Erica is back!!

My poor laptop's fan died so it was overheating... a couple of trips to Best Buy and $150 later, its fixed and Monday Craft Night blogs are back in business. I've been posting heaps on Instagram (@RagsRebornGifts) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/RagsRebornGifts) so its not like I was completely out of commission. I'm becoming pretty good at posting pictures on social media.

Stenciling and cutting letters was probably the worst thing I've had to do for my business thus far. OMG, it took forever!!

T-minus 12 days to the Indie Trunk Show! I've been a busy bee. I'm done sewing all of my inventory (I have 115 items for sale). I am now working on things for my booth. Here's what I have so far:

I've been keeping all of my scrap cloth in a bag. (I have an idea for it later!) I decided I needed an official scrap cloth box. I used one of my old tutorials and made not only a box but a matching cup for my sewing supplies. It was super easy; just wrapped cloth over the box and cup and glued it down. Then added some burlap and felt for decoration.  Sadie loves to model : )

One of Wes's friends, Travis, gave me one of his old cigar boxes. Its a really nice box so I decided to paint over all the cigar logos and turn it into my "cash register." I'll be using Square at the show but just in case I get cash, I'll have a nifty little box to store it in.

"Where's the tutorial?" you ask.
          I have one more small booth item to make. I saw these decorative lids at Michael's that were mason jar lids that had other stuff on top of them. One was slotted so when you screwed it onto a jar, the jar would become a piggy bank. One was painted like a blackboard (it also came with some blackboard stickers and some chalk for you to label your jars with). The last one I saw had a pin cushion on top. Perfect for RagsRebornGifts! Instead of buying it, I decided I need to just recreate the pin cushion jar with stuff I knew I already had at home.

Pin Cushion Jar Tutorial:
             Materials needed - empty glass jar with lid, cotton stuffing (not pictured), hot glue gun, scissors and any other decorative items

1. Eat some pickles or peppers or whatever comes in a jar that you like to eat. LOL I have one large and one small pickle jar.
     Wash the jars with hot soapy water. I had to wash the pickle jars a few times to get the vinegar smell out.
     Scrub the label off (Wes did that part for me).
     Dry and spray Fabreeze into the jars. Let air dry. The vinegar smell finally came out after a few days of air drying.
2. Get a hand full of cotton stuffing and hot glue it to the lid. I would use more stuffing than you think you'd need. You'll want a tight ball so it'll be a good firm pin cushion when you're done.

It starts off as a crazy fluff ball but you can squish it together before the next step.

3. Cut a out square piece of cloth and hot glue it to the rim of the lid. The size of the cloth depends on how big your jar lid is. Make sure the stuffing is tightly glued into the cloth.

4. Cut off the excess cloth from around the lid. Screw the lid back onto the jar and you have yourself a pin cushion lid.

5. Decorate the rest of the jar as you please. I put some r|r. tags in one and my bobbins in another one. Oddly enough, even with all the sewing I've been doing, I have never used a pin cushion...and I've spilled pins all over the carpet at least three times. Which, I suppose isn't good so now I keep these jars by my sewing machine.