It’s my day to host the Blog Baby Shower for Lindy Turner! Lindy of Crafted By Lindy is having baby #2!! To celebrate, we (me, alamodestuff and Smidge Box) are having 3 days of giveaways!!

When thinking about baby showers, I immediately think of my go-to present for a baby shower: a bunch of dyed onesies and socks. Quick to do and oh so useful, they’re always a favorite at the shower. I love seeing them all laid out in a color wheel! So, I thought I’d put together an Downloadable Tutorial on how to make these, so you too can whip out an amazing baby shower gift in a very short amount of hands-on time:

And, as a blog party isn’t any fun without a giveaway, I thought I’d give away this set of 6 onesies (made with organic cotton even!) and socks that I dyed this week to write this tutorial.

How to enter:

1) Visit BOTH shops, Crafted by Lindy and Candied Fabrics shop.

2) Choose 1 favorite item from each shop and come back here and comment (must comment on 1 item from each shop).

3) Be sure to leave contact info!

Additional entries (4 possible entries in all):

• 2 additional entries: you can enter this giveaway on all three sponsor’s sites! Enter once at alamodestuff, then comment here and at Smidge Box for 2 more entries! [All three blogs are on different time zones. If their post isn't up yet, please visit them again later.]
• 1 additional entry: subscribe to my blog, tweet, or blog about this giveaway and receive 1 additional entry.  Please leave an additional comment here telling me you did so!

One winner will be chosen randomly (random.org) at midnight tonight (March 11) Pacific (3 more hours to enter than yesterday – woohoo!) The winner will be announced tomorrow morning (March 12). Spread the word!

Thanks Kim!

Bags – how do I love thee, let me count the ways…

I really do not know WHY I love making bags so much. In fact, they do cause me a significant amount of stress sometimes! ONE source of stress is finding the right hardware. A lot of the hardware I see on bags that I admire is NOT available at my local Joann’s, Hancock Fabrics, Sewing Machine or Quilt Shop. So I’ve searched, and searched, and when I do find what I want, I usually end up buying 50 or more.

I’ve had one person ask me where I got my hardware, so I thought it would be worth sharing that info with everyone. I’ve just finished my taxes, and part of that process was taking inventory on all my hardware and stocking up on a few things, so NOW is the time to share this info with you.

Here are some lessons I’ve learned when it comes to looking for hardware:

1. Different people call hardware by different names. Frustration abounds because of this!
2. The lovely sites that are easy to navigate are often selling one or 2 pieces at a time – at a pretty high price…you’re paying for that pretty site! The sites where I’ve found some SIMPLE things are sometimes infuriatingly hard to navigate!
3. Late in the game I discovered that Etsy and Ebay are pretty good places to look for this stuff. (DOH!)
4. Hardware comes in different thicknesses, and even when they photograph the piece on a ruler you can still misjudge the size. I ordered some d-rings that were VERY thick. Too thick to use on a mini messenger I used to make, but I turned Lemons into Lemonade and use them on the convertible messenger/backpack bags and with the big thick swivel snaps. I’m glad I love the look because I’ve got 90 more!
5. There are lots of places that sell hardware for making dog collars, useful places but seriously, where do all these dog collars go?
6. The best place to find all the cool hardware you can’t find anywhere else is Hong Kong! (You may have to go pick up your package at the post office becasue they’ll thing it’s a strange package!)(And Yes, $26 for shipping on a package that is an 8″ x 10″ x 1″ envelope hurts, but the pricing STILL works out in my favor)

OK, here are my sources, and down below I’ve labelled up some photos with the hardware names.

• J Caroline Creative: It’s so sad, this is a very nice shop, but she’s pretty much closing down. But becasue she says she’ll still offer ribbon and hardware, I’ll include her becasue this is the best place for the key ring and key fob tip.
• DAN’s Bags and Purses Making Supplies: This is an Etsy seller located in Hong Kong (user name 3dPatternPaper). This is where I’ve found the neatest hardware. I convo her for larger quantities, she responds very promptly.
• Ah Kwok Supplies is an Ebay store, again in Hong Kong. Again, lots of cool hardware.
• Countrybrook Design: An ebay store specializing in dog collar hardware.
• Seattle Fabrics carries the rectangle rings and tri-glides (a.k.a. slides a.k.a. slide-adjusters) in all the sizes I need (1/2″, 1″, 1 1/2″, and 2″). Yeah, I know, really strange sizes, right? I really like to match the size of the straps to the size of the bag, so I looked HIGH and low for those. I also got lik 100 7″ zippers in bulk an an amazing sale they were happening to have…did you know you can get zippers that AREN’T stapled to a cardboard package? I sure didn’t! I will be very sad when these run out…

5 little bullet points = countless hours of searching the internet, when I could have been reading fun blogs or MAKING! sigh.

I KNOW there are lots of other places to find this stuff, but these are my go to’s! And again, I can’t stress enough how different people will call the same hardware by another name, so always make sure you see a nice picture of whatever you’re buying!

EDIT: Ooh – if you have any other sources for hardware – feel free to share them with us in the comments!

Hope this helps someone!

OK SO, it’s Christmas eve eve…how did I do with my pre-Christmas plans?

1. Trim the tree: Yup! I blogged about it here, discussing how my tree reflects my personality, philosophizing abounds
2. Make new wreath: Yup! It’s not the one I wanted to make, but Logan wanted to do a gumdrop wreath instead. Photo coming tomorrow!
3. Make new garland: Yup…but I’m not happy with it, so no photos for you. I must think about it some more! I DID, however, make some fabulous, contest winning  new ornaments!
4. Make Christmas cookies: Yup! Would you like one?
5. Make gingerbread houses: Nope, this didn’t happen – however, Logan did make a wonderful Lego creation and asked me to blog about it, so here it is, “Safe Island”:
   
6. Watch The Grinch (original, none of this Jim Carrey stuff): Yup!
7. Liam’s holiday concerts: Yup, but no pix
8. Watch Rudolph: Yup!
9. Trombone Christmas Carols: Yup! A cool tradition started by a longterm S CA trombone player who plays in the Redlands Symphony with my hubby, it’s a gathering of many trombone players to play Christmas carols outside his house, to the delight of guests and neighbors! Liam actually got to play along on some of them, a BIG step for this budding trombonist!
10. Christmas eve tradition, watch A Christmas Story: On track for tomorrow. I’ve even added “White Christmas” to our DVR so we can have a double feature, we’regoing to have cheese fondue for dinner and chocolate fondue for dessert – doesn’t that sound FABULOUS?

So, overall, I’m doing pretty well in the fun Christmas things. I’ve got a mound of presents to wrap, a bunch were sent out last week, and we’re baking a Buche de Noel tomorrow for Christmas dinner dessert.  This is the 3rd or 4th year when we haven’t gone to celebrate with my family in Massachusetts. When we lived in Chicago, Kentucky and Ohio, we were able to drive to my husbands hometown of Logansport, IN for Thanksgiving each year, then make the longer trek, still by car, to Bridgewater, MA and my family each Christmas. Our 1st couple of years in Cali we went to MA for Xmas via plane, but that meant leaving our dog in a kennel, lots of expensive, annoying travel, no real rest, and as the kids got older, it got harder and harder for all of us. It gets kinds of tough to get a bunch of new toys and 1 hour later 8 cousins are opening them all up and playing with them. I could go on a bit, but lets just say it was a very hard way to spend a wonderful holiday, after an exhausting semester, and we’d end up not being rested for the next semester.

So, I miss my family terribly during this holiday, but at the same time I love being our very own core unit, complete with a happy dog. But, I am really trying to make Christmas time in S CA with no snow, no family nearby as fun as it can be!

Now – to start wrapping!