Category Archives: fun finds

Where’s SewTara?

Posted on June 21, 2011 by SewTara| 4 Comments

Ok I have some linky love to share.

The lovely Janee has done a little interrogation post all about me, complete with bed head photo.  And of course there’s a giveaway involved as well.  So head over and enter before Friday!

If you’re a creative blogger, or have just been reading creative blogs for a while you probably already saw Scoutie Girl’s interview with Leigh-Ann from Freckled Nest but I wanted to point it out. It’s full of some great backstory on the growth of Freckled Nest and ideas if you’re on a mission to grow your own crafty empire. My favourite part was this behind the scenes photo in the interview, LA hard at work shooting my blog banner!

Amy has re-emerged with a fun new site, Amy is the party.  She’s featuring guest posts all this week.  It’s all summer themed to get you all geared up for some summery fun.  My DIY post will be up Saturday.

Annnnnnd I had a bit of a brain wave and wandered over to Spoonflower and turned my block background image into some fabric!  I’ve ordered a test swatch to see how it goes.  It’s hard to tell from the image on the screen just how it will look in person.  Very excited to get it!

 

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The Workroom, a new to me fabric store.

Posted on June 15, 2011 by SewTara| 8 Comments

So Monday night I wandered around Toronto as part of enjoying my first night ever in the history of Mommyhood that the boys were out of the house with daddy for just over 24 hours! Strangely I choose to head into the city for the evening instead of enjoying an empty house. I wandered around and took street cars and subways, had a burrito and walked and walked and walked. But it was all worth it because eventually I arrived at The Workroom.

If you live in/near Toronto The Workroom is a craft and sew place that lets you make use of the studio by the hour. They’ve got sewing machines, sergers, cutting tables and other crafty people hanging around. The exciting part for me was all the pretty fabric they have for sale. Oh and sewing books, and Japanese craft books. They also have Amy Butler patterns, Colette patterns and some other goodies I can’t remember now.

They sell some lovely fabrics and have a whole pile of shelves full of fun fat quarters. Of course I left with some goodies.

There’s also a blog if you want to check out some of the things they’re up to.

Images stolen from here, here and here. I felt silly asking to take pics with my iphone.

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Posted in crafty books, fun finds, neat spaces, sewing

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Sew Tara, the button

Posted on June 9, 2011 by SewTara| 9 Comments

How fun are these?! I ordered these amazing personalized wood buttons from Remember Wynn. She can engrave your name, shop name, some random words . . . whatever onto the buttons.

I’m not sure what I’m going to use them for yet but I thought they might make great label substitutes.

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Pandas and pouches oh my!

Posted on June 7, 2011 by SewTara| 6 Comments


Let’s ramble shall we?

I made another coin purse, as I was mentioning the other day, I’m really excited with how it turned out. I kinda sorta drafted the pattern myself using the store bought pattern for the small purse and all I went well!

I used a really fun cotton & linen blend, a Japanese prints from my fabric crush drawer. Inside I used a random cotton FQ I had lying around. Sewing the hardware on is a bit tricky, apparently they have glue on frames but somehow I feel like that’s cheating. I’ll stick with my tricky, finger reddening, slightly pain inflicting stitching.

And under the category of sharing the love Thursday has a GINORMOUS giveaway going on right now to celebrate her 1000 followers. Head over and enter part 1, part 2 and part 3. I contributed a cup cozy to the pile o loot.

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Fun Friday night

Posted on June 4, 2011 by SewTara| 1 Comment

Last night I went to a Meetup at Sew Be It Studio for some sewing fun and meeting some new people. I was working on a coin pouch that seems to be working out great! I made the pattern up myself so I was a bit nervous but all is going well. Today is a yucky, grey, rainy day so no pictures to share yet. Anyhow, back to the meetup, I met Sonya, of Quacked Plush, who makes these fun little creatures.

She’s got a blog, and an Etsy shop too.

Funny thing is she was selling her stuff at Anime North where some of my cozies were being sold as part of a fundraiser. Small world.

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Recent packages in my mailbox and more fabric swapping

Posted on May 28, 2011 by SewTara| 1 Comment

My treasury worked! My hubby got me this, from here.

And these! Only they say ‘Tara’ and not ‘Stephanie blahblah’.

I also took advantage of a Heartsy deal and ordered some packaging supplies from this shop.

If you missed my fabric swap, or want to see scraps before you get them, my friend Tabatha is looking to part with some lovely pieces in return for some new to her fabric. I was with her when she bought most of these recently and it’s great stuff. Head over if you’re interested in taking a peek.

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Posted in fun finds, gifts, scraps

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Bartering fun

Posted on May 12, 2011 by SewTara| 2 Comments

I had the pleasure of meeting Celine of Blue Calla at a Mommy’s night out thing a while back.  With my pathetic willpower and purse/tote/bag addiction I wasn’t able to walk out without one of her items.  She touches on so many of my favourite things like beautiful fabrics and Keyka Lou patterns.  She also makes her own creations that are fantastically made and lovely to behold. Here’s the bag I bought.

Recently she attempted the ditty bag and wasn’t so sure about how it would be received.  I offered to take this cute little one off her hands.  We ended up working out a barter.  Shortly after my fun little ditty bag arrived.


I’ve done a few barters before, they work out really well at craft shows, especially since you can do more than one and walk away with *all* your earnings.  So check out Blue Calla’s shop, new blog and Facebook.  You might see something you like!

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Silly new cozy.

Posted on May 9, 2011 by SewTara| 4 Comments

I don’t even remember how but I stumbled up on LittleRedAfro’s Etsy shop one day and saw this really funny little painting she had done.

I contacted her and asked her if she minded me putting it on a cozy. She said go ahead and just let the world know it was her idea. So behold my cozy based on her little painting.

 

I think it’s pretty funny, but I’ve got a dorky sense of humour. I’m making one for her as a thank you for letting me have some fun with her design. If you want one you can get one here.

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Posted in cozy, embroidery, fun finds, sewing

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Oh right.

Posted on May 2, 2011 by SewTara| 5 Comments

I blogged a while back about The Vintage Cabin, a fun blog and shop I stumbled upon thanks to My Girl Thursday. I made some purchases and was going to show the fun package I recieved and my purchase in action.

This cute little fellow was greeting me when I unwrapped the box.

I thought this was a brilliant little touch, stamping the tissue paper! I have a custom SewTara stamp, why hadn’t I thought of this!

Here’s the new home of the lovely vintage clock. Yes that’s an unfinished wall. Yes that’s the fuse box. My ‘studio’ is a corner in the man cave. I make do.

Lately I’ve been having a hard time working my various jobs. I spend the mornings with my kids, run off to school to teach all afternoon, come home and do the usually family type stuff and then run to the basement until I can’t keep my eyes open to run my business. It’s like working 3 jobs.

I was wondering why I didn’t think of all this creative/blog/business thing *before* there were kid/kids and my hubby pointed out that maybe they are what drove me to find it. I think about all that time I just sat around doing nothing with my life before and how now every moment is filled with something. He said the pressure might be what pushed me to work so hard at being ‘me’ again.

I thought he was being pretty wise. Don’t tell him I said so, that kind of stuff goes to his head sometimes.

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Vintage haul

Posted on April 16, 2011 by SewTara| 7 Comments

I found some really fun stuff thrifting last week.

There’s that pillow case I turned into a lovely headband, and actually 2 other projects that remain to be revealed.  That patchwork stuff is a big chuck of fabric.  I couldn’t resist picking up the Star Wars sheet.  My hubby still has his childhood Return of the Jedi comforter that he uses every night.  When I make our bed I hid it under our nice duvet.  Someday, when we have more rooms I think I’ll make a guest bed with Star Wars bedding.

I found this lovely gem and couldn’t resist.  It’s too bad I already made library bags for the boys when I took Home Ec because this would be perfect.  Maybe I’ll rename their library totes something else and wip up some with this anyway.  You can never have enough totes right?  Is it wrong to push my addiction on to my children?

 

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Posted in fun finds, kid fun, sewing, vintage

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