mother’s day

  • Personalized Pillows

    FeatureFriBanner
    Imagine coordinating all of your child’s bedroom pillows — with some personalization to boot.  With Bella Marie's personalized pillows, you can.

    MarleyBaby

    Seamstress and Etsy shop-owner, Marie Villa,
    loves personalized items, as do her children.  To Marie, her name
    pillows are "the perfect projects to make that not only coordinate with
    a room's colors, but also personalize it at the same time.”

    Marie used an assortment of Heather Bailey Freshcut fabrics for
    the “Emme Pillow” below. Other materials include a background fabric
    (Marie used a solid, pre-quilted fabric) Heat n' Bond™ Lite, stuffing,
    and lots of thread.

    Emme

    According
    to Marie, this is a simple design to make.  Each pillow takes about 2
    hours to complete. "The letters are the only thing that can get tricky
    – but with practice you can get them just right."

    MarleyBaby2Marie's pattern is from one of her favorite websites, www.youcanmakethis.com,
    for $6.95. However, if you don't have the skills nor the time to make
    your own customized pillows — but you love homemade, you’re in luck. 
    Marie will make a custom one for you.  Contact Marie through her Etsy
    shop, Bella Marie Designs, to place your custom order.  Keep in mind, longer names such as Savannah can be fit onto a slightly longer pillow.

    If you don’t have a little guy or girl in mind, Marie suggests a “Mom” pillow for mother’s day or a special “Grandma” pillow
    with grandchildren’s names hand-embroidered around the pillow's front. 
    For pillow inspiration, comb through Marie’s Flickr set here.

    Savannah

    *For more information about Feature Friday & the artists spotlighted, click here*

    Photography courtesy of Marie Villa.

  • Black, White, and Read All Over

    June 25, 2009 Arizona Republic I always forget to post these things, but not today.

    Check out the big ol' cover story
    in today's Arizona Republic newspaper — on me.  In the article photos,
    I'm talking it up in my studio, one of those mid-sentence
    shots.  They wanted pictures of me working in my authentic environment. 
    However, the studio was clean when they came.  Yes, I insisted on
    messing up my desk — authentically.

    HeatherandMom Another big article I never mentioned was a feature on me and my mother
    over at Creating Keepsakes last month – for mother's day.  My mom is a
    funny writer.  You should at least read her interview if not both of
    ours.  Click the 'next' button to read through each page of the
    combined interviews (there are 5 pp. total).

    Sending out the June newsletter
    momentarily.  Any minute now.  It's like 5 blog-posts worth of good
    stuff.  That's right.  Then back to the sewing pattern I'm designing — and
    loving.

    (Sign up for the newsletter here if you like.  But hurry.)