Here we are at Rails to Trails in Burlingame

Here's a shot of our setup at Rails to Trails in Burlingame this morning. We had slow traffic early due to threat of rain, then things picked up a bit when the sun came out. I'm still looking for suggestions about enhancing my display to make things pop. It is really apparent when I look at pictures that I need to make changes. Any ideas?

I wish I'd had my video camera with me to show this amazing Border Collie herding the geese as part of the parade. OMG this was awesome to watch! Makes me want to train our Katie to be a real Border Collie!

We met Emily and Matt for supper tonight to celebrate her birthday early (it's on the 25th) and sat at Chipotles eating with tornado sirens going off watching the hail and rotating clouds. Toto, we really ARE in Kansas!!! Then we went next door to shop at Michaels and found the doors locked, but the manager came and opened the door, informed us that if we came in we'd have to huddle in the back hallway with them, so hey, what better place to hunker down than Michaels, right?!? We ended up getting let out right before the all clear was sounded, drove home thinking we'd find a Border Collie stroked out (she HATES storms!) and it was completely dry here. The tornadoes are hitting further northeast of here and another storm is headed up the turnpike towards us, so I'll send this on its way and think about getting some rest before the next round of thunder. Have a great weekend everyone!

Here we are (or were ) at Farmers Market!

I'll have a better picture later, but this is what Emily posted on her Facebook page right after we got set up at Farmers Market. It was a great day, a little windy and hot towards the end, but the crowd was awesome!

Banner for our vendor booth

One of my projects for today was to cut out the vinyl letters for the banner on our vendor tent for Farmers Market. I had just enough black vinyl in the size needed (phew!). I used my Sure Cuts A Lot program to lay out the letters to cut out on my Cricut. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. Can't wait to show you the booth all set up next Saturday!

Upclycled washer necklaces my daughter made for Farmers Market

Please stop by Emily's Facebook page and give her some luvin for these awesome 2 inch upcycled washer necklaces she made for Farmers Market. She might also start selling them in our Etsy shop soon if there's enough interest. These are made in several different ways, decorative paper, upcycled book pages and hand painted. The girl's got talent, what else can I say? Yup, very proud momma here!!!

Covered Button Tutorial and Badge Reels I made with them

First I'll show you what I've been making this weekend for Farmers Market, then I'll explain how to make the covered buttons. What fun it was to find the vintage fabric in my stash and pick out designs I thought might appeal to a wide variety of people! Of course with this being Kansas and all AND with it being a Farmers Market, when I came across remnants of the John Deere fabric that I'd used years ago when my husband has his school kids make 12 inch squares for a quilt I just KNEW those HAD to be included! Heck, if nobody buys them I'll wear them with my badge at work! And don't you just LOVE those sunflowers? Also remnants from another quilt his kids made blocks for and I sewed together.

The pink, blue and green fabric on the left is from upholstery samples and the black is beautiful velvet left over from a skirt I made for my daughter years ago (come to think of it I never finished that skirt...)

The buttons below are made from a variety of fabric. For instance that purple and gold one is from an old tie, as is the red paisley button. The pink, yellow and green watermelon fabric is left over from a cute little jumpsuit I made my daughter some 20 years ago and the pink dotted fabric is actually new, but without a home or project in mind, just got a good deal on it (yes ladies, I KNOW you ALL know what I'm talking about!)

 This gives you an idea of the different colors of badge reels that I used. What I had available was white, dark pink, blue and black, so I just had to make it all work together. I think they turned out great!

 OK, NOW on with the tutorial. First you'll need to gather your supplies. The only real necessity for making the covered buttons is the button kit. It will include a base (the round white thing) and the pusher (blue round thing that isn't a badge reel) along with a few button blanks in two pieces. You will want the blanks that do not have shank backs, although the shank piece is easily removable if that's all you can find. The package has a template on the back showing how large to cut your circles for the size of button you are using. The circle cutter on the right is strictly optional. I bought one because I thought I'd be making a bunch of yo-yo's, but it's a little more cumbersome than I'd hoped and hasn't gotten as much use as I'd expected. It did come in handy for this project though, so I'm glad I had it. My glue of choice is E-6000 because it is VERY strong when cured, but you can use whatever you prefer, just make sure it will create a permanent bond to metal. Oh and the last thing, of course, is your fabric. The one below turned out to be just a bit thicker than normal, making it a little tricky to get the back of the button to push down into the front, but I made it work anyway (where there's a will, there's a way, but I won't be demonstrating THAT part of it here today...)

 Step 1:  Cut your circle according to the size indicated on your package template.

 Step 2:  Line up your button front in the center of the fabric circle.

 Step 3:  Place the fabric with the metal button front on it over the top of the white base and push down evenly.

 Step 4: Smoosh the button down so the white base hugs it really tight, then using your fingernail, evenly smoosh the fabric down all the way around. When using thinner fabric this step isn't a necessity, but with the thicker fabric it makes a much nicer button.

 Step 5:  Place the button base over the top of the smooshed down fabric.

Step 6:  Place the blue pusher thingy over the metal button base and push down in the middle. Ok, so this is where it got really tricky with the thick fabric and the blue thingy just kind of bent rather than pushing the base down into the fabric, so I'd suggest starting with thinner fabric.

Step 7:  What the button looks like after you've pushed the base into the button top. (Or what the other button I made with thinner fabric looked like anyway since the thicker fabric one got a little bent up by my alternative method.)

 Step 8:  Tada! Your beautiful finished button! I love this one so much that I think I'll wear it tomorrow!

 Step 9:  Go check on the dog (or cat or kids or spouse or whatever!) LOL! and find out it's snowing AGAIN!!!