You can save it!!

Posted by on April 11, 2011

Sorry for the sporadic posts! Things are a bit crazy around here. This is Sissy’s room. She now sleeps in Browder’s room (in his bed) so her room is a staging area for boxes of stuff that will be stored. We packed a TON of stuff this weekend and are only moving the bare essentials to the rental house! Should be fun!

In my last post (I think?) I mentioned saving outfits & dresses & tops that had monograms on them. Some were given to me and some were consignment sale finds! On our way to & from Augusta I picked them out with a seam ripper and a lint brush (for cleanup). This was a top that was given to me and it has a curlz “G” on it. It was a fat G so it was easy to cut out! Sorry I didn’t take my “before” picture. This is what was left…

I decided to cover it with EB’s Lollipop! This top has cute ribbon trim on the bottom (which I did not capture on my photo).

After… the bottom ribbon trim is hot pink with lime dots, so it looks GREAT! There are also matching shorts with ribbon trim too. Cute outfit and it was FREE! Just took a little time to fix! You can see a little bit of the curlz “G” hanging down on the right of the stick underneath the lollipop, but I think it’s barely noticeable and will probably come out in the wash!

Here is another outfit (shorts too) that someone gave me. In exchange I did some monogramming and applique for her. She gave me several other dresses but I haven’t redone them yet! I will post pics when I do. Love the ice cream cone, but there is no way I was about to pick out the double name! Once you pick out a monogram you will learn quickly which ones are fat and easy and which ones to COVER!

I decided to do EB’s Raggy Flower (one of my favorites!). As you can see I marked my center in the ice cream cone, then marked another center for the center of the entire design (near the bottom of the cone). I used that to line up my needle so that hopefully the flower would cover the existing design. Since I’m doing raggy too, I have some room to play around b/c the fabric will be bigger than this outline stitch. Even though the “y” is hanging out, the fabric of the raggy flower will cover it. Remember: I use a layer of flannel underneath each fabric used in a raggy design. See this post!

Since I am obsessed with orange and I love it with pink, I used the Michael Miller Ta Dot in orange with some pink, lime & orange paisley fabric I’ve had since FOREVER ago! This turned out really cute! There is no sign of the ice cream cone and “Mary Bradley”!!

We’ll be listing several new designs tonight at Applique Cafe and that’ll probably be it until we move (Easter weekend). Speaking of Easter, all Easter designs (“Easter Stuff” category) are 50% off!

Filed Under: Design, How To | Tagged:

If Coffee Cups Could Talk!

Posted by on March 28, 2011

I’ve been trying to get this post together for a week, but with the house goings-ons I haven’t had a chance! The purpose of this post is to introduce you to my friend Amie (below) and her “new” blog, Linen and Boxwoods. She did a fabulous post on me Friday and how Applique Cafe got started. While we don’t normally stage photo shoots at local coffee houses, we DO meet for coffee quite often (almost weekly over the past few years) and decided what better way to talk about each other’s blogs than with fabulous photos from Grace Photography Studio. (Thanks to Grace for taking them for us!) It was quite hilarious but the pictures turned out great and it really captures what our (sometimes) weekly coffee sessions really mean to us ~ girl time, mom time, and most importantly NO KID time! It’s an hour a week that I look forward to and am just thankful coffee cups can’t talk! Lately we’ve been discussing BLOGS. Her new blog is a collaboration with her cousin Caroline, who lives in Atlanta. While I’ve been blogging for some time, we talk a lot lately about WordPress and what’s coming up with their blog posts (Snootie Foodie, Fashion Forward, etc…).

The basis for their blog is “inspiration to live beautifully… inside and out”. They mostly post about home fashions and what you might see in your favorite decorating magazines and in the Southern Homes & Gardens Interiors Showroom, but they also talk about fashion, food, mom stuff, kids and all the other things we all love to blog (and read) about!

LOVE this picture! We really do spend a lot of time looking at stuff on our phones! What did we do before smart phones?

Someone said it best this past week when I previewed this photo ~ we are enjoying LIFE! The caffeine is great too!

Amie’s drink of choice: usually a Chai Tea Latte. Me: Peppermint Mocha (I’m off the Frappacinos but still get one every once in a blue moon).

Amie has grown up in the family business ~ Caffco International, Southern Homes & Gardens and Capitol’s Rosemont Gardens. She has worked in product development for Caffco for the past 11 years and has grown up going to Market, traveling abroad and being around beautiful home decor. If you’re familiar with Southern Living at Home (now Willow House), Amie worked closely with them (SLAH) on their product line, much of which was developed through Caffco. She also loves to draw and paint, and says blogs and magazines are her joy and eyes to the outside world! This girl knows her stuff! She also loves to garden and cook and makes a mean batch of fried okra (ask Jeff)!

For those of you who aren’t from around here, SH&G is a local home & garden store with a beautiful showroom and garden center down the road from me in Montgomery. They have an “Interiors” showroom in the store (see pics from L&B blog below) which is the basis for a lot of the things you might see on their blog. They had Spring Open House there this weekend so I drooled my way through the store and Interiors room making my (dream) wish list for our future house! Who would not love a dining room table like this?

Here is a little more “about them” from their blog:

This blog is a collaboration of two busy Mama’s (Amie & Caroline) who just happen to share a love for creating home environments… and who also just happen to be family (they are first cousins)! We’ve teamed up to bring a little more fun into our family business! Amie is the editor extraordinaire, pulling fresh ideas and products to feature, and keeping you on top of trends to make having a beautiful home look easy. Caroline is the lean, mean writing machine who will hopefully make decorating your home seem a little less intimidating and a little more entertaining! We certainly don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are serious about finding new ways to live beautifully!

More about Amie:

I am a wife to the most amazing husband and mother to two precious children. I graduated from Auburn University in graphic design forever ago. Now I am a thirty something product designer by day and obsess about architecture, interior and landscape design, graphics, fashion, photography and FOOD….by night! I am excited about our blog in hopes to inspire others, as so many blogs have inspired me!

More about Caroline:

I am a wife to one hunky hubby, and Mama to a little bulldozer of a baby boy and one furry family member. Life around my house is crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! I keep track of the chaos on our family blog, and I keep my sanity by writing this one! After spending four years in the loveliest village on the plains at Auburn University, I traveled abroad and made some amazing memories, before putting down roots in Atlanta, GA. For now, its big city livin’ for this small town girl. I love to make things pretty and I am always interested in finding new ways to make a house feel like a home!

You’ll see on their blog that they are also on Facebook and Twitter! Check them out, and join us for coffee anytime!

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Misc | Tagged: Tagged With:

Work-a-thon 2011!

Posted by on March 25, 2011

Since we signed the contract on our house yesterday I instituted an immediate work-a-thon to get my customer work out of the way (so that I could then move on to the next stress)!! I think I did 8 shirts today and 6 – 8 yesterday. I’m down to 12 or 13 I think and hope to get them all done in the next day or two. We will then focus on WHERE IN THE HAY ARE WE MOVING? So, next week we will either have a house we will hopefully move in to when we close on April 22 (out of here by April 25), or we may do the apartment scene (for as few months as possible) until we can find something. We really don’t want to do that, but don’t want to just buy something out of panic! We have a house in mind we want to buy, but the owners are house shopping this weekend one last time and we will find out Sunday if they are going to sell to us. My house was cleaned today so I got kinda sad and wondered if we were doing the right thing! I know we are, but still get a little seller’s remorse!! My kids are running around like crazy right now (at 8:42 pm) so I KNOW we’re doing the right thing. Sometimes my house gets very very very small!!

Here is a shirt I did today, and THE HOOP GOT ME!! It happens once in a blue moon where the hoop is just too tight, and when it snapped in place I was questioning whether or not I made a hole. I went ahead with the shirt and sure enough, when I unhooped… HOLE! Luckily my customer just happened to be going to Target today and she was able to bring me another one to do while she waited. It happens! 🙁 On the new one I also put the name underneath and it showed up better, so it all worked out! These are the Cherokee girl toddler tees from Target and they are really cute! BTW I tried to fabric glue the hole to give to my customer so her daughter could at least wear it in the back yard, but somehow got HNBL on the back of the shirt, so it ended up in the trash!

Just a closeup of the AC Butterfly I did to match a bubblegum pink skort. My customer brought me all kinds of cute cotton plain (probably inexpensive) skorts to match. I need to go get some for Mallory because the “outfits” all turned out so cute with the applique tees! I believe they came from Walmart, Target and Kohls.

Here is the AC Tiara Frog which is going with a hot pink skort.

Here are all the tees (with matching skorts) I did for Madeline! AC Flower in the middle!

And here are all the tees I did for Lucy! AC Tiara, Simple Bunny and Mermaid! My customer mentioned hot pink hair for the mermaid and I wasn’t so sure about it, but I love how it turned out with the dot fabric! Who says mermaids are blond or brunette!

Lastly I did these tanks to match the Kohl’s skorts. The left one is light pink and I used the zig zag double circle; petal patch on the right. I get asked a lot what the petal patch font is and it is from Embroidery Arts ~ Empire. It’s a little more expensive than some websites, but it is one of my go-to fonts. It stitches perfectly every time! The sun was shining a little too bright!

Check out Whimsical Fabrics on Facebook ~ they have an Etsy store and have some really cute Riley Blake fabrics. You can convo them for smaller amounts (less than 1 yard)! I love the Riley Blake Quite Contrary fabrics, and there is also a CUTE Sugar & Spice green & pink striped fabric that I’ve never seen. They are trying to reach 1,000 fans so if you “like” them, tell them AC sent you! It’s a tight race between me and Applique Alley as to who can send the most fans! 🙂

I’m working on my Linens & Boxwoods post. I got the pictures we took Monday and they are fabulous! Here is a sneak peak of one…

You may be wondering why we had a photo shoot of us drinking coffee? I will explain when I post! L&B is also doing a post on me and Applique Cafe, so I will link that one in too! It’ll all make more sense! 😉 Until then you can wonder!! The fabulous pictures were taken by Grace. She is a miracle worker! She is honestly fabulous and so artistic!!

Tomorrow is a new day! Amie & I are meeting for coffee in the morning and we are also looking at 2 houses (me & Jeff, that is) after school. Have a great weekend and be on the lookout for my next post!

Filed Under: Applique Cafe, Design, Fabric, Family | Tagged: Tagged With:
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