I was thinking the other day about all the great designs that are available BUT, when I need something specific, I cannot find exactly what I have in mind.

For instance, I have a friend who shows dogs, is a little bit cowboy and loves antique cars.  If I want to do something for him, I need to select just one of those interests.  But what if I want to combine two or more of them?  Where will I find something with those three ideas, or even two?

I use Alphabet Xpress (AX) for lettering and I can merge two designs together there.  However, the function of AX is to do lettering, not join together two designs.  In a pinch, I can do that.  I can even combine two designs, save and reopen that file and add a third.  It is interesting about AX, it is versatile in many ways.

Well, I took my other software, Embird to put the designs in one file because I also want to adjust some of the parts - eliminating some of the stitching.

The general rules for this project are:

• Find a design that has an element of your idea;
• it needs to be able to stand alone, that is, if another piece of a design is covering part of your object, it will be difficult to repair that;
• look for simplicity, I could not find a hat that I liked without the flowers.  The flowers are OK and (IMHO) add a piece of whimsey;
• remove any colors that just make the outcome unnecessarily 'busy.'

My first and favorite, design is a cowboy hat.

I liked it because it was free and a little bit whimsical. I think it will do nicely.  I am not changing anything on the hat.  The next thing I am thinking of adding is a dog paw design.

I decided that I only want to have the outline, and of course, in keeping with the size of the hat I did resize it.

And, I decided to throw in an antique auto - and of course, just an outline:

By the time I was done, I was just a little over the top.  But putting things together was really fun and simple.

So, despite its being a little bit crazy, it is a design that echos a personality, and, after all, isn't that why we chose what we chose to work on?

Tip Time:  I broke my last keychain about a year ago and felt like everything I looked at was just not 'me.'  Most of them had this type of nail breaking key attachment -

Even if I did not mind getting my nails broken, I could not find anything I liked anyway. . .  Enter a NEW IDEA!

I have saved this hint for a year because I wanted to be sure that my idea would work and it did.  I found a pair of hoop earrings that I just loved!  It had bling and I transferred all the bling to one earring and put my keys on it.  They have held up just fine, I have had no accidental openings or any problems.  I LOVE IT!

Thank you all for reading my blog, it is a labor of love and I hope you enjoy reading it.  BTW, did you happen to see the blog that SewBlest did about Pinterest?  I need 6 extra hours a day to look at Pinterest!