Almost Summer!

Good afternoon! We are counting down to Summer around here! My kids get out of school next Friday, May 23rd! A couple of weeks ago I made the trip down to Ruthie’s Notions in Baker, Florida to teach a Basics of Applique class (my usual topic). I was there for 2 days, and managed to snap 3 whole pictures. Below are some samples that I have sewn (or appliqued or monogrammed)  and took to show. Everyone just LOVED all of the blanks! These are all Applique Cafe designs of course. I believe all of the monogramming is Monogram Wizard Plus “Master Circle” font.

photo (36)

More monogrammed and appliqued items! I am obsessed with the colors in this bag!! It’s a coral-y peach color monogram (Monogram Wizard Plus “Master Circle” font) on a “spa” colored jute bag, which came from a local store that I do monogramming for. The towel and bag were both Mother’s Day gifts for my mom! 🙂

photo (37)

I also took lots of awesome blanks that I did not get a chance to stitch! Again, everyone went crazy over all the blanks! There is a list of blanks suppliers here on my blog – click HERE (in LINKS).

photo (38)

Here are several new designs we will be listing later today! I love Bird designs! You could also put fabric under the nest stitching and make it raggy (fabric + flannel). blog birds closeup blog birds

This is a great one for the boys! We live near Lake Martin (Alabama) so we spend a lot of time on a Pontoon Boat! These are my favorite colors for summer {after the spa/coral color combo}!blog boat

This Pontoon Boat was sewn by Glenda at That’s 2 Cute. Find her on Facebook! She added some ric rac for the water which is adorable!!

blogthats2cutepontoon2

This is our new Mini Raggy Oval Patch, which can be sewn on anything. I typically use a layer of flannel (white or any color) underneath my fabric for raggy designs. You simply trim, leaving about 1/8″ around (give or take) and then scrape with your scissors to create the raggy effect. For this VISOR, I stitched the patch on a medium weight tearaway stabilizer. I hooped the stabilizer, then sewed the patch on to it just like any applique (fabric + white flannel). I then trimmed around the patch, pulled away the stabilizer and glued it to the visor using Fabric Fusion fabric glue. You could also stitch this on using a cap frame/cap hoop if you have a multi needle machine. blog visor

Here is the same patch on a pair of cute lounge shorts. These were sewn by Glenda at That’s 2 Cute (custom monogramming and appliques). Precious!!!!!blogthats2cute

This is Whale 4 stitched on a Blanks Boutique onesie. Their onesies snap up the back, which makes it super easy to monogram and applique! I was able to get a 5×7 design on this onesie.

blog whale

Again, here’s That’s 2 Cute’s version on a cute pink Monag dress. Remember my post about Pic Monkey? That’s what she used to add the “water” overlay on the photo!

blogthats2cutewhale

We are working on getting these listed as I type! In case you didn’t know, all designs are on sale through tomorrow, Wednesday, May 14th! www.appliquecafe.com Have a great day!!

IMG_8865

Pic Monkey

Happy Monday-post-Spring-Break! I have actually gotten a lot done today. Another quick post I wanted to share with you about photo editing software. I’ve shared before and most of you know I use Photoscape for photo editing (resizing, brightening up a photo, cropping, adding my watermark, etc.). It’s free and super easy to use. I also use Photoshop Elements 10 to remove the background of my photos. See THIS POST for more on that. I have also been using Pic Monkey lately and I love it! It’s how I jazzed up the following few photos. Yes, it’s a lot of photo software! I like each of them for different reasons, so why not!

Here I combined 4 design photos using Photoscape, but I added the lime border in Pic Monkey. baby bottle 300-horz

My favorite thing about Pic Monkey is the scallop borders (“craft scissors”) you can add!

carrot 2 300-horz christmas tree 9 plain 500

They also have lots of cute font options to add text!

zig zag hope 300-tile birds 300-tile

Here is just a smidge of font options you can chose from.

pcfonts

There are lots of border options, but I love the craft scissor options!

pcframes

You may not have noticed the link on the right side of my blog, but that’s the best way to get to Pic Monkey! You can use it for free and look around. I paid the $33 for a year of “Royale” which gives you lots of options! You can use Pic Monkey to edit photos from your computer, create photo collages and also design stuff from scratch. I use digital paper a lot I find on Etsy and add photos and borders.

pcpage

Anyway, there’s the scoop on that! Click the link on my blog shown above to take a look!