Homemade Gifts

This year, like many in the past, I made a lot of the gifts I gave out for Christmas.  I know I teased you a little with last week's post of all the wrapping I did, but I didn't want to give away any clues to my family in case they were reading!  So here are some of the gifts I crafted:

I started off with this blue box that housed something in it's former life, then sanded it and painted it black

I bought some pens

a booklight

(I stole borrowed his a couple of years ago)

and found some great printables online including library cards

library envelope templates

bookplate templates

and some cute little list books (this gal also has some super cute books for sale in her etsy shop!)

and put it all together to make a little library kit for my son:

He and I share a love of books and feel a twinge of sadness that it all seems to be going digital, so I thought he'd appreciate this for the books he already owns.

When my son was in town for Thanksgiving, we went to a craft fair and he saw a scarf that resembled this one, but it was grey and it was crocheted.  He asked me if I could make one like it in black; I told him I could try knitting one and see how it turned out.  He loves it!  I'm so glad- it looks great on him, too.  It's an infinity scarf, so he can wear it like a chain, or double it up to keep warm. 

I decided to "tea stain" some coffee filters and flour sack towels for a few projects.  I live in an apartment, and it was 30 degrees out, so I opted to dry them right there in my kitchen window.  Once dry, the filters flattened out nicely and held a little texture to make these snowflakes that I used for wrapping the presents.

 And with the flour sacks, I ironed them and used freezer paper stencils to make these cute little kitchen towels for my sister:

Other than that, I just printed out some other "freebies" I got off the web, cut them out accordingly, and packaged them as nicely as I could so they could pass for a gift:)

We hope your holidays were filled with warmth and joy and that this new year brings everyone great happiness.

Hannah moved to a new home with her fiance and son over the New Year's weekend and her sewing studio is no longer in the dungeon (the basement)!  She couldn't be more excited- so no more pictures with bad lighting- at least from her house.  I'm still a night owl, so I'll have to work on that!

Cheers to a great new year!

New Items in Shop and "About Us"

After a somewhat stressful week of photo-editing and mini-meltdowns, new items are now in our shop.  Some of these items have made an appearance on the blog before, and some may be brand new to you.  Also, there are three that I couldn't upload pictures for because, well, I'm really not sure why, but Hannah is going to get those three up and running in the next few days.  So check now, and check back in a few days if you like.

 There's a pretty big gift giving holiday coming up if you haven't noticed; we're running a FREE SHIPPING special through the end of December for all those who may need some last minute gift ideas. 

Also, we had a close, long-time friend and very talented gal write our About Us page.  Check that out, too, if you want to know more about FlyChicks and the girls behind it!  She put that together as part of the Press Kit we will be sending out in the new year.

We're also working with an extremely talented web-designer who is crafting up a brand spankin' new website for us.  We're really excited for the launch of that (look for it at the beginning of the next year) and can't wait to become a real business.  Hannah has been busy catching up on custom orders and designing new laptop covers.  I don't know how we're ever going to focus; there are always so many great ideas running around in our heads!

Hope your Holiday season is going well! 

Hello and Welcome!

Hello all of you out there in the blogging world and elsewhere!  My name is Emily; my sister, Hannah, and I have decided to start a blog in the name of our new, growing business, FlyChicks.  We've been reading blogs for a few months now and got so inspired that we decided it was time for us to launch.  Although we both have backgrounds in Fine Art, we recently learned to sew again and have been coming up with all sorts of fun ideas using all sorts of fabric. 

We're somewhat new at this sewing thing, so bear with us, but hopefully we'll get better as time goes on.  I want to post lots of pics since I am a very visual person, and hopefully, one day, we will feel confident enough to start giving tutorials.  I've set up an Etsy shop for us, but orders for things like handbags, headbands, key fobs, make-up bags, and more are backed up already!  So once we get the store stocked, I will post a link.  Meanwhile, I will just post pics of things we are working on.

Thank you for visiting, and we hope to see you often!