Blue Cherry Faerie

Costumes, Costumes, Costumes!!!

2012-01-11T22:05:00.003-06:00

I don't know what it is this year, but my oldest has had to dress up more this year than any other year. Actually I don't think he has ever HAD to dress up before. Well when I started all these, I didn't want to "buy" anything to make any of the costumes . I only wanted to use what was in my stash already. So far, so good. I also seemed to do all of this without a pattern of anykind. I used newpaper and made a pattern on his body for the second and third costumes.

Round 1 - Well for literacy night he was supposed to dress up as the main character in the book he chose. He chose Mark Twain. He didn't tell us that he wanted to dress up until 4pm. He needed to be at school by 5:45. We still had to go to piano, which took an hour. Talk about freak out. I called my MIL and got her to buy a button up shirt and a can of white hair spray. I sewed up a 3/4 length shirt of mine and turned it into a jacket with felt lapels. I made a bushy mustache with felt and yarn and double stick taped it onto his face. Well miracle of miracles, we did it. It was rushed and chaotic but it worked. I didn't get a pic of him in his Mark Twain gear, but it was cute. He wasn't required to dress up for that, but he really wanted to. We've since discussed, letting someone know before the night of, or even the day before, ... try and give mom a week's notice please, LOL.

Round 2 - Gift and Talented project prop. My son had to dress up as part of his travel project. he had to dress in a traditional Greek outfit. Well, we fudged this a bit. We looked online and found most of the traditional dress was big flowy shirts with a sash around the waist, a decorated vest and some weird shaped pants. The idea wasn't to exactly recreate something, but just to give the feel, so we decided to skip the pants. I made a vest out of wool felt I had laying around. I made a flowy pirate style tied shirt out of off white cotton (thin muslin). And the sash was simply black flannel. I didn't get a picture of him with it on project day, but here it is from yesterday before I had to modify the shirt:

He wore a white shirt under it on project day and some nicer pants, but you get the idea of what he looked like.

Round 3 - Colonial play. Tomorrow he is going to be dressed up as a colonial townperson. I reused the shirt I made for his project and added fabric and lace to the sleeves. I added some hook and eyes to the neckline to make the head hole smaller. I added some snaps to the front on either side of the tie slit. I added a weird fabric and lace bib type thing (what the heck is that anyway) that snaps onto the front. That finished the shirt reconstruction. The hat is a pirate hat that I bought for the boys when they were little for playing dress up. I just covered the skull and crossbones with a fabric patch that I safety pinned on. The green knickers and coatvest are made of flannel. I cheated and used my snap press instead of buttons on the coatvest. He's going to use a pair of white knee high socks that I had in my sock drawer. Who cares if they are textured. And a pair of black shoes (those are new but he needed some dress shoes anyway) that I painted thin cardboard from a cereal box and added with double stick tape to. Wow, that took all day to do. I really didn't expect it to take so long. Well here he is:

I think it turned out great.

Now I don't *think* he will have anymore costumes this year that I will have to make. Funny thing is, I didn't make his Halloween costume this year. He used the same store bought costume as last year. LOL.

Icicle spirals out of tp rolls!!!

2012-01-11T21:17:00.007-06:00

I saw this video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCHQmOJuhk8
and was inspired to make some icicle spiral ornaments from toilet paper rolls. However, I didn't like the thickness of the ornament she made and I wanted mine tapered. I was able to make 4 icicles out of 1 toilet paper roll. I didn't add the beads or bows that she did in her tutorial and I used paint. I think they turned out well.

Here are my first attempts:

As you can see, the shapes are irregular and they don't all curl well. Well when you are cutting open the toilet paper roll along the seam, there is an overlap area of about 1/4" to 1/2" that you need to cut off or that piece won't curl well (as you can see in the second from the left in both of the top 2 pictures). I also came up with a way to cut the icicles so they all look somewhat uniform in size. I also used a thin hole punch in the top of the ornament and strung metallic red cord in the holes to hang.

Here is what I came up with:

Hints:
1. Paint several layers. Don't try to coat the cardboard with one layer, it won't coat evenly. Paint a primer, gesso or base coat before painting your final color. Metallic or pearly topcoats look really good on these, but even those may take a few layers to get a good coat.
2. If using glitter, paint the glitter area a coordinating color first.
3. Try to use micro or ultra fine glitter. I don't think chunky glitter will look as good on these.
4. Reshape (curl) the icicles while the paint is not quite set. Basically when its dry to the touch but still really cool/cold, the icicle is more flexible during that time.

I might do a step by step tutorial if there is any interest.

Sara's Spirit Scarfs

2012-01-09T16:19:00.003-06:00

My oldest niece is in her first year of college at Sam Houston State. Their colors are orange, blue and white so I decided to make her some spirit scarfs for her birthday. I found a spool of thin yarn at Goodwill of all places that was in those colors. So I used it by itself and with others to make a bunch of skinny scarves that can be used together or by themselves. I also used blue fun fur, some white fuzzy yarn, and some cheap acrylic yarn from my stash (odd bits that my mom had picked up at a garage sale and gave me).

I made a total of 6 in different lengths and patterns. Some were crocheted, one was done on a knitting spool and one was knitted. The result was fun, I think.

Mom's Christmas gift - Red Dragon Scale Shawl

2012-01-09T15:48:00.003-06:00

I started mom's gift back in February. I had been on youtube and saw someone do the crocodile crochet stitch. I thought it was pretty and really lent itself to a shawl. Well a few years ago, mom had asked me to make her a shawl. Better late than never.

I did change the stitch up a bit. I wanted the stitches to look more pointed and less rounded. So I added an additional chain stitch between the 2 sets of 5 double crochets. If you are familiar with the pattern then you probably know what I'm talking about. I just did the stitch until I thought it was long enough. My mom was into WOW and other fantasy stuff so I made her a "Red Dragon Scale" Shawl. The points really do make it look more like scales.

I got on Youtube to look for the crocodile stitch pattern that I saw so I could link it for you guys and found where someone actually put together a video for how to make a shawl using this technique. I haven't watched the whole thing (I only watched the first 5 minutes), but it looks similar to how I did mine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LiH9Wk3rHc

This isn't exactly how I made mine, but it looks pretty close.

Emily's Christmas Present 2011

2012-01-09T14:42:00.004-06:00

Well since I was blessed with 2 stinky boys and no girls, I got to endulge myself this Christmas and make Emily some dress up clothes. I stared off making some tulle tutus. When I was researching how to make them. I ran across a blog that told you how to cut them quickly and easily. For anyone who has ever worked with tulle, knows that is a welcomed blessing. Tulle is horrible to work with. Here's the website: http://treasuresfortots.blogspot.com/2009/10/cut-tulle-for-tutu-using-quick-and-easy.html

Here's the first one I made:

It was made from the thicker bridal mess, not tulle. I didn't have enough of anyone color to make the tutu so I used all 4 colors (fushia, purple, turquiose and green).

Keeping with the theme of only using what I had on hand, I made a halloween inspired one:

I had just a little bit of black and plenty of the orange.

Black and white:

Maroon and white:

Purple and white, with ribbons:

I made all of these with elastic waists. I went back and forth. I had thought about making them tie on but I figured they would get more play if they were easily pulled on and off.

Well, I put these all in a paper box and had plenty of room so I got to thinking, "What else can I make?" WANDS!!!

So I went to Hobby Lobby and bought dowels and wooden balls that had holes that did not go all of the way through (in other words I didn't want big beads). These were the only supplies I bought for ALL of Emily's gift, everything else was from supplies I already had. I used some star shaped cookie cutters and copied the shapes onto felt and made padded star topped wands. I painted the wood pieces and added ribbon. Here's the result:

One set of barretts. I just couldn't help myself. I wanted to try these out. I might have to make more:

I also made "Boas" out of fun fur and other fuzzy yarn from my stash. They knitted up quickly. the white was actually made on a knitting loom.

And last but not least, I pulled out the 2 alien washclothes from my "to be finished pile" and decided to make Emily a purse. I used some scrap green fabric with white polka dots (from the Dr. Suess outfits I made my boys years ago) to line the purse. I already had the handle knitted as well. I have no idea what I was going to use that piece for. All I had to do was put it all together. Sew the 2 wash clothes together and then the strap on. Sew the cloth together and then sew it to the rest of the purse. I think it turned out cute:

I didn't go so much for "matching" as "make a bunch of cute stuff and fill the box", LOL! I had a BLAST making it all. I had a few more things planned to put in the box, but I made myself stop.

And for giggles, here she is opening it with mommy:

She had to try it on right away so I call that a success.

Gifts for Classmates and Teachers - Winter 2011 edition

2012-01-09T14:17:00.004-06:00

Well I did my typical "Should I make something for my kiddos classes or not" that I seem to do every year. I don't know why I do this. I ALWAYS end up making something for them, this year was no different.

For Gavin's class, I just made crayons.

I melted crayons in molds and packaged them up for the kids.

For Colin's class, he and I made page corner book marks. I saw these on pinterest and just had to give them a try. They turned out great. We made 2 for each kiddo. Here they are all packaged up (Sorry we didn't get any close ups):

Here are the directions: http://nheilke.com/blog/?p=2628
We didn't make them monster style. We made the ones that are about halfway down the page.

Now, what to do for the teachers. Well I had a ton of really good ideas that seemed to keep getting waylaid (couldn't find the paint I needed, lost most of my project, etc). So I finally went with a backup... winter themed DISHTOWELS!! I bought a bulk group of washclothes and followed this pattern: http://kleiosbelly.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/hanging-dishtowel-pattern2.pdf I used washclothes instead of cutting a dishtowel in half. I made a TON of these for Colin's one teacher, Gavin's 4 teachers, 4 aides, speech therapist, swim instructor and the boy's piano teacher (I think that was everyone, and everyone got 2). Anyway here they are:

And of course, all of it was done at the last minute.

Mom's Birthday

2012-01-09T13:58:00.002-06:00

We were sitting around after Thanksgiving talking when my mother asked me to make her some potholders, hanging kitchen towels, etc. for Christmas. Um, hello, its THANKSGIVING DAY, that's a little short notice. Yes I wanted to scream it, especially since I already had a gift I was making her mostly finished that took me MONTHS to do.

Well I was determined to make these for her, so I got to thinking what I had in my craft room that was unfinished or samples, etc. Well I made a bunch of washcloth sized swatches when I was trying out the Tunisian crochet. SCORE!

I put some borders around 2 of them, added a hanger and a button and you have a dish towel:

Then I took 4 of the wash clothes and made 2 potholders with them. I sewed 2 wash clothes, wrong sides together and added a loop hanger to make the potholders:

Then I had some odd shaped ones that wouldn't make good washclothes, potholders or dishtowels. Well mom has some cast iron skillets so I made some cast iron skillet handle potholders. You just slip the potholder onto the handle and you don't have to worry about burning yourself. I folded these in on themeselves and stitched up the back and across one end. I then took some cotton muslin and some heat resistant fabric and cut them to the same size as the sample. I folded it in half and sewed one end closed then stuffed it into the crocheted piece. I hand sewed the muslin to the crocheted part and came up with these:

I may have to make some of these for myself. I don't have a pattern since I was just clowning around with the samples, I'll have to come up with something.

These were made out of cotton yarn that I bought years ago on clearance. Best of all, I was able to give these to mom for her birthday.

A gift for Lyla

2012-01-09T13:51:00.003-06:00

My brother had another baby in October. I wanted to make something for her but didn't know what they needed, so I just made one of the octopus from my own pattern. It turned out well.

I meant to give it to them when I saw them at Thanksgiving, but ended up giving it to them at Christmas. Oh well. They got it all the same.

Novel Wreath and other stuff made from recycled books

2012-01-03T21:35:00.004-06:00

I ran across this video on youtube and thought I'd give it a try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u3cpr8WcmM

I did several things differently though.

1. I wrapped my wreath form (which I got at the dollar store) in book pages. I figured I had plenty and if I didn't quite get the wreath covered in roses, then it wouldn't show.

2. The instructions tell you to make the roses using 3 book pages that are stacked together. I made different kinds of roses (I wanted smaller blossoms). I made some only using one page, some with 2 pages and some with 3 pages stacked.

3. I used regular scissors and fancy edge scissors for some of the cutting when I made the spiral cuts to give it different looks.

4. I used 2 different red ink pads and one silver ink pad to give some of the pages color before I cut the pages into spirals.

5. I used a very thin knitting needle (a skewer would work also) to start the wrapping process. It was just easier for me. I also put a little bit of glue on the paper when I began the spiral so that it stayed in place better. Just be sure you don't glue the paper to your knitting needle.

6. I used 2 different sized pearl beads also.

Here's a close-up:

I also made a small ornament doing the same technique. I just used smaller pieces of paper and I covered a styrofoam ball.

I was having so much fun with the book pages I decided to see what else I could make with them. But I also decided that ink was too expensive for this kind of project, so I decided to use watercolors instead. It went further and didn't cost nearly as much to paint the pages first and let them dry, then cut them or fold them into the shapes I wanted.

First I followed these directions: http://knittygrittythoughts.typepad.com/knitty_gritty_thoughts/2009/11/my-entry.html
but used book pages and hot glue to make this:

It really looks like an artichoke. I wanted to make one that was more of a pinecone shape so I had some plastic Easter eggs, used the watercolored paper and came up with this:

And for giggles here's an ornament I made using one of the watercolored pages beads and embroider floss:

I can't remember where I found the instructions for this one, but it was easy to make.

I was doing all this when I was supposed to be putting the finishing touches on my Christmas gifts I was making. Hey it was productive procrastination, LOL.

My craft room redo - part 1

2012-01-03T20:09:00.004-06:00

I'm redoing my craft room. I painted it and put it mostly back together but I'm not quite finished. But I thought I'd post a picture of my ribbon storage area. I had my husband put 4 screw hooks in the upper windowsill. I then used some chain (the kind you hang light fixtures and such from) and attached it to the hooks I then made slings out of fabric and slid 2 dowel rods through on each side of the sling. At the end of each dowel is 2 eye hooks. I attached the slings to the chains with s hooks. I made 5 slings. I also threaded my curling ribbon on to single dowel rods and hung them below the slings.

These work really well. And I can leave the ribbon hanging over the edge of the slings or have it not show for a cleaner look. I could have just used different sized dowel rods with eye hooks on the ends to store the ribbon, but I didn't want to unstring 20 spools of ribbon when I emptied a spool. I didn't worry about that with the curling ribbon because the spools are bigger and there is ALOT of ribbon on those spools

Halloween

2011-10-31T16:25:00.002-05:00

I didn't go all out decorating for Halloween this year. I did the bare minimum. We only took down 3 or 4 totes from the attic. So I didn't really bother taking pictures. I did, however, make some Halloween treat bags for my sons' teachers and aides. One bag for one school/kiddo and 7 for the other.

I used 2 different colored ribbon for most of the bags for a quirky look. My husband made chocolate cake balls and chocolate almond cake balls to put inside. They also contained bookmarks that my sons made for them. My sons (well with my help with the youngest) also made coffin shaped bookmarks for their classmates.

The oldest:

The youngest:

Boy that was a chore. My youngest was tired of doing these after 7. I made him make 21.

Free stuff - yeah!

2011-10-31T08:56:00.005-05:00

My husband's boss's wife (snicker) cleaned out her crafting supplies and sent the stuff she didn't want to me. She sent 2 good sized bags of stuff. Here it all is:

There are ribbons, homecoming mum supplies, miniature supplies, some jewelry stuff, batting, etc.

Pillow case dresses

2011-10-31T08:27:00.003-05:00

Well I didn't have girls only stinky boys, so I didn't get to make cute frilly stuff for my kiddos. But my brother had a girl (yeah!), so I got to make some pillow case dresses for her 2nd birthday.

I picked up some pillowcases from Goodwill throughout the year.

Here was my first dress:

I had to redo the hem of this pillowcase because it had some weird foldover hem. I realize that kinda defeats the purpose of buying pillowcases to make these dresses (Not having to do the hem), but I didn't know until after I bought the pillowcase. I liked it well enough but I decided to add some embelishments to the rest.

Pink and white flowers with lace:

I added coordinated lace that I already had in my stash to the bottom of this one. After I made this one, I decided to add bias tape to the armholes. It was too much of PITA to fold down the hem for the armholes.

White and green gingham:

I added some buttons and flowers to the bottom of this one and white bias tape around the armholes.

I bought a set of pillowcases for the next 2 dresses, but I embellished them differently for 2 different looks.

Purple with purple polka dots:

I made a purple ruffle out of bias tape for this one and added a bright lime green pattern to it with my sewing machine. I liked how it turned out, but it took FOREVER to do, LOL. I also added purple bias tape to the arm holes.

Green and Purple with polka dots:

I added coordinated lace and bias tape to this one. The colors matched each other better than the picture shows, but it was not a perfect match. I think it looked quirky but cute.

I LOVED making these. Since I have a new niece I hope I get to make more of these soon.

Chair pockets

2011-10-31T08:21:00.002-05:00

Last year I made some chair pockets for one of Colin's teachers. This summer another teacher asked me to make some chair pockets for her as well. I added a new feature to these, a place you can put the student's name. Before they were just the chair cover with a pocket, now they have a piece of clear plastic to hold the kiddos' names.

Here are some of the ones I made last year (folded up) plus some pillows she asked for. I made more than is in the picture but I forgot to take pictures of everything.

Jello Shots - Fancy Style

2011-10-31T07:59:00.002-05:00

I can't believe I forgot to post this on my blog .

Okay, I'm going to start off this post by stating I don't really do alcohol, so its weird to be posting about jello shots of all things. But I found this really cool link on instructables for jello shots without the mess and posted in on my facebook. Long story short my brother in law asked me to make some for the adults at his party this weekend (combination of his annual crawfish party and high daughter's high school graduation). I asked if he was sure and he said yes. Well I thought he wanted me to make some similar to what was in the instructable (found out later he just wanted jello shots, he wasn't specific).

My husband and I made these together. We had a lot of fun with them and would have made more but we ran out of time and places to put them in our refrigerator.

Anyway here is how they turned out:

Limes are lime jello with tequila - funny story my husband had to ask one of my neighbor's for a cup of tequila when we were putting these together
Oranges are orange jello with orange rum
Lemons are lemon jello with Absolut Citron (lemon flavored vodka)
Strawberries are strawberry jello with creme de banana
Watermelons are watermelon jello with Absolut Kurant (black currant flavored vodka) in a cucumber shell

Some of it stacked in the frig:

These 2 cake pans held all of the lemons, limes and oranges after we had cut them. We had several more pans holding the strawberry and the watermelon jello shots.

Here is what the watermelon jello shots looked like before we cut them.

Hints and Tips - if you decide to do this:
+ The watermelon cucumber is neat looking but if they got too warm, they sweat and the jello would not stay in place, so keep them very, very cool.
+ Use a very sharp knife when cutting the wedges, or like we did, an electric knife.
+ When preparing citrus, cut from stem to blossom end to cut the fruit in half. Then peel the fruit out to clean out the shell. With limes, you may also have to cut the white line in the middle then turn the fruit inside out to get it out. Limes were a PITA and I won't do them again, unless specifically asked.
+ Don't cut off too much of the bottom of the strawberries. Strawberries are hollow and the jello will just pour through if there is a hole. If you find this happened to you, pour some of your extra jello (if you have any) into a different container and after it has set, you can use that to stuff the strawberries. Its not as pretty but it beats wasting a strawberry after you prepped it.

Additional ideas:
+ Our original idea for the watermelon jello was to use chunks of watermelon and create a cup, but we didn't have a small tool to carve out a cup for the jello. So we would have had to cut the chunks too big for bite size.
+ Apples could be hollowed out into a bowl shape like the citrus and filled with jello. We were going to do this and fill them with cranberry jello, but we ran out of time and space. We even bought caramel with the idea of dipping some of the apples too.
+ We bought a pineapple to do similar to what we were going to do with the watermelon. But after that didn't work, we didn't bother.
Really the skies the limits with this idea.
+ Instead of cold water use ice to get the right amount of cold liquid, to keep the potency of the alcohol when the hot water is added.

Here is the original instructable:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Jello-shots-without-the-trash/
We didn't really look at the recipes on this instructable. I think my husband found some recipes somewhere else. But we did get the idea from here.

This would also be cute without the alcohol for kids parties. My sister in law asked me to make some for my nephew's birthday that he could enjoy. He was pretty disappointed that he couldn't have any of these because they were for adults only, LOL. And yes, they were well guarded from underaged revelers.

Tunisian crochet and other similar techinques

2011-10-10T13:47:00.005-05:00

What's the easiest stuff to recycle

2011-10-01T10:02:00.003-05:00

My local suburb doesn't have curbside recycling. You have to hunt down where you can take your recyclables. But here are a few things you can recycle with little to no effort:

- Gift bags - this should be a "well duh!" but you would be surprised at how many birthday parties I've been to where these get thrown away. All you need to do is empty them, take off any tags and fold them and put them away for another use. Next party/holiday, pull one out and reuse them. Plus it saves you money on buying gift bags in the future. Win-Win!

- Tissue paper - now I know not many people think of this. Some people who save gift bags often don't save their tissue paper from those gift bags. All you need to do is take a few seconds to smooth it out and fold it up to store. When you put paper into gift bags, it gets crinkled anyway so don't sweat it. I only throw out tissue paper that is horribly wrinkled AND torn.

- Glass Bottles and Jars - I don't know of a local recycler of glass (I haven't really looked since I reuse almost all of my glass bottles and jars). Bottles and jars can be reused to store tons of stuff from nails to craft supplies to leftover food. They can also be used as crafts themselves. I use alot of mine to make halloween props.

Notice I didn't mention cans, newspaper, plastic. I figured those were well duhs also.

I just wanted to mention a few things that may be overlooked at your house.

Crocheted Heart Sucker Covers/Cozies

2011-05-18T21:16:00.002-05:00

I needed something to make the kiddos' classes and teachers for Valentine's Day celebration (or as their schools call them "Friendship Parties"). I racked my brain and finally decided to write a pattern a heart pattern. I crocheted 2 hearts and then stitched them together, leaving a large hole in the top so the sucker could slide in and a small hole in the bottom so the stick could come out. I let my 10 year old pick the colors that he wanted out of my yarn stash. I made them out of cheap ole' Red Heart Yarn.

Picture of all of them together:

Maroon/Burgundy:

Purple:

These next 2 are made from the same varigated yarn with totally different looks. Of course we had to have some "MANLY" boy hearts, LOL.

Green, this is my son's favorite color, so we had to make some green hearts, LOL:

And last but not least a close up of the multi colored pink and red. This was the closest I had in my available stash to pink. I have boys and never needed pink cheap yarn, LOL:

I also made plain red and white hearts as well. Red crochet never photographs well for me and I forgot to take pictures of the white, but you can see them in the group shot well enough. They were a hit. I gave some to Speech teachers, Piano teachers and doctors before I took pictures, so I made more than what was pictured. They were pretty well received.

Flower Loom Gift Bows

2011-05-18T20:58:00.003-05:00

Well, I had nasal surgery in January. It was pretty minor surgery but I couldn't do anything while I was recovering. I couldn't see well (between the surgery and the meds, my vision blurred), so I couldn't read, look at the computer or watch TV. I couldn't see well enough to crochet or knit, so I needed something pretty easy to do that wouldn't take a whole lot of focusing. I popped in some audiobooks on my MP3 and decided to make some bows from curling ribbon. I have had this in my mind for a while and had been putting off experimenting. Well this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try.

I used a flower loom. Mine has 3 different ringed rows of pegs. It is a Studio Twelve Magni-Fleur loom from the 60's or 70's. I've seen similar flowers made out of some kind of plastic straw, but I couldn't find any easily, locally and I couldn't go shopping for supplies. I've made flowers for gift bags out of yarn before, so now was my chance to try out the idea of using curling ribbon.

Basic supplies
2-5 colors curling ribbon
flower loom
scissors
tape (used to hold the beginning ribbon in place on the back while you wrap)
yarn needle
Double sided tape
optional supplies:
ribbon shredder

I tried different techniques for different looks. Some I simply wrapped, finished off the center:

Some I cut the ribbons after I secured the center, but did nothing else to them:

Some I wrapped additional colors around the longest posts, and after securing the centers, I cut the some of the longer loops and used scissors to curl the ribbon:

Some I wrapped the longest pegs, then unwrapped them (I was getting the length of the ribbon I used to wrap the longest set of pegs), used a ribbon shredder to shred the ribbon, the rewrapped the longest pegs. Then wrapped the longest pegs with unshreded ribbon and finished as normal. I left the shredded ribbon in loops but I cut and curled the unshredded ribbon from the longest loops:

Some, I wrapped across 3 of the longest posts. Then wrapped llike normal. After is was secured and pulled off the loom, there were really long back loops (the ones wrapped across 3) I cut those in the middle and curled them so that there would be longer curls:

Here are the ones that I did between sleeping and a few other things (I got bored just doing these):

You can see the ribbon I used on the spools in the background, I also took pictures of some other looms that you might be able to make some of these on:

Here is the back of one with the double sided tape on it:

Here is some in use for my son's birthday (I made these in Spiderman colors, LOL):

The thing I like best about these bows, is that they don't get messed up easily like normal gift bows, so you can make a bunch in advance and don't have to worry about them not looking good. They can be stacked and not get smushed and out of shape easily (Unless flattened by something heavy) And they are pretty cheap to make. Those spools of ribbon usually only cost between $2-$3 a piece, so you can just buy the colors you want/need.

I found a really neat site a while back on flower looms, how to use them, what to use on them, etc. http://knitting-and.com/small-looms/index.html

The site has alot of techinques. One thing I didn't see was using curling ribbon with the flower looms. It gives them a different look.

Sweet potatoes

2011-05-18T12:31:00.003-05:00

Here are the sweet potatoes we harvest this fall. These were the sweet potatoes that we grew in the cement mixing trays. Only 3 of the 4 varieties produced, so we only actually got 3 trays worth of potatoes. It was still a pretty big harvest considering the size of the trays.

We harvested the white sweet potatoes first:

Baby Shower gift

2011-05-18T12:24:00.005-05:00

A friend of mine wanted a baby shower gift for Gavin's pre-K teacher. I made wash clothes out of micro terry and flannel. Then I rolled them up added ribbon to keep them in place and make them look purty :D , added a popscicle stick, wrapped them in celophane and tied them off with ribbons and put them in a small goldfish bowl with a few loose wash clothes in the base. I added some pipe cleaners in matching colors that I had curled around a pencil on one end to shape them for a little added interest. I think they turned out well.

Kids' Christmas handouts 2010

2011-05-18T09:36:00.001-05:00

I know, I know, I've been uber slow about posting. I haven't down loaded my camera in a while and before I knew it, months had gone by and I still had stuff to post so here it is.

I made these Snowmen Candy Cane Covers for my sons' classes & teachers for the winter holidays

And of course, I didn't make sure I had a good shot, so this is my only shot of the candy canes. I think I made between 60-70 covers.

Colin's Steampunk Rocketship Room

2010-08-08T09:09:00.006-05:00

Well my oldest son and I got together came up with a theme from his bedroom. He wants a Steampunk Rocketship Ghostbusters Transformers room, LOL. Well, I haven't been able to incorporate all of it, but here is what I have so far. I have not finished. I'll try to get more pictures later.

Here was his room before:

My oldest son's favorite color is green. When we first moved into our new house, I thought for sure that he'd want everything in his room green. But when we were buying curtains for his room he wanted blue and brown. Since the curtains are only a year old, they are staying in his room. He did however pick green as his wall color:

Here you can see that I taped off spaces for the portholes to look out into space.

This was about 3 days into the project.

The next 2 days I painted the frames for the portholes. I added alot of rivets in the frame. It was my first time mural painting with latex paints.

It took another couple of days to paint the space look in the portholes. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get a good picture of the space scenes.

I also painted large rivets in the corners of the room, but I haven't gotten a picture of them. Most of them are going to be covered by furniture, but I wanted them there incase we decided to move the furniture around.

We have had technical difficulties with the furniture however. We decided to paint it all a deep chocolate brown. Well the paint won't cure. We followed the directions, tried repainting, talking to the paint guy representative, etc. So we still haven't gotten his room back together again. Its frustrating to say the least. I gave up on the bookshelves and just went and bought new black shelves. I'll get a picture of them soon enough. We still have to make the desk. He had a cheap particle board desk in his room. But we plan to build a desk using a sewing machine treadle base that I picked up at a garage sale. I just need to design it first.

Anyway, here is a sneak preview of the room finish. Its the lower porthole, on the bottom bunk.

Other additions:
I found some Golden Compass movie toys to display in his room (2 airships and the carriage).
I found a set of book ends at Goodwill that look like books lying on their side. They have secret compartment drawers.
I found a temperature and barometric pressure gauge at a garage sale for his wall. Score!!

I still have alot to go. But its been fun so far.

Teacher's gifts - shopping bags

2010-06-16T10:16:00.001-05:00

I made a ton of singlet style shopping bags for my sons' teachers, aides, etc. for the end of the year. My oldest only needed 2 but my youngest has so many teachers, aides and others helping him that I just made a bunch and didn't put names on them and asked the teacher to distribute them to whomever helped my son out, that way they could pick what colors they wanted, LOL. I know that's not the way you usually give out gifts, but it worked for us. he got tons of enthusiastic thank you notes. Since it was summer time, I decided to use up some of my summer fabric stash to make these.

I actually pulled out a stack of fabric that had enough to make bags and let my sons pick which fabrics they liked best to make the bags out of. So they had a hand in picking out the gifts

Steampunk pots, the yard & garden

2010-06-16T09:55:00.003-05:00

I finally got around to downloading the pictures off my camera. I am very slowly starting to steampunk my house. I decided to use blues, greens & teals in the backyard with some terracotta. I'm going to use black furniture with colored pillows for accents but I haven't bought or made any yet except some folding furniture so all I have is some old faded plastic furniture that is about on its last leg. Anyway here are the pots:

I took plain old plastic pots that were faded and revamped them with plastic paint. I used black, blue and dark green to make these.

Pot #1: I started by spray painting the pot black. I then cut out tentacle stencils out of contact paper and put them on the pot. I then lightly sprayed them with blue and green spray paint to give them a watery look. I sprayed them more solidly towards the bottom of the pot and let it fade into black towards the top. This pot is the biggest of the pots I painted.

Pot #2 - I started out painting this pot black and just spray painted the top with the blue and black and let if fade into the black towards the bottom.

Pot #3 - I started out painting this pot black. I taped off areas and then sprayed blue and green. I then pulled off the tape. I found some upholstery tacks and cut off the shanks. I glued them onto the pot with e-6000 to make the pot look studded.

I have also painted some of them with just the blue and green. I didn't get a picture of them before I got them planted. But here is one of them:

Oh and for giggles, here is the before picture:

I haven't painted all of them yet ( I ran out of good weather and paint), but I did paint over half of them. I haven't decided what else I'm going to do to my yard yet to add a touch of steampunk to it, so I'm open to suggestions. I'm actually thinking of painting images on the fence. I want to add an arbor over the deck out of copper pipe but that might get expensive. Here are some pictures of the backyard so far:

Yes I use unusual containers to make my garden beds. I used an ice bucket tote from Target to make a small water garden for my water lotus plants.

Here's the boys outside toybox. Outside toys are huge.

I'm using cement mixing trays to grow my sweet potatoes, jerusaleum artichokes, taro and water celery. I don't know how well this is going to work but I poked drainage holes where needed, so we will see. I'm hoping to make it easier to harvest the root plants. But some of the plants (the Taro and water celery) like boggy conditions.

Steampunk my house

2010-05-17T14:25:00.005-05:00

Well we have been in this house for several months now. This is the first house I've moved into that I have tried to decorate as soon as I moved in. Instead I waited a while until I decided how I wanted to proceed. I'm still lost with the majority but I've decided in the abstract to steampunk my house inside and out. I won't be able to do much with the front of the house, but the backyard is fair game. I'm fascinated with steampunk, neovictorian, gothic victorian, type decorating. I'm planning on Steampunking most of the rooms in my house. I'll try to post my progress, crafts and finds. I plan to even steampunk my kids rooms. My oldest will have more of a spaceship theme and my youngest will have more of a pirateship theme. I'll try to get some pictures posted of the rooms I intend to redo. Atleast so I can have some before and after shots.

For My backyard:
* I'm planning on putting oil/alcohol lamps around the fence. I found some really neat wine bottle oil lamp holders that I've been able to replicate for pretty cheap. I'm hoping to get some blue wine bottles and etch designs into them.
* I've already started repainting some of my cheap plastic pots. They were faded and nasty looking anyway, so it was either repaint them or throw them out. I bought some plastic paints and got to work. I made stencils out of contact paper and painted tentacles on one of them.
* We are also planning (hopefully) to put in an aquaponics system. I think that this will lend itself to an industrial look that I can add some victorian touches to.
* We may build a greenhouse or atleast a covered area to house the aquaponics system.
* I'm 'thinking' about painting some scenes on the wooden fence around the yard to give it some interest.
* We've been buying pots in blues/teals/turquoises to add color to the backyard and give a more nautical color without being cheesy or typical (with navy blue, red and white that you see most nautical themed items in).
* We will be refurbishing a wooden kitchen table to go outside. I may do some woodburning on the top to add a bit of interest.
* Maybe a copper pipe pergola over the deck area that we can attach shade to for the dead of summer.

I'm still working on ideas for the backyard. I may do some of these, or all of these ideas. I haven't worked out anything else for the rest of the house. So as I come up with something, I'll try to post it. I do know I need paint, paint, paint. I'm tired of looking at white and off white walls. We only have one room in the whole house that isn't white or off white and that's a tiny half bath off the laundry room.

Easter Grass Mats

2010-03-02T12:33:00.003-06:00

I came up with this concept about 2 years ago. It turned out so well, I've made some to sell as well. I HATE that loose easter grass that ends up all over the house and yard on Easter day. So I came up with a solution...knit furry yarn and make Easter grass mats.

Here are the ones I made for my sons:

Here are the ones I made to sell:

I tried many types of yarn. I like Yarn Bee's Haute Fur yarn the best for making these for look and ease of use while making them. But I like some of the colors from other brands better. I used no pattern to make them. I just cast on and knit until liked the length then cast off. They are super easy to make for any knitter.

Seth's Birthday Gifts

2010-03-01T10:48:00.003-06:00

My nephew's birthday was in January. For Christmas he got a leapster tag and The Cat in the Hat book to read with it. He loved it so I used up my Cat in the Hat fabric scraps to make him some 4 placemat sets for his birthday. I make these sets smaller for young kiddos. I also make a separate coaster so that the child is not trying to put his or her cup to close to the plate to cut down on accidents. And I made a napkin to match. He seemed to love them.

Here is a picture of the sets with a small place setting. The plate is a salad plate.

Here are the sets:

I wrapped it in the lime green and teal loom knitted gift bag I made a while back and pinned on a bow that I made with a round flower loom. I made 2 other bows to put on gifts about the same time also on flower looms (one square and one round).

I used the bow on the right for the gift.

I forgot to take a picture of the gift all put together but it was cute. He loves Cat in the Hat so this turned out perfect.

Goody Bags

2010-01-08T15:44:00.003-06:00

Well I decided to use up some of my fabric stash and make the goody bags for my 9 year old's birthday party this year. I wanted to do something different and I didn't want to give the kids just junk.

I found this pattern:
http://mylittlemochi.typepad.com/my_little_mochi/2005/05/origami_pocket_.html
And thought I'd give it a try. The bag ended up being too small but it was cute:

So I made them using a 16X16 inch square in stead of the 12X12 the pattern called for. The finished product is about 7 inches wide with this size.

I also made tissue holders and tic tac toe games and small drawstring bags to house them and the pieces. Then I stuffed them with left over party stuffers I have from years past. All I bought to finish these bags were ribbon, game pieces, tissue packets (all 3 of these from the dollar store) and some smarties candy. I ended up making 17 of them.

More Gift Bags

2010-01-08T14:43:00.004-06:00

I've been working on different patterns for gift bags. I don't want just plain rectangle bags. I want pretty bags that I'm happy to use year to year. Here are my latest bags.....

Ornament Shaped bags:
The first bag I made is the one on the bottom. I used hook and loop tape for the closure on it. The top bag was made with drawstrings and was the second bag I made.

I'm still tweaking the pattern. Here they are with the drawstring closed and the other open so you can see the hook and loop.

Here is another using the same pattern after I tweaked the stripe part of the pattern:

Here is the second ornament pattern I've come up with so far:

I like the way they have turned out so far. I'm still tweaking the pattern. I'm actually thinking of writing up this pattern to sell but we will see if I get around to it.

And last but not least are the other snowmen bags that I finished.

Teacher gifts

2009-12-15T13:06:00.004-06:00

Here are the teacher gifts I made for the boys' teachers this year for Christmas.

For Colin's Teacher (who is an Aggie):

The Tissue Holder is a Puff to go tissue holder. The coasters are the crisscross coasters. The coffee mug corset cozy is my pattern. I'm not overly happy with the grommets on this one. They didn't set like they were supposed to, but I couldn't take them off, once I put them on.

This set is for Gavin's Teacher (Gavin picked the purple fabric):

Same set that I made for Colin's teacher, but I hand embroidered the openings for the lacing on this coffee mug cozy. I picked the turquiose coordinating fabric for this set.

Gavin's aides and math teacher:

I made each of them a puffs to go tissue holder. I'm putting them in a special gift bag (I've only made one so far).

I'm hoping to make some bigger ones for the boys regular teacher too. I made the one above out of left over microterry that I had left over from my diaper making supplies. I used scrap fabric for the nose and coal mouth and eyes. The lining fabric was some Christmas fabric that I wasn't overly fond of after I bought it. It was too thin to use as gift bag fabric on its own. As a liner for the microterry, it works great.

And last, but not least, I made some more crayons for Gavin's classmates.

2 of the ones in the photo above are ones I made before, but the rest are new.

Christmas Gift Bags

2009-12-07T10:46:00.004-06:00

Well I made some more gift bags. I'm hoping I'll have time to make more before Christmas. Some of these I made from patterns so they are alot smaller than I'd have made on my own, but they turned out adorable so thats okay, LOL.
Most of these bags are made from 3 different fabrics but some are made from only 2 different fabrics. I almost always line my bags so that you can't see through the fabric to the present inside.

This first one is my own pattern:

Open - this is made from 3 different fabrics, has drawstring ribbon and jingle bells

Closed - I love the way this one turned out. I only have one complaint, the gap in the top is too big when you have the bag pulled as closed as the fabric will allow. I need to tweak the pattern a bit, but you can't tell and I always put out presents on Christmas eve anyway, so there won't be any peaking.

My pattern, I used three different fabrics:

Open

Closed and tied

The next 2 were made from the pattern/directions from a book called "Omiyage" by Kimiko Sudo. The pattern is called Candy Twist (ironically enough) The bags turned out pretty small and they took 4-5 times longer to make than I usually spend on a gift bag but I think the results were worth it. I had to tweak the pattern just a little to suit my taste after making the first one, but it was no big deal.

Here they are open and flat.

And here they are drawn up. When they are drawn up they look like Christmas ornaments.

Here is a close up:

Here are the last 2. The bag on the left was made from left over fabric with no pattern at all. I just didn't want to waste the fabric so I made a small bag. The bag on the right is from the same book from above but this pattern is called Chrysanthemum. Its very small and would only really work for jewelry.

Here is the Chrysanthemum bag opened:

Here is the bottom of the Chrysanthemum bag:

Hopefully I'll have more bags to show you in the near future. I know I won't be making my New Years resolution but I'll try to atleast make a few more. I'm thinking of increasing the size of the candy twist bag. Plus I just need to make some more bigger bags.

Baby Octopus

2009-12-07T10:41:00.004-06:00

My youngest son is in Speech therapy. His therapist is pregnant due with her first baby. So I made this octopus for the baby and the giftbag that it will go in. The Octopus is made out of cotton yarn is stuffed with cotton yarn. The eyes are saftey eyes. I hope she likes it. Its my own pattern. I liked it so much that I'm in the process of making one for my neice as well, but we will see if I get it finished.

Here's the bag I'll put it in:

Halloween Costumes 2009

2009-12-07T10:29:00.002-06:00

Well I cheated all around this year. I didn't make anyone's costumes new this year. My husband went as a doctor, so we had him in scrubs (we didn't get a picture of him). I went as a goth/steampunk/witch something, LOL. I made my skirts last year and forgot to post a picture of them. The corset and blouse I bought. The spider necklace is silver and brass and something I made in college. It came together nicely but I didn't accessorize like I wanted to (I wanted to make a gun holster for a ray gun and make some gauntlets or something similar, oh well). Anyway, here I am....

The boys decided they wanted bought costumes this year. Funny story behind that, I was trying to get my youngest to buy a cheaper costume with nothing that would go on his head or face (in the past, he wouldn't wear them since he is autistic and couldn't stand the feel of them on him). Well as we were leaving the costume isle he latched on to the swamp monster costume and would not leave without it. By this time I had my oldest convinced to pick a cheaper costume too, but when the youngest picked the more expensive swamp monster costume, I had to let them both have more expensive costumes to be fair, LOL. Anyway, to make sure that my youngest would actually wear the costume on Halloween night, I wanted them to try them on but we had to eat dinner first. Well he decided dinner could wait and started stripping at the table, LOL. He wore that costume (mask, gloves, feet and all) almost until bed time. Guess he proved me wrong, I was sure he wouldn't wear it. Anyway, I had to share it. Its not anything I made, but I couldn't resist showing it.

Back to School

2009-12-07T10:24:00.003-06:00

I know, I know, I should have posted this back in September, but better late than never. I made covers for the boys' 18 oz. Klean Kanteens for school. I made the pattern and hand embroidered their names on the covers. I think they turned out great and no one is going to mistake who they belong to.

I need to make a few more covers actually, these are already starting to show wear and tear. The boys love thier new bottles and will carry them around the house and take them out when we are running errands.

Snail making instructions

2009-11-21T11:17:00.005-06:00

A few years ago, I made alot of felt toys for my kiddos. I found a Waldorf inspired craft book that had a pattern for some really cute snails in it. Well, I was on a board that had alot of mamas on it also making felt toys for their kiddos and they were confused by the instructions in the book. So I made a set of detailed instructions. The book is called: Feltcraft by Petra Berger

Here are my instructions:

Materials
Pattern from Feltcraft by Petra Berger
wool felt or wool blend felt
pipe cleaner or thin wire
embroidery floss to match or compliment felt
card stock or scrap piece of cereal box or other thin cardboard
wool for stuffing

Tools
scissors
needle
bamboo skewer (or anything skinny with a blunt end to stuff the shell)

Hints
1. I cut the "horns" for the snail wider than the pattern. Basically double the thickness of the pattern. I've found it makes it easier to sew on.
2. Use scrap pieces of felt to cut out the horns.
3. I've found cereal boxes to be the best thing to use in the bottom of the snail body to ensure that it stays upright.
4. Using a bamboo skewer's blunt end to fill the shell was the best thing I found to stuff the shell.
5. I've found that stuffing the shell as you sew it is the easiest way to stuff it. Because of the small size of the shell, the wool tries to ball up before it gets where you want it.
6. The shells look good plain or decorated. You can do strips, dots, flowers, etc.
7. Shape the cardboard with a little notch for the neck, so that it makes the head of the snail look nicer. The pattern for the cardboard piece is not in the book but its well worth the effort to make yourself.

Instructions

Cut snail pattern out of felt.

The shell
*If you are going to decorate the shell with embroidery, then do so now.
*Take the embroidery floss you've chosen for the shell and cut a piece 36-42 inches long. Separate 3 pieces of the floss to use to sew up the snail body. Set aside the other to use later.
* Start at the small end of the shell. Fold over and begin sewing. Take the pipe cleaner and bend the tip so that when you stuff it into the shell, it won't poke through the stitching or felt. When you get about 1/2 inch - 1 inch down the long side, insert the pipecleaner.

Continue to sew and stuff with wool (using the bamboo skewer if needed) as you go all the way to the end of the long side. Before you get to the end, cut the pipecleaner to the same length as the felt & fold the tip over.

When you get to the end of the long side, start a running stitch

and pull the floss tight

and knot the floss.

Creating the shell's spiral
Take the piece of floss that you set aside earlier and begin to spiral the shell. To do this, fold over the tip of the shell, keeping the seams to one side (this will be the underside of the shell)

Take a couple of stitches to hold it in place.

Begin to spiral the shell. I found that if you come up through the part you've already folded and down into the new section that your spiraling

is the easiest way to sew it together. Oh and spiral which ever way is most comfortable to you. I had to do it backwards once because I did a directional print on the shell wrong and it was soooo awkward to sew.

When you get to the end of the shell sew down the gathered end.

Knot the floss and trim one of the floss "tails"

Body

Sew across the front of the head on the body and knot floss. Then sew the top seam starting from the head and stopping in the middle of the body where the shell will be and knot the floss.

Sew across the tail end of the body and knot. Insert the cardboard. Stuff the head portion of the body with wool. Start sewing up the tail from the tip of the tail to the middle of the body. After you get about 3/4 of an inch sewn, finish stuffing the body. Sew the hole closed and then knot. Trim the extra floss and you end up with this:

Attaching the body to the shell

Sew the shell onto the body using the floss that is still attached to the shell. You may have to shape the shell a little by pinching it to get it to site properly on the body. There is no real trick to sewing the shell on, so I didn't take any pictures. Just go in and out of the body, then go in and out of the shell, repeat all the way around the shell until the shell is firmly attached to the body. Knot and trim the floss.

The Horns

Take one of the horn pieces and fold the felt over. Sew up one small side and down the long side. Then sew onto the head.

Knot and trim the floss. Repeat with the other horn.

Now you have a snail!!!!!

Your snail options are unlimited!

Swaptree is soooo cool!!

2009-10-28T13:57:00.003-05:00

Okay I'm a book nut. I confess. I really really really like to read. Well my husband told me about an online book trading site this summer. After we moved I decided to join. After all, I had a ton of books that I was thinking of selling but the local used book store doesn't give you much. I figured it would be nice to swap a book for a book and it only cost shipping. That's cheaper than buying them at the used book store, though not as cheap as buying them at goodwill or a garage sale. Anyhoo, I've traded tons of books and I've gotten books for just about every member in the family. They trade more than books, they trade dvds, cds, books, etc. But I'm only interested in the books, LOL.

Books are my other hobby besides crafting. Recently I've started replacing all of my favorite books with hardcover versions where I can, so I have even more books to get rid of on swaptree. I get packages almost everyday. Colin looks forward to the mail too, since I get alot of books for him also.

My little bit of Halloween this year.

2009-10-28T11:43:00.007-05:00

I didn't go all out this year for Halloween. I just haven't gotten into my groove in the new house. I did, however decorate the living room. Usually I do a little bit in all of the public rooms of the house but I just limited it this year. I'll make more of an effort next year. So without further ado, ROFL...

Here are the only new apothecary items I made this year. More unicorn horns. I made them out of crayola clay. Colin made the one on the right. I added the details for him.

These are actually pretty easy to make. Take 2 pieces of clay that are about the same size, roll them out into a snake that has one end thicker than the other. Spiral them together and smush (a technical term) the thick ends together. For the texture, I used a blunt pencil and poked the thick end over and over to give a porous boney appearance. Then I used the side of a tapestry needle to give the horn some texture. I left any minor cracks in the clay for added texture.

We have built in bookcases on either side of our fireplace, so that is what I decorated this year with my apothecary/witch's kitchen stuff.

This is the left side of the fireplace:

This is the fireplace or what I like to call The Alter and The Owlery

This is the right side of the fireplace, my youngest son was watching Thomas the Tank engine, so ignore the nonHalloweeny tv show, LOL.

Here is a picture of this year's Halloween tree:

I decided to leave off the wizard's hat on the top of the tree/skull. I redid the garland yet again this year. The lights on the barb wire garland I made last year stopped working UGH!!! So I found this really cool faux chain at the dollar store and decided to use it for garland. I also added some rubber snakes to the tree this year. As for the garland from last year, I took it apart and used the barbed wire beneath the tree along with the tree skirt(a fleece halloween blanket), some black tulle, a strand of purple lights that did work and the gargoyles. On the other side of the tree I put all of the sewn pumkins but you can barely see them in the picture.

Here is a picture of one of the side tables in the living room:

Here are the "window treatments":

Here are some closeups of the bookcases:

Best laid plans...

2009-10-19T11:09:00.003-05:00

Well I had grand plans to make 2 giant paper mache pumpkins for the front yard for this year's Halloween. The weather had other plans unfortunately. I have to make the pumpkins outside (because of the mess) and its just been too rainy. Oh well. I have a whole year to make pumpkins now, LOL. I have the shapes started, I need to add more layers to the forms the do the delicate work. On a plus note, we finally found our camera this weekend Woo Hoo!!!

I'll try to get a picture of this year's inside Halloween display up in the next few days. I haven't made anything new this year but I'll still put up the pictures. I did get the inside decorated. I only had 2 props leak from beoing packed and moved, it only added to the character of the bottles. So I think using shampoo and liquid soaps as the liquid for the bottles was a roaring success.

Well its past that time of year again....Halloween Planning

2009-09-09T07:30:00.006-05:00

Its past time to start making stuff for Halloween. Since we just moved and our stuff is just finally starting to go where its supposed to, I haven't spent much time thinking about what we are going to decorate with. I've still got all of the stuff that I made last year, so that's no big. I've even found a few more owls recently to add to my Owlery. But this year, we are in a neighborhood so we get to think about the outside of the house as well as the inside. WooHoo!!!!

We aren't going to do a ton this year but I will be making stuff throughout the year for next year. I am, however, trying my hand at paper mache. In fact, I'm making large paper mache pumpkins. I've got 2 started now. I'm going to make them creepy looking. I'm so excited. I don't know what else we will make this year. But those 2 pumpkins are my only goals this year. Everything else is gravy. The best part about this project is that its extremely cheap. Your talking, newspaper (free if you ask your neighbors or coworkers if you don't get it yourself, its trash and this is recycling it), glue and/or liquid starch or flour, and water to make the pumpkin itself. Then you want paint to decorate it.

So here are some inspirations and technique info for making paper mache pumpkins and other stuff:

Stolloween has some great pumpkin advice and details....
http://www.stolloween.com/?page_id=67
His pumpkins look intimidating to make but if you really look through his directions, he breaks it down and give great advice. They are actually fairly easy, just time consuming.

Spooky Blue also gives some great information on making pumpkins and details for them....
http://www.spookyblue.com/halloween/giant-jackolantern/
These are spooky looking, but you could easily adapt the different techniques to make them not so spooky.

This site give a different idea using a real pumpkin as a mold to make paper mache pumpkins.
http://www.memoryelixir.com/props/pumpkin.html
I'm not overly fond of the directions but they show you basically how to make a mold out of a real pumpkin, which is informative.

Last but not least, here is a tutorial on how to make your own foam faux pumpkins.
http://usersites.horrorfind.com/home/halloween/juggernaut/pumpkins/pumpkins-index.html
Just in case you just don't want to paper mache.

Don't forget you can make pumpkins out of balloons also. The ones I'm making now are using Stolloween's technique (sort of) of using trash bags and newspaper.

Moving woes

2009-09-09T07:14:00.003-05:00

Well we bought a house and moved and are mostly settled in now. I've even been crafting, YEAH. So why am I not posting....I can't find my camera. Yep, its disappeared.

But atleast my crafting room is put together. I have A WHOLE ROOM now for crafting, woohoo!!!! While unpacking, I ran across an odd occurence. When you have to pack your stuff into, this and that because you don't have room, it tends to dissappear. When you move and have room to get organized, you find that you've bought 2, 3, 4 even 5 of the same things because you couldn't find what you were looking for when you got ready to craft and just went out and bought more . I had 5 things of red glitter.

As soon as I find my camera I'll take pictures. I've made covers for the kiddos new 18 oz. Klean Kanteens and some produce bags. I learned something valuable about the produce bags, don't make them too big or they will rip when they get too full of heavy stuff (like apples). Oh well. I'll fix the bag and won't make anymore that big or I'll add another layer of fabric. I made them out of tulle and pettiecoat netting (one layer of each).

UGH!!!

2009-07-09T09:21:00.005-05:00

I know, I know, I said I would do better with updating this blog but I haven't done a whole lot of crafting lately. I did make one more dvd bag, but I've decided for now that the whole new years resolution in going out the window. We've decided to move and I've been busy with that. I did, however, make the kiddos' teacher, aides and bus drivers presents at the end of school. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of any of it. I painted sayings on ready made canvas bags for them. For the teachers and aides (5 total), I quoted Dr. Seuss's The Lorax:

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not. (If that's not the direct quote its darn close, LOL, I've already packed the book so I can't quote it exactly)

For the bus drivers and aides (3) I simply wrote: Bus Ladies are Cool! I was going to paint the Dr. Seuss quote for them as well, but after painting it 5 times before, my hands were tired. I kinda put off making the gifts for lack of inspiration. I didn't start them until the Sunday before school let out.

We have been steadily looking for houses and we finally found one. We are moving into town, woohoo. When we bought our current house, we didn't realize just how isolated we would be. It will be nice to be around people on a regular basis again. It will also be nice to have our kiddos in better schools. We've lucked out so far with their teachers and such but we felt it was better to move now. I think the whole family is excited about the move. I know I am.

Oh but here are the pictures of the Easter Chickens I made this year. I made pompon chicks to go inside the eggs. I made them for a friend at Gavin's speech.

My New Years Resolution

2009-01-30T13:41:00.002-06:00

Well it seems every year for the past few years, I have the best of intentions to make cloth giftbags and wrap for Christmas and Birthdays. I never seem to get around to it. So that is my New Years Resolution..... to make at least 50 cloth gift bags and/or cloth wraps this year for my own personal use. I'm also thinking of making so to sell, so you see why I put that last bit in. Well I've gotten a good start this year. See what I have done already.

Here are 1-8 of the the 50 I'm making. Yep I've been a busy bee.

The first 4 are Media Gift bags that can hold dvd's/Wii games/Playstation games/books/etc. I'm still tweaking my pattern but I think I've almost got it perfected. I'm hoping to sell both bags and possibly the pattern to make the bags soon. I think I'll have it for sale soon. I'm still trying to write the directions, tweak the pattern, etc.

Anyway here are the first 3 in Christmas fabric:

This next one is another Media gift bag that I made especially for my neice. Her birthday was this month and we got her a game for her Wii so I had to make a gift bag for it, LOL. I think this one is my favorite that I've made to date.

The next 4 gift bags were made on my circular knitting looms. I made them using different size looms (I have a set of 4 looms) and made them to different lengths. I think they turned out fabulous, LOL. I made them using Yarn Bee "Airy" yarn. The results are awesome and I love how they sparkle.

The first 2 are my "Santa" bags. I made them out of traditional red and white and I just LOVE how they turned out. I used the same sized loom for both (the 2nd smallest loom) but I made one longer than the other.

The last 2 are my tribute to Dr. Suess bags, LOL. When I saw these 2 colors together I just had to make a couple of gift bags out of them. The small one is made using my smallest loom and it makes the perfect bag for wine bottles and smaller items. The larger bag was made with my second largest loom and took a while to make. I think the results speak for themselves....

Christmas Coaster

2009-01-30T13:33:00.003-06:00

This year, for Christmas, I made coasters Teacher/Aide/Bus Driver appreciation gifts. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of them. I ended up making a total of 28 of them for my kiddos to give to their Teachers, Bus Drivers (and Gavin's Aides). They turned out awesome, so I ended up making myself some as well. Here is a picture of the ones I made for myself.

I think they turned out awesome and I believe they were well received.

Christmas presents

2009-01-12T18:20:00.002-06:00

I didn't make a whole lot of presents this year but I did paint some shopping bags I bought premade. Actually they are more the size of book bags than shopping bags, but I didn't realize that when I bought them.

I made this one for Nana:

I made one for Pawpaw too, but I didn't get a picture of it.

I made this one for mom for her birthday. It said Baaa! on the other side. She plays a lot of World of Warcraft so I thought I'd make something for her that tied into that:

This one is my favorite. I made it for a friend who works at Walmart. I found the cartoon in a newpaper a while ago and had it on my frig. He saw it and liked it so I thought I'd paint it for him. I think it turned out awesome and I found out later that he really likes Pinky and the Brain (what's not to like about mice trying to take over the world, LOL):

Another friend of mine is a penquin collector and teacher so I thought I'd make her a penguin bag. Here is one side:

Here is the other:

I thought it was appropriate.

Halloween Costumes

2008-12-06T08:18:00.002-06:00

I can't believe I forgot to post the boys in their Halloween costumes this year (I didn't get a picture of my husband and I in ours).

My oldest is Ben 10, my youngest is a Jedi Knight. I put together both costumes, though the Jedi Knight took alot more work. The Ben 10 costume was just painting a white shirt and finding green pants and the Omnitrex in the toy department for him to wear. I sewed everything for the Jedi Knight costume except the lightsaber and the boots.

Gingerbread monsters

2008-12-05T15:06:00.004-06:00

I made gingerbread men monsters for my husband. He wanted some to take to work. I think they turned out awesome. I'm hoping I get a chance to make more. I drew up the pattern. I cut out the patterns in felt and embroidered on the details and added beads and buttons. I put heavy card stock and a ribbon in between 2 gingerbread man shapes.

Zombie, Vampire, Mutant/Alien, victim, Cthulhu

I didn't get any good close up pictures before he took them to work.

Okay I finally got some good (not great but good or atleast better than the ones above) pictures of these monsters :

Christmas Bags

2008-12-05T15:01:00.004-06:00

I made some cloth Christmas bags. I'm hoping to make more, but this is it so far.

These are bags for dvd's and games.

Thanksgiving Owls

2008-12-05T11:50:00.003-06:00

These are the only Thanksgiving crafts I made this year. Owls for my Thanksgiving tree. I forgot to take a picture of them on the tree, but here they are anyway.

I found the pattern for the owls here:
http://moonstitches.typepad.com/photos/owl_pennant/index.html

Halloween Party Food

2008-12-05T11:39:00.002-06:00

Here are the foods that Brian made for the boys' Halloween party.

Pumpkin cupcakes

Witch's fingers

Bones

Worms (jello):

Brain puree:

Puking pumpkin:

Chocolate frogs, watch out some are crunchy:

Pumpkins

2008-12-05T11:36:00.002-06:00

Here are the pumpkins my guys made this year.

Colin did the one on the left, Gavin drew the one on the right. Aren't they adorable.

Here's the pumpkin that Brian carved for his office:

Halloween Tree and decorations 2008

2008-12-05T11:19:00.003-06:00

Here are some of the other decorations from this year:

Candles on top of the TV:

We added iron decorative bracets between rooms and it turned out a perfect place to hang decorations:

Plain black masks

The Halloween Tree:

Great topper:

Spiders on the wall:

Under the tree:

Wizard's Apothocary

2008-12-05T10:14:00.004-06:00

Well I made alot of Halloween decorations this year. Most of them were apothocary jars and incredients. I actually didn't get around to labeling everything. Most of the wet ingredients have shampoo of liquid soap in them.

This part wasnt't really part of the apothocary, but I had to share it anyway.
I found these signs at Hobby lobby and Michaels:

And here are my jars, ingredients and the staging of them:

Here is the picture of a jar with Bezoar stones, magic pied pipers flute, dried potion ingredients, poison dart frogs, spider venom, etc.:

Dehydrated Maggots, Ogre Fungus and more:

Ogre Fungus this is actually tree moss that I found on the ground after the hurricane:

Dehydrated Maggots:

Love potion, preserved eyes in goo, miniature snakes:

Love Potion

Miniature Snakes

Mermaid's Tears

Elemental spiders, Baby Rats, Black Ants and Flies, Beetles, etc.

Whole Baby Rats

Elemental Spiders

Doxy Eggs and Centipeds

Grave Dirt:

Live Giant Maggots (white fishing lures with the tails cut off) and purple water worms (purple fishing lures in blue shampoo):

Eeeewwww, fecal worms!!!!

Snake Venom with snake, I found this bottle on clearance at Pier One and put a cheap plastic snake in it with shampoo:

Unicorn horn (made from Crayola air dried clay) and pixie fairy dust (glitter)

Cursed pirates treasure

Demons horns, cursed tresure, pheonix feathers, enchanted necklace:

Miniature cauldrons

Werewolf pelts

Pheonix feathers:

Pixie Skeletons

Dragons' Tears

Blood Worms

Ogre's Blood with Pixie Dust

Dragon Shopping Bag

2008-08-17T20:36:00.002-05:00

I had this idea for a shopping bag for a while. I embroidered the words on to a pocket. It holds quite a bit.

I love the way it turned out.

Cat and the Hat Clothes

2008-08-17T20:29:00.002-05:00

I made Colin and Gavin a pair of Cat and the Hat pj bottoms each. I also made Gavin a Cat and the Hat shorts outfit for school. I used the pattern in Sew-n-Go Kids. Here's the results:

Alien Washclothes

2008-08-17T20:26:00.002-05:00

I made these knitted washclothes for my dad.

I'm planning to make a lunchbox to match.

I'm melting, I'm melting!!!

2008-08-17T20:16:00.003-05:00

Well I think like all moms, I have tons of crayons laying around. I decided to melt some down and reuse them as gifts. Here are the results:

I used 2 different silicon baking pans to make these. I love the way they turned out. The smaller squares are candy molds, the larger flowers are for cakes, etc. I decided to make color "themes" when I did these instead of using just random colors. After they were melted I used a toothpick to swirl the colors.

Close up of the flowers:

The green is my son Colin's favorite one that I made. He keeps taking it, LOL.

Halloween:

Girly Whirly:

Fire:

Camo:

USA Flag:

Wrap Pants

2008-08-17T19:20:00.002-05:00

I finally got pictures of my wrap pants.

I had enough left over fabric that I made a matching head scarf with this set of pants:

These are my favorites:

closeup:

These cost a whopping $5.00 to make each. I got the fabric at MallWart for $2.00/yard. I think they turned out great!!!! They are very comfy.

Halloween Ideas

2008-07-09T18:06:00.006-05:00

Well I'm starting to think about things to make for Halloween already. I'm thinking of starting my spooky jars this year.

Here's a site I found that had a neat Dragon embryo:
http://www.curiousgood.com/?page_id=160

Here's a tutorial for making specimens:
http://www.miskatonic.net/pickman/mythos/bottle.htm
http://aranamuerta.com/2008/01/29/witches-kitchen

After looking at this book, I might just have to make some books as well.
http://www.miskatonic.net/pickman/mythos/france.html

Of course I really don't need anymore books in my house, LOL.

I'll keep looking.

Woodworking and stuff

2008-06-15T14:16:00.003-05:00

Well I've been pretty busy. I need to post some pictures. I made 2 pairs of wrap pants for me and a ton of teacher appreciation gifts. I need to get pictures of the wrap pants still, but I got the fabric at MalWart in the $2.00/yard fabric section. So the pants only cost me $5.00/pair.

I've been reading alot lately too. If you haven't read The Black Dagger Brotherhood series by J.R. Ward, you must read it. Its excellent. Its a paranormal romance series that is based on vampires as a seperate species. You must read it in order. She just released the 6th book in the series... Lover Enshrined. Other noteworthy books I've read lately are One Foot in the Grave by Jeaniene Frost, Midnight Rising by Laura Adrian, The Darkest Kiss by Keri Arthur, Vampire Interupted by Lynsay Sands, etc..... Yep I love books. Those are just some of the paperbooks I've read recently. I've also been reading some e-books.

Anyway I think I'm about ready to start some woodworking projects. I want to make a beanbag toss for the boys. I'm thinking about doing some woodburning on it, I might make it a skull and crossbones. I also want to make some chairs for outside. I've found some great patterns for some simple chairs:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Plank-Chair/
http://www.instructables.com/id/Folding-Shelves-From-Bunkbed-Ladders-and-other-Ins/
http://tech.cls.utk.edu/wood/projects/bogchair/bog_chair_mark_iii.htm
http://www.currentmiddleages.org/tents/chair4stargazer.pdf
http://www.woodworkersworkshop.com/cached_files/27813_files/

I just need to go through them all and figure out what directions/dementions I like the best. I found a fabulous site for free woodworking patterns. http://www.woodworkersworkshop.com/resources/index.php?cat=102

And since I'm sharing, LOL, check out this absolutely awesome shelving unit.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Ten-Green---modular-shelving/
I wish I had known about it in college. I think they look way better than the old stand by of wood and cinder blocks. I like this other one too:
http://www.iamanangelchaser.com/products/booKrates/booKrates.html

I've been completely stuck on instructables lately. Its amazing what information you can find on that site. I love the steampunk crafts I've found. I might just have to do the boys room to mimic a steampunk-esque room. We'll see. Anyway, you'd think I'd have updated this before now since I've been on the computer alot lately, but I just forgot and got busy doing other things. I'll try to take some garden pic updates soon too.

Still gardening

2008-04-24T06:36:00.002-05:00

I've been gardening my little heart out lately. I'll take pictures later of some of the things I've done. I've added more to the fairy garden, put in a small flower bed next to our garage, done some general clean up around the property, planted corn, started a new sidewalk/path, etc. I've also been reading. I haven't done many crafts lately. I've also been shopping alot lately, LOL. So I haven't been home (except when my little one was sick last week and was a snuggle bunny). Its starting to get really hot outside, so I'll be crafting more soon!!!

Indian girl Poppet

2008-04-05T21:19:00.003-05:00

A friend of mine asked me to make a little Indian girl poppet for her neice. Her neice graduates from High School this year and her school mascot is the Indians. So here is what I came up with.

Here skin is a little washed out in the picture. Its actually darker and a little more yellow. I made the dress without a pattern. I think it turned out pretty nice.

Fairy Garden

2008-04-05T21:14:00.003-05:00

I'm currently working on a fairy garden right in front of the house. Here's what I've got so far:

I made a mushroom circle out of ceramic mushrooms I found at a discount store. I've got hose guides in the front and a little frog prince. He watches over the bird bath. I tried to plant a lot of low growing ground covers. We will see how this works. I'm in love with it so far.

The butterfly's like it.

Here are a few update pics of the big garden.

Garden

2008-03-23T09:34:00.004-05:00

In case you were wondering why the crafting has been going slow lately. Well I've been outside setting up a garden.

We have to garden in raised beds because our ground doesn't seem to drain. Plus we have alot of clay. Its just easier to garden in raised beds. Of course it back breaking work to fill the beds. But once you have them filled, its not so bad. We are working on the second dump of garden soil now. This is our kitchen garden. It will be filled with herbs and vegetables we use most in the kitchen.

Flower beds too

Check out my awesome birdbath:

I found it at Lowes.

The only way to plant mint, in pots, LOL:

Anyway, we still have 3 more garden beds to fill with soil and one flower bed.

The shoes done

2008-03-20T12:42:00.004-05:00

Here are the shoes close up.

The pattern:

She's done!!! Introducing Sporty Poppet

2008-03-19T21:41:00.005-05:00

I finally got the poppet made for my niece. She's really into sports so I wanted to make this special for her. I copied her school uniforms.

Soccer:

Close up of the shirt:

Volley Ball:

Skirt, Shirt and purse:

Face Close up:

Nekkid Shots:

The clothes all laid out:

I made 2 uniforms, one shirt, one skirt, a pair of shoes, socks and underwear and one purse. Ineed to tweek the shoes a bit. The grommets I used on it are not wanting to stay in the felt so I'm going to just sew around the holes. But basically she's done. I created all the patterns for her clothes. I had fun creating her.

My oldest son has requested one now. He's requested one with boy parts. So I'm hoping to start on that soon.

Books last week

2008-03-17T20:41:00.002-05:00

I read a number of books last week. Easy to do when your kiddos are sick.

Paperback
The Undead Next Door - Kerrelyn Sparks - This is 4th book in her "Love at stake" series. I've enjoyed every book in this series so far. I reccommend it for a good read.

e-Book
Shards of the Mind - Theolyn Boese - This is book 2 in Ta'e'sha Chronicles - I love this series. Its a very emotional series. I can't wait til the next one comes out. Its nice to see the characters grow. The Ta'e'sha Chronicles are about a species of beings that are from another planet and can change into merpeople. You meet the captain and his family and their aquisition of a human mate. You can find it at Loose-id.
http://www.loose-id.com/detail.aspx?ID=670

I bought and read Camille Anthony's entire Werewulf Series. She also publishes at Loose-id.
http://www.loose-id.com/searchresult.aspx?CategoryID=13
Multiracial and I guess multispecies I love a good werewolf story.

Its some good readin'

Crochet Chickens

2008-03-17T19:44:00.004-05:00

I made Crochet Chickens for my youngest son's class for Easter.

They have plastic eggs inside them. My greatgrandmother made my brother and I some of these so I just had to make some of these for my kiddos. I made theirs 3 years ago and I use them every year.

St Patty's Day Skirt

2008-03-17T19:34:00.005-05:00

I made myself a patchwork skirt for St. Patrick's Day. I found a cute fairy shirt and some green and black sock from Hot Topic and just had to make a skirt to match.

Detail of the hem's stitching

Detail of the fabrics used

It took a heck of alot of squares, LOL.

Inspired by:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=226380.0
Tutorial:
http://indietutes.blogspot.com/2007/05/patchwork-circle-skirt.html

Poppets, poppets, poppets

2008-02-20T19:28:00.005-06:00

Some of the Crafts I've been doing lately

2008-02-17T17:42:00.006-06:00

This isn't everything, but since my camera broke, I've had to take some of them with my camera phone. I'm not terribly impressed with the results of it all. Anyway here they are.

Brianna's Birthday present:

I made her a purse out of the prettiest corduroy fabric. I found the fabric at Goodwill for a dollar. Can't beat that. I had the butterfly fabric and thought it was a perfect combination. I made her the purse, a personal tissue holder, a coin purse, a wallet and another drawstring bag. I also made some woven barretts. I've made a ton of these woven barretts lately and given them out as gifts to various people.

Valentine's men:

These are bendy dolls that I made for my oldest son's classmates. He gave them out for Valentine's Day. Sorry the picture is so crummy. They really did turn out cute.

Acorns:

I made these for someone on a forum I'm on. She wanted 2 of the acrons I've made but she wanted them in green. I think they turned out great.

I'll try to get pics of some of the other stuff I've been making soon. Hopefully my camera will come back from Kodiak soon.

UGH!!! I promise I have been crafting

2008-01-29T09:32:00.000-06:00

Our camera broke. I don't know where our old camera is and I keep forgetting to ask dh. Hopefully I'll be able to get some pictures up soon of my projects. I did get some with dh's camera phone the other day, I'll just have to remember to get them off his phone.

I made a purse with assessories for a friend's child for her birthday. I absolutely LOVE how it turned out. I've been making braided barrettes lately too. Other than that I've knitted some alien wash clothes and wove some potholders. Oh and I also made some green on green acorns. And a few other things if I think on it, LOL.

I've also been reading alot again lately. E-books are my friend. I recently read 2 great books from New Concepts Publishing. Unbridled by Raven Willow-Wood http://www.newconceptspublishing.com/unbridled.htm
and Rules of Engagement by Kaitlyn O'Connor http://www.newconceptspublishing.com/rulesofengagement.htm .
Unbridled is a new series by Raven Willow-Wood and is about centaurs and an alternate world/dimension. Rules of Engagement is the 4th book in Kaitlyn O'Connor's Cyborg Series. I really love her style of writing. This series is about organic cyborgs who gain self awareness and begin to want freedom and families of their own and their rode to that freedom. I've read several others lately too that are just as good.

Dragons

2008-01-06T17:27:00.000-06:00

I think I'm in love, LOL. I absolutely adore dragons. I may have to get this pattern and try it out.

http://www.smallwork.com/dragon.html

Its amazing.

Quotes - Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

2008-01-06T10:29:00.000-06:00

I love quotes from just about anywhere, books, bumper stickers, T-Shirts. I'm a sucker for a good quote. Anyway, here's a quote from one of my favorite characters in one of my favorite series.

Sookie Stackhouse is talking to Quinn as he's getting ready to change into his were form (in other words he's stripping).

"Oh, boy, You look better than a Happy Meal to a three-year-old"

I love that line.

If you haven't read any of Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire series, its worth the read. There is supposed to be series based on the books coming out soon on HBO. The Series is called True Blood.

Criss Cross Coaster

2007-12-30T14:31:00.001-06:00

I made some coasters yesterday. I found this tutorial on Allsorts' Blog... http://allsorts.typepad.com/allsorts/2006/11/crisscross_coas.html

They are just adorable and pretty easy to make. I made mine out of some hawiian fabric I've had around for a while and some coordinating blue fabric. I made 4 yesterday morning and 4 the night before.

I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with them yet but I'm really pleased with them. They are probably going to be presents for someone. Or I might just keep a few. I love this Hawiian print. I bought alot of it and I've used some on past projects. And I still have enough to make many more projects with it.

Shopping bags

2007-12-30T14:23:00.002-06:00

I found a cute fabric shopping bag tutorial on Craftster.org and decided to try it out myself. The tutorial can be found here:

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=177482.0

Here are my bags:

I used some Debbie Mumm fabric that has been in my fabric stash for a while. I had 5 or 6 different coordinating prints. Unfortunately since I used a Target bag as my pattern, I didn't have enough fabric to make more than one big bag and that bag had 4 different fabrics on it because I could squeeze more than side out of the directional fabric out of a yard. But I did get to make the cute little bag out of the scraps. I had a smaller bag that I got from somewhere and I used it for a pattern. I tried making the pocket on the smaller bag so that it could fold into itself, but I made the pocket too small. Oh well. But the big bag works perfectly. I absolutely love this fabric. Its not something I'm normally drawn to but hey when fabric calls to ya, you better listen, LOL.

Ball Ornaments

2007-12-30T14:11:00.001-06:00

I made some ball ornaments for the the tree in the boys room. We "lost" (misplaced) all of the ornaments that normally go on their little white tree. So we had to get and make more. Well since my son's favorite color is green we went with a green and teal theme on their little white tree.

I made these ornaments out of styrofoam balls, fabric scraps, beads, and embroidery floss.

I took a marker and drew on the shapes that I wanted and took a butter knife and traced the lines with the butter knife. I cut out rough shapes to go on the balls out of the fabric in the shapes that I drew on the ball (plus seam allowance). I used the butter knife to shove the fabric into the seams. I threaded some beads on some embroidery floss and with a long needle, I ran that through (just the thread and needle) the styrofoam ball from the top to the bottom of the ball. Make the appropriate hoop at the top and knot at the bottom and your done.

Snowman Instructions

2007-12-22T19:22:00.005-06:00

Body

I used 1 skein of white Red Heart yarn and 1 skein of pearled baby yarn (left over from another project and didn't have the name of the yarn. Sorry). I used a size H hook.

1. Create a magic ring and sc 6 sts into ring. Or ch 2, crochet 2 into the 2nd ch from the hook. (total 6 sc)
2. 2 sc in each sc; repeat until you get 12 sc
3. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next sc; repeat until you get 18 sc
4. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next 2 sc; repeat until you get 24 sc
5-8. 1 sc into each sc.
9. sc2tog, 1 sc into next 2 sc; repeat until you get 18
10. sc2tog, 1 sc into next sc; repeat until you get 12
If using safety eyes, now is the time to place them.
Take time to stuff head now
11. 1 sc into each sc
12. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next sc; repeat until you get 18 sc
13. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next 2 sc; repeat until you get 24 sc
14. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next 3 sc; repeat until you get 30 sc
15. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next 4 sc; repeat until you get 36 sc
16-21. 1 sc into each sc
22. sc2tog, 1 sc into next 4 sc; repeat until you get 30
23. sc2tog, 1 sc into next 3 sc; repeat until you get 24
24. sc2tog, 1 sc into next 2 sc; repeat until you get 18
25. sc2tog, 1 sc into next sc; repeat until you get 12
Take the time now to stuff the body.
26. sc2tog; repeat until you get 6.
Tie off leaving a long piece of yarn. Use yarn needle as pull 6 stitches together, tie off and finish.

Nose

I used 2 skiens of orange embroidery floss together as yarn.

The directions for the nose are approximate, since its up to the creator to determine how long they want the carrot.

1. 4 sc into magic ring
2. 1 sc into each sc
3. 2 sc into 1 sc, 1 sc, 2 sc into 1 sc, 1 sc
4. 1 sc into each sc until carrot is as long as you desire.

After tying off leave a long enough piece so that you can use it to attach to the snow man's head.

Assessories.... I made a scarf out of 2 pieces of wool/rayon blend felt. One piece was 11 inches and that went around the neck. The other piece was 9 inches and was tied around the first piece of wool. But you could easily crochet or knit a scarf for it. Or you could crochet a top hat or even sew one out of felt. You could also use buttons for eyes or wool felt for that matter. These are very easy to whip up and dress.

Have Fun!!!

My son's 7th Birthday party

2007-12-19T11:33:00.001-06:00

I had to share what my husband did for our son's birthday party this last weekend.

Can you believe this cake? For those of you not in the know its a Transformers cake and this is Bumblebee's head.

He turns 7 today. Ugh I can't believe it. And he informed me yesterday that he has his first wiggly tooth. They grow up so fast.

Christmas Crafting and Decorating

2007-12-19T11:07:00.001-06:00

I know, I know I haven't been very faithful with my blog. But I've been busy I swear!!

Here are some decorations that I've put up this year:

Snowflakes on the windows

I found these snowflakes at 99 cent store last year.

More snowflakes

I made the beaded snowflakes here. I also used some store bought snowflakes. Since I've taken this picture, I've added some clear glass ornaments to the arrangement. They look like bubbles.

Nutcrackers

Every year we try to get a nutcracker for the boys. I like them displayed on top of the TV

Window treatments

Last year I had the snowflakes on these windows. I think I like them better with the balls. This looks much better in person.

My Peppermint Snowman tree

I'm planning to make a head for the top so keep an eye out for further post for my white tree.

Poinsettia

I saw this in a magazine this year and just had to make a few. I love the way they turned out. Sorry I can't remember what magazine. They are just made with pipe cleaners, embroidery floss and beads.

Garland

Okay this is mainly what I've been working on. This was made on a six prong spool knitter. Actually its the Clover wonder knitter that I used. I think it turned out awesome.

Beaded snowflakes
These are just a few I've made for decorations for around the house and the trees.

I made some snowmen for one of my son's teachers to give to her students. She only has 5 students.

I think they turned out awsome.

I made some monster personal tissue holders for my other son's classmates.

Aliens have landed and they are taking over our trash!!!

2007-12-01T16:18:00.001-06:00

I made this cute space ship using those clear containers that come out of gum machines that usually hold junk. Well when we go to HEB, my son gets a buddy buck every week and uses the machine to get stickers for buddy points. Well I haven't been able to throw the containers away, but I didn't know what to do with them. One day I was looking at them and thought they would make the perfect dome for a spaceship. So I used the yarn in the picture, some embroidery floss and a pipe cleaner and came up with this...

And yes that is an itty bitty pompom alien. I think he needs eyes, LOL. I'm thinking of making some more for his Christmas tree, but we will see. Its low on my project list. It might not get made in time for Christmas.

Sick again, sick again

2007-11-30T08:44:00.000-06:00

Poor Gavin. My poor baby boy is sick again. He went to bed Wednesday night with a fever of 101.1 degree so needless to say he went right to sleep. He woke up at 1:00 am, Thursday morning with a 105 degree fever. Not only that but he was screaming as if he was in pain and he was acting as if his skin was crawling. He wanted to be held but didn't want to be touched. I finally got him back in bed about 2:30 only to be up again at 4:00. He went back to sleep pretty quickly that time but he woke at 4:25 screaming again. Brian and I were exhasted and Colin slept right through it. I swear that boy can sleep through anything. So I took Gavin to the doctor yesterday and they said he still had 2 ear infections but also had bronchitis. Like I said, poor baby. So he's home today again, so far, so good. No fever and he's acting better. He still hasn't gone to school a full week since he started. His caugh still sounds bad. But he's obviously feeling better. That's all that matters.

Pony Diva Fashion Show

2007-11-23T10:00:00.003-06:00

Well here are the latest pony fashions I've made. I'm not sure what I'll do with them all but atleast some of them will be Christmas presents.

Green dress. I need to add button to it.

Multi colored ruffle cape and hat. I may add some yarn to the hat so that you can tie it on. I haven't decided.

Just the ruffle cape

Multi colored cape blanket with fringe

Multi colored cape blanket with cap

White ruffle skirt and hat. I may add some ribbon or yarn to hat to tie it on. I need to add buttons to the skirt.

Multi Pink fitted cape blanket

Pink Diva Cape made on flower loom with crochet edges

Purple fitted cape with fringe

Full Body Robe with collar. These robes remind me of those moomoo dresses or house dresses from the 70's, LOL.

Circus style cape blanket made on flower loom

Green and blues cape blanket

Pants and Top

Cape Blanket

hat and skirt

All of the coordinating blue pieces

Well I have more but I'm tired of posting now, LOL. I made all of these without patterns so I can't reproduce them exactly. But they were fun to make.

Old Pony Fashions

2007-11-23T09:46:00.003-06:00

Here are some pony fashions that I've made in the past.

First Crochet skirt and top (sorry red crochet doesn't photograph well)

White cape, leg warmers and boa

Brown cape with collar

Turquoise Top and Skirt - sorry its a little blurry

Turquoise coat with colorful trim & leg warmers - I didn't get a picture of this coat on a pony

Blue and pink Kimono

Boa and leg warmers

Felt capes

2 simple skirts

I have patterns somewhere for the kimono and the felt capes, LOL. I love making pony fashions but I just don't know many girlies to give them to. My boys have some MLP's but they don't need anymore ponies or pony clothes since they really don't play with them anymore.

Thanksgiving Day

2007-11-23T09:38:00.001-06:00

We had a great Thanksgiving day at MIL's house. We had a great dinner. Of course before dinner, Colin started running fever . Poor thing, he looked like he was feeling horrible. We gave him some advil and 45 minutes later he was jumping off the back of the couch. Brian is taking him to the doctor right now since he was running fever again this morning. Hopefully it will be nothing. If he has another ear infection, we have to take him downtown to the ear specialist again. Gavin is getting over his ear infections and strep throat now. He's on the last days of his medicine.

Well other than Colin's fever, it was a great day.

The Tree done, The Pumpkin patch and Thanksgiving Seasonal Table

2007-11-21T23:13:00.002-06:00

I found this really yummy peach/orange woven fabric at Hobby Lobby on clearance. I snatched up a yard and decided to make pumpkins with it. I used this pattern http://sewing.about.com/library/weekly/aa101999.htm for the main part of the pumpkin. I just made up the stems myself. I also enlarged the pattern to make 1 big pumpkin. I think they turned out awesome.

I also made the 2 layered tree skirt. The bottom layer is orange burlap with brown bias tape on some of the edges. I used a decorative stitch in orange to topstitch the bias tape to the burlap. I then sewed a zigzag circle around about 1 1/2 inches from the edge. After that I unraveled the edges to look like fringe. The top layer was made on the potholder loom. I wanted a plaid look. I think it turned out great. I crocheted the edges with orange and brown to tie it all together and to bring in the colors of the bottom skirt layer.

I think the tree turned out awesome.

I found some great ornaments and made some more. I knew I wouldn't have that much time to get it done before Thanksgiving, so I'm glad I was able to buy some. I'll make more next year.

The seasonal table changed a bit from Halloween. I kept the jars, pinecones and bark on the table. I gathered some sticks from the yard for 2 of the jars. I put some fake flowers that my Nana bought for me while I was in college in the other jar. I made the turkey (see earlier blog). I found the dreamcatchers and ceramic pumpkins at dollar stores. Colin made the beautiful Mayflower on the table. Brian has been taking Colin to Home Depot once a month for workshops and this is what he made this month. Isn't it great.

The white turkey feather is from my neighbor's turkey. It comes to our yard all the time. Colin found it and thought it needed to go with the other Thanksgiving stuff.

Well that's about it. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Acorn Ornaments

2007-11-21T23:10:00.002-06:00

Here are the acorn ornaments I made this week for the Thanksgiving Tree.

They were pretty quick to make. And they turned out way better than I thought they would.

Here is the pattern:
1. Create a magic ring and sc 6 sts into ring. Or ch 2, crochet 2 into the 2nd ch from the hook. (total 6 sc)
2. 2 sc in each sc; repeat until you get 12 sc
3. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next sc; repeat until you get 18 sc
4. 2 sc in next sc, 1 sc in next 2 sc; repeat until you get 24 sc
5. 1 sc in next sc repeat for 24 sc6. sc2tog, 1 sc into next sc; repeat until you get 18

That's it for the cap. Then you just create a pompom much bigger than you need and shape it down to the right acorn nut shape.

Tipis or Teepees, however you want to spell it.

2007-11-15T07:53:00.003-06:00

I know, I know, its most likely that the indians that the settlers ran into didn't live in tipis. They most likely lived in something like a wigwam or some other more permanent structure. But when you think of indians, tipis is often one of the things that comes to mind. So I made some for my thanksgiving tree.

They were really easy to make. It would be a great craft for adults to do with kiddos. I wouldn't consider it a kids only craft because you need to use hot glue at one point but other than that, its a kids craft.

Supplies
tan craft foam
permanent markers or paint with brushes
wooden toothpicks
brown embroidery floss or other matching colors
needle for floss
hot glue gun
hole punch - very small or something to carefully poke small holes into the craft foam

Enlarge the pattern to size.
Trace pattern onto tan craft foam.
Decorate the outside of the tipi with permanent markers or paint. Find books with tipi designs. I recommend "The Indian Tipi" by Reginald & Gladys Laubin. Its a great reference book on indian culture as well (for a few tribes anyway).
Punch holes where the pattern indicates.
Circle the tipi into the correct shape and sew together with embroidery floss.
Fold back smoke flaps and glue underside with hot glue to keep open.
Glue wooden toothpicks into top but running a bead of hot glue on the inside then inserting the glue through the hole into the glue.
Your done. I just put mine on the tree branches of my Thanksgiving tree, but you can used them for any kind of decorations.

Pattern:

Enlarge until the longest side is about 9 inches long.

Little Gobble Gobble

2007-11-15T07:49:00.001-06:00

I made a cute turkey last weekend. I did it without a pattern. I saw a turkey on etsy that I liked and copied the body style. Of course, like always, I forgot to write the pattern down while I was making it. One of these day I'll learn to actually do that while I'm working, instead of thinking of it after the fact.

So here he is......

Thanksgiving Tree bought ornaments

2007-11-15T07:41:00.000-06:00

Well I didn't think I'd get much done on the tree so I wimped out and bought a bunch of ornaments for it. Now I'm busy making ornaments too. I found in some of my fall/halloween decorations when I was putting halloween away, some fall leaves so I put those in the tree. At 99cent store, I found some great beaded foam pumpkins. At Family Dollar, I found some glittered apple ornaments. Remember those little apple ornaments that you used to get in elementary school at christmas from your teacher. Well they make them in glitter in red and gold now. I bought one pack of gold and one of red for $1.00 each. I also found some ornaments at Lowes. So basically, my tree looks decorated from the front, LOL. I'll keep making ornaments for it the rest of this week. I think the tree is turning out better than I expected. I wasn't sure how a white tree would look with fall ornaments on it, but it looks good.

Thanksgiving tree

2007-11-08T16:30:00.003-06:00

So I've been working on a Thanksgiving tree since Halloween is over. I didn't want the tree to be bare. I also didn't want to take it down, decorate for Christmas early or leave up the Halloween decorations. So I decided to create a Thanksgiving tree. I'll be working on it for the next few weeks. I'll stop before Thanksgiving and post the result. Anyway, here is what I've made so far this week:

A Grain/Hay Stack Tree Topper:

I created this without a pattern. I used 3 different yarns to give color variation and used a large hook to crochet this. I was originally going to add crocheted chains to the outside for more texture but after adding a few I decided it didn't need it, but I didn't unattach them. I knotted extra yarn to the top of the stack to give it character. I also unraveled s few strands of yarn to also give it character. Then I just tied it around with a piece of yarn about 1/4 the way down.

Garland:

Made from Hemp twine, pony beads and wooden beads.

Knitted and Crocheted Indian Corn:

I cast on 15 stitches with mustard yellow yarn. Then used a Seed or Moss Stitch to create the kernels. I randomly switched my yellow yarn out with a fall multi colored yarn to give it more that indian corn look. I did this until it was about 3 inches long. I didn't count rows, sorry. To finish it off, I sewed up the top and bottom of the work. Next I gathered one end together to make the tip of the corn. I tied on a piece of husk colored yarn and unraveled it to look like cornsilk. Stuff the corn. On the other end, I crocheted a circle to fit inside the open end and then sc the circle onto the corn. Then crochet random sized loops pulling the outer edges into the center, all the way around the corn. Tie a string around the loops to gather them up. Use one of the longer loops to hang on the tree or simply use them as decorations in a bowl, cornicopia or where every.

Halloween Cones

2007-11-08T16:27:00.002-06:00

I made some cone ornaments for the tree out of scrapbook paper, ribbon, lace, pipe cleaners, yarn, hole punches, paper punches, crepe paper, etc. They were simple to make and look great.

Halloween Table and other crafts

2007-11-08T16:06:00.001-06:00

Not only did I create a Halloween tree, I also created a Halloween table.

I'm going to start from left to right on the table. In the back you can see bark and pine cones. We just found those out of the yard. I've had them for a few years now. I just put them up and pull them out when I need them. We found them after the last hurricane we had come though here.

The Elegant cone trees: I found the cones and glass candle stick holders at DollarTree. I painted the cone black then after the paint dried, I glued them onto the candle holder. I think they turned out great and look very sophisticated.

The Zombie Girl Doll: I made her with no pattern (and unfortunately I didn't write one as I went). I crocheted her body, stockings and bodice. I used crochet thread for hair. I made a felt flower for her hair. I used felt and embroidery floss for her eyes. I stitched on her mouth. And I found some perfect fabric for her dress in my fabric stash.

The Silver Candle Sticks: This was a great find from Goodwill. 2 candlesticks for $2.99.

Flower topped Urns: I originally made the flower balls for the tree, but they looked too big for it, so I put them on top of these urns that I found at The 99 Cent Store. I bought the flowers and foam balls at Dollar Tree. I then spray painted them lightly black just like I did for my wreath (check out those instructions).

Owls: Another great find from Goodwill. I found these for $.79 each. The bronze colored one was originally bronze and white (which looked icky) so I hit it with some black paint and wiped it off the gold areas and it turned out awesome. The white owl is ceramic, the other is plaster.

The Zombie Heads: I just had to have some on my table . I've got directions for making them elsewhere.

The Wooden Cat: Another great Goodwill find. Yep I keep my eye out for great stuff like this. We try to go there once every couple of weeks for book hunting and of course we look around for other treasures as well. The cat was only $3.99. It has a little wear, but I think its great. I haven't decided but I may paint it black next year, or I may simple refinish it.

Now for what's not on the table:

I made the spider web using sticks out of the yard and white crochet thread. I just drilled some holes in the branches to secure the thread then just did a lot of knotting.

And one more ornament, the skull and crossbones:

I found some small wooden skull and cross bones for half off at Joann's. I spent a whooping 12 cents each. I bought 8, to make 4 ornaments. I painted the black areas and the edges. I painted some highlights white. I glued a piece of ribbon in a loop on the back of one for the hanger. Then I glued two of the wooden pieces together.

Ghoulish Garland

2007-11-08T15:58:00.002-06:00

Here is the garland all finished:

Here it is on the tree:

I cut black tulle into strips about 1 1/4 inch wide by 5-6 inches long. I wasn't precise, I just folded the fabric to the correct lenght, cut the folds, then cut the width. Let's face it its not going to show if you aren't precise. I just tied the tulle strips onto a set of purple Halloween lights I bought from Target. I used the lights on the tree as garland. I think it turned out great. The lights are brighter and nicer looking than the picture shows.

Spooky Wreath

2007-11-08T15:51:00.001-06:00

This wreath was super simple to make. I bought a foam wreath form and several bunches of red roses from DollarTree. I painted the foam wreath black. I then clipped the roses and leaves out of the bunches and put them in another piece of foam so that I could lightly spray them with black spraypaint. I went over the roses twice. I did a very light coverage because I wanted the red to show through. (I made some extras for my Halloween tree also). After the roses and leaves dry then just arrange them on the wreath. I found the 3 skulls at Walgreens and thought they were perfect for the inside of the wreath.

I think it turned out great.

My little Owl

2007-11-08T15:38:00.002-06:00

I adapted the Forest Friends Pattern found on this website (halfway down):
http://www.sarahanns.com/crochetworks/animals.html

I found some really neat gray, black and silver yarn for the body. I used gray and black embroidery floss instead of yarn for the wings and tail. I used a mustard yellow embroidery floss for the beak and feet. I used grey, yellow and black felt for they eyes. I think it turned out better than the original pattern. I also made my own tail and wings pattern.

Don't forget the bats!

2007-11-08T14:57:00.003-06:00

I love the way my bat turned out. I used the simple ball pattern then added wings.

Here is the pattern for the wings, crochet 2(let me know if you find a mistake):

1. ch 8 , slst in last stitch, ch 8
2. slst in last stitch, 1 sc in next 2 sc, 1 hdc in next 2sc , 1 dc in next 3 sc, 1tr in next sc, 1 dc in next 3 sc, 1 hdc in next 2 sc, 1 sc in next 2sc
3. 1 sc , 1 sc in the next 2sts , 1hdc & 1dc in next st, ch 1, slst into ch, dbc into next st, sc2tog, sc into next st, sc2tog, 2 dbc in next st, ch1, slst into ch, 1dbc into next st, 1 hdc into next st, 1 sc into next st, sl st.
Tie off.

Sew wings onto the sides of the ball with matching yarn.

Use felt and/or buttons for eyes and stitch a mouth on with embroidery floss. Don't forget to add a loop so that you can hang your bats.

Here Are The Black Cats

2007-11-08T14:49:00.001-06:00

I used the same simple ball crochet pattern to create these cats. I used black red heart super saver yarn to crochet and stuff the cats. I added 2 triangles that I crocheted for ears. You could use felt if you'd like instead though. I then used felt and/or buttons for the eyes and finished it off by stitching on the mouth using embroidery floss that matched the eyes.

Here are my cats. They are a little fuzzy but I had already put them in storage before I realized my pictures weren't very good.

Bendy Mummies Attack

2007-11-08T14:29:00.001-06:00

I created these mummies using the basic bendy wrapping directions found in Salley Mavor's book "Felt Wee Folk" pg 27, 2 1/2 inch doll body. I used baby yarn to wrap the bodies instead of embroidery floss to give it that gauze wrapped look. After I wrapped the correctly, I went back and wrapped them a few more times to give it that look of the bandages coming loose and falling off.

For my original prototype, I wrapped the head completely too. I decided I didn't like it as much. Here's a pic:

Instead I decided to paint the beads white then do just a little wrapping on them. Then I just added to black dots for eyes.

Eek its a mummy attack:

I made this horde of mummies for Colin's school, as gifts for the kids for Halloween. We didn't send any candy up to school.

Zombie Heads Are Going To Roll

2007-11-08T14:16:00.001-06:00

Using my basic ball pattern, I made some zombie heads using cheap red heart super saver white yarn. These are super simple and fun to make.

I made the heads very simply. I used embroidery floss for the hair. Do any hair style you like. sew on stitched mouth using embroidery floss. Use buttons for eyes. I've also used felt for eyes. Play around with the eyes, use one button or 2, use a combination of felt and buttons, use different sizes. Be creative. Don't forget to add a loop through the top to hang them from. And your done!!!