I made this Valentine’s Day card for C. based on a card design in Chronicle Book’s, Handmade Hellos, by By Eunice Moyle and Sabrina Moyle. I used felt for the body of the octopus and embroidery floss to sew on the button eyes and mouth. For the tentacle suckers, I glued on holes punched from colored paper. The inside of the card says, “Sucker For You.”


My son, H, designed this lion themed card for E’s Valentine’s Day. I used felt for the head, and embroidered the eyes and mouth. The inside of the card says, “I’m not lion, I love you.”



For H’s Valentine’s Day card, I used felt to make the brid body, beak, and eye, and craft feathers for extra decorative plumage. The inside of the card says, “You’re My Tweetheart.”



The Valentine’s Day presents for the kids with their cards. Snoopy Valentine’s day tshirts, heart socks, and candy for the girls. Itunes giftcard and candy for H.

I hardly ever have the time or planning necessary for creating more involved projects for baby gifts. I like to buy a small gift and match an embroidery project to the gift-a sun hat, a bib, or onesie.
I made this butterfly hat to give to my cousin’s new daughter for Christmas. The leather baby shoes are from Target, as is the sun hat. I hand drew the butterfly pattern with a pencil. Sometimes I will iron-on a pattern to the hats, but it is easy to burn the nylon fabric of the hat. I try to stick to simple designs that I can easily match or use transfer paper to trace a pattern.

Here are a couple more examples of baby gifts I made this summer to give to my husband’s co-workers.

hand drawn caterpillar, paired with a Zutano tee.


Cherries pattern is from Sublime Stitching.


The Vespa pattern was posted by Average Jane Crafter.

I almost lept out the door at the UPS man the other day when he dropped this off. I was so excited to get the new Sukie Iron-On Craft Pad from Chronicle. I had high hopes I would be able to pull off some quick Christmas gifts. The many designs in the craft pad are colorful and fun. I love the color pallette.
I was able to make this set of napkins and two baby tees.

Even though I followed the directions as closely as possible, I ran into a lot of problems. The transfers bled through substantially. If the iron was hot enough to transfer all the color, several times I burned the fabric. If the iron was cooler, the design did not transfer very well. Also, I washed the two baby tees and the animal design came almost completely off. The butterfly still looks good, but it is much lighter than in this picture. The napkins faired better. I think the design will hold on those. They are 100% cotton napkins from Target. All in all, if you are persistant you can make this work, but be prepared to have some false starts. It took a large amount of patience, a good movie to watch, and coffee to keep at it until the wee hours.

Next, I am going to try to come up with a project to do with the transfers once they have been used. I hate to throw out the pretty designs, so I want some kind of paper project to re-use these. Stay tuned.