Week 9 of the Nine Weeks of Amy ... win a $25 gift certificate from AmyCanSew

Hello all! I am Amy K of AmyCanSew. I create one of a kind birthday hats and applique T-shirts.

It’s the final week of “Nine Weeks of Amy”. I hope you all enjoyed your Christmas, time with family & friends and are looking forward to a wonderful New Year. I know I am! I always feel victories when I make it through another Christmas with my sanity intact! Well, most of it anyway. I never have resolutions. I just come up with a few things that I feel will add to my overall happiness and goal of being the best ME I can be. So January is a wonderful time of year for me.

I am a stay at home mom of 9 years. My husband travels for work, so 75% of the time I am on my own with two wonderful children. I am a Girl Scout leader, member of the PTA, science Olympiad couch, volunteer at school, chief cook and bottle washer, chief financial officer, lawn maintenance person, head of snow removal, dog walker, pool boy and lead chauffer for most sports and activities.

I took my first sewing class a couple years after my daughter was born. I thought it would be wonderful to be able to sew Halloween costumes for both my children. I was hooked immediately! I love that I can take a pile of fabric and make it into something wonderful.

My process is pretty simple. I collect patterns and ideas. I then combine both to come up with a unique item. Sometimes an idea comes from a certain fabric; sometimes a holiday brings a great idea. I know if my daughter loves it, my customers will love it!

My current goal for the New Year is put together a flicker account with photos of all my past projects that I have made for my kids as well as the current items that I am selling on my AmyCanSew site.

To enter my giveaway visit my shop, AmyCanSew, and come back and comment on your favorite item.

Earn extra entries by leaving separate comments when you have followed the Amys blog, Amys Twitter and/or Amys Facebook page.

This contest runs from Sunday 12/26 through Saturday 1/1. Good luck!

Week 8 of the Nine Weeks of Amy ... win a $20 gift certificate from AREjewellery

It’s week eight of nine in the Nine Weeks of Amys and it’s nearly Christmas! So Merry Christmas to you all! I’m Amy of AREjewellery. I’m a UK based Amy (hence the English spelling of jewellery!). It’s great to be involved in a team with such a variety of sellers from all over the world.

I make bead jewellery and have done so for about 6 years now. Beads are my biggest weakness – the bigger and shinier the better! I just love browsing for unusual beads and love it when I find something that I have never seen anywhere before. I had these earrings in my shop for a while but they haven’t sold – I’ve decided I love the beads so much I’m keeping them for myself.

I also love using different materials: ribbon, fabric, wire, cord. I’m always experimenting with something new. I’ve just bought some tulle and am coming up with some ideas to incorporate it.

I make jewellery in my spare time as I have a full time job as a graduate surveyor. I just moved to a different part of the UK and am just settling in. Where I lived previously I was a member of an arts festival committee and one of my main roles was organising a handmade craft fair. Hugely rewarding but also pretty stressful – it’s an outdoor even and the weather in the England is highly unpredictable! I am helping out again this year – from a distance! I love the handmade community and support it by buying the majority of my Christmas presents on Etsy.

To enter my giveaway to win a $20 voucher in my shop, leave a comment on this page with your favourite item from my shop.

Earn additional entries by:

- following @amysinthearts on Twitter

- sharing this giveaway on Twitter by tagging @amysinthearts in your tweet

- following the Amys In The Arts blog,

- Follow me on twitter @AREjewellery

- Follow my blog

To get credit for your additional entries, please be sure to let us know what you’ve done. You can earn one additional entry by doing each of the above actions, up to 6 entries total. Competition closes 25^th December. 

Week 7 of the Nine Weeks of Amy - featuring Amy Sews!

I'm thrilled to be a path of the Amy in the Arts 9 weeks of giveaways! The largest outlet of my creativity is my shop on etsy. WWW.amy305.etsy.com. Goofy name I know but Etsy wont let you change your name. I prefer Amy Sews!


I can't remember not sewing! I started out hand sewing scraps from my mother’s projects when I was young, like 6 or 7 years old. I remember wanting to use the sewing machine SOOOO bad but my mom telling me I was too young! I think she finally let me at about 10 years old. I learned everything from her! I am the oldest of 4 girls in my family (out of 6 kids!) and my mom sewed to keep us in clothes. Dresses, Jeans, even panties! She learned from her Mom so I guess it's in my blood. She is still who I call when I need advise on a project! And I'm happy to say that I am teaching my 9 year old daughter to sew too! :)


I asked my husband how much time I spend in a fabric shop. He laughed at me! My four year old son starts to cry when we pull in to the Hobby Lobby parking lot! "I don't want to go to Hobby Lobby!!! It's so boring!!" I go to H.L. once or twice a week. I just moved to a town with a Hancock's Fabric in it too, so I'm there once or twice a week. My Wallmart has a fabric department that I go to at least 4 times a week! Sometimes I go to all three just to browse and see what’s new, sometimes I just need a spool of thread or a little more ribbon. I discovered Etsy about two years ago and can spend hours on it looking at fabric and even more hours looking at Twilight stuff!! I love Etsy!!! I have my go to sites online for fabric and patterns: http://www.fabric.com/, http://www.sewingpatterns.com/ and http://www.patternsoftime.com/. When I die, they will open my purse and find dozens of little swatches of fabric! So I guess the answer to how many hours is, Way too many!

I've been asked what my favorite thing to make was. That's a tough one. I made one of my sisters’ wedding dress and I've made 32 little pink tutu's for my daughters ballet class recital. I think my favorite thing to make is something I know the person I'm doing it for will love and appreciate! I love to see my stuff in action! My baby blankets may not be "Heirloom standards" but they will make it through being washed 600 times and still hold up!


I have a coupon especially for the blog followers. Enter AMYARTS12 and receive 20% off in my shop!

My give away will be one teddy bear of your choice from my shop!
-Tell me your favorite item off my shop.
For additional entries:
-Like me on face book. http://www.facebook.com/AmySews
- follow the Amys In The Arts blog
- become a fan of Amys in the Arts Facebook page
- post a link to this giveaway on your blog (please copy the link to your blog post)
- add the Amys In The Arts button to your blog (please copy the link where you've added it)

Win $20 SewArtsy Gift Certificate During Week 6 of the Nine Weeks of Amy

Generally speaking I look at my sewing studio and see a giant mess. So how does such cute stuff come out of it all? Let me take you on a journey through my process.

I love color and detail, so I begin by choosing my base. I'll get stuck on one or two dark fabrics to use as foundational fabrics for my bags - most recently it’s been a dark charcoal gray and a deep blue denim. Once I feel my foundational fabrics, then I can hit my closet of cotton quilting-weight fabrics for inspiration of color and print. My stash is significantly smaller than it used to be as I’ve tried to use it up instead of buying more (very hard to do when you have a slight fabric addiction!), and because I’ve sold a bit in my Etsy store as a destash (not so hard when you know your fabric is going to better home where it has more chance to be used!). Very little of what I have is new, but there have been a few fabric lines that I haven’t been able to resist lately!

I have to then decide if I am going to do a cut out shape applique or do a stripe pattern, or work on a new idea. I love to lay out fabrics together and see what I can do with the combinations – perhaps a mushroom top and stem, or a more complicated design like an owl. Sometimes I just get struck by one fabric, and make it something more simple. All of my applique designs start out as my drawings, then are scaled and hand cut by me before being stitched onto the foundational fabric. Getting time to sit and draw is a real luxury for me, so it's always an exciting time when I get to debut something new!

Once the bag is finished it is time to dress it up! Right now my favorite embellishments are buttons and hot fix crystals. I think they add a bit of whimsy to my items, and they either add more color or enhance the color in the prints themselves. I try not to go overboard with the embellishments because I don’t want them to distract from the design. Sometimes adding a ribbon and/or bead to a zipper pull also helps me feel the project is truly finished.

Because I also have an affection for small and cute, in my shop you'll also find rings where I use up my scraps of fabric, some embellished and some plain, and I also dress up my buttons and turn them into rings as well. I hope you enjoy browsing!

If you’d like to learn more about me and how I got started, see this recent blog post on our Amys’ blog!

This week, to celebrate my giveaway and the holiday season, my prices have been reduced 15%. To enter the giveaway to win a $20 gift certificate from SewArtsy, first, go browse through my shop; then come back here and leave a comment on this page telling me what your favorite item is from my shop.

You can also earn additional entries by:
- following @amysinthearts on Twitter
- following @sewartsyamy on Twitter
- sharing this giveaway on Twitter by tagging @amysinthearts and/or @sewartsyamy in your tweet
- following the Amys in the Arts Blog

- following the SewArtsy Blog
- becoming a fan of Amys in the Arts Facebook page
- becoming a fan of the SewArtsy Facebook page

-sharing this giveaway on your Facebook page
- posting a link to this giveaway on your blog
- adding the Amys In The Arts button to your blog

-And, finally, a purchase from my shop this week will earn you an additional 5 entries to this giveaway!

To get credit for your additional entries, please be sure to let us know what you’ve done by leaving separate comments for each entry that you've completed.

This giveaway will end at 11:59 pm, Saturday, December 11. I will randomly pick a winner from all entries, and notify the winner on Sunday, December 12. I look forward to reading each of your comments!

Amy Roundtree

SewArtsy

SewArtsy Etsy Shop

SewArtsy Blog

SewArtsy on Facebook

SewArtsy on Twitter