Anniversary Gift Box

My 3 year anniversary with my boyfriend recently passed and I wanted to incorporate something cute since all the gifts I got him were pretty random; I figured one could never go wrong with cute presentation, especially if its like a lift the flaps game :D
I work at Jo-Ann Fabrics so we get a lot of boxes and a lot if cardboard dividers within those boxes, which helped in making this :) Uhm.. the dividers kinda looked like this: (and you place them upside down at 90 degree angles to have them stay up and stuff)

My beautiful drawing

I put them all in a box to make the compartments different sizes and it worked out pretty well. I got some labels, scrapbook paper, a glue stick, tacky glue, and very hefty scissors to cut the cardboard.
After I made the compartment sizes, I cut out the "flaps" which was cutting the cardboard to be as big as the compartment + some extra space to glue the back to the box.

They're a little flimsy, but the box doesn't need to last forever!
As you can see from the picture above, I covered the cardboard BEFORE I glued the flap to the box, it helped the hassle alot. Oh yeah, tacky glue worked wonders with this project.
Afterwards came the decorating. As you should all know, I completely SUCK at painting, I am the messiest human being alive and me + paint = disaster. Yet, pinterest gave me some pretty good pointers :) I used the eraser side of a pencil, dipped it in paint, and made the polka dots on the side of the box (and to make the heart).

Then I painted the cover of the box, I thought this was going to be impossible until I found this blog on Pinterest: http://thatsmyletter.blogspot.com/2012/02/p-is-for-personalize-2.html
It taught me how to do any lettering and make it look absolutely amazing as you can see

Just follow that tutorial and you'll be good to go :)


When the flaps were all done, it came out looking not to shabby if ya ask me!

 


Each label was like a little hint as to what was in the flap, but not enough to give it away...
So it would pretty much be "I love you for: your quirkiness ( i got him a wax vac because theyre cool in a way), simply being you (home baked cookies because the way to a guy's heart is always through food :P), always thinking things through (a shower curtain with the world map on it because why not think more in the shower), always doing your best (books because he's studying English), always wanting to solve problems (a 2x2 rubiks cube), and what you like, dislike, and everything in between (I got him the spray smellies for men from bath & body works).

Welp, I hope this idea works for one of you out there and helps you out when you need ideas for that special someone or really any gift in general! Good luck ;)

UPDATE: Polka Dot Dress

I got suuuper tired of making a dress all to have it keep slipping down because something was wrong with the bust! I had to fix it so I thought it would be a good idea to fix it with adding sleeves or having it hold up with my shoulders somehow. But other than adding that, I think i finally found a way to fix the non-fitting bust problem. I looked through a few blogs but nobody really had a tutorial on ho to fix that for "well-endowed" women, and I guess it really doesnt help that I'm not posting a tutorial either...(mainly because I forgot to take steps of the process) D:

But I did find a pretty good idea! Since I took this dress from a pattern ( The polka dot part from McCall's M6646 and the lace part from McCall's M6838), someone said that it helps to copy the pattern onto muslin first. I really haven't tried that yet, and even though the extra work would be tedious, I think it's well worth it when the problem keeps popping up and you don't want to ruin the actual fabric you're using for the dress. Once you would copy the pattern onto the muslin, you can adjust it, re-sew it, make it fit you PERFECTLY, and then use what you altered as a new form-fitted pattern and you would have no problems when youre working on a dress (or whatsoever it may be).

However, for my dress's bust, if you can see here in this picture, it looks kinda tight, like its too flatly shaped for boobs. The top part doesn't form well above the bust and around the waist its very loose and just doesn't that great. I happened to notice all this after I wore it for an entire night :P

 

 

Now I learned how to fix that! I kind of trial-and-errored it though, I made the bust MUCH rounder and since I already had cut the fabric, I just made the seam allowances smaller. I used some chalk and pins to draw out and fit it. Ultimately, its tighter and better fitted, I wish I had taken pictures though :(

 

 

But this is my newer dress now, I bought 1/2 a yard of lace for the top and lace in one long strip for the bottom of the skirt. And this is the result:

 

It's soooo much better fitting, it complements curves (which is what every girl wants in a dress), and it stays up so theres no more pulling up a dress while moving aroundlike every normal human being does (because we cant be expected to just sit there and look pretty without moving an inch all day)!

Here's a side view to see where it's tighter and where I extended the stiches a bit (waist & bust)
Hope you like it!





Charmander Evolution Cross Stitched Backpack

I've started a loving, but sometimes tedious tradition of giving my boyfriend something hand-made for his birthday. I thought it added a little "from the heart" to the presents he gets :) The first was the Mario Blanket [after that, I never want to quilt again, especially without a rotary cutter] and this time it was this cross stitched backpack.

 

 

It took about 3 weeks to complete and a night to make the actual backpack itself. This was my first time cross stitching and I really wanted a pattern for this image but I could only work with what I had. So I ended up finding this picture on Mr. X-Stitch's blog and absolutely loved it!

 

This is his

I couldnt quite match and find all the colors, but I did the best I could with that. As for copying it, I SUPER zoomed in to a section that I was working on, counted spots, and stitched from there. Plus, I excluded the green background because it wouldnt have matched with the black backpack.

This is mine

I just found the DMC color chart I made for this! Here you go:

• Charizard
• Wings (dark): 3842
• Wings (light): 806
• Reflection orange (most of the face, etc): 971
• Body orange: 721
• Some of the random border: 3777
• Nails, eyes, etc: 3865
• Eye Color: 995
• Tummy Reflection: 3823
• Tummy Actual Color: 3856
• Inner Fire Yellow: 744 (I think?, I'm not sure if I changed this one or not)
• Outer Fire Orange: 971 or 741?
• Charmeleon:
• Body Orange: 721
• Reflection Orange: 606
• Random Border: 3777
• Eye Blue: 995
• Teeth, nails, eyes: 3865
• Tummy Reflection: 3823
• Tummy Actual: 3856
• Inner Fire: 3823 or 744?
• Outer Fire Orange: 741 or 971?
• Charmander
• Body Orange: 721
• Reflection Orange: 741
• Eye Blue: 995
• Teeth: 3865
• Random Border: 3777
• Tummy Reflection: 3823
• Tummy Actual: 3856

Hope you all like it! ♥