Fabric Shoppe Giveaway

*NOW CLOSED - CONGRATS JENNIFER*

If you are a crafter/quilter/sewer/or just like to hoard fabric and look at it daily, I am sure you have heard of The Fabric Shoppe. They carry a huge selection of Modern Fabrics including, Amy Butler, Michael Miller, Alexander Henry, Robert Kaufman, Heather Bailey and a ton of others.

The owner, Jody, clearly has an eye for bright and fun fabrics. She also has a newly revamped blog, Everyday Beautiful, which is super cute. Also, I was impressed that she has almost 20,000 feedback posts from customers and it is 100% positive... hello!
 I might or might not have added a few things to my Christmas list. I'll take this please...Amy Butler's entire Lark Collection :)

and this for the boys...

Anyhoo, on to the good news for you... Someone is going to win free fabric!!!!! Click HERE to see it and to enter.

Cranberry Chutney Recipe

Hello real world, did everyone here in the US have a great Thanksgiving? I felt like it was Saturday for five days, and I love Saturdays :) You might ask, why are you giving us a Cranberry Recipe the week after Thanksgiving? Well, cranberries are good for the whole holiday season. That and I made this for my Mom's Thanksgiving which was the day after and I took pictures as I went, ha. 

A little back story: My aunt made this for Thanksgiving and brought it to my Mom's house about six years ago. It was a REALLY big hit with us. Now, I wonder why every family doesn't make it. It it the perfect accompaniment to every holiday feast. The citrus and black pepper cut the sweet and savory perfectly. Actually, just yesterday my Mom said. "I think I just need to have this on hand for life". It's that good. So, we emailed my uncle to get the recipe. Then I was curious and I googled it, I found many similar recipes that were named Cranberry Salsa but none exactly like this one. Does anyone make anything like this? If not, do yourself a favor and whip some up for Christmas. I followed my Aunt and Uncle's recipe exactly. My Uncle called it "Hudson's on the Bend Cranberry Chutney" which is a restaurant in Austin, TX, where they live. I wonder if this is some coveted secret?? My Uncle said "The trick to this recipe is to trust the ingredients…..don’t add to or subtract from".

Hudson's on the Bend Cranberry Chutney12 oz pkg of cranberries½ cup fresh lime juice and ZEST2 shallots½ tsp of salt1 whole bunch of Cilantro2-3 cloves of garlic1-2 seeded jalapenos1 ¼ cup light brown sugar¼ cup coarse ground pepper

Blend together in food processor 

My food processor isn't large enough so I mixed everything together in a bowl then "chopped" in batches

I put mine in mason jars and added a fake fall leaf with twine. But lets be honest, you could serve this out of some old tupperware with a plastic spork and it would be pretty. 

So... was this one anyone else's Thanksgiving plate? All of the recipes I found online called for green onion and white sugar with no black pepper (which I have to say is a definite must). And does anyone have a secret family side that is out of the norm?

The Land of Nod and a Giveaway

*giveaway now closed - congrats Aimee*

Have you heard of Land of Nod? If you have not, you are about to :) The Land of Nod is Crate and Barrel's "Kid Shop". They have unique furniture, bedding, games and toys. They have stuff for babies up through pre-teen (and stuff that cool moms like but might be too old for :)

Well here is another fun fact, did you know that I am a regular contributor to their awesome blog - Honest to Nod? If you are a mom or even if you aren't, it is a must read blog. Great recipes, projects and a ton of fun things to do with your kids. Well, the awesome people at The Land of Nod decided that for Christmas they were going to let me choose a toy to review with my kids then I get to give the same toy away. First of all... deciding on the toy was hard , it was like I was 10 again with a permanent marker and a toy catalog. Then I remembered I am a mom... oops. I wanted something that both of my boys could play with and I wanted a toy that would last a long time. One good thing about their toys is that they are high quality, and constructed well. My husband wanted the golf set or the race cars, both good options but I went with the ABC Puzzle. A classic.

Want to know what we thought and have a chance to WIN one just in time for black friday (trust me you do)... click HERE

GPS Case Tutorial

It's not too often around here that my husband gets something "TaylorMade". Sad but true. It's hard enough to sew for boys let alone old boys. But last week he actually had a special request. That never happens. He asked for a case for his new GPS. 

I came up with this...

Is it manly enough? Houndstooth is about as boyish as my fabric stash gets. And black is always masculine. 
This is so easy I can hardly call it a tutorial but, you need:-outer fabric-inner fabric (something soft, I used flannel)-small piece of batting-snap set-scrap piece of trim is optional
For Bryan's GPS's size I cut my fabric to 14" x 8".  Layer the fabric with right sides together and the batting on bottom. Y'all... I had a serious flannel lint problem! I had to use my lint roller between every step. Once its together its not so bad but during construction, I almost threw the whole thing away... see!

Sew the bundle together leaving an opening and clip the corners.

Flip it right side out.

With the outer fabric touching the GPS, place the GPS in the center of the rectangle and fold one side up to form a pocket.

Pin and sew up the sides of the pocket. Then flip right side out.

Add your snaps.

I added a scrap to the outside by folding and pressing a scrap to fit the outer flap them sewing it on with a zig-zag stitch. This will also close up the opening that you made to flip the rectangle.

The GPS now has a manly home :)

This could be a good stocking stuffer, quick and easy. What kind of man crafting do you do?

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Christmas Cards from Tiny Prints

This is one of my favorite things to talk about... Christmas Cards! Weird right? Well, I love to take pictures of my boys and photography is a hobby of mine which means, I am never in a picture with my family. Any other moms suffer from this problem? This year we found a local photographer who was offering Holiday Mini Sessions and I booked one! It was the very first professional picture either of my boys had ever taken. It went really well, I really liked her and I love every single picture she took. Look at this picture of my boys.

Ahh, precious!
After we had the pictures covered I had to pick a company to order my cards from. Last year I received a few cards from Tiny Prints and I was super impressed. They are thick, the paper has a great quality to it and they kind of have an artistic flair to them which clearly, I love. So my husband and I literally spent two hours trying to narrow it down, I almost wish they would have less choices.
Here are the runners up...I LOVED this card the most but with the photo I wanted, I felt like it was cutting off our feet. Would be super cute with a back and white picture of up close faces!

love these rounded corners

here is first runner up, almost went into the cart :)

and the winner is.....

 look how cute the back is

Don't you love it? And if I know you personally and I send you a card every year, I am sorry I ruined the surprise :) The cards will make it up to you in visual appeal.

Another good thing about Tiny Prints is that each card had a shape and color option so you can really customize every option to fit the picture you want to pick. 

Ok... I want to know all of the details of your Holiday Pictures, Christmas Cards, are you using Tiny Prints too this year? I am telling you I like this subject, yay Holidays. 

*this post was sponsored by Tiny Prints but all opinions are 100% mine :)*

I Made a Shirt

Now you might be thinking, you have never made a shirt? I have made stuff for my kids, I have made whole costumes in college (my degree is in costume design) and I have refashioned enough for a lifetime. But I have never made a shirt for myself. I feel pretty accomplished now. 

Don't get too excited, I did use a pattern... I wasn't going to navigate a shirt by myself for the first time. So, I used Simplicity #2254. I really liked it, it was easy to follow and I picked "Option A" which just so happened to have the least amount of steps, yay. 

I love the collar but my favorite thing is that the buttons don't match. 

Have you made any clothes for yourself lately? I think I might start doing it more often.

Craft Spaces Finale and a Giveaway

The finale...well kind of, but it's not really over because if you know me, I never, ever keep anything the same. I'm sure I will have a post soon enough with another update. But until then "lets talk about all the cool things we did todayyyy" (yo gabba gabba reference anyone?)
Craft Space Tours:click picture for link        
We learned How to Glaze Furniture for a simple makeover...

More inspiration: The New Home Ec on Babble did a great Round up which includes pics from Heather Bailey's studio and more... ultimate jealousy setting in....
Pinterest Finds: check out my whole Craft Space Board HERE

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Favorites from our Fabulous Link Up...Little Lovelies
EmmylouBeeDoo
Clean and Scentsible
No Big Dill
The Ivy Cottage Blog
and just in case you ever feel like you have to see this all again, there is a tab in my menu bar called "SPACES" and it will lead you to where you need to go :)

Now on to the giveaway... just for funsies- a Missoni Composition Notebook*Giveaway now CLOSED* congrats Meg O.*

When the whole "Target Missoni craze" happened, I was randomly there that morning. It isn't random because I am such a regular at Target but it was random because I wasn't counting down to the Missoni days, just happened to be there. It was about 10am and the entire clothing section was gone but I went there for some organizational needs and they had the best file folders and composition notebooks. I got a few and thought I would share the love.
The winner will get this official Missoni Composition Notebook (100 pages)

When I was playing on eBay the other night and found out these notebooks are going for $20+ and my husband told me I was crazy for not selling this and just giving it away haha. See, I am so nice.

How to Win:

Don't you love that the inside cover is green because I do.How to enter... just to reiterate from above:
-be a TaylorMade follower-Follow TaylorMade on Facebook-Follow TaylorMade on Twitter (I'm a twitter newbie:)-Leave me a comment about your favorite store, or the one that you frequent - I obviously have a Target problem :)
that is 4 ways to win! leave a comment for each one and an email address pleaseI will pick a winner on fridayok go...

p.s. a big Thanks to everyone who participated in Craft Spaces! You guys rock!-taylor