Jumping on the $Tree bandwagon

If you do custom embroidery and you are not a part of an online group or forum, you just might be missing out on some awesome ideas! This post is filled with things I've made for my family inspired by other stitchers... FROM DOLLAR TREE! That's right folks, grab a $1 item, add some embroidery, and suddenly you have a boutique item!

First up, place mats. Dollar Tree has these in red, white and blue right now. You can find similar place mats at other locations. They will cost more, and probably have a higher quality, but for us this will do. After looking through all of my 8CP fonts with my daughter trying to find a single font that had:

• a D that was clearly identifiable as D (since Dashiell is VERY into his initial at the moment) 
• a C that was not too feminine
• an A that was pretty and pleased Annaliese
• and a J wasn't boring yet didn't look like an I or a T 

(whew, that's not as easy as you would think!) we settled on Miss Kitty from 8 Claws and a Paw. Honestly it wasn't my first choice (Southern Belle was), but I knew Annaliese would bring it up every time we sat down for dinner, so I went with her first choice. ;) And hey, it was only a $4 experiment!

Next, sunglasses cases! I can't give a source for the font I used for Annaliese, it appeared in my inbox from a friend. :) I love it though, it's like Curlz without the annoying tiny curls! I made Annaliese's a couple weeks ago. Dashiell is starting to notice when I make things for her and not him. This week he told me that he wanted a sunglasses case with his name on it. He insists that his favorite color is dark brown (???) and was quite distraught when I told him that Dollar Tree didn't sell brown sunglasses cases. Oh dear, we talked about this in great length. He finally settled on a blue one with dark brown thread. :) I used Dream from 8CP for his name.

How about a sunhat?? You can find these hats a lots of locations for a variety of prices, but for an experiment for an 8 year old, a $1 hat is PERFECT. I used Pizazz from 8CP to do Annaliese's monogram, and picked purple thread to match her new swimsuit.

Finally, a new beach bag. Dollar Tree is selling these awesome canvas totes! They are a great size and I'm anxious to put it to use.

This design is from Luna Embroidery. LOVE the striped fabric that my mom bought for me when she was here last week!

So what are you waiting for?? Get yourself to a Dollar Tree!!