That cover is two sheets of pearly scrapbook paper cut to size, with the diecuts in the top layer made with my Cricut machine. You can see a strip of elastic – my previous pen holder was a pocket that hung onto the front of the planner with two elastic loops. It’s been a while since I switched to the binder and I only just finished my new pen holder. Meanwhile I got used to taking out the current planner page and sliding it under the elastic on the outside of the binder, so when I replaced the pocket I turned one of its elastics into a separate loop.

Here’s the new pouch! It’s basically two flat pieces, each double-sided, one with a zipper and the other with a layer of heavy interfacing and some ribbon loops. It didn’t come out well enough to be worth sharing a pattern for, but I’m happy with it. The striped dividers are more scrapbook paper, cut to 8.5″x5.75″ so they stick out a bit.

And finally, here’s a highlights reel of my binder’s contents, so I can share the sources of my printables.

• year on 2 pages (Scattered Squirrel)
• One Little Word focus matrix (The Project Girl)
• monthly calendars: one month per page (Scattered Squirrel)
• weekly calendars: week on two facing pages (Scattered Squirrel)
• four sheets of address book (About.com)

Oh, and you may be thinking, “if her previous planner didn’t fit in her purse, there’s no way this one does!” You’re right. I got a little staple-bound two-year monthly planner to use for that. It is full of silly animal pictures.

The post Plannerama appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

The stamps I wanted were planner stamps: a recycle symbol to mark recycling pick-up days, and an envelope back to make occasions for which I want to send cards. That way they could be large and visible without really taking up space, because I could write over them easily. I indentured my husband to play with paint with me.

I had two kinds of 3D paint in my stash: Tulip dimensional fabric paint and Scribbles 3-dimensional paint. The taller bottle of the Tulip was easier to control (more in squeezing than aiming), but the Scribbles seemed to keep its shape better while drying – Tulip flattened out a bit. We found we needed 3 rounds to get truly good images. The papers in the picture below show the images after 2 rounds (rectangular) and 3 rounds (hexagonal) of painting – the third round was really just local touch-ups.

As you can see from the Oh You stamp on the hexagonal paper, you still have to be careful and press on all areas of the cap to get a good impression. If you catch the paint at the right moment you may be able to flatten it down a bit while it’s dry enough not to stick but still soft in the middle; I was able to do that to some extent with the recycling symbol.

All in all, though, it’s a great idea – quick, easy to correct errors (more than just heightening low spots: you can see the giant smear of paint in the first image, and there were others on different sheets of newspaper), and fun.

The post Rubber stamps from fabric paint appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I decided to put the cards in their own box and keep the stickers and die cuts together in another container. I thought about some kind of plastic envelopes in a binder, but found they were priced above my pain point. There were kinds that were a bit cheaper but didn’t have the panel with hole punches for a binder. Finally, when looking for ideas on making things “binder-able,” I stumbled upon an Instructables about making a pencil pouch. Essentially, you cover a shortened gallon zip-top bag with duct tape. I wanted to be able to see what was in the pouch, though, at least a little, so I bought generic unprinted bags and applied duct tape just around the edges. That should improve the longevity and help avoid the bags getting crumpled up.

To make them the right size for a binder, instead of cutting off the bottom I folded it up: first to the top of the hole-punched panel, then that section in half, and then the whole folded section up again and taped near each end. That should keep any stickers or die cuts from getting pushed down into a sticky section. The small bags, of course, are just as-is, taped around the outside and with a duct tape extension at the bottom for the hole punches.

The tape along each side is a single length folded over, and the tape along the bottom is full width, two lengths stuck to each other. I didn’t take a photo of it, but when I duct-taped the gallon bags, I made sure the tape came up a little above the folded part.

Note that if you use scissors on your duct tape you’ll be saying goodbye to them for the duration of the project. In fact, if you make as many bags as I did (20 of each size), you’ll need to clean the scissors at least once during the project, because they’ll get too sticky to use. I used Citrasolv, which worked wonders, and then dish soap because the Citrasolv left them oily.

One roll of patterned duct tape will do just over 9 gallon bags, or (I estimate) at least a baker’s dozen sandwich bags. Ten gallon and ten sandwich bags took most of two rolls – the photo below shows what I had after finishing the first 20 bags, done with most of two rolls of duct tape.

Next up is my favorite part: reorganizing the contents. I also need to figure out a new storage system for my cards.

The post Storing stickers appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I’ll show you how I did it. I thought it out before beginning, but it was the first one I ever made and shows a certain amount of evidence of that fact. It is approximately 3″ by 6.5″ by 1″.

To make one just like this (sans comics) you will need:
1 zipper, 22″ long (a lot of that was cut off but the overhang was convenient in the making; it must be at least 15″)
4 strips of elastic each 4″ long (mine was 3/8″ wide and I colored it purple with a Crayola fabric marker)
2 rectangles of fusible interfacing, 4″ by 7.5″ (I used a medium weight)
and the following five pieces in each of two fabrics, one for the outside and one for the inside:
2 rectangles 4″ by 7.5″ (the faces)
2 strips 2″ by 17.25″ (could be as narrow as 1″ and could be a bit shorter also)
1 rectangle 2″ by just over 4″ (if your zipper is closer to 15″ the 4″ measurement here needs to be longer, up to 6″; my shorter measurement was 2.25″ but that wasn’t a good idea)

Face Preparation:
Other than piecing my outer faces, this was the beginning of the pencil case: iron the fusible interfacing onto the wrong sides of the inner fabric faces and then attach the elastic. Pin two pieces of elastic to each side, across the short distance, so they are centered and an inch apart. Stitch at just under 1/2″ from the edge and again at about 1/4″ to hold in place. The elastic can definitely be omitted or replaced with one centered strip, as desired.

This last step might be postponed until after the zipper is prepared, so you can adjust sizes as needed. With inner and outer faces both, fold the edges to the wrong side at 1/2″ all the way around and press. I like to press the side folds and then open it up, fold in the corner triangle, and then fold the edges down so no exposed raw edges are near the outer fold.

Zipper Preparation:
Sandwich the zipper between one outer and one inner fabric strip, right sides facing the zipper and raw edges lined up with the outer edge of the zipper tape. Center the strips on the zipper. Stitch about 1/4″ from the edge – I ran my regular presser foot along the teeth of the zipper with the needle shifted to the left, which was approximately 1/4″. The idea is to have a decent seam allowance while keeping the fabric away from the zipper pull.

Fold both strips out and press, then stitch together at least 1/8″ outside the zipper tape to hold them in place. Repeat this process on the other side of the zipper. Fold strips along edge of zipper tape so inner fabric is enclosed, outer fabric showing, and press a crease along the tape.

To make the corners, mark the center of the strips and then mark 3.25″ away from the center in each direction, and again 3″ beyond each of those points. Omitting the center, you should have four marks, the outer two each 3″ away from the closer of the inner two, and the inner two 6.5″ apart. Pinch at each mark to make a fold perpendicular to the strip, outer fabric enclosed, and pin to hold that fold in place.

At this point life gets easier if you unzip the zipper. Bend the zipper the opposite direction from the fold you just marked (i.e., so the inner fabric is to the inside) and let that fold wrap to the inside until it meets the crease at the edge of the zipper tape. Baste in place.

Final Assembly:
The folded-in edges of the fabric strips on the zipper will be sandwiched between the prepared faces and topstitched around, though at first you must leave an opening on the side where the ends of the zipper meet that is wide enough to accommodate that last unpaired piece of fabric. I found it easiest to sew just the inner face on first and the outer face on in a separate step.

Zip the pencil case to the first corner and trim each end of the zipper just past the fabric strips. The remaining pieces of fabric will cover the ends of the zipper, sandwiching them, with the long edge parallel to the zipper. Fold the short edges of those pieces to the wrong side by 1/2″ (less if necessary to cover the zipper ends, more as desired if you have extra) and press.

Mark 1/2″ from each long edge with a pin. Slide each piece under the faces of the corresponding fabric, above everything else, so the pins line up with the folded edge of the faces. Topstitch along the edge of the faces, so the previous stitching now goes all the way around, and across the zipper near the folded edge of the fabric. Done!

The post Peacock pen case appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

I had bought some memo pads before the holidays, in case any small children needed entertaining with coloring and stickers, so I made the case to fit them: about a half inch wider, and probably somewhat more than a half inch taller, times two.

The pocket is a piece of stiff white fabric with each edge folded in a half inch, and the open edge tucked under again (so it is folded down by 1/4″ twice). I stitched very close to the raw edges on the sides and bottom to keep the seam allowance fabric from scrunching when the memo pad was inserted.

The cover was a little flimsy, since it was just thin felt, so later on I decided to add a small pocket to it mostly to stiffen it up. I then had a bunch of uneven stitch lines, so I thought I needed either more stitching, or less. Since less would have been difficult, I went around with a zigzag. I like the result.

The post Gecko memo appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

It helps in endeavors like this to have an obscenely large sticker collection.

To be fair, that file also holds greeting cards.

Unfortunately, the eyelets I bought in the scrapbooking section of a store were incompatible with the pliers I bought in the sewing section of the same store! I had to shimmy a few smashed eyelets off the pin of the pliers with another pair of pliers before I gave up. And now I should sort them out of my bin of eyelets so I don’t have this experience again.

But without further ado, the finished bookmarks:

And, a Happy Birthday to my Aunt Liz!

The post Trio of bookmarks appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

Sometime early in 2010, after calendars went on deep sale, I bought the 2010 Sewing Calendar from Accord Publishing. It was an odd beast; it looks like it should be a page-a-day, but each page has three to four days on it (weekends share a third of a page). Still, that makes 104 sewing projects, of which I had yet to make any before New Year’s Eve.

As I flipped through, the felt business card case caught my eye. I have been unable to find it online – the website of the person it’s attributed to, Lauren Brandy, is now all about painting – but there are a great many tutorials available, several of which are similar.

I thought about embellishing mine with buttons, but was dissatisfied with my selection. However, I had a number of iron-on appliques bought before I realized I just don’t make things that appliques go on, and they came out to play. A button did as well; I changed the closure from velcro to a button and elastic loop.

Originally I planned to have a shot of the open, empty case, saying I just needed business cards to go in it, but between then and now my lovely sister made me some!

The post Business dinosaurs appeared first on ReveDreams.com.

The paper trimmer isn’t essential, but it would not have been possible for me to do this as one of my ten-by-midnight crafts without it. The sturdy stapler is definitely a must. I trimmed the notebook cover to remove a strip of black material that had formed the spine, and the opposite side to eliminate the rounded corners so it would be symmetric. To fold the covers, I scored the paper with a mechanical pencil – with the lead out on the bottom (3/4″) fold, and with the lead retracted to fold the top down. As recommended, I used 20 sheets of paper per notepad, cut 1/4″ smaller than the covers in each direction, and centered. That was about right – too much more and stapling would have been very difficult.

I didn’t worry much about getting my staples symmetric, but I definitely felt two would be necessary for notepads this size. Since the one notepad had a large stretch of plain blue, I applied some additional decoration.

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