Celebrating Cath + Technique Tuesday Blog Hop

 

It makes my heart happy when good things happen to good people. I've known Cath Edvalson for many, many years while working with Paper Crafts Magazine & she's truly one of the best. I am so excited today to be able to celebrate her & showcase some of her new products!

Please join me in this blog hop to see many more inspirational posts featuring Cath's beautiful designs. If you started from the beginning (the Technique Tuesday blog) then you should have arrived here from Laura Bassen's blog. Please read on to find out how you can win an awesome prize pack of your own!

Cath makes the most beautiful paper cuts & those designs inspired her new collection of stamps & metal dies. While these products will definitely be perfect to use on handmade cards & layouts... I've decided to go a different route. I've been obsessed with fabric lately & have been busy working on new tote bags & other products for my Etsy shop.

My recent tote bag was just crying out for some decorative details & Cath's metal dies allowed me to do just that.  I used her new Garden Flowers & Garden Leaves dies along with fabric to dress up my design.  I found that it's best to iron Heat'n Bond to your fabric & then die cut your elements. This allows you to create fabric pieces that can easily be ironed onto your project for a permanent bond.

 I flipped the leaf die for the second die cut to create a mirrored image.

 These dies cut so precisely & I love how my bag embellishment coordinates perfectly with the inside lining.

 I added a coordinating button & made a tag using the Heartfelt Thanks stamp set.

You can find the "Catherine Tote Bag" in my Etsy shop!

Technique Tuesday is going to give away three prizes!!! One person will win a package consisting of all 5 of Cath's new products. Technique Tuesday will also give away two $25 gift certificates.

The three winners will be chosen at random from all the comments left during the hop on all the blog stops. To be eligible to win, blog hoppers need to just leave a comment any of the blog hop stops. The more comments they leave during the hop,  the more chances they have to win.

You have through midnight PST on Sept. 16th, 2015, to leave comments. The three winners will be announced on the Technique Tuesday blog on Sept. 18th, 2015. *I approve all comments before they'll show up on my blog, so don't be alarmed if your comment doesn't show up right away.

From here, hop over to Lisa Adametz' blog!

My Newest Sewing Project: Reverse Appliqué Fall Purse

I love paper crafting... but sometimes I get the itch to pull out my sewing machine and create something with fabric.  I've been dying to make a new fall purse and this one has been in the planning phase for quite awhile.

Last spring, I bought this mustard-colored (1950-60 era) dress from a cool little vintage resale shop in St. Louis.  It was a hideous styled garment, so I got a pretty good deal on it.... and I knew that I wanted to use it to create a purse for the fall.

Fast forward ~6 months and it's finally finished.  It was the first day of fall & I was itching to get crafty.  I just started taking The Good Life class by Amy Tangerine for Big Picture Classes.  This week's lesson is on reverse appliqué, and I wanted to try my new skills on my bag.

Can I just say... I love her.  :)

Please forgive my uneven stitching... but I'm learning.  :)  To create my pocket, I layered a piece of yellow fabric over my print and stitched around the pattern that I wanted to reveal.  (The outline was easy to see from the back side.)  Then... I just snipped away the fabric that was inside my stitching lines to reveal the print from below.

The inside of my bag was just too pretty not to share.  :)  I love the zippered pocket and the heavy-duty snap closure.  The button on the front of my bag is for decoration only & really has no purpose other than looking pretty.

Oh!  And I had to show you her back side.  (Hmmm... that just sounds wrong.)  Since I made my purse from a dress, I wanted to preserve just a bit of that history, so I included part of the back zipper.  I think it's very cute back there.  :)

I decided at the last minute that I needed a photo of the coordinating key chain I made.  This pic was taken with my phone, so the color's a little off... but you get the idea.

So... thanks for taking a peek at my new projects!  I think I love fabric as much as I love patterned paper... and this sewing project was just what I needed to get my mojo back.  Hopefully I'll have some fun new paper crafted projects for you soon!