The Stash Bash 2014

 

I little over a week ago I was lucky enough to get to attend The Stash Bash near Atlanta, GA!  It was awesome!  The Stash Bash is a casual and fun sewing retreat in a camp like setting.  I had such a great time!  This retreat was very different from Sewing Summit.  While I loved Sewing Summit very much it was a lot more go go go!  You have to move quickly from one class to the next and don’t get much time to socialize until the open sew time late at night. The Stash Bash in comparison was just open sew time with one optional class. 

It was great to really get to know the ladies at the retreat and to just be relaxed and sew, shop and goof off.

This is our awesome sewing room!

 

The mastermind behind this retreat is Chris Warnick aka Freckle Mama.  (FYI those would be Margarita cupcakes!)

Chris did such a fabulous job organizing the event and the swag that she and her friends were able to get for us was seriously OUT OF CONTROL!

Okay here come the pictures!

My roommate Kim and I.   We tried to get a decent selfie and not crack up and ended up having someone else take our picture.

We had just a “few” outtakes.    Kim and I met at Sewing Summit and it was fun to get to know her better.

I really loved hanging out with all of these ladies.  This is during the official “pajama party” but I’m not going to lie, most of us were dressed like this the whole weekend.

Pouches filled with goodies for my roomate, my secret swap partner and our host.

Goodie bag waiting for me when I arrived.  Little did I know that this was just the beginning of the awesome swag!

Kira with Kim modeling her munki munki nightgown. (Soon to be transformed into a Super Tote!)

Dorking it up with my fellow Modern InstaBee Hive Five members, Lelsie, Kim and Karrie.  Hive 5 High 5!

We had a wonderful time shopping at this beautiful store, A Scarlet Thread.

We had a very “high stakes” gambling night with fat quarters of fabric as our chips.

I won pretty big!

The craziest thing happened at The Stash Bash.  I ran into Sonya, a sorority sister, from 20 years ago!  She is so sweet and even made me this awesome flag that is hanging in my sewing area.

The one optional class that I mentioned for the Sew Together Bag and was taught by Kristi of Schnitzle and Boo.  It is a really great bag and was fun to make even if I was so sleep deprived that a made a lot of silly mistakes.  I love it!

I even started and finished my MQG Michael Miller fabric challenge quilt top!  Woohoo.  The pattern is Playing Cards from the book, Modern Bee.

In a nutshell, The Stash Bash was awesome and I can’t wait to go back next year!

I will leave you with this PSA.

Margaritas do not help with quilt math!    Ha!

 

Happy Sewing!

Fiesta Birthday Party!

My little girls are turning eight.  There birthday is actually on September 10 but they wanted to have a summer fiesta type party.  Sounded great to me because it is always so hard to have a party right when school and fall activities are starting.

We had a really good time and I just wanted to share a couple of the activities that we did in case you want to give them a try. 

I got a lot of my inspiration from Dana at Made.  She had a fiesta party for her daughter Lucy last year.

I used this tutorial for Ruffled Streamers and my tutorial for Tissue Paper Pompoms to add some décor to the party.  I ordered the fiesta graphics from The Digi Butterfly.  I used them to make the invitations, thank you cards and sign.

The girls helped out and added the Barbie on the piñata.  By the looks of Barbie’s hair, she may have already been doing some partying.

 

I wanted to plan some fun crafts that would serve as both party activities and party favors.  Here are the three that I came up with.

First, we painted freezer paper stenciled shirts.  I think that they came out great!

 

I used my Silhouette to cut out the shapes out of freezer paper and that saved a lot of time but you could definitely cut out your shapes by hand if you planned ahead.  This is actually reverse stenciling so I used the pieces that I pulled out of the center rather than the paper that was left over with the cutouts.  Can you see the butterflies and dinosaurs on the shirts bellow?

  Then I ironed them onto shirts so that they would be ready to go for the party. 

I used dye found at Dharma Trading and put them into spray bottles with equal parts dye and water.  (The bottles were great for spraying a light mist but got harder to use after a while so I think that I would try the ones with a squeeze pump the next time.)  I was a little nervous about this activity because I didn’t test it out first but the shirts came out great!

The best part was peeling off the stencils to see the results.

Everyone looked so cute in their shirts and it made for a fun party favor.

Next, we decorated bags with sharpies and stencils.  I embroidered each child’s name onto the bag to make them a little more special.  The best part is that these bags were only $1 at Michael’s and I had a 20% off coupon so the were only 80 cents each! 

The last craft that we did was homemade maracas!  They were fun and easy and the kids had fun making them.  For the tutorial go HERE.

Then there was still plenty of time for:

swimming in the pool,

lounging in the hammock,

enjoying slushies,

and breaking open the piñata.

 

Then it was time for pizza, cake and ice cream.  The girls wanted to have a picture cake this year.  I think that it turned out cute and of course they were thrilled with it.

 

Make a wish!

 

Two funny things after the party were:

Their little brother dressing up like the piñata

and the pieces of cake that the girls chose after dinner that night!

Happy Birthday Girls!  I love you!