Blog Swappin'

Not that she needs an intro but I just wanted to say I am SO excited to be blog swappin' with Melanie today from The Crafty Cupboard. She is such a cute, crafty girl! Just wait til you see what she cooked up for us today. You will be running to your nearest fabric store to whip some up! Oh, and go check out her blog and see what I have conjured up for you too!


Hello, everyone! I'm glad Stacey was willing to let me take over her blog for a bit! I'm Melanie from The Crafty Cupboard, a fun craft blog where I post projects I have done, projects I would like to do, and tutorials for you! Right now I have a giveaway going on, but hurry- it ends tonight!

Since I live in Arizona, winter was over in... well, it never really came. But now that the rain has mostly subsided, I am in the mood for Spring. Springtime means fresh flowers, green grass, little bunnies (which are always running around our apartment complex- seriously! Those guys reproduce like, uh, rabbits...), and a switch from soups and stews to fresh salads and Bar-B-Q's. But you can't serve your food up on a table that hasn't been Spring-ified! Today I'm going to show you an easy placemat idea for the changing of the seasons.

For each placemat, cut two pieces of your main fabric at 13" x 18" and one piece of warm 'n natural batting 13" x 18". Next, assemble your pieces with batting on bottom, and main fabrics right sides together on top.

Sew around placemat using a 1/4" seam allowance, and leaving a 4" space for turning.

Clip your corners,

and turn inside out.

To close the turning space, tuck the raw edges in so the sides are even, and sew 1/8" around the entire placemat. I chose to go 4,972 steps further and I quilted my placemats. I just sewed straight lines every 3/4" on each one. This took for.e.ver. But I like how it looks :) It would have looked better if I had a walking foot... (ahem, mom? wink, wink!)

If your main fabric wasn't Spring-y enough, you can do what I did and add an applique. I traced circles onto some Heat-n-Bond, ironed it to different pieces of fabric scraps, cut out the circles, and ironed them onto my placemats as cute flowers (my heat 'n bond was good on the heat, not so much on the bond. I ended up sewing them on :)) I used ric-rac as a flower stem.

Other applique ideas I had but didn't use for this project were:

• Easter eggs!

• Monograms for each member of the family! (this would work for year-round placemats)

• Bird Silhouettes!

The Spring-y options are endless.

I hope we can all welcome spring at our dinner tables! Thanks again to Stacey for letting me stop by. It sure is Fun to Craft!