Category Archives: Consumer Friendly Carol

J&O Fabric Store Fun Fall Craft: Easy School Pouch

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At J&O Fabric Store we are always thinking of new fun crafts for the season.  For this fall we have an easy-peasy school pouch to make.  Since most of us are caught in the back to school rush, this is a great craft to do with your children. Taking a few moments from the daily rush with your kids will also provide you with time to talk about the upcoming school year. So why not give it a chance.  You can make a fun craft and work on it with your special loved ones.

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Consumer Savvy Carol: Cheap Ways to Organize your Sewing Room

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By organizing you’re sewing space you save time, room and money.

Here are a few ideas to get you started.

First of all NEVER buy anything that isn’t on sale. Most organizing tools can be found at 50% off, second hand, trash picked or you can re-purposed items you already have. Try to be open-minded in you’re search for things to organize with. Shelves, baskets, containers, e gg cartons, candy boxes, shoe boxes, etc. all work. Often times you can find tons of usable containers for as much as 70% off after the holidays. So what if their original purpose was Easter baskets, Christmas boxes, or Dorm room accessories,  all can be re-purposed and used for storage.

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Consumer Savvy Carol: Variations on a Jean theme

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I’m sure you’ve seen variations on the “handbag” out of jeans that most of us
have made at least one time in our lives. You cut the jeans off at the crotch, sew a straight
line, throw on a handle and you BINGO have a handbag!

Way before it was called “going green” I was forever trying to use the unusable,
keeping things in a pile knowing SOMEDAY I will do something wonderful with them.
Here is yet another way to use Jean scraps.

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Consumer Savvy Carol: Fall Is Here: almost

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Fall Is Here.
almost

As a child I can remember the brisk breezes of fall blowing through my hair on my walk to school. Life was all about wool sweaters, corduroy jackets and new classes with new teachers.
It is hard to think of fall with out thinking of school. However, there is one other event that comes to mind…the new TV season! I can clearly remember when we got our first color TV in 1965. Forever after that I would anxiously await the publishing of the Fall Preview TV Guide. For me both of these memories evoke thoughts of fashion. What are the stars on television wearing this season? I would start sewing my own clothes, using the pictures in the Fall Preview as inspiration. I simply adored corduroy, skirts, dresses, vests, pants, bags, and jackets OH MY!
Today, I just cannot get enough flannel pajama bottoms!
Suede Cloth Handbags also feed my creative need.

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Consumer Savvy Carol: Top 10 Uses for Fabric Remnants & Scraps

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My Top 10+ Things to do with Leftover Fabric Pieces

I have been sewing since my Aunt Harriet taught me how to make an apron at the age of seven. She let me choose what I wanted from her special stash of fabric and I was off and running. She taught me how to purchase and read patterns, and how to cut corners. I was taught to purchase my fabric at the same time I purchased my .75 cent pattern. At least that’s what Aunt Harriet would tell me to do!

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Consumer Savvy Carol: Top 5 Ways to Recycle Jeans

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Okay, I am ready to come clean and admit that I was born in the fifties and graduated high school in 1970. Although I never considered myself a wild child flaunting flower power, I did wear Hippie beads and flowers in my hair.

I clearly remember the transition in my school from a strict dress code that required skirts and dresses, with stockings for the girls to a new relaxed blue jeans and t-shirts. Many of my peers took to the change and culture shock gradually, not me! I was ready to let the freak flag fly with bell bottoms, over sized flannel shirts and desert boots.

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Economical Ideas by Consumer Friendly Carol: Fabric Bookmarks

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At J&O we recognize that it is not always easy to find something to do with the fabric scraps left over from a project. That is why we have presenting ideas we have come across while trawling through the Net. One wonderfully simple idea we came across was fabric bookmarks. All you will need:

  • Fabric remnants
  • Rubber cement
  • Cardstock
  • Ruler
  • Pencil
  • Hole puncher

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Consumer Saavy Carol: Economical Ideas- Fabric Gift Pouches

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A great way of using your fabric remnants while at the same time personalizing your gifts is to make fabric gift pouches. They are simple to make and make use of items you may have around the house. All you need are a few simple supplies:

  • Enough of the main fabric and a small piece fr the tag
  • Cardboard for making a template
  • pinking shears
  • contrasting yarn
  • darning needle
  • pen or pencil
  • two large beads
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Consumer Savvy Carol: Nurture Your Creativity With J&O.

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In these economically uncertain times, our survival skills kick in and our natural response is to cut back, cut out and hold our breath while the nightly news reports on yet another mass lay off of jobs. We join the ever growing population of stressed out worker bees and me-myself-and-I clones in the competitive rat race called ‘life’, who find truth in the encouraged notion that it is survival of the fittest, with no rest for the weary. It is a delusional and vicious spiral of continuous fear based responses that chip away at the ‘reality’ of what it means to be alive.

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Consumer Savvy Carol: The Hand-Me-Down Solution

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I remember when I gave birth to my first son over ten years ago. I was a first time mom and unexptected single parent earning a modest living as a designer with no real nest egg set up for myself or my little one. I worried whether or not I would have enough money to buy formula, pay the bills to keep the roof over our heads, or keep him clothed properly when it seemed every day he grew a little more.

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