6. Take your 3” circle template and trace 9 different circles on either the fusible interfacing or the back side of the fabric, then cut those out. I have an Accuquilt GO! Baby fabric cutter, so I used my 3” circle die cut to quickly cut my 9 circles.


7. Arrange your circles on top of one of the 15” x 15” squares. If you starched, pin in place. If you used fusible interfacing, iron them on. All my circles were 1” away from each other and 1 3/4” away from the edges.


8. Stitch appliques in place using a straight stitch, zigzag, blanket stitch, etc. I used a very tight zigzag.


9. Pin your two 15”x 15” squares RST. We need to leave about an 8” opening to stuff the pillow form in. I marked mine with red pins so I knew where to start and stop sewing. Sew the two squares together with a 1/4” seam allowance. Clip the corners and turn right side out through your opening.


10. Stuff the pillow form in the opening and use a blind stitch (hand stitch) to sew the opening shut. Then you are done! You now have a beautiful pillow!




One 16" x 16" pillow.