2011 - Page 3 of 24 - Crap I've Made

Giveaway: 101 Tees, by Cathie Fillian + BONUS!

November 16, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made

So, I may or may not be at jury duty right now. I’ve got free crap to keep you entertained whilst I’m dealing with that. Today I have a copy of 101 Tees by Cathie Fillian. Tomorrow? It’ll blow your ever loving mind. Promise.

This is a super fun book in which Cathie shows you 101 ways to refashion, makeover, and improve your standard boring run of the mill t-shirt.

AND, because everyone can’t be a winner (no matter what your mom told you), I’ve got a fun freebie for EVERYONE. The nice folks at Lark Books has provided a PDF on how you can make your own “Tattered Chic T”!

Tattered Chic T

Fun, right?

TO ENTER TO WIN THE BOOK:

Leave a comment ON THIS POST (not on Facebook or in response to your email subscription) telling me about your favorite tee. Where did it come from? What color is it? Have you made any “improvements”?

1 entry per person, please.

This book was sent to me by Lark Crafts. I’m footing the bill for the postage. Giveaway is open to US residents age 18 and over only and closes Monday, November 21st at 10pm MST. Winner will be chosen at random using a WordPress Plugin (And The Winner Is…) and notified by email. Winner has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

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Giveaway: Fresh Fabric Treats

November 15, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made

So, I may or may not be at jury duty right now. I’ve got free crap to keep you entertained whilst I’m dealing with that. Today I don’t have meat, but I do have a signed copy of Fresh Fabric Treats:

My copy was signed by Vanessa Christenson of V & Co (she uses the word “crap” twice), Natalia Bonner of Piece N Quilt and Kimberly Walus of bitty bits & pieces. It was purchased with my own money for the benefit of my bloggy readers.

TO ENTER:

Leave a comment saying what the last thing you sewed was.

1 entry per person, please.

Giveaway closes Sunday night at 10pm MST and is open to US residents age 18 and over only. Winner will be chosen at random using a WordPress Plugin (And The Winner Is…) and notified by email. Winner has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

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Giveaway: Omaha Steaks courtesy of Plum District

November 14, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made

Are you familiar with Plum District?

Plum District is a deals site by moms and for moms.

The busiest people in the community—moms—are often the most plugged-in. And for them, the Internet is often the best tool to (re)discover what’s in their own backyard. Plum District was created just for them. Plum District connects moms with daily deals and inspirations from businesses in their community, and helps them get the most out of their day—for their families and for themselves.

In addition to fabulous local deals in almost 50 major metropolitan areas (and growing), they offer EVERYWHERE DEALS that can be enjoyed by anyone. Like today, for example, they’re offering an INSANE deal on Omaha Steaks.

How does $59 for 2 (5 oz.) filet mignons, 2 (4 oz.) boneless pork chops, 4 (4 oz. approx.) boneless chicken breasts, 8 (3 oz.) gourmet franks, 8 potatoes au gratin, and to top it off, 4 Individual NY cheesecakes plus free shipping sound?

Guess what else? I get to give one of those Omaha Steaks packages ($168.99 retail value) away! Details/specifics/restrictions on the package I’m giving away are available HERE.

TO ENTER:

Head on over to Plum District. Have a look around. Come back and leave a comment on this post telling me what your favorite deal is…THAT’S IT. Easy peasy, right? One entry per person, no hoops to jump through. Hot dog! (More like 8 of them in your Omaha Steaks pack…ha!)

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If you’re a Salt Lake area local and want to keep up on local deals, you can find Plum District of Salt Lake on Facebook here.

Plum District also has a new “Give Back” program where Plum District gives 10% back to local non-profits and schools. You can email my pal Michelle at michelle.peterson@plumdistrict.net if you’re interested. (We really are pals…we were student body officers together in high school. I suspect she has A LOT of embarrassing pictures of me.) If you are on the PTA board and are interested in something like that for your local school or non-profit, Michelle can set you up (even if you’re not in UT).

Giveaway closes Friday, November 18th at 10pm MST. Winner must have an address that meets the requirements listed in the link above. Giveaway is open to US residents age 18 and over only. Winner will be chosen at random using a WordPress Plugin (And The Winner Is…) and notified by email. Winner has 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen.

TOTALLY FORGOT TO MENTION: You can save 10% on the Omaha Steaks deal by using code “fabulous” at check out. Go nuts!

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Accessorize Much?

November 10, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 3 Comments

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Jewelmint for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

Confession: Even when I was not old and fat, I was never much of an accessorizer. I got my ears pierced for the first time when I was 16. (My mom told me I had to keep my room clean for 2 weeks, and that was is just not something I’m capable of doing.) And then once my ears were pierced, I went the “wacky” route…things like rubber rat earrings (which I may have even worn to Homecoming for a laugh).

Obviously accessories are not my strong point.

I’ve been known to show up at my sister’s store and demand that she tell me what to wear. I’ve also been known to rifle through my 11 year old’s jewelry box in a moment of desperation, and come out with an owl necklace. I’m 36 years old. I need help.

Enter Jewelmint.

JewelMint was created by fashion icon Kate Bosworth and Cher Coulter (Hollywood stylist of the year).

What makes JewelMint different from other jewelry sites?

1) Everything is $29.99, shipping included.

2) You get personalized recommendations based on your Style Profile results.

3) If your Style Profile results aren’t quite “you” (like my first batch), you have the option to mark what you don’t like about each piece and get more recommendations.

(my first set of recommendations…too fancy and gold for my liking)

(my recommendations after a little tweaking)

4) You have a professional stylist giving you new recommendations EVERY month.

Fun, right? My pal Lara (who accessorizes with the best of them) has several of their pieces and she says the quality is great. One of my favorite things on the whole site is the Bambina Cameo Ring. Lara owns it, and she’d better not wear it to lunch with me if she wants to continue owning it. Winking smile

I also enjoyed the Dahlia Blossom Ring and the Garden Patch Trio.

Are you interested in trying Jewelmint for yourself? Use promo code IZJEWEL50 for 50% off your first item for first time Jewelmint buyers – good until 11/30/11!

Here’s to happy accessorizing and never wearing rubber rat earrings ever again!

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Fabric Giveaway: Morning Tides by Mark Cesarik

November 9, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made

I know you guys are HUGE fabric fans, so when I got an email from Mark Cesarik introducing me to his new fabric line (Morning Tides for Free Spirit), I knew I needed to ask about a giveaway.

Random story alert - Purple and yellow = pretty much my favorite color combination EVER. It reminds me of pansies. I owned a purple car and a purple couch at the same time. The maid of honor at my wedding wore purple and there were yellow flowers in her bouquet. Poorly scanned photographic evidence of that:

Where was I?

Oh yeah…the fabric! When Mark got back to me and told me what the nice folks at Free Spirit were willing to giveaway, I may have squealed out loud.

Are you sitting down?

(If you’re not, that’s kinda weird…who reads blogs whilst standing?)

Free Spirit has agreed to give SIX YARDS of Morning Tides to FOUR separate (and SUPER lucky) Crap I’ve Made readers!

I KNOW!!!

TO ENTER:

(Do as many or as few as you want, leave a separate comment ON THIS POST for each.)

1 – Tell me what you’d make with SIX YARDS of Morning Tides.

2 – Click on over to Mark’s blog. Leave him a comment. Tell him hello, tell a joke, compliment his designs…whatever. Just let him know you were there and you appreciate this fabulous giveaway.

3 – Like Mark’s design page on Facebook.

4 – Follow Mark on Twitter.

5 – Tell me what color your prom dress was. (Mine was midnight blue. And what does that have to do with anything? Nothing. Nothing at all.)

Giveaway closes Sunday night at 10pm MST. The winners will receive an email from me. I’ll post first names on the blog as well.

Ready? GO!

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Filed Under: fabric, giveaway

Tuesday

November 8, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 7 Comments

Hey there! I’m checking in for just a second to talk about a couple of things:

1) If your name is Charity, check your email (and spam!) because you could very well be the winner of the Rachael’s Soap giveaway.

2) If you love fabric, you will for sure want to be here tomorrow morning…especially if you love SIX yards times FOUR different winners. I KNOW!!!

3) I’ll be guest posting tomorrow over at Positively Splendid as part of her A Swell Noel series.

I’m showing you how to make a faux grain sack pillow. (Because really…who has a bunch of grain sacks lying around?). Mine sports a Santa silhouette, but you can use my tutorial to put words, initials, dates, etc on your own version.

Doesn’t that look like it’s part of a vintage coffee/feed sack? And it’s CHEAP, too (unlike these found grain sack pillow covers at Pottery Barn, which are EIGHTY NINE dollars..yikes!).

4) I have jury duty next week. Yes, again. If you’re a long time reader, you’ll remember I had jury duty last December and like 26 months before that as well, so 3 times in barely 3 years. Woo. Since I didn’t actually have to go in last December, I’m up again. I’ll be calling in at 5pm nightly to see if I have to show up the next morning. Because of that, I’m going to have a week of giveaways for you. Monday will be a sponsored giveaway and then the rest of the week will be delightful crafty books. And, one of them is even signed by Vanessa of V & Co (she uses the word “crap” in her message). It’s the least I can do to keep you all interested whilst I’m off fulfilling my civic duty, right?

5) Just checking if you’re still reading. Open-mouthed smile

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True Colors

November 5, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 15 Comments

Here’s that more accurate color shot of my Silhouette limited edition advent calendar that I promised you.

($10 off using code “CRAP” through the 11th)

And because we’re keeping it real, I still don’t have numbers on all the drawers. I can, however, see my kitchen counter for the first time in weeks. So that’s something, right?

Other random things about the advent calendar:

The information that comes with the calendar says it takes 25-50 sheets of paper. That’s quite a range, right? If you make the option with the drawers, 25 sheets of 12 X 12 will be plenty. There’s no drawer cut that takes more than one sheet of paper. If you have the Silhouette SD, you’ll have to be a little more careful about where you split your designs and how you cut your papers, but you’ll be OK.

If your paper is directional, be sure that one of the sides with the hole (which becomes the notch) in it is facing the right direction. I did not do this and had to junk my first 2 boxes.

The papers I used came in a cardstock stack from Michael’s. I think with a coupon it was around $12.

Save your scraps. You’ll have plenty to put the numbers on your drawers.

There’s also a cutting template for a backing paper for each square, if you want it to look pretty with the drawers removed. Or, if you want to use the shadow box as an actual shadow box/display case.

Other random things not related to the advent calendar:

You have until tomorrow night to enter the Rachael’s Soap giveaway.

I still haven’t heard from our Scentsy winner. If your name is Beverly, you’d better be scouring your spam folder to see if you missed an email.

And, since football season is over and I finally have my life back, I got a new hair cut/color courtesy of Neighbor Jami. It’s the reddest I’ve been since an unfortunate run in with a shade called Terracotta in college. It should have been called Ronald McDonald, and that’s all I’m saying about that.

Hope your weekend is fabulous! I’ve got big plans to do some serious decluttering and to remedy the Teen Wolf hair situation my boys are sporting.

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Basketball Player Costume, On the Cheap

November 3, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 20 Comments

In 3rd grade at my kids’ elementary, they get to participate in a wax museum. Each kid reads a biography and then dresses as that person for an oral report. The parents (and the rest of the school) get to come see all the kids in costume at once, posed and holding still. There’s the “wax museum” part of it. If you’ve been reading this blog for a really, really long time (hint: my mom), you might remember Macy’s Helen Keller ensemble.

Keller came home and announced that the biography he’d selected was for Steve Nash. Um, OK? The next sentence was “So you can just buy me a jersey or something…” Sorry, no. I love you but this is a book report. I’m not spending that kind of $$$ for a book report costume. I knew I had to get creative.

Supplies:

2 cheap-o t-shirts. Mine came from Michael’s and were 2 for $5. One was an adult size small and the other was an adult size XL.

Avery Personal Creations InkJet Iron-On Dark T-Shirt Transfers, White, Five Sheets per Pack (03279)
(I used 2 sheets out of the 5 sheet pack.)

You’re going to make the shorts from the XL shirt. Fold it in half and use the existing hem to save yourself some time. I traced a pair of Keller’s shorts and then just cut a little bigger for seam allowances. (Who am I kidding? This is a costume that will be worn for under 2 hours. I didn’t trace. I just cut.)

Be sure to include an extra 2” or so at the top for the waistband casing. Sew the inner seams on each leg and then sew the crotch seam. Make the waistband casing, insert some elastic and you’re done. Seriously…5 minutes.

For the “jersey”, I cut both sleeves off the size small shirt about where the (really wobbly) yellow line is in the picture below.

I pressed them under along the seam and stitched them in place so they wouldn’t flip back out. You could hem the t-shirt at this point if you want, but I just made my kid tuck it in (back to that whole “wearing it for less than 2 hours” thing).

For the Suns logo, I used the print and cut feature in my Silhouette Studio software. You can ABSOLUTELY do it without, you’d just cut out the shape with scissors. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: My Silhouette has made me lazy. Open-mouthed smile

Here’s a brief how to if you have a Silhouette and want to do it that way:

Find an image of your team’s logo. Open it in Silhouette Studio. Display your registration marks now so you don’t get all the way done and discover you made it like a millimeter too big. Trust. Once you’ve done that, you’re going to want to use the TRACE function (red arrow) and then select an area to be traced (green arrow).

Adjust your trace settings (bottom right hand side rectangle) until you get a good outline and then select the “TRACE OUTER EDGE” option (yellow arrow).

I’ve moved the logo out of the way so you can see what you just did a little more clearly. You can leave it put if your eyes are better than mine.

That line will cut precisely along the edge of the logo. I wanted a little white border, since my shirt was dark, so I used the “OFFSET” function. It’s under the “OBJECT” menu in the upper left hand corner. You can then change the thickness of the white border (blue arrow).

I still have the logo out of the way for the sake of tutorial clarity, but you’ll want to leave it put in real life. The last step is to change the inner most line so that your Silhouette will not cut it. You use the “CUT STYLE” menu (orange arrow) for this.

Change the inner line to “no cut” and leave the outer line as “cut”. Here’s what your finished design will look like before you print it from Silhouette Studio.

Print it on the Avery transfer paper and then put it on a mat and run it through your Silhouette. I used the medium cardstock settings. Apply it to your shirt following the package directions.

Put your name and number on the back, if you want.

Not bad for around $8, right?

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Filed Under: costumes, fabric, kids, sewing, Silhouette, tutorial

Giveaway: Rachael’s Homemade Soap Shop

November 2, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made

How’s about a fun little giveaway to get you through this dreary Wednesday? (OK, it’s probably not low 30’s and drizzly everywhere, but it sure as heck is here.)

Meet Rachael. She lives in the Seattle area and she makes soap. Cool, right? Rachael says:

I have been making soap for my family for the last 9+ years in my own kitchen. Recently I have taken it to another level and participated in some local craft sales under the SassyMei name. I have had an overwhelming response to my soap and have decided to set up an Etsy shop, Rachael’s Homemade Soap Shop.

The soaps come in a number of different scents that sound good enough to eat. Cranberry orange anyone? How about black raspberry vanilla?

In addition to the soaps, Rachael sells delightful little scrubbies (and they’re only 75 cents!!!).

Wouldn’t a box with some of each make a delightful gift?

Speaking of gifts, Rachael currently has a special Holiday Cheer section of her shop to help with your holiday gift giving needs. There you’ll find festively colored scrubbies and special holiday soap scents, among other things.

Everything in the shop (except for an entire batch of 16 bars of soap) is under $10. Nice, right?

What’s in it for you?

Rachael is giving one lucky Crap I’ve Made reader 4 bars of soap and 3 scrubbies of their choice!

TO ENTER:

Click on over to Rachael’s Soap Shop on Etsy. Have a look around. Come back and leave a comment ON THIS POST (on the blog, not on Facebook or in response to your email subscription) saying what your favorite scent is.

Bonus entries:

“Favorite” Rachael’s Soap Shop on Etsy. Leave a comment on this post saying that you did.

“Like” Rachael’s Homemade Natural Soap on Facebook. Leave a comment on this post saying that you did.

Giveaway will close Sunday night at 10 pm MST. Winner will be notified by email and will have 48 hours to respond.

FUN FREEBIE FOR ALL OF YOU:

Make a purchase from Rachael and mention Crap I’ve Made in the notes to seller to get a free scrubbie with your purchase!

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Silhouette Advent Calendar

November 1, 2011 By Char @ Crap I've Made 12 Comments

Did you survive Halloween?

3/4 of my children enjoyed it. And, we had quite possibly the best Utah trick or treating weather ever. It was so pleasant that I took the kids around wearing a cardigan. No parkas and thermal undies this year, baby!

I wanted to pop in quickly this morning to tell you a couple of things:

Fun giveaway tomorrow!

and

There’s a new Silhouette promotion starting today. They’ve put out a limited edition advent calendar! Through November 11th, you can pick the calendar kit up for $29.99, a $10 savings, using code “CRAP”.