Friday, August 21, 2015

Disney Inspired

A few months back, a co-worker put in a special request for some bags for her Mom,sister and friend. She wanted bags for these girls to carry on the Disney cruise they will be going on in a couple of months.  She asked if I could design each of the three girls a tote bag inspired by their favorite Disney characters.  I LEAPED at the opportunity! Design bags that were both outside of my norm AND based on Disney inspiration??? I could not WAIT to get started!!

I started by getting the characters that she wanted: Ariel, Mary Poppins and Maleficent.  I began sketching out a few ideas to present to her. I wanted to keep the basic design of my bags the same and not add a ton of embellishment.  I wanted to keep all of the cotton panels and pockets in the same spots and let the colors and patterns speak for themselves and give the impressions of the characters.

After a couple rounds of drafts, I got an official OK and got to work.  I started with Ariel.  I had purchased some green scales fabric for a little mermaid costume I was going to make for a friend but never finished. (Sorry Jennie! I still have it all cut out if you ever still want me to make it!) I some more of the scales fabric, some purple, red and green cotton as well. I made the top strip of the bag out of the red fabric.  The pocket strip, I layered with the purple and the green scales.


This color scheme gave a pretty good Ariel vibe, but I felt like it needed just a little something extra.


I took a plain seashell and painted it with Martha Stewart multi-surface paint in Pearl finish-color "Purple Martin". If I haven't mentioned it before, I LOVE the Martha Stewart paints!! They have fantastic coverage and I have used them on a variety of surfaces and have been quite pleased with the results. I used E6000 industrial glue to attach 2 pins to the back of the seashell and pinned that onto the bag.  With that, the Ariel bag was complete!


Up next was the Mary Poppins bag! I was seriously excited about this one.  My friend wanted a bag inspired by Mary Poppins' white "Jolly Holiday" dress.  I grabbed a bunch of white eyelet lace, some red fabric and white and red satin ribbon.  The top panel was made using the white eyelet lace.  I added a ruffle to the center as well as a red bow.  For the pocket panel, I sewed strips of white ribbon to the red fabric equal distance away.  I then attached this strip of red to the center of the white pocket to mirror the corset portion of her dress.



When all put together, I think it turned out pretty awesome!!


Last, but certainly NOT the least challenging, was the Maleficent bag.  I'm definitely no stranger to Sleeping Beauty, but figuring out an inspirational design to portray this Disney villain took some thinking.  I googled some pictures of the animated version and up with a design that worked.  I found this cool marble looking black color along with some purple and neon green.  I purchased some purple satin ribbon and got to work.

I started out with the top strip.  I wanted this piece to echo Maleficent's headdress, since her outfit is relatively non-descript.  I sewed lines of purple satin ribbon onto the black fabric.


I didn't really notice, I mean I guess they were always there (its been a while since I have watched Sleeping Beauty) but Maleficent's headdress has purple stripes on it. Seriously, google it!

For the pocket portion, I layered the green, purple and black fabric in different sizes.  At this point, it was definitely giving me a Maleficent vibe, but I wanted it to have just a little something more.  I felt it needed a nod to Maleficent's magical staff to sort of pull it all together.  I took a wooden craft ball and painted in green using Martha Stewart paint in "Scottish Highlands". Then, I sponged on some swirly accents in "Citrine Gold". I used the industrial adhesive to attach pins to the back and pinned it to the bag and.....TAHDAH!!


I'm very happy with how they all turned out and had so much fun designing them! I plan to make more Disney inspired bags in my mini sized tote bag.  I'm pretty excited about the concept of my Disney inspired tote bag designs being carried around on a Disney cruise!! How cool is that???

Friday, August 14, 2015

Star Wars, a bachelorette party far, far away!

If you thought my two maids of honor could not possibly be more creative than they were for my FRIENDS TV show bridal shower, you would be mistaken! My Bachelorette party totally rocked!!! In a completely nerdy kind of way....

To begin with, again, the invitation was just ADORABLE!


For part one of the days' festivities, we met up at The Queen Mary for high tea on board ship!


My sister and I LOVE having tea and it was such a beautiful day! We had a plethora of teas and sweet and savory tea treats!




The tea room is on one of the upper decks, so there was a great view! The tea was superb and we all had a great time!


 For part two of the festivities, we headed to my best friend's house.  When I walked in the door, I about died of excitement when I realized that I was getting a Star Wars bachelorette party!!! OMG!!!


For those of you who don't know me as well, yes, I am a giant Star Wars nerd and have a lifelong crush on Harrison Ford! So, when I walked in and saw a life size cardboard cut out of none other than Han Solo himself, I was giddy with girly excitement! I immediately posed for a picture, which I of course sent to The Fiance telling him to try not to be too jealous-wink wink!


 My best friend's husband had helped her set up the decorations.  There were streamers, Star Wars ships and "planets" hanging from the ceiling.




The bathroom had an awesome Star Wars opening credits tribute to The Fiance and I.


 And, of course, all of the super yummy food had adorable Star Wars themed labels!





Once everyone arrived, we made some beverages and snacked on yummy goodies.






Then, it was time for GAMES! The first game was a "Favorite things from my boudoir" game. Its basically a bachelorette party version of a My favorite things party.  In short, each guest brings their favorite thing that goes along with whatever theme is given. BUT they bring 4 of their item of choice.  When the guest arrive, every guest gets their name put into a bucket 4 times.  Each guest then shares what their favorite item is.  In this party's case, boudoir items-wink wink!! As the Bride, I was given one of every one's favorite thing and I got to draw 3 names from the bucket and the names I drew got the other 3 items. So, basically each guest walks away with 3 new things! :)







 After that, we played "Kiss Han Solo".  Pretty much pin the tail on the donkey, bachelorette party style!  We each put on brightly colored lipstick and were blindfolded to then attempt to get as close to Han Solo's smoocher as we could with our kiss. I was a little sad, at first, when I realized we were going to "mess up" Han with bright, staining lipstick....


But, in the spirit of having fun, I went for it! (I opted for closing my eyes only so as not to ruin my freshly done eyelash extensions. I know, I'm lame! But, they were expensive and I promise, my eyes were closed super tight!)






No big shocker who won....ME of course!!! Thats right! And no, I did NOT peek! :)  After that, we hung out and girl talked for a bit. Then, it was time for cake!!! OMG! The cake made its own grand entrance!




 It was a Han Solo stripper cake!!!! I laughed so hard!!! Complete with sparklers AND a stripper pole!


 My sister had taken her Han Solo Ken doll and stripped him down to his chonies. She then added on a leopard print speedo, (made by hand out of leopard print washi tape)



I even gave him a tip, he was so AWESOME!


 BEST BACHELORETTE PARTY EVER!!!!! 

Monday, August 10, 2015

FRIENDS TV show bridal shower!


Whew! After WAY too long of an absence, I am very happy to announce that I am back to the blogging grindstone. If you can even call it that, its pretty much my happy place! Boy, how I have missed this!! Between busily planning and coordinating my wedding AND my computer dying, (sad day!) I have neglected this lovely space of tranquility in my life. Some of you may know, but during my time away, I got married! Yay! Shortly after returning from our Honeymoon, The Husband and I bought ourselves a new computer and all is right in the world of Sew it Seams again! So, without further ado, lets get into all the juicy details of the festivities! Starting with, my absolutely AMAZING bridal shower!

My sister and MOH, along with help from my best friend and second MOH (Maid of Honor) put together the most awesome bridal shower a girl could ever dream of! For those who know me well, there is no question of how great my love is for the TV show FRIENDS. I am a HUGE fan! My sister and I have seen every single episode a million times, we both own every season and quote the show regularly at random intervals ALL-THE-TIME! So, as you can imagine, I was ecstatic when my sister asked if she could throw me a FRIENDS themed shower. When the invitations arrived in the mail, I had no doubt that this would be the greatest shower ever!


My Aunt, graciously offered to host the shower at her home, not too far from me. When I walked up the driveway the day of, I just knew it would be an epic day! My sister hung a replica of Monica's peephole frame on the front door! Nice touch!


After walking through the door, I got to experience the full theme. My sister decorated everything with a "Central Perk" theme! (The coffee shop from the TV show for you less avid fans) Right at the entrance were two games.


A ring game where you can't say the words "wedding" or "bride" or your ring gets taken away. EEEK! Not such an easy task at a bridal shower! The person with the most stolen rings at the end, wins.


Also there was a "guess how many coffee beans are in this jar" game.


As I turned the corner, it was like I was right on the set of the show! My sister hand painted the "Central Perk" logo onto glass which she put into a frame and hung above the fireplace. She filled my Aunt's sconces with coffee beans and even propped up a guitar and stool (for open mic night of course) complete with the lyrics to Phoebe's "Smelly Cat" song, tucked into the strings!



And then there was the outside! GASP! Gorgeous!!


They put up a tent and decorated each table with purple and gold linens. There was a lovely coffee bean "confetti" scattered around, along with GORGEOUS flower arrangements in a variety of coffee mugs. (Courtesy of my awesome floral genius Aunt)


 My Aunt also made this beautiful arrangement in the giant coffee mug, which decorated the gift table.


Each place setting had an adorable coffee mug candle favor. There were also 4 more games. A "who did what" game where you had to guess whether the Bride or Groom did things like "who said I love you first?" or "who is in charge of the remote?" There was a FRIENDS TV match up game where you had to match the main character to the smaller characters they dated, and also a purse scavenger hunt.


And then, every one's favorite part of any party, the food! My sister and Aunt made quite the spread!  My Aunt made a variety of different tortilla wraps as well as some cheese platters and fruit platters.





My sister made a really yummy quiche as well as scones with Devonshire cream and jams!


 And then there was the cake!



Complete with a hand made cake topper, it looked almost too good to eat! Although, I am glad that I had some because it somehow tasted even better than it looked!! My sister ordered it from a bakery in Brea called Beverly's best Bakery. It was chocolate cake with peanut butter butter cream filling and French butter cream on the outside. It was soooo good!!!

We did the first few games, which were a lot of fun!(I totally won the FRIENDS trivia one by the way) My sister got super creative with the prizes. She had little gift bags with a picture of one of the main characters on the outside of each bag. Each one had a gift card inside that coordinated to the character on the outside. ie: subway (sandwiches) for Joey and Charming Charlie (fashion) for Rachel etc.


The final game was the toilet paper game. Each guest had to take toilet paper and make something out of it that I could use on my wedding day. The guests got really creative! These were just 2 of the many entries, but they were my favorites! A lovely necklace.


And I thought this lingerie set was very detailed!


After the games, came the gift opening. Everyone got super creative with my sister's "date box" gift theme!





 There was a game night box, a luau, movie night, relaxing night in, fondue date night and so much more!!





My mother in law made me this adorable hoodie that says "real women marry men with beards" on the back.


And my Mom and sister gave us a Hollywood date night basket, complete with "VIP passes", bride and groom sunglasses and universal studios passes!


We were so impressed and excited by all of the creative dates and can't wait to get started using them! My sister certainly outdid herself on this one! And I know she appreciated all the help from my BFF and Aunt! The shower was absolutely AMAZING!!! Everything was just beyond perfect! I am just the luckiest girl in the world!! Thank you sis!!

Friday, August 21, 2015

Disney Inspired

A few months back, a co-worker put in a special request for some bags for her Mom,sister and friend. She wanted bags for these girls to carry on the Disney cruise they will be going on in a couple of months.  She asked if I could design each of the three girls a tote bag inspired by their favorite Disney characters.  I LEAPED at the opportunity! Design bags that were both outside of my norm AND based on Disney inspiration??? I could not WAIT to get started!!

I started by getting the characters that she wanted: Ariel, Mary Poppins and Maleficent.  I began sketching out a few ideas to present to her. I wanted to keep the basic design of my bags the same and not add a ton of embellishment.  I wanted to keep all of the cotton panels and pockets in the same spots and let the colors and patterns speak for themselves and give the impressions of the characters.

After a couple rounds of drafts, I got an official OK and got to work.  I started with Ariel.  I had purchased some green scales fabric for a little mermaid costume I was going to make for a friend but never finished. (Sorry Jennie! I still have it all cut out if you ever still want me to make it!) I some more of the scales fabric, some purple, red and green cotton as well. I made the top strip of the bag out of the red fabric.  The pocket strip, I layered with the purple and the green scales.


This color scheme gave a pretty good Ariel vibe, but I felt like it needed just a little something extra.


I took a plain seashell and painted it with Martha Stewart multi-surface paint in Pearl finish-color "Purple Martin". If I haven't mentioned it before, I LOVE the Martha Stewart paints!! They have fantastic coverage and I have used them on a variety of surfaces and have been quite pleased with the results. I used E6000 industrial glue to attach 2 pins to the back of the seashell and pinned that onto the bag.  With that, the Ariel bag was complete!


Up next was the Mary Poppins bag! I was seriously excited about this one.  My friend wanted a bag inspired by Mary Poppins' white "Jolly Holiday" dress.  I grabbed a bunch of white eyelet lace, some red fabric and white and red satin ribbon.  The top panel was made using the white eyelet lace.  I added a ruffle to the center as well as a red bow.  For the pocket panel, I sewed strips of white ribbon to the red fabric equal distance away.  I then attached this strip of red to the center of the white pocket to mirror the corset portion of her dress.



When all put together, I think it turned out pretty awesome!!


Last, but certainly NOT the least challenging, was the Maleficent bag.  I'm definitely no stranger to Sleeping Beauty, but figuring out an inspirational design to portray this Disney villain took some thinking.  I googled some pictures of the animated version and up with a design that worked.  I found this cool marble looking black color along with some purple and neon green.  I purchased some purple satin ribbon and got to work.

I started out with the top strip.  I wanted this piece to echo Maleficent's headdress, since her outfit is relatively non-descript.  I sewed lines of purple satin ribbon onto the black fabric.


I didn't really notice, I mean I guess they were always there (its been a while since I have watched Sleeping Beauty) but Maleficent's headdress has purple stripes on it. Seriously, google it!

For the pocket portion, I layered the green, purple and black fabric in different sizes.  At this point, it was definitely giving me a Maleficent vibe, but I wanted it to have just a little something more.  I felt it needed a nod to Maleficent's magical staff to sort of pull it all together.  I took a wooden craft ball and painted in green using Martha Stewart paint in "Scottish Highlands". Then, I sponged on some swirly accents in "Citrine Gold". I used the industrial adhesive to attach pins to the back and pinned it to the bag and.....TAHDAH!!


I'm very happy with how they all turned out and had so much fun designing them! I plan to make more Disney inspired bags in my mini sized tote bag.  I'm pretty excited about the concept of my Disney inspired tote bag designs being carried around on a Disney cruise!! How cool is that???

Friday, August 14, 2015

Star Wars, a bachelorette party far, far away!

If you thought my two maids of honor could not possibly be more creative than they were for my FRIENDS TV show bridal shower, you would be mistaken! My Bachelorette party totally rocked!!! In a completely nerdy kind of way....

To begin with, again, the invitation was just ADORABLE!


For part one of the days' festivities, we met up at The Queen Mary for high tea on board ship!


My sister and I LOVE having tea and it was such a beautiful day! We had a plethora of teas and sweet and savory tea treats!




The tea room is on one of the upper decks, so there was a great view! The tea was superb and we all had a great time!


 For part two of the festivities, we headed to my best friend's house.  When I walked in the door, I about died of excitement when I realized that I was getting a Star Wars bachelorette party!!! OMG!!!


For those of you who don't know me as well, yes, I am a giant Star Wars nerd and have a lifelong crush on Harrison Ford! So, when I walked in and saw a life size cardboard cut out of none other than Han Solo himself, I was giddy with girly excitement! I immediately posed for a picture, which I of course sent to The Fiance telling him to try not to be too jealous-wink wink!


 My best friend's husband had helped her set up the decorations.  There were streamers, Star Wars ships and "planets" hanging from the ceiling.




The bathroom had an awesome Star Wars opening credits tribute to The Fiance and I.


 And, of course, all of the super yummy food had adorable Star Wars themed labels!





Once everyone arrived, we made some beverages and snacked on yummy goodies.






Then, it was time for GAMES! The first game was a "Favorite things from my boudoir" game. Its basically a bachelorette party version of a My favorite things party.  In short, each guest brings their favorite thing that goes along with whatever theme is given. BUT they bring 4 of their item of choice.  When the guest arrive, every guest gets their name put into a bucket 4 times.  Each guest then shares what their favorite item is.  In this party's case, boudoir items-wink wink!! As the Bride, I was given one of every one's favorite thing and I got to draw 3 names from the bucket and the names I drew got the other 3 items. So, basically each guest walks away with 3 new things! :)







 After that, we played "Kiss Han Solo".  Pretty much pin the tail on the donkey, bachelorette party style!  We each put on brightly colored lipstick and were blindfolded to then attempt to get as close to Han Solo's smoocher as we could with our kiss. I was a little sad, at first, when I realized we were going to "mess up" Han with bright, staining lipstick....


But, in the spirit of having fun, I went for it! (I opted for closing my eyes only so as not to ruin my freshly done eyelash extensions. I know, I'm lame! But, they were expensive and I promise, my eyes were closed super tight!)






No big shocker who won....ME of course!!! Thats right! And no, I did NOT peek! :)  After that, we hung out and girl talked for a bit. Then, it was time for cake!!! OMG! The cake made its own grand entrance!




 It was a Han Solo stripper cake!!!! I laughed so hard!!! Complete with sparklers AND a stripper pole!


 My sister had taken her Han Solo Ken doll and stripped him down to his chonies. She then added on a leopard print speedo, (made by hand out of leopard print washi tape)



I even gave him a tip, he was so AWESOME!


 BEST BACHELORETTE PARTY EVER!!!!! 

Monday, August 10, 2015

FRIENDS TV show bridal shower!


Whew! After WAY too long of an absence, I am very happy to announce that I am back to the blogging grindstone. If you can even call it that, its pretty much my happy place! Boy, how I have missed this!! Between busily planning and coordinating my wedding AND my computer dying, (sad day!) I have neglected this lovely space of tranquility in my life. Some of you may know, but during my time away, I got married! Yay! Shortly after returning from our Honeymoon, The Husband and I bought ourselves a new computer and all is right in the world of Sew it Seams again! So, without further ado, lets get into all the juicy details of the festivities! Starting with, my absolutely AMAZING bridal shower!

My sister and MOH, along with help from my best friend and second MOH (Maid of Honor) put together the most awesome bridal shower a girl could ever dream of! For those who know me well, there is no question of how great my love is for the TV show FRIENDS. I am a HUGE fan! My sister and I have seen every single episode a million times, we both own every season and quote the show regularly at random intervals ALL-THE-TIME! So, as you can imagine, I was ecstatic when my sister asked if she could throw me a FRIENDS themed shower. When the invitations arrived in the mail, I had no doubt that this would be the greatest shower ever!


My Aunt, graciously offered to host the shower at her home, not too far from me. When I walked up the driveway the day of, I just knew it would be an epic day! My sister hung a replica of Monica's peephole frame on the front door! Nice touch!


After walking through the door, I got to experience the full theme. My sister decorated everything with a "Central Perk" theme! (The coffee shop from the TV show for you less avid fans) Right at the entrance were two games.


A ring game where you can't say the words "wedding" or "bride" or your ring gets taken away. EEEK! Not such an easy task at a bridal shower! The person with the most stolen rings at the end, wins.


Also there was a "guess how many coffee beans are in this jar" game.


As I turned the corner, it was like I was right on the set of the show! My sister hand painted the "Central Perk" logo onto glass which she put into a frame and hung above the fireplace. She filled my Aunt's sconces with coffee beans and even propped up a guitar and stool (for open mic night of course) complete with the lyrics to Phoebe's "Smelly Cat" song, tucked into the strings!



And then there was the outside! GASP! Gorgeous!!


They put up a tent and decorated each table with purple and gold linens. There was a lovely coffee bean "confetti" scattered around, along with GORGEOUS flower arrangements in a variety of coffee mugs. (Courtesy of my awesome floral genius Aunt)


 My Aunt also made this beautiful arrangement in the giant coffee mug, which decorated the gift table.


Each place setting had an adorable coffee mug candle favor. There were also 4 more games. A "who did what" game where you had to guess whether the Bride or Groom did things like "who said I love you first?" or "who is in charge of the remote?" There was a FRIENDS TV match up game where you had to match the main character to the smaller characters they dated, and also a purse scavenger hunt.


And then, every one's favorite part of any party, the food! My sister and Aunt made quite the spread!  My Aunt made a variety of different tortilla wraps as well as some cheese platters and fruit platters.





My sister made a really yummy quiche as well as scones with Devonshire cream and jams!


 And then there was the cake!



Complete with a hand made cake topper, it looked almost too good to eat! Although, I am glad that I had some because it somehow tasted even better than it looked!! My sister ordered it from a bakery in Brea called Beverly's best Bakery. It was chocolate cake with peanut butter butter cream filling and French butter cream on the outside. It was soooo good!!!

We did the first few games, which were a lot of fun!(I totally won the FRIENDS trivia one by the way) My sister got super creative with the prizes. She had little gift bags with a picture of one of the main characters on the outside of each bag. Each one had a gift card inside that coordinated to the character on the outside. ie: subway (sandwiches) for Joey and Charming Charlie (fashion) for Rachel etc.


The final game was the toilet paper game. Each guest had to take toilet paper and make something out of it that I could use on my wedding day. The guests got really creative! These were just 2 of the many entries, but they were my favorites! A lovely necklace.


And I thought this lingerie set was very detailed!


After the games, came the gift opening. Everyone got super creative with my sister's "date box" gift theme!





 There was a game night box, a luau, movie night, relaxing night in, fondue date night and so much more!!





My mother in law made me this adorable hoodie that says "real women marry men with beards" on the back.


And my Mom and sister gave us a Hollywood date night basket, complete with "VIP passes", bride and groom sunglasses and universal studios passes!


We were so impressed and excited by all of the creative dates and can't wait to get started using them! My sister certainly outdid herself on this one! And I know she appreciated all the help from my BFF and Aunt! The shower was absolutely AMAZING!!! Everything was just beyond perfect! I am just the luckiest girl in the world!! Thank you sis!!