Color Career Counselor - are you on the right track?

This was fun. Pick your career by color. Click on Color Career Counselor to see if you are actually doing what suits you best. Surprising is that my result only shows the word creative once... and confirms that what I'm presently doing isn't too far off the scope of what they say I'm best at. The teaching part got nailed. It's what I love best. "Not conform to company rules", I think this started as a teenager ;-)!

Your email is not required and you can just say "no thanks" to the ad that pops up.

Here are my results:

Best Occupational Category

You're a RESEARCHER

Keywords

Independent, Self-Motivated, Reserved, Introspective, Analytical, and Curious

Thee investigative types gather information, analyze and interpret data, and inquire to uncover new facts. They have a strong scientific orientation, enjoy academic or research environments and prefer self-reliant jobs. Dislikes are group projects, selling, and repetitive activities.

RESEARCHER OCCUPATIONS
Suggested careers are College Professor, Physician, Psychologist, Pharmacist, Chemist, Marketing Research, Inventor, Sales Forecasting, Project Engineer, Dentist, Identifying Consumer Demand, Chiropractor, Dentist, Medical Technician, Optometrist, Research & Development Manager, Respiratory Therapist, Real Estate Appraiser, Chiropractor, Veterinarian, Geologist, Physicist, Science Teacher, Medical Technologist, and Author of Technical Books.

RESEARCHER WORKPLACES
Task-oriented careers where you can become absorbed in the job, be original and creative, and not conform to rigid company rules will work best for you. Unstructured organizations, for example, that allow you to sail your own ship are vital.

Suggested Researcher workplaces are universities and colleges, home office positions, medical facilities, computer-related industries, scientific foundations and think tanks, research firms, and design laboratories.

2nd Best Occupational Category

You're a SOCIAL MANAGER

Keywords:

Tactful, Cooperative, Generous, Understanding, Insightful, Friendly, and Cheerful

This very social type enjoys working in groups, sharing responsibilities, and being the center of attention. Fields of interest are instructing, helping, nurturing, care giving and instructing-especially young people. They discuss and consider feelings in order to solve problems, lead, direct, persuade, guide, organize and enlighten others.

Try it and find out at what you are best suited... and then if you want share the results with me by clicking email me!

Embroidery Inspiration

Today, I want to share with you some inspiration. Inspiration can come from anywhere and in this day and age, technology offers one of the easiest ways to be inspired. One little word in the browser search box returns hours worth of inspiration. A right click on the image will give you the option to save the picture as a file.
Linens are one of my heart throbs. I love them old and new. I have all of my grandmother's bed linens along with her beautifully embroidered pillow cases. Every time I look at them, yes I actually use them, I can remember how they would come back from the laundry beautifully pressed and folded. The fresh laundry smell even comes back.
I love padded monograms. There is a distinct art to producing this quality of fine stitching. I think this is something I want to learn soon. Although, using a 60wt. cotton embroidery thread in the needle of an embroidery thread produces some wonderful results. Just be sure to iron from the wrong side with the embroidery on a thick terry towel. This preserves the puffy look.
Wouldn't it be a dream to crawl into this bed? I believe that most of these bed sets are from Schweizer Linens. However, I'd need to win a lottery or two to buy every set I would like to own... but oh the sweet dreams these would guarantee!
Sweet dreams, sew something heirloom.

March Calendar page....

March - another calendar page. At the end of the year, these all go into an album. Won't these be a great reminder of all that transpired this year? Of course the accompanying page will have photos from that month on it! A great way to 'write' history!

For detailed instructions go to the January calendar.

Supplies:
1- brown cardstock
5- decorative papers
Flourish stamps
Brown ink pad
ribbon
tag punch
rickrac ribbon - taupe
QK Calendar die set 1
QK Calendar die set 2
QK pop up windows
QK Santa's Workshop
QK 2x2 shamrocks die
t!m Holtz tiny attacher

A bit of sewing machine info

I thought that these videos found on YouTube would provide a bit of information and a bit of laughter to each of you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jbk1uU_Jkk






And if you want to learn a bit more about Bernina's, just click here.

I hope you enjoyed this bit of humorous history!

Just a few more hearts...for this year anyway

I scraplifted this page. When I saw it on-line, I knew it was the perfect venue to audition the new fringe scissors that I purchased. Now at least I can say I've used them once. Honestly, I think I'll be using these a lot. They are so much easier than cutting each fringe by itself as they cut 5 fringes at a time!
Since this is not my own design, I have provided a link at the bottom of the post so that you will have access to the same instructions I had. Have fun and enjoy!
My latest love is the Frosted Lace Stickles by Ranger. I just love the subtlety that it gives to objects on which it's been placed.
The font is Gazebo by QuicKutz.
I stamped the swirls before I placed the butterflies.
And then I went over the stamped swirls with more Frosted Lace. This is the multi-part butterfly die from QuicKutz.
I also stamped the mini hearts at top using a variety of inks (Distress, Chalk and VersaColor). Added a bit of Frosted Lace for more shimmer and shine.
I also dotted the large heart for the bigger butterfly with Frosted Lace Stickles.
Cut the opening of the large heart with an X-acto knife. Then placed lots of punched heart "tops" behind the opening. When I was pleased with the arrangement, and as a finishing touch, I sewed around the opening.
There is also a zigzag stitch at the bottom of the page over 3 layers of fringe and a strip of coordinating cardstock.
I hope you have fun creating your own page. For the original and the tutorial click here!

February QuicKutz club

As promised you can't see hearts, it's barely a Valentine page, and there's lots of room for journaling and a picture. A bit of lace, ribbon, some snow puff paint, decorative brads, white flowers and a Maya Road journaling tag finish off these pages.
Supplies:

1 - black cardstock
3- Vintage Valentine by Nancie Rowe-Janitz papers
ecru lace
black/cream mini check ribbon
Snow writer pen
Maya Road clear journaling tags
2 - off white flowers or appropriately sized QK die
2- black/white check brads
4 - red or red w/ white polka dot mini brads
MS lattice edge punch
QuicKutz: CC Border 052 - Scroll tree
Speech bubble heart (club die from last yr) QC-0012
Removable tape
adhesives of choice
brad setting tools
Alcohol inks in Butterscotch and Terra Cotta

See you February 16th at 10am!

Vintage Valentine Images challenge

I've posted lots of antique valentine images for you to use to create a charmer of your own.














To be entered into a random drawing, use one of these images to create a valentine of your own. Once your creation is complete, attach it to an email to me. There is an email link right below the 'Thoughts' section. I'll draw a winner on Sunday evening February 14, 2010.

So here's my rendition of the new QK postcard die. I backed it with a contrast piece of paper cut out using the around the corner MS punches. A few stamps, some gold embossing, gel pens, and stickles and I was done! Can't wait to see your creations..

Crazy hearts.. I finished something

I love crazy quilting. I think of all the sewing avenues, this has to be my most favorite. Scraps of fabric, yarns, threads, buttons, lace, trims, ribbons, stitches are delectable ingredients in this art form. For those of you unfamiliar with this type of sewing, click here for an on-line class. No rules, no boundaries, no limits.

I had started this piece of crazy quilting about a year ago. I promised some friends that I'd show them how this coming Tuesday evening. There is nothing like a deadline to light a fire under me to complete something! I had the piecing complete, not the decoration, so I still had a bit of work to do.
Once the hand stitching (oh and a bit of machine stitching too) was finished, I placed a piece of embroidery stabilizer on the right of the completed piece, sewed a heart shape and then trimmed to around the stitching, clipping in corners and curves. Then I snipped a small opening into the stabilizer so that I could then turn the piece right sides out.
Press the edges and the heart now has a clean edge with no raw threads hanging out. Pure magic.
I stamped my favorite piece using archival ink in brown on the 'center' piece.
A few close ups follow of the hand and machine stitching. The pink flowers are a purchased trim. The floral stitch is hand-stitched with multi-colored thread.
A simply way to get perfect cross stitches are to mark every 1/4" with a water soluble marker. When the stitching is finished, dab the marks with water and they are gone.
A basic couching stitch decorates the edge of the beige/white check linen.
The hanging holes were punched in the piece with a crop-a-dile. No need to finish the opening, the ribbon covers the raw fabric edges.
The cording is attached using a #10 edgestitch foot. Click the link for a video! I placed the finished heart edge on one side of the center blade on this sewing foot. I placed the cording on the other side of the center blade of the foot. Then thread your machine with monofilament thread. Adjust the zigzag stitch so that it takes a bite into the cording and into the finished edge of your project, sew around the piece and you have a professional finish in half the time!
To create a piece that can be hung - attach a chipboard (that stuff at the back of a paper pad) heart to the back of the completed heart. I used steam-a-seam II to attach the two together.

Have a great week. Check back for some blog candy this week!
PS.. I was in Joann's this past week and guess what I found on the sale shelves.. some of the metallic hearts used in the previous post. On sale no less. Life is good.