Quick and Easy Gift-Card Holders

~ Pamela Klingensmith ~ 2 Comments

Do you have gift cards to give?  Tired of simply putting them inside a Christmas card or an envelope?  If you have just 30 minutes or an hour, you can stitch up one of these sweet, quick and easy gift-card holders.  It is great packaging in which to present that special gift card.  The pattern and instructions are in the Fall 2012 eidition of Quilts and more magazine.

The pattern requires a minimal amount of fabric and heavy-duty interfacing.  The instructions are straight-forward and easy to follow.  These gift-card holders could also be reused and forwarded to other gift-card recipients, or they could be re-used to store business cards, credit cards, etc.  I chose to make mine in Christmas themed fabric, but any fabric could be used to make them great year-round gift-card holders.  Here is what the inside looks like:

I sewed all three of these in about an hour.  Don’t you just love those quick-gratifying sewing projects that will bless others?

Pam

2012 Christmas Card

~ Pamela Klingensmith ~ Leave a comment

Tis the season, creative counterparts.  Here’s this year’s Christmas card.  I kept it pretty simple in style so as not to distract from the sentiment on the inside, which is what is most important:

The color scheme is a little outside the box for me.  I’m usually pretty much a traditionalist when it comes to Christmas colors.  But overall, I am pleased with my foray into contemporary colors.  So here is what I used for my cards:

Card base – Gina K. Designs heavy base weight navy cardstock
Patterned paper – Jingle by Close to My Heart
Mister Huey’s Color Mists in opaque white (doesn’t show up in the photos, but adds great dimension in real life)
Snowflake – Kerri Bradford cut file from the This and That Winter kit
Silver embossing powder by Hero Arts
Scalloped Window with candle (I omitted the candles) cut file from Silhouette
Inside sentiment – white cardstock, Ginda K. Designs pure luxury layering weight; Sentiment is a Silhouette cut file that I converted to a print and cut file along with the window frame from the front of the card
Silver metal ‘gem’ by Mark Richards

Most of my creative efforts are spent in front of my sewing maching, but my sewing and crafting time is pretty much split during this time of year as there are so many great gift items to be made.  I do, however, have a quick little sewing project to share with you this weekend.  So stay tuned.   🙂

What about you, does your sewing time give way to other creative outlets during this season?  I would love to hear about or see some of your projects.

Pam

Vogue 8667 – Dress

~ Pamela Klingensmith ~ 8 Comments

In sorting through my sewing photos whilst preparing to write the review for this dress, I noticed my last several garments have all been grey.  So . . . this is the last grey garment I will sew for some time – on to some color!

My hands are in fists, not because I am upset, but because it was freezing outside.  Where’s that new coat I just made!?

When I put this on to show my husband the finished product, his comment was “wow, that one is really nice.”  Notice the emphasis on that one.  Hmmm, does he mean all the other pieces I’ve sewn were not nice?  Okay, Pam, quit reading more into it than what he said and accept the compliment!!!

IMHO, what makes this a winner is that collar. Other than that, this is just a basic, fitted dress. Which is not a bad thing. We all need some great classics in our wardrobe, wouldn’t you agree? I know this one will get lots of wear.  The pattern instructions were to add three hook and eye closures along the back of the collar where it comes together just above the zipper.  By doing that, it would have stood up all wonky in the back and it was too late for me to alter the collar since I did not make a muslin first (ahem).  That said, I actually prefer the way it turned out because I really like the way the collar comes to an inverted V in the back.  I simply added one eye and hook closure where the collar naturally falls to the V shape.  Here’s the back of the dress where you can see that collar V that I’m talking about:

And here is a close up of that back collar:

As you can probably see from these photos, the sleeves are just a bit snug.  Not so much that I can’t wear the dress, but more snug than I would prefer.  Since I did not make a muslin (ahem, again), I was not aware that I would need to add about 1/2″ circumference to those sleeves.  I would also extend the length about 1″ to help cover my muscular marshmallowy upper arms.  🙂  Other than that, I would not make any pattern alterations.  This dress fits like a glove, just as this style should.  I might make another one (with sleeve alterations) some time in the future as I do find this pattern very flattering and comfortable and as I mentioned before, the style is classic.

Oh, if anybody is interested, here is a picture of the dress without the belt:

There are so many sewing project ideas tossing around in my head right now that I am undecided what will be on my sewing table this week.  It will be a surprise to all of us.  If you are so inclined, please leave a comment, I would love to hear from you and see what you are sewing.

Pam