TNT Ministries 2011 Quilts

Jeanine organizes the TNT Ministries, a missions service group, at Harbor Trinity Church in Costa Mesa.  It first started in the 1950s as Womens Missionary Society, then Womens Missionary Fellowship, followed by White Cross, and now is TNT.  TNT is named after two people in the Bible, Tabitha who sewed garments for the poor and Titus who was an advocator of good works. 

It’s original work was making flannel baby blanket, flannel baby jackets, flannel diapers, flannel and muslin sheets, muslin hospital gowns, and rolling bandages for the NAB (North American Baptist) mission hospitals in the Cameroon in Africa.  In the 1990s, the group started making twin size patchwork quilts to be given out to various groups in Orange County that have need for them.  The group meets monthly to work on NAB items but meets weekly in the summer to peice, sew, and tie quilts.  

This summer, we completed 73 quilts!

They were donated to Sheepfold, OC Rescue Mission, and Mercy House.  4 of the quilts were created as prayer quilts, tied by friends and family while saying a prayer, and given to convalescing members of the church.

Interested in Joining TNT Ministries?

Anyone from age 5 and up are able to volunteer and help with this service group in Costa Mesa.  Visit Harbor Trinity Church Calendar for more information.

A Cinderella Costume fit for a Princess!

This year we made several costumes for a Disney Birthday Celebration for the baby of the family. She's been our Princess since she was born and wanted to really celebrate it for her 20th birthday.  She's been wanting a dress-up party (did I mention she is 20?) for the past several years and finally talked me into it (so I could talk our mom, Jeanine, into it).

As we do with most of our Creative Tradition special orders and new products, I shopped for the fabrics, patterns and trim then Jeanine would sew everything.  We were really lucky with the fabric. We discovered a Joann's store that was going out of business. We couldn't shop till the weekend since it was a bit of a drive... but EVERYTHING was 90% off.  The trick was we couldn't cut fabric... we had to buy the entire bolt!  That means you would get 10 yards of fabric for the price of 1 yard!  I think we only spent $15 on all three fabric to make the dress. That same trip inspired us to start making our Me and My Barbie dresses.

Origami Crane Earrings and Kimono Costumes

When we were little my littlest sister and I would watch a lot of anime. Not Pokemon, the real stuff, like Tenchi and all of Misaki's films like Princess Mononoke and Howl's Moving Castle. We would wear a kimono my mother made us, play with our stuffed cabbits, and make origami cranes. One year for Christmas I imported a real Japanese kimono with kendo training pants, socks, and accessories.

Origami Crane Earrings
Eventually as we got older we made the cranes smaller, covered them with clear nail polish, and turned them into the origami crane earrings that we have available for purchase in our shop.

Kimono Costumes
My mother sewed the kimonos using the Simplicity 5839 pattern. It includes full length and tunic kimono with obi (belt wrap) and ties. She made the kimono in big vibrant patterns with contrasting solid obi and ties. She made lots of different obi and ties so we could mix and match with different kimono.


Like what you see?
You can use this information to create your own costume or contact us to find out how to custom order your own Creative Tradition costume.

Seasonal Decorating: Wedding Anniversary

My husband and I married last year on 10.10.10 at a rural park in Orange County so we [ ok, to be honest all this decorating business is really a*me* decision ;) ] decided to decorate each October not with gouls and goblins and jack-o'lanterns but with reminders of our wedding day.

Love Jar with black ceramic birds and candles.

Our couch is so big it begs for lots of pillows. I love the bird fabric!

Oktoberfest Show Leads to Dirndl Barbie Doll Dress

We've been busy designing and sewing these past few months for our first event of the season: Oktoberfest at the Anaheim Phoenix Club. Here are a few pictures from the event.

German Oktoberfest Dirndl Barbie dress
One of our customers suggested we should make German dirndl dresses for Barbies, after all we were at an Oktoberfest. I started sketching at the event and this past weekend we made a prototype followed by our first ready-for-sale Red and Black Dirndl dress modeled after the customer's own dirndl dance costume.

Visit us at the next Anaheim Phoenix Club Oktoberfest events:
Sunday, October 16th, 2011 11am-6pm
Sunday, October 30th, 2011 11am-6pm