Year End Wrap Up

I wanted everyone to know that I did knit the toadstool baby rattle from the Purl Bee. It wasn’t finished for Christmas, luckily the baby can’t read a calendar. I still might(probably not) put some appliquéd felt spots on. I really love it, the detailing with the increasing and decreasing on the stem and the ribbing on the gills is wonderful. I do wish it was a bit smaller, but Little Man is still able to get a good grip on it and give it a good shake, but I think he likes his CrinkleBot better.

I also made a set of hanging towels for my Mother. When she saw my red and turquoise ones she asked for a set in red with yellow instead of turquoise. I had the striping down better the second time around. I am still drinking juice too, 2 down with 4 to go so I can have my very own set of custom ornaments.

I have a few new projects in the works… Part of my New Years Goals (not exactly resolutions) and the start of a brand new idea that just hit me as I was thinking about the New Year and getting a new calendar. I have been working on my goals for weeks and am sure that 2011 will be very exciting for my family, I can hardly wait.

Have a wonderful New Year (and a super crafty weekend)!

Holiday Photo Ornaments

I have been giving my Mom a new ornament every year with a holiday picture of the kids, but with three kids it’s getting hard to fit them all on one tiny little store bought ornament. I can’t believe it never occurred to me that making the ornaments would be even better, duh, I’ll blame it on the crazy holiday season.

When I came across the Juice top photo ornaments on The Crafting Chicks I made a mental note to make them for next year. After taking this years holiday photos on the 23rd. I decided that I needed to make those ornaments for my Mom this year. I went to the craft store on Christmas Eve and I drank 6 quarts of juice and I have to say it was worth it!I love them sooooooo much, I have to drink some more juice so I can make my own set. We do drink a lot of juice here, but not the kind with the metal lids.

The little notes on the back are genius, they are going to be so much fun to read in about 10 years! I’m going to have to make something like this every year. BTW, I’ve already decided I’m using their block ornament for next year!

Happy Holidays!!!

Here it is, the long anticipated holiday picture.  I am excited that I was able to get everyone to look in my general direction and appear fairly happy.  Have a super crafty weekend!

Crinkly Robot Baby Toy

I thought I had all of my shopping done, turns out that I completely forgot to get anything for the baby. Since he is only eight months old I’m not too worried about having a ton of presents for him, but I do want him to get some super special things. I made this super cute crinkly robot toy (from Prudent Baby) in an evening, I did do some fairly fancy embroidery (fancy for me) otherwise it would have only taken about an hour to cut out and sew up on the machine.

I have also started knitting him this awesome toadstool rattle from the Purl Bee, hopefully there is still time to finish it up. I have one more top secret project in the works for my Mom and I still need to take a fabulous Christmas picture of all three children together and today is the last day of school until the New Year. I’m going to be pretty busy for the rest of the week! Have you finished your Holiday crafting?

Greeting Card Ornaments

I know that I’m not the only one who saves every card that has ever been sent to me. Cards are expensive and really pretty, but hidden away in a box no one has the chance to enjoy them. Go get you box of cards, I’ll wait.

You’ll need:

a greeting card, something round (I used a glass, a fancy circle cutter would be awesome), glue, a small diameter hole punch, crochet thread, and a small crochet hook.

Decide what part of the picture on the card you want to use. I decided to use the tree and the Merry Christmas text. You can also use the words from the inside or other paper for the back. This particular card was from the place we bought our gutters and the inside text wasn’t ornament worthy. I used a glass for my template, but anything you can trace around will work, and don’t feel obligated to used something round, ovals and other shapes would be great too.Cut out your shapes and glue them together, wrong sides in. It isn’t essential, but it keeps the two pieces from sliding around while you’re working with them. This is also a great time to neaten you edges if they don’t match up.Use a small sized hole punch to evenly punch holes around the edge. I just eyeballed it and tried to make it fairly even.Start crocheting! I did three single crochet stitches (sc) into each hole in the first round, slip stitch into first stitch. The second round I sc into every stitch, slip stitch to join the begining of the round, and for the third round I chained 5, *skipped one stitch, double crochet in the next stitch, chain two*, repeat from * all the way around and slip stitch to forth chain. Then I chained about 25 and slip stitched into the first stitch again to make the hanging loop. If you have any questions about this pattern just ask, I’m still working on my pattern writing skills. I added a ribbon bow to finish it.Here’s mine with the ones my Mom made, she makes scallops around the edge of hers. This would be a great way to try out some new edging stitches.

I love how easy and inexpensive this project is! I really need to dig into my stash of cards. These are easy to mail and they also make great package decorations.

Felt Peppermint Ornament

I found this great tutorial on Pink Suede Shoes for a felt peppermint ornament and fell in love! So simple, but so fun. I thought it would be a great little something to give all the teachers, assistants, bus drivers, etc. for the holidays.

The one on the bottom right was made using the full sized pattern. I wanted to stretch my glitter felt a little farther, so for the others I reduced the pattern to 65%. I also saved my cut out triangle pieces and made reverse peppermints (twice as many ornaments!!!). I used rick rack for the hangers and finished all the edges with a zigzag. Hand sewing would have be great, but I’m getting a little pressed for time. When stitching the edges I stitched until there was a few inches to go, shoved some stuffing in the opening and kept sewing.

I found this tutorial via Chickabug and there was also a link to the most fabulous two color felt pinecones. I was so excited about them, I was even undeterred when I had to give my name, email, and address and opt out of four different newsletters to get the free template because those pinecones were going to be so awesome. I don’t know where I went wrong, I think the directions were a bit vague or maybe I missed something. It’s from the Family Circle magazine, maybe the actual magazine has better instructions (anyone have a copy? let me know). Mine is sad, and it looks better in the pictures than real life and this is also after I fixed it (as in stopped following the directions and used some glue). Way too much cutting and time invested for such a piece of crap. I would not recommend it and I have to say I am not likely to try one of their free patterns again. However, the tip about ironing freezer paper to you felt to make it easier to trace you pattern on was genius, it’s so hard to trace a nice line on felt, I’ll definitely use that one again.

I have some more felt ornaments to work on this weekend, I’ll share those next week. Have a super crafty weekend!

Zentangle Part 2

Good news, after getting some more supplies I went back and fixed my original not pictured one from yesterday.  The key was some white gel pens, I just blacked out the parts I didn’t like and went back in with the white pens, I love the negative effect too!  I need more practice, there are parts that I really love and others, not so much.  I may need to fill an entire sketch book with these, sooooooo relaxing.

If you want to see some patterns and their names check out TanglePatterns (I like how the patterns scroll across the top) and here is another great resource Zentangle Patterns, I’m sure there are more great sites like these, leave a link for you favorite, I’m hoping to move to more complex patterns next.

Zentangles

Zentangles are everywhere these days, I’m surprised that this is the first time that I made one myself.  If you do an image search on Google the results are inspiring and varied. 

I decided to uses several different pens to get different thicknesses for a little more interest.  Zentangle one was a partial failure and will not be shown, it seems I was trying to hard to make it arty.  I would also like to note that if you are trying to hard the process is not as fun as when you just relax and doodle.  Once I got it figured out it was fun and relaxing.  I think I could easily fill a whole book of these, and I just might.  I would like to make one and incorporate words next.  I definitely need some new, special pens for this and maybe a new sketchbook too! 

Have you tried making zentangles? what did you think of the process? and do you have any tips for a newbie like me?

Friday Favorites

Wow, it’s been a crazy week!  It’s been three months since I started working part time and the first full week of the month is always super hectic for me.  Add the baby is getting his top two front teeth and being overbooked with activities for the holiday season and our schedule is all messed up.  I hope to get back to my regular posting schedule next week, I have so many exciting things to share.  Here are some of my current etsy favorites, head on over to etsy for some crowd free shopping, the time to get things by Christmas is getting short.

Crochet covered patchwork rock – StitchHappens7

Cherry blossom wedding dress – Bellinabridal

3 Vintage skeleton keys – timepassages

Family tree chart – FreshRetroGallery

She bang letterpress poster – YeeHaa

Zodiac constellation oxidized brass tag – Takit2themoon

Merry forkin Christmas ornament – SpoonerZ

We are family porcelain cats – endlesswhimsy

Natural Turquoise wire wrapped ring – Hardcandygems

Nebula pendant – sarahndippity

Tarot mirror, the Empress – TheFrameandMirror

Zodiac embroidery kit – MiniatureRhino

Have a super crafty weekend!!!

He is REALLY Annoyed

Here’s the action shot from yesterdays finished hat. 

Yeah, he is really annoyed.

  You should have seen the arm flapping and heard the whining, but after a few minutes he forgets it’s on and he’s fine.  It is sooooo cute and he’ll be toasty warm even if he is annoyed.

How to Annoy a Baby

Babies in hats are soooooo cute, but once your baby gets coordinated enough to grab things it is really difficult to keep a hat on that baby. I live in Nebraska and it gets cold here, the baby must wear a hat (and hopefully look cute too).

I’ve had the b 14-28 hat pattern in my favorites on ravelry for a while and decided that this weekend was the perfect time to get it done. I made the 6-9 month size using Red Heart in Fall (I absolutely love the colors in this, I have now made two hats with one skein) and Coffee. The pattern was a little confusing for the shaping of the hood part, but after re-reading it a few times I got it. It seemed like the first 8-12 rows took forever, but after the decreases it went a lot quicker. I ended up redoing the ribbing around the face hole, I had followed the pattern and done 2 X 2 ribbing and folded and stitched, but I didn’t like it. Instead I purled a row, knitted a row, purled a row and did a crochet bind off. I also divided the stitches at the top of the hat in half and did a crochet bind off there too.

I worked on this hat all day Sunday and, sadly, I finished way to late to get an action shot of the baby, but hopefully I’ll have one to post soon. I did try it on him before finishing the face hole and adding the pompoms and it was super cute. You should have seen the look on his face when he tried to pull it off and it didn’t budge, sooo funny. How do you like to annoy babies you know?

Yarn Balls Wreath – The Big Ball Party

After seeing this yarn ball and ornament wreath tutorial on Life Through the Lens, my friend Lisa (oobbles) decided that we should get together and make them. This Tuesday was the day, we were also joined by our good friend Kashoan (kraftykash) and we spent the day giggling our way through yarn balls, ornaments, and hot glue. We had the whole table covered in supplies and beverages. We all chose different colors, I thought it was great that we all made such colorful choices. I love how my wreath turned out, you know I love turquoise and red! It is a lot more sparkly in person, I can’t wait to get this up on my front door. You can see Kashoan’s here and Lisa's is here.