When my friend Clint was in his final weeks battling testicular cancer, I felt really helpless.  I wanted to do something for Clint, his wife Angela and their family, but didn’t know what or how.  I ended up writing to Angela, feeling pushy and awkward, and offered her my future sewing services.  I wanted to make something from Clint’s shirts to help their little boys remember him.  Thankfully, she knew just what I meant and in spite of how weird I felt offering, she was glad to accept.  Her Aunt already wanted to make bears for the boys, but Angela didn’t want Clint’s adult daughters to be left out.

Clint died December 11, 2011.  Angela sent me a box of shirts.  At the time, I was in the middle of a project and had to set them aside, but I couldn’t resist – I pulled out a random shirt and hugged it, then carefully boxed them up.  She had picked out a sewing pattern she liked and included it, McCall’s Crafts M6135, if you’re interested.  She preferred Bear B, with his cute little toes.  (Love the toes!)

If you decide to sew a memorial bear, just know it’s really difficult to cut into a friend’s shirt.  I didn’t want to be slicing into his shirt, I wanted him to be wearing it.  I dragged my feet.  As she did when we were losing Clint, Angela helped me to be practical and get to it.  Let me tell you, that woman has an amazing strength and a supportive spirit!  Did you notice that there are four bears?  Yes, there’s one for Angela, too.

We decided these Daddy Bears should have the #weloveclint bracelets we wore to support him and spread the message about testicular cancer.  I think they really like their bracelets.

Here they are with my own little Anna Claire Bear.  (My Aunt Joyce had these made for my cousins and me when we lost our Grandma.  They’re little, each made from her favorite wool coat she bought on a vacation in Ireland.)  When you are missing someone, it really does help to hold a little bear made from clothes that remind you of them.

Clint’s Daddy Bears are a very hug-friendly size.

I hope when they hug their bears, they can feel their Daddy hugging them back.  Because you know he is.  You know he always is.

In a post already loaded with pictures, I still need to share the most important ones with you.  Here are Sarah, Kathleen and Victoria receiving their Daddy Bears.  Enjoy the smiles and hugs!

With many thanks to their Mom for delivering them and sharing these photos with us!

If you’d like a way to help other kids going through the loss of a parent, please take a look at the Clint Miller Memorial Foundation and consider making a contribution.

I made this little purse sized sewing kit for a friend and then completely forgot to send it to her.  Oops!  Then I saw Sew4Home repost their World’s Cutest Felt Sewing Kit and remembered — Doh!!  I altered their design slightly to fit the little sewing kit “ingredients” I was able to find, and personalized the outer design for my friend who is from and dearly loves our beautiful state of West Virginia.

Click through to see Sew4Home’s cute cat design, but keep in mind that it’s an easy design to adjust.  These make wonderful gifts IF you remember to send them!  (Sorry, Lori!)

Did you know that if you iron a piece of fabric to the waxy side of freezer paper, then cut it to regular paper size (8.5″x11″), you can put it through your computer printer?  Well, it worked for me with my Kodak printer anyway, although I did learn to keep my hands on the fabric to steady it as it feeds through after my first attempt jammed inside.  The result is a little grungy looking, as you can see little stripes and smears of ink here and there.  As that’s kind of what I was going for, I’m pretty happy with the look.

These are a couple more of the organizer wallets from my last post.  They are addictive little things, and I’ve found that I enjoy them even more if I get a little creative with the covers.  Having an easy way to incorporate writing makes me that much happier with them.

Being able to print on fabric opens up a whole new world of crafting ideas!  Think about how you can personalize gifts with a favorite quote, scripture or even a private joke, so the recipient will know the gift was made just for them.  If you are working on a handmade Christmas this year, I hope this helps!

I saw this idea on Pinterest and loved it!  Papervine had done a deck of cards for Valentine’s Day, but I thought it would work just as well for a birthday.  After all, who doesn’t want to hear why you love them?

I used a new deck of cards, scuffed them up with sandpaper and gave them a rub with a pigment ink stamp pad, concentrating on the edges.  I thought the ink might slide a bit and get all over my hands, but it held fast right from the start.   One of the extra cards made a nice template to keep punched holes even,and a couple binder rings keeps everything together.  (I may replace them with black ones later, we just happened to have these on hand.)

There are great free labels from Cathe at Just Something I Made.  (She has them in red, green, black and brown if you want a different look.)  Trimmed an eighth of an inch all the way around, I think they were just right.

These also got aged with the stamp pad, then I just wrote out my list one by one.

Some are private jokes.

Other crafters may relate to some of them.

But I hope they all show him why he is just right for me.

(Mojo is our dog, who loves to be the first one to greet his Daddy when he gets home from work.)

Happy birthday, Baby!  Wishing you many, many more!

What a nice start to my day – my button monogram pillow was featured on Tip Junkie!  For more crafty button ideas, please see the post here.

I made this button monogram pillow yesterday while watching college football.  (Football and crafts just go together, you know.)  If you’d like to make one too, visit Kari at The Adventures of One Crazy Lady for her tutorial!

I’m tempted to spell out “H-O-M-E” across four square pillows for my couch!

I had an idea for our Christmas packaging this year, and ordered a book of Moo stickers made with photos of our family.  (They’re not available in Moo’s USA shop, so plan ahead for longer ship time and order from their European store.)

We’ll use the stickers in place of To/From labels.  If you see your photo on a present, that gift is for you!  The younger kids, not yet reading, may really have fun with this.

Hopefully the photo stickers will bring back fun memories and cause a lot of smiles.  And that’s kind of the point in getting together in the first place, isn’t it?

This shirt was made with a phone picture altered to crop right around Mojo, then made black and white.  This was done partially because you could still see the green grass around his toes, but I preferred how it looked anyway.  I bought T-shirt transfer paper and just printed the picture reversed on a full-page.  It was easy to iron on to an old tank top I already had, and within minutes I had my very own Mojo shirt.  The transfer is a little “slicky”, but the instructions promise it will feel softer after it’s washed.

Mojo was very excited about the entire process, but he’s excited about everything, as puppies are.  The real test was when my husband saw it, smiled and asked me to make one for him, too!

Sadly, we are unable to attend the Wilson 1st Annual Wold Cup Beer Pong Tournament.  The “Uniforms Welcome” added to the bottom of the invitation sounded like a challenge though, so I made these for the hosts. (Forgive me, crafty Meghan, I appliqued with fleece instead of the cotton you recommended.  I know you were right, but I just couldn’t resist a plush red Solo cup!)

I hope everyone has a great time and GO TEAM WILSON!!!

We’ve scheduled a family vacation for June and I’m already working on details.  (I love having something to plan!)  My daughters are still using little-girl-going-to-Grandma’s style luggage that they outgrew years ago.  It’s time for them to have some real luggage to take on this trip and into adulthood.

I’ll buy them some nice roller suitcases, but for carry-ons I wanted to upcycle some vintage luggage.  I asked what they might want painted on their luggage and earned a couple eye rolls.  “Mom’s crafting at us again!” But then I said the magic words, “Would you like a horde logo?” OH. YES. THEY. WOULD.  In their spare time, my sweet little girls are hardcore World of Warcraft gamers.

If you want to personalize some luggage, you can create a stencil for yourself using Contact paper.  Draw or trace on the paper side, keeping in mind that you’ll need to reverse your design.  Cut out carefully and apply to your luggage.  Smooth down all around the edges, but if your suitcase is textured you may want to paint carefully from the stencil toward the middle of your design.  This helps keep paint from being pushed underneath the stencil into the little surface grooves.

I use fabric paint because it’s meant to be flexible when dry.  I was told the horde logo should be red, but my red paint looked really pink.  I’m not into World of Warcraft myself, but I’m guessing pink horde logos just won’t do.  I started with a little metallic black around the edges, then mixed the black and red together to fill in.  Carefully peel off the stencil while the paint is still wet.  (Waiting until it dries may cause some of the paint to dry on the stencil and peel up right along with it.)  After it’s dry, you may want to apply a few coats of varnish to protect the paint against scuffs.

Hooray for second chances!

I hope they’ll approve!  (You can see my own Twitter luggage here.)