Episode 4 All Hallow’s Eve Decor Video

August 15, 2012 by carina 8 Comments

I know it’s only August, but this Halloween video is meant to get you excited about the approaching season. I love fall and adore Halloween. With school starting next week (eek!), fall is just around the corner. I know there’s a lot of sentimentality about new beginnings and freshly sharpened pencils when school starts, but I actually feel that fresh starts CAN happen in the fall. I probably feel it more so this year than others since baby boy will be coming to us the day after school begins (7 days and counting!).

Lindsay Moore, Sales Director for Carta Bella joins me in my studio to introduce the All Hallow’s Eve line. We show you how easy it is to make home decor crafts from this line (Most of it is either just “cut out” and display or “stick” and display!)

We obviously have a good time, and you’ll definitely want to enter to win our Hot-Off-The-Press Giveaway.

As promised, I also have silhouette files and jpgs of the silhouettes and bats I mention in the video. Download them here: All Hallow’s Eve Projects.

If you are looking for the Bat Wreath I mention in the video, you can find it here: Bat Wreath Post

And finally, here is the video of Lindsay and me dressed up and having a good time:

Nesting

August 8, 2012 by carina 2 Comments

I begrudgingly decided it was time to get a new computer. Besides running really slow, it turns out my love for the 17″ MacBook Pro is outdated. So I settled on a 15″ that I was assured will make me faster. With baby boy on the way, I knew all the “down time” I currently spend just letting things “run” needed to end. So my “old” Mac and “new” Mac both went to the doctor for a data transfer this weekend.

It’s been a long time since I didn’t have access to a computer. Maybe too long…because I managed to do some much needed nesting over the weekend. I have a major list of things that will absolutely NOT happen before this child arrives in a couple of weeks, but I also have a minor list that (hopefully!), I will on get done.

One of these “to dos” was to get curtains up in my kitchen. I made these ruffle curtains out of the Paris and Company fabric that I designed for Riley Blake (released out this last April (2012)). They are fun and pretty girly (Josh is dealing pretty well with this), and match the light blue chairs I painted for the breakfast nook.

I also managed to spend a good deal of my time catching up with the Olympics and Pinterest. My obsession for white colonial-style houses and lots of bright colors is evident.

In the coming weeks, I may be a little busy with our new adventure which may result in fewer blog posts. But my obsession with Instagram (follow carinagardner) should keep those of you who want to see the Carta Bella-Riley Blake-Jessica Sprague.com-Sewing Pattern-More Licensing(Yikes!)-Gardner Family-adventures in the loop.

XOXO- Carina

Summer CHA Tradeshow Booth Video (Episode 3)

July 21, 2012 by carina 2 Comments

I wasn’t sure if it was going to work, but I tried to create a video of us putting up the tradeshow booth. Before I had ever participated in having a booth, I always wondered what the process was. Sooooo…here’s a time lapsed video of the two days we put together the Carta Bella booth. It’s two days squished into 3 minutes. It’s so fun, and I hope you enjoy my commentary!

Enjoy! Carina

Summer CHA 2012 Review

July 21, 2012 by carina 1 Comment

Hello! I’m back from Summer CHA in Chicago and I’ve spent the last 24 hours downloading a heck-of-a-lotta videos and photos! You can see more photos (if you don’t think you’ll get enough here) on the Carta Bella blog.

Many of you will recognize the booth as my Quilt Market booth. It was fun to see it filled with paper this time around. It’s also fun to compare that baby belly after two months of baking (only a month left!).

Here Lindsay and I pose on Day 1 of set up. I hardly had to lift a box because everyone was so concerned (I think they just didn’t want to deliver a baby).

Set up was also fun because it was a Carta Bella and Echo Park team effort. It was nice to have that many hands putting together the two booths. Check out Andrea (CHA Coordinator for Echo Park and Carta Bella) putting up the Carta Bella sign (below) and Lindsay bolting together the walls.

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There were a lot of darling projects in the booth! This advent calendar was made by Deena Rutter who also designed Merry & Bright for Carta Bella (ships September 2012).

I made this Beautiful Moments lamp below. I HIGHLY recommend having a silhouette machine for this project. It turned out darling but took a lot of time to put together.

Samantha Walker put together this fabulous display of silhouette pieces using her Paris Girl Collection.

So many darling cards made by the design team!

Here are my All Hallow’s Eve bottles that you will see in the upcoming Halloween video Lindsay and I do. It should be posted sometime next week. Any guesses on what we dress up as?

I made this banner using the Alphabet Junction Collection by Melanie Ritchie.

Here’s Miss Melanie herself with her first collection! Love the Vanna White pose!

Me and my belly.

Shimelle (from 2Peas in a Bucket), with Melanie and myself. Too bad we aren’t having fun.

Here’s dinner with Lori Whitlock (designer for Echo Park) and Andrea (CHA Coordinator for EP and CB). Matt (THE sticker guy and serious foodie) chose this awesome place. The food was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. If you go to Chicago, it’s worth getting the beef tenderloin (and all the desserts) http://www.carnivalechicago.com/.

Look at the amazing light fixture! (Which also accounts for the bad photo lighting).

Well, there it is! A few photos from CHA and a little of what we were up to. I’ll admit, I was happy to get back home to my own bed. I’m at the most uncomfortable stage of this pregnancy, and it was nice to snuggle into bed last night. Josh and my girls are in Sun Valley at the Bar Convention (therefore making it possible to get all my blogging in before they come home). They should be showing up tonight so I will have my little darlings to snuggle.

Be back in a second with our tradeshow booth video!

—Carina

Laminate Bag Tutorial

July 14, 2012 by carina 2 Comments

I’ve been meaning to post this tutorial for a month now. My kids took a neighborhood art class and the night before I had the hair-brained scheme that they both needed new art bags. After making them, I sketched up the steps for anyone else who is interested in experimenting with these said “hair-brained” schemes.

I’ve sketched up a similar tutorial for my girls’ ballet bag, but this time the bags are substantially larger, made of laminates, and have a single strap. I used the Dainty Blossoms™ laminates (shown in the photos).

Working with laminates was not as hard as I originally anticipated. I like to use Lila Tuller’s oil method for running laminates through my sewing machine. It works like a charm!

A few notes about the sketches for this tutorial:

* They are by no means comprehensive:). That means that I give you sizes, and you can customize as you wish.
* Yardage for the bag does NOT include the “cutout” (in my example I show an ‘S’). Either use a scrap of contrasting laminate or skip altogether (see more notes on this below).
* You may want to adjust the strap’s length for the intended use of the bag. My strap is meant to comfortably fit across the chest.
* I don’t use fusible material for the letters/cutout. I simply carefully laid the letters on the front of the bags and appliqué stitched the letters directly to the front. It was absolutely an experiment in progress since I had never used laminates like this before. Amazingly, it worked (but was not easy!)

After a month of use, turns out these bags are pretty strong and can take a beating. I attribute it to the laminates, which helped my wipe away all the paint my kid’s left undone in the bag. Perfect art bag.

Hope you also get a chance to experiment!

—Carina

Fourth of July 2012

July 8, 2012 by carina

We ditched our usual Fourth of July traditions to hang out at home. I’m going a little slower these days and a middle-of-the-week holiday seemed like a good excuse to stay at home, enjoy the neighborhood breakfast, and family BBQ.

Breakfast date + Dinner date = Lunchtime nap.

Other than napping, Siri and Felicity helped me make peach ice cream and shuck corn. Sounds rather summer-y, right?

We also decorated bikes to be in the two minute neighborhood bike parade. Crepe paper and my fringe scissors were a cheap way to get by (Yes, the bike below is NOT one of my kids’).

Hope you had a fab holiday too!

—Carina

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Carina Gardner TV Channel—Episode 2 Paris Girl

June 29, 2012 by carina 4 Comments

I just finished editing Episode 2 for the new CG TV Channel. Today’s episode features guest Lindsay Moore, who is the Director of Sales at Carta Bella Paper. I hope you’ll check out because we show off the Paris Girl Collection for Carta Bella Paper Company and making this darling card (see left).

Watching this video, you’ll see why I love working with Lindsay. He keeps me on my toes and has me laughing through the entire thing (and BTW, So You Think You Can Dance IS better than America Idol…just saying, Lindsay).

We also continue our Hot-Off-The-Press Giveaway. Check it out and see what you have to do to be entered!

As promised, here are the dimensions of the card for your scrapbooking pleasure!

* Main Envelope—5 inch x 12 inch (fold)
* Contrasting Paper—4 inch x 5 inch
* Insert—4 inch x 5 1/2 inch
* Ribbon—3 inches of a satin or grosgrain

Enjoy! —Carina

New Lines

June 12, 2012 by carina

Today I have been getting production files ready, getting ready for CHA, and a lot of other general fun stuff for Carta Bella. I also announced two new lines for Carta Bella. Go check out my blogpost for that reveal here.

In the midst of getting the new lines ready, I managed to take the girls to the park for a couple of hours. They have been asking since April to play in the creek (it was too cold then and I wouldn’t let them dip their toes in). So today was an indulgence.

To be honest, my only goal this summer is to get out for a couple of hours a day so that the girls and I can relish in our last summer of freedom (ironic because of my current working schedule). Either way, it’s our last summer of “big girls only” and I want them (and me) to really cherish it.

The girls playing in the creek today reminded me of growing up in Tennessee. It seemed like we used to play in creeks a lot and explore the woods behind our backyard. Oh, and catch fireflies at night. I tried to explain that to the girls the other night, and they asked when they would get to catch fireflies. I had to explain to them that we didn’t have fireflies to catch in Utah. It made me a little sad.

It also reminded me to lug my camera around a lot more this summer. First because I need to make sure the girls have photos of what we did this summer. And second, because I have an awful lot of scrapbooking papers to use up!

So here’s to fireflies and rambling! Hope you are enjoying your summer too!

Carina

Uncrated

June 9, 2012 by carina 1 Comment

I am finally getting around to putting away boxes and furniture from my crates from Quilt Market. As promised, my girls got their first pick of the Rini Dolls from the show. Then Josh was lovely enough to bring in all the heavy boxes. I’ve been pulling out stuff and replacing it in my studio so that we can get around to photoshooting it for the newsletter this coming week.

My camera has been out a lot this last week as I have been prepping marketing materials for Carta Bella. We’ll be revealing two more lines on Wednesday. I’m excited about both! Be sure and check those out along with the facebook page where Lindsay and I seem to constantly be giving away stuff.

Speaking of giveaways, it’s looking like I will have some extra goodies from Songbird™ for giveaways. There’s only so much my tiny studio can hold soooooo be on the look out for a giveaway soon.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Carina

Beautiful Moments Ships

June 8, 2012 by carina

Beautiful Moments™ shipped this week! Ironically, I haven’t even had a chance to let it sink in because I have already moved on to the next 5 lines. Today, I’m sqwanching (is that word?) paper and tying up twine to take photos of the Halloween line. And I took photos and made layouts for our July release earlier this week.

You are in for some eye candy!

Click on the image to the side here and you can see our Beautiful Moments™ Catalog. More of these catalogs to come…

I’d recommend following my instagram (just follow carinagardner) to see what “secret” projects I’m up to in the day to day. You may even get a sneak peek at what I’m working on at this very moment.

Now back to hot gluing…

Carina

New Mini Sewing Pattern—Kimono Skirt

June 3, 2012 by carina

At Quilt Market, I introduced my new mini pattern—the Kimono Skirt. I’m excited about these mini patterns because we’ll be able to release them more often than the large patterns throughout the year.

This little mini pattern includes sizes XS-XXL (2T-10) and includes a knee-length and maxi version of the skirt. It’s fairly quick to make and the different versions make this skirt really versatile (especially as you start combining different fabrics).

Check out the back, because it makes me really happy! (see below!)

The fabrics shown here are all in Songbird™. Songbird™ should be hitting stores sometime this month and if you are a retailer, I still have a few samples left for shops to borrow. Feel free to email me at carina@carinagardner.com if you would like to find out which samples (in all the sewing patterns) are left.

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Hope you get a chance to grab this sewing pattern in your local quilt shop! It’s the perfect, “quick, little project” for your little girl.

Sew Happy,

Carina

Carina Gardner TV Channel—Free Download and Giveaway

May 30, 2012 by carina 7 Comments

I’m excited to introduce to you a series of videos straight from my studio! Introducing CG TV! I originally got the idea for doing the videos because I wanted to show tutorials on my sewing patterns. The idea eventually was expanded to include all the things I do here in the studio—paper, fabric, digital, hybrid, classes, sewing patterns, as well as projects, interviews, giveaways, and introduction into new designs.

So here it is—Episode 1! I’m excited that my first video introduces the Beautiful Moments™ Collection for Carta Bella Paper. You get a sneak peek into my studio where I film the videos and get to see me grow around the middle every month to boot!

As a kick off to the new videos, there is an awesome new giveaway in this video—so be sure to check it out! The winner will be announced on the Carta Bella Facebook Page on Monday, June 4, 2012.

As promised, here is the free download of the album bracket and flowers I show in the video. I’ve included the following in this zip:

ALBUM BRACKET AI FILE
ALBUM BRACKET DXF FILE (FOR SILHOUETTE CAMEO)
ALBUM BRACKET JPG FILE
BASIC FLOWER PATTERN AI FILE
BASIC FLOWER PATTERN DXF FILE (FOR SILHOUETTE CAMEO)
BASIC FLOWER PATTERN JPG FILE

Sadly, this project download DOES NOT include instructions for making the album shown here. It simply includes all the fun templates for you to create an album like this one.

Enjoy!

Carina

Quilt Market 2012 Kansas City

May 25, 2012 by carina 5 Comments

I intended to post the day after Quilt Market, but it’s been almost a week and I’m finally just catching my breath! This was probably the most exciting show I’ve attended simply because it was my first time exhibiting. We had been working on the tradeshow booth for months and this is what we had to show for it:

I was ecstatic with how the booth turned out. Things I learned this time around:
+ There’s a reason you never see pictures of the booths during set up. You don’t have time to pull out your camera because you are so busy just trying to get it all together! After we had most of it set up, I went and grabbed my camera…too late. So I don’t have any pictures of the guys putting it up…which is a shame because it was pretty cool to see it all come together.

+ I couldn’t have done the show without Josh and the Riley Blake team. My booth was SO heavy, and it took some serious manpower to get it up.
+ I already feel sorry for the Echo Park and Carta Bella guys since they will be putting this up in a couple of months…yes, I will be supervising. Best. job. ever.

+ Help is necessary when you only have one week to sew (Thank you to my mom who made that huge quilt in only a couple of days and Lisa in my neighborhood who embroidered the pillow below).

+ Some of my favorite pieces were teeny-tiny and you had to get up close to really see them (like the cubby full of birds that is going into my studio the moment I get my crate back!).

+ That at the end of the day, my favorite thing about Quilt Market was simply getting to connect with sewers and reconnect with all the people I already knew. (The picture below is with the Riley Blake gals).

Hope you enjoyed all the photos! Josh and I had a wonderful time, and we are excited to do it again (especially when I am NOT pregnant:).

Toodles—Carina

A Day Away

May 14, 2012 by carina

I am currently packing for our trip to Quilt Market and am running around (perhaps not like a chicken with it’s head cut off, but it’s close) completely nervous I’m going to forget something (as evidence of the lengthy schedule I’ve handed out to several family members). I’m only a day away, and I know the moment I get to Kansas City, I WILL have forgotten something, and it’s going to be just fine. But until then, I will worry.

I didn’t hop on here to tell you about my worry-habits or even to show off how cute my big girl is becoming (an indulgence on my part), but to tell you that there is a happy bundle of fabric being given away at Carta Bella. Expect a little from Samantha, Deena, and myself. It’s the final day of prizes going on at the blog and facebook since our launch a couple of weeks ago (my, how time flys!). Hope you get a chance to win it! I believe there will be another giveaway towards to the end of the month so you might as well join now!

Will be in soon to tell you all about QM!

Carina

SongBird Fabric Line—Quilt Market 2012

May 8, 2012 by carina

Quilt Market is a week away and I’m finally getting around to showing you my next line—SongBird™. My booth at Quilt Market will be featuring this line. Most of the sewing is done, and I even have a new pattern I’ll be introducing at Market (Don’t worry, I’ll show it here soon as well!).

Never heard of Quilt Market? It’s a tradeshow for distributors, retailers, manufacturers, and designers to show off what is new in the fabric world. I’ve blogged about the Minneapolis Show 2010 here and the Salt Lake Show 2011 here.

This is my first ever Quilt Market where I’ll have my own booth. I started thinking about it last September and started actual work on it this February. What started out as one crate became two + lots of loading issues. To get the crates from my house to Riley Blake we had two freight trucks arrive (one that was tall enough and one with a liftgate) to get them out to Riley Blake’s warehouse.

The actual loading of the crates wasn’t a picnic either. Poor Josh had to reorganize twice. We packed them pretty full.

Josh is coming with me to Kansas City QM to do the heavy lifting and to help me out in general.

If you are coming to the show, please come visit me in Booth # 1529. If you aren’t coming to the show, send your quilt show owners my way! They (or you) can also visit me in a Schoolhouse presentation at 10:40am in Room 2505A on the new line and how to make the new sewing pattern.

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You can check out all the fabrics in Songbird by clicking on one of the photos in this post. It is all summery-goodness! It hits quilt shops in June (2012).

Happy sewing!

Carina