Muse of the Morning PDF Sewing Patterns

Printable Sewing Pattern: Appliqued Sachets or Ornaments

First, I want to apologize to anyone who got the last couple months worth of posts all at once in their feed reader. I switched over to WordPress and it successfully brought all my posts over, but it seems to have re-posted some of them too. Anyway…. you should only get new stuff from now on!

Well, it’s a new year, and the blog has a new platform and a new look… it’s time for a new pattern! This one is a freebie- these little lovelies can be ornaments to hang somewhere in your house, or they can be stuffed with lavender to be sweet sachets tucked into your unmentionables drawer or even sitting in a cute basket on the back of your toilet. You can also use the applique designs as actual appliques on bags or pillows or other sweet things that you want to spice up a little (note: if you use the appliques on clothing, do not use wool felt because it will shrink in the wash).

All the instructions are included on the pattern sheets, simply download the PDF to get started. If you need a reminder about the basic embroidery stitches used with this pattern, check out my free printable little book of embroidery stitches to help you out!

And create something wonderful today!

Click here to download this pattern!

Handmaking The Holidays: A Round Up of Our Awesomeness!

So…. Heather, Sandee, Melissa and I have been slaving hard to bring you the following 15 posts for Handmaking The Holidays this year, and I must say, it’s been awesome! I had a lot of fun seeing what these ladies came up with and creating my own tutorials to help everyone get some more handmade into the holidays. Christmas Eve is just a few days away- there’s still time to make some gifts!

Below is a round up of the awesome posts that we did the past 5 weeks. Which ones inspired you? What did you handmake this year? Let me know in the comments!

Post 1: Handmade Ornament Round Up by Me, of Muse of the Morning

Post 2: Biased Apron Tutorial by Feather’s Flights

Post 3: Stocking Stuffer Round-up by Lovebug Living

Post 4: Chocoholic Framed Gift from Sandee at In The Hills of North Carolina

Post 5: Handwriting Quote Pages For Christmas from me!

Post 6: 9 Gift Ideas for Boys for Handmaking the Holidays by Heather from Feather’s Flights

Post 7: Chocolate Banana French Toast by Melissa from Lovebug Living

Post 8: Reindeer Scene Ball Ornament by Sandee

Post 9: DIY Photo Canvas Tutorial by Melissa

Post 10: 12 Last Minute Gifts To Make by me!

Post 11: Gift Wrap Idea Round-Up by Sandee

Post 12: Watercolor Printable Gift Tags Tutorial by lil’ ol’ Me!

Post 13: A Christmas Tree Stacker Tutorial from Feather’s Flights

Post 14: Super Easy Last Minute Gift Cupcake Fire Starters by me again!

And this post of course, a round-up of all the awesomeness!!

Thank you for joining us for Handmaking The Holidays this year! I would especially like to say thank you to the 3 awesome bloggers who have joined me- Melissa, Heather and Sandee – you all have truly made this a fun experience. I hope lots of people out there got some amazing ideas from us.

Handmaking The Holidays: Handmade Ornament Round-Up

I have some amazing news for you!! Well, I think it’s kind of amazing anyway.

handmaking the holidays with muse of the morning

Last year, I tried to do a blog series called Handmaking the Holidays over at HerbNGrowth. I’m going to do it again this year! It was fun last time, but this year is going to be even better because I am being joined by 3 other awesome bloggers!

For the next 5 weeks, we are going to present some amazing tutorials and round ups for this holiday season, to help you find some amazing projects! The other wonderful bloggers joining me are:
Melissa from Love Bug Living
Heather from Feather’s Flights
Sandee from In The Hills of North Carolina

I think these ladies happen to have awesome blogs and they’ve got some really great ideas, so I hope you will check them out and join us all while we handmake the holidays this year!

I’m going to link to all the posts here as they are created, so you’ll have a handy place to come back and look. We have a lot of really fun things planned, so I hope you’ll stick around!

Post 1: Handmade Ornament Round Up by Me, of Muse of the Morning
Post 2: Biased Apron Tutorial by Feather’s Flights
Post 3: Stocking Stuffer Round-up by Lovebug Living
Post 4: Chocoholic Framed Gift from Sandee at In The Hills of North Carolina
Post 5: Handwriting Quote Pages For Christmas from me!
Post 6: 9 Gift Ideas for Boys for Handmaking the Holidays by Heather from Feather’s Flights
Post 7: Chocolate Banana French Toast by Melissa from Lovebug Living
Post 8: Reindeer Scene Ball Ornament by Sandee
Post 9: DIY Photo Canvas Tutorial by Melissa
Post 10: 12 Last Minute Gifts To Make by me!
Post 11: Gift Wrap Idea Round-Up by Sandee
Post 12: Watercolor Printable Gift Tags Tutorial by lil’ ol’ Me!
Post 13: A Christmas Tree Stacker Tutorial from Feather’s Flights
Post 14: Super Easy Last Minute Gift Cupcake Fire Starters by me again!
Post 15: A Round up of all the awesome posts!

What do you handmake around the holidays? Cookies and candies? Toys for the kids in your life? Gifts for everyone?

Making things by hand is incredibly satisfying, plus all that stuff about supporting local economies and decreasing consumerism…. It really just feels good to give someone something that you created, or to look around your house and see it filled with handmade goodness. I’m a big fan of handmaking everything, can you tell?

Today for Handmaking The Holidays, let’s kick things off with a round up of some beautiful and creative handmade ornaments that I have found around the interwebs:

This is one I created, it’s a tutorial for sewing up a Stuffed Star Ornament – I’ve got a bunch of these for my tree and I love them!

One of my partners in ~~crime~~ handmaking this year, created these two tutorials. One is instructions to make a fortune cookie ornament. The other post is 12 ways to personalize up those cute empty glass balls that you can find at craft stores.

Sew Mama Sew has a great tutorial for these cute embroidery hoop ornaments.

Christopher and Tia show this tutorial for some Yarn Wreath Ornaments.

Adorable houses are all the rage. Here are some that are really sweet:
These cute appliqued and stuffed houses are from Retro Mama.
Belle and Burger have these adorable cottages.

And more houses!
Michele Made Me has this beautiful cardboard house ornament.
Find these felty ornaments over at Whip Up.

You’ll find the pattern for this pretty little bird over at Roaring Design
Allsorts designed the pattern for these sweet elf clogs.

Creating pretty ornaments isn’t just for grown ups! Here are some that kids can do too:
Eclectic Chica has these cute Popsicle and Bead Ornaments that look like a lot of fun to make!

This beaded candy cane ornament is a kid’s classic activity from All Kids Network.

The Graphics Fairy has a great tutorial for this Glittery Paper Butterfly.
Creatively Breathing has a tutorial and patterns for all these sweet little ornaments that can be put together into a garland, or hung on a tree!

What sort of ornaments will you be making this year to decorate your tree?

I hope you enjoyed this first installment of Handmaking The Holidays. The next post will be at Feather’s Flights on November 26, when Heather will post her tutorial! Enjoy!!

Handmaking The Holidays: Super Easy Last Minute Firestarters!

Check out this adorable tree stacker tutorial that Heather did over at Feather’s Flights! That is super cute!

Today is the last tutorial post of Handmaking The Holidays. So sad. Tomorrow I will have a round-up of all the amazing round ups and tutorials that we’ve done. And then it will practically be Christmas!

In honor of the Winter Solstice, which is tomorrow*, here is a tutorial for some really cute firestarters made with cupcake cups and shredded paper. I love these. If you think that you don’t know anyone who could use them, think again- does someone you know have a wood or pellet stove? Does someone bar-b-que? Do they have a firepit that they use in the summer time? Do they love to go camping? These are all reasons that someone would love to get some firestarters. And bonus! These ones are pretty cute looking!

Here’s what you need:
cupcake liners and a muffin tin to hold them
wax of some kind- it doesn’t matter what kind- you can recycle old candles, canning wax, whatever you can find.
something to melt the wax in- I happen to have a pitcher that’s used for making candles. If you don’t have one, you could use a coffee tin.
shredded paper- the paper I used is some recycled packaging, but you could use paper from your shredder too.
dryer lint and/or wood shavings.

Here’s what you do:

Put the wax in the pitcher and set it in a pan with about 2 inches of water. Turn your burner on medium and let the wax melt.

While you’re waiting for the wax to melt, put a cupcake liner in each muffin tin. Fill the bottom with dryer lint or wood shavings. I used dryer lint, since we seem to have an abundance of it.

Top with the shredded paper.

Once the wax is melted, pour it over the muffin tins. You’ll want to fill the cupcake liners about half full. If you use wood shavings, make sure the wax gets in and around them so the whole thing will stick together.

While the wax is still melted, top with more shredded paper and press it into the wax (making sure that you don’t burn yourself!).

Let them sit overnight to harden fully. After they were hardened, I twisted the paper together so they weren’t all going crazy all over the place.

And there you go!

To use, just build up your logs on top of the firestarter. Then light a piece of the shredded paper and voila, fire started! They burn for a really long time, so they’ll save you from rubbing those sticks together forever.

And just so you know, no counter tops were hurt in the making of these firestarters. I put it out as soon as I was done with the pictures.

I’m packaging them in the paper sacks and putting a bunch in my parent’s stockings.

* Just a note that tomorrow is also the supposed apocalypse, so please be safe and stay out of the way of any crazies out there. Unless you are one of the crazies and then just be safe.

Handmaking The Holidays: Watercolor Printable Gift Tags

Well, Handmaking The Holidays is almost over! Can you believe it, it’s been 5 weeks of amazing handmade holiday goodness! I’ll be back on Friday with a wrap up post. In the meantime, we still have a tutorial from Heather on Wednesday and I’m going to try to sneak back in here with a last minute gift idea on Thursday.

Well, it’s nearly Christmas, and Solstice is on Friday… so it’s time to start wrapping those gifts that you’ve been making. Sandee over at In the Hills of North Carolina just shared a round up of wrapping ideas. Today, you can put some gift tags on your lovely presents with these gift tags.

The gift tags are a perfect winter afternoon activity to do with your children. Here’s what you do:

Take some watercolor paper and cut it down to 8.5 x 12 inches.

Now do some beautiful watercoloring on the paper. You can use wet on wet, dry on wet, wet on dry… whatever watercolor process you like. I really like using my pretty watercolors on wetted paper. To wet the paper, take a wet, wrung out washcloth and lay it over the paper for a few moments, then paint!

The only thing to remember here is to make patterns, not a particular design because they will be cut up.

Even the littlest guys can join in. Mr.Man loves ~~mixing~~ using watercolors.

Let the papers dry and the next morning, send them through the printer with this print out. Make sure to print it out on the BACK side of your watercolors.