Hoops and Babies

Gift giving season has started already! 

I have loads of friends and relatives with November and December birthdays,

and this month I also had a friend's baby shower to attend.

I'm not really inspired to shop for gifts anymore - the commercialism, the long waiting lines, the coupon/sale games, the not-having-the-right-size dilemmas, etc. etc. etc.  

Plus, the lack of the PERSONAL in those kinds of gifts.

The older I get, the more important it is for me to do things that have meaning to me, 

and hopefully, to the recipient.

So HANDMADE is my preferred way to go.

(plus, having a TON of crafting supplies spurs me on too!!!)

OK, blah, blah, blah.

I've had these embroidery hoops laying around for way too long, plus I love to collect lovely scraps of leftover fabric from my favorite charity shop, The Legacy, in Sebastopol.

Time to put them together........

This hoop was made for my friend Kelli's birthday gift.

Who doesn't like their initial?

Kelli's a hip dame with a sophisticated artistic style, hence this classy color scheme.

The monogram K was made by using a large stamp on scratch paper,

then pinning it to the fabric and cutting it out like a sewing pattern, 

and layering it over a canvas scrap that was cut as if it were a matte.

The way to make the flower on the left was taught to us at Brave Girls Camp, 

by Kathy Wilkins' 12-year-old daughter (!!!) - hint:  much hot glue was used.

The flower on the upper right is layered from a leather die-cut, a hand-cut canvas circle and a button.

The embelly on the bottom was purchased.

 This next hoop was made for my friend Jenny's baby shower.

Jenny had  POSTED how she made her hoops to decorate the baby's room,

so I followed her lead, for baby Isabel.

This beautiful fabric is from Stampin' Up.  

The monogram "I" was clip art I googled and enlarged, and again cut from the fabric like a sewing pattern.

The pink plastic doily is a vintage find from Etsy (ka-yoot!).

The flower embellies are all layered bits and die cuts from my stash.

Again, who doesn't like their initial?

Below is the card I made for Jenny.

The scallops are all die cut from decorative paper and fabric, all by Stampin' Up.

I love the fresh lavender-yellow-pink color combo!

I made the card extra large (5"X8" I think) because I wanted to fill it with a lot of scallop layers.

Why not?  More is MORE, right?

TFL!!!!!!!