Spooky Book Nerd Quilt

I have a very good friend whose birthday is just a few days before Halloween, so the holiday has always been her favorite. I think it was last year when I came across these fat quarter fabric bundles at my local Tuesday Morning store. They're quilt-shop quality fabric, and I couldn't pass them up. (They're from the Spooktacular and Spooktacular Too collections by Maude Asbury for Blend.) I bought two bundles, thinking that I'd use them to make something for my friend, but I wasn't sure exactly what.

When I saw Angela Pingel's Book Nerd Quilt pattern, inspiration struck. These large prints would make perfect book covers. Plus, my friend is a serious book lover and collector, so the fabric and pattern were a perfect match. The pattern required more fabric than I had from the bundles, so I went to one of my local quilt shops, Mountain Creek Quilt Shop, to supplement the stack. It turns out that they had just received an order of new Halloween fabrics and they hadn't even unpacked the box yet! So I helped them out, breaking into some of those bolts for small-scale prints with bats and spiderwebs. I got the text prints to use as the pages and the oranges for book spines. The mummies are a Cotton + Steel design from last season, and I bought a bunch of them to put on the back of the quilt.

Assembling these book blocks was a lot of fun -- after I ran a test and figured out what sizes to precut all the sections for the foundation paper piecing. Everything went A LOT faster with precuts, so if you ever have to foundation paper piece a bunch of the same block and the pattern doesn't suggest precut sizes, take the time to figure it out.

(Pretty proud of my print alignment on this one!)

The pattern includes the option of cornerstones in the layout, and I decided to include them and use a dark print that I wasn't able to use in the books. If I were to make this quilt again, I think I would either leave out the cornerstones or add them to the outside intersections as well to finish framing the design.

For the quilt back, I didn't have enough of the mummies to use them exclusively, so I had to figure out how to piece it. My mom was heading out to Mountain Creek again, so I had her pick up the black with little white cat faces (another Cotton + Steel print, but from this season). I've made pieced quilt backs before, but I usually don't like how they turn out. I'm not sure if it's the size of the pieces or how I lay them out, but it never turns out looking like I expect. So I laid this one out and played with all my leftovers until I felt pretty confident about it.

 

My friend Jennifer agreed to quilt this on her longarm, and we picked an edge-to-edge spiderweb design. It turned out so well - I was blown away. Even the white thread on the dark backing worked out. I rounded the corners off and used a black and white stripe on the bias for binding.

  

 

DIY Monogrammed Fall Wreath

I bring you another Pinterest success story just in time for fall decorating, and if you do it right, you can swap many of the elements out for a Christmas version (more to come on that one).

Here's the Pinspiration from the wonderful Etsy store theembellishedhome where it was sold out:

Photo copyright theembellishedhome

Here's my version:

I was able to get all of the materials at my local Hobby Lobby, which made it easy to shop and assemble the wreath all in one weekend. Total cost of the materials ran about $50; if you make one with a friend, you could easily save $10-15 by using coupons and sharing the decorative ribbon. If I had been focused, I think I could have completed my wreath in two hours, but Surviorman was on TV that night and I kept getting distracted by how he was able to keep a fire burning through a thunderstorm.  You know how it is.

Materials

• Wreath frame (20-inch diameter)
• Floral wire or pipe cleaners
• Wire cutters
• 3-4 hydrangea blossoms
• 2 bundles of plain burlap ribbon, each 8 inches wide by 15 feet long (If you purchase narrower burlap, expect to use 3 to 4 rolls.)
• 2 rolls of decorative burlap ribbon (1 solid, 1 print)
• 12-inch letter
• Hot glue gun

Step 1
Attach the burlap ribbon to the cross piece of the wire wreath frame. I found that "basting" the ribbon with a piece of the floral wire (about 4 inches long) then wrapping the wire around the wreath frame with a few twists secured the ribbon easily.

Step 2
Create a loop and attach the burlap to the next wire in on the wreath frame. A couple of things to note: This is not a science, and your loops don't have to be perfect. Just work your way up and down the wreath frame, shoving the loops together and adding more. It takes a while to work around the wreath, but you'll use both rolls of burlap.

Step 3
When you've made it all the way around with the burlap it will look something like this. Notice the "bare" spot in the top right (2 o'clock) where you'll attach the bow.

Step 4
Time to make the bows. Make four loops out of your solid burlap ribbon and tie them together with floral wire that is 7-8 inches long (don't cut off the excess wire).

Step 5
Make another four-loop bow slightly smaller than the solid bow. Use the wire on the solid bow to create the knot.

         

Step 6
Use the floral wire to attach the stacked accent bow to the wreath base, and then adjust it until you like how it appears. You may also need to adjust the burlap below it so that the ribbon lays properly.

Step 7
Use your wire cutters to remove the leaves from the floral stems. Cut the blossoms off the floral stems, leaving just 1 inch of stem on the blossom. This is enough to secure to the burlap with hot glue.

Step 8
Keep the wire cutters out. Flip the wreath over and wind the wire ends from the burlap back up into the wreath. Trim the ends were necessary. They key here is to make sure you can run your hand along the back of the wreath without being scratched. Adjust any rough spots so you don't damage your door.

Step 9
Attach the flowers with minimal hot glue if you want to be able to swap out the colors with the seasons. Wire the letter to the wreath. I also added a few hot glue dots here and there because I didn't want the letter to shift. My floral wire was green, so i hit it with a Sharpie marker and a decorative gold marker to mimic the detail on the letter. You can't tell unless you're up close to the letter, which is fine -- it's a wreath, people!

Great Hostess Gift: DIY Mistletoe

Luckily for us, Hannah from Secrets of a Belle has been gracious enough to share her how-to for making your own mistletoe.  I don't know about you, but I love a little mistletoe around the house during the holidays, and this one I can hang up year after year which is great! Hannah created this cool felt mistletoe that is great over doorways, hanging on trees, or tied to a loved one's present as a decorative topper.

What you'll need:
Green felt

Pearls

Green thread

Ribbon (and thread to match)

Needle

Scissors
Mistletoe Pattern

What You'll Do:

1. Download and print the pattern off on a sheet of regular letter-size paper, and cut out the shapes.
2. Lay out the pattern pieces and cut out your felt. (You can also use freezer paper for this step. Trace the shape onto the freezer paper and cut it out with a little extra all the way around, lightly iron the waxy side to your felt, and then cut the pattern and felt at the same time. Peel off the paper to reveal your felt shape.)
3. Layer your pieces of felt from largest to smallest and stitch them together.
   Two tips: 1.) It helps to leave a little space at the top of the largest piece for attaching your bow and loop later. 2.) I folded the smallest piece over to help hide some of the stitches.
4. Sew on your pearls as the little mistletoe berries.
5. Tie your ribbon into a bow and attach just above your pearls. With another piece of ribbon, make a loop to attach to the back for easy hanging.

For more holiday ideas from our favorite belle, Hannah, don't forget to visit her blog Secrets of a Belle.

Asheville Pinterest Contest + Giveaway

Explore Asheville is giving away lots of prizes including a vacation to Asheville, NC (one of my most favorite places) via a great Pin-It-to-Win-It contest, and you can find all the details here at Spice Up Your Holidays.

For those of you addicted to Pinterest like me, the rules are simple! Build a holiday board on Pinterest called "Spice Up Your Holidays," and repin the official contest pin plus four others from their board.  Add five more of your own holiday-inspired pins, and then submit the URL via the official entry form here.

The contest runs from now through December 21, so head over to get your official contest pin and get going!

Gingerbread Houses in Asheville, NC

This was my favorite of the competition. While technically not a "house" the multiple layers of
gingerbread that made up this tree and decorations were gorgeous.

My husband and I kicked off the Christmas season with a trip to the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.  I've always wanted to go and catch The National Gingerbread Competition and this was my chance. I snapped pictures of a few of my favorites to share, but I would highly recommend seeing them in person. They are truly amazing and inspirational. You'll want to give it a try yourself  (or at least buy one of the $100 plastic versions in the gift shop!).

I loved the different interpretations of houses, like this windmill.

The glass windows in this traditional gingerbread house were the best in the competition.

If you're as inspired as I was, check out these "How to Make Gingerbread House" instructions I found.

• Basic Gingerbread House Recipe from Food.com (including some inspirational photos)
• Gingerbread House and People Recipe from Cooking Channel
• Gale Gland's Gingerbread House courtesy of Gale Gland on Food Network
• Mini Gingerbread House Recipe from Cooking Channel (these would look great as placecard holders on the table and great decorations until then)

June Ornament: Finnish Star

 

Elizabeth threw out the ornament challenge for June, and I have answered in the month of June, which is kind of a miracle. All it took was a simple Google search to stumble upon this Finnish Star at A Cherry On Top.

While the site provides instructions for a paper version, I switched mine up and made it using fabric. All it took was a little prep work, which included using fusible interfacing (heat-n-bond) to fuse two fat quarters together. By using the fat quarters, I was able to keep this project under $10. After ironing the wrong sides of the fabric together, all you have to do is cut and glue according to the directions and you can literally have a star in your hands in under 15 minutes. By using the fat quarters, I have enough fabric left to make four or five more stars, so watch out relatives! There may be a fabric star tied to the top of your Christmas presents this year.

Cookie Nests: Last Minute Easter Dessert Idea

A co-worker's wife made these Cookie Nests and I have been craving another all week. If you would like a bite-sized bit of cookie deliciousness, give them a try.

1. Make basic chocolate chip cookie dough, without the chocolate chips.
2. Scoop and shape into a small muffin tin.
3. Bake as directed or until they are done in the middle. Finished cookie should be about 1 inch or so in height.
4. While the cookies are baking, combine vanilla icing with shredded coconut and a few drops of yellow food coloring and mix until the color is consistent.
5. Once the cookies are out of the tins and cooled, top them with the coconut frosting.
6. Nestle in a chocolate egg on top

You can also make smaller batches of the icing and coconut in other colors, but I'm partial to the yellow!