Candy Love

I think I am having too much fun with this one! You can try it too at the CANDY FACTORY!

Vintage Valentines

Who doesn't like vintage valentines?  I just finished doing up some vintage valentine ATC's for a swapbot swap. There are unlimited resources on the Internet for vintage inspiration and lots of freebies.

The Frugal Crafter has this sheet of valentine kewpies for downloading here.  She made lovely little lollipop covers with them. 

Altered Stuff has a wonderful collage sheet of vintage valentines that can be downloaded in pdf or jpg format. 

Scrappiles has digital scrapbooking freebies including a sheet of cute vintage cut-outs.

If you want to send vintage ecards, West Virginia University Library has put together a selection of valentine cards and postcards.    This is a sample from their collection:

The valentines that I used fort my ATC's were from Zwani graphics.  This site has html code ready to cut and paste so that you can add a wonderful vintage valentine to your site!

My ATC looked like this

Valentine Pillow Tutorial

This is an easy and quick project to knit up for that special someone. I made one for a relative who has been ill; and, when my boys saw it, they wanted one too! Yarn: Lion Brand Fun Fur in Color # Red; Bernat Softee Chunkee in Color # Red.

Needles: Size 11 circular Notions: 1/2 yard of fabric to make pillow ( this is enough for 2 pillows). Needle and Thread for sewing knitted fabric to pillow. Stuffing for pillow. Gauge: Doesn't really matter Directions:

KNITTING:

Holding the two yarns together, CO 2 stitches. Row 1: K 2 stitches, Add a stitch by CO 1 at end of row (3 stitches on needle). Row 2: K all stitches, CO 1 at end of row (4 sttiches on needle). Continue in this pattern, Knitting all stitches and adding one at end of each row by the cast on method, until you have 30 stitches on your needle. Knit 4 rows. Knit 2 rows, adding one stitch by the cast on method at end of each row (32 stitches on your needle) ; Knit 4 rows; Knit 2 rows adding one stitch at the end of each row with the cast on methond (34 stitches on your needle; Knit 20 rows; Now you will Divide for the top of the pillow. Knit 17 stitches. Slip these onto a knit holder. With the remaining 17 stitches: Row 1: BO 1, Knit to last 3 st. K2tog, K1. Row 2: K all stitches Row3: K1, Sl 1 as if to Purl, K1, PSSO, K to last three stiches, K2 Tog, K1 Row4: K all stitches Repeat Rows 3 & 4 until 7 stitches remain on needle. BO these stitches Rejoin yarn, and repeat this process in reverse for the opposite side stitches that were on the holder.

SEWING:

Lay your knitted fabric on top of two layers of regular fabric. Cut out 2 hearts adding 3/4" to the edge.

Sew the heart, right sides together, leaving an opening on one side for stuffing.

You should now have a pillow. Stuff it to your liking and then sew up the edge.

Now, lay your knitted pillow on top of your fabric pillow and sew them together at the edge.

Once done, your pillow should look like this from the back:

Enjoy!

PS.  The "Be Mine!" in the pillow was added afterwords via text on an image.  If you like it, you could add it via hand or machine embroidery.

My First Dotee

dotee doll #1, originally uploaded by poketypatch.

Today I was notified that my little dotee had been received. The recipient, Maggie, was very kind to say she liked the doll. If you are looking for inspiration in order to start handcrafting a dotee, you should definitely check out Maggie's flicker set - crazy for dotees. She has quite a collection!

Mailing Letters

Mailing Letters, originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution.

It seems that all I can think of is mailing out cards, letters and packages in hopes that they will get to friends and family in time for Christmas.

I spent part of the day attempting to put together a Christmas card. I was trying to wait and get a shot of my kids together for the card. But, as the holiday approaches and with my kids going in all different directions, that seemed impossible. However, with the help of scrapblog, I came up with a sweet little greeting. It was quick and easy! It looks a lot like the ones you can order at the photo shop. I downloaded the jpg from the site, saved it, and then printed out 4 x 6 prints at the local drug store. I guess it looked so much like the ones you can order, that they tried to charge me for printed Christmas cards!

Handmade Holidays Charm Quilt!

I am getting ready to send off this quilt made from another charm pack. I made it for a teenage niece who loves to read. I was thinking that a softy, snugly quilt to warm the lap while reading would be a wonderful gift for her.

I love the fabric on this one. It comes from the Park Slope collection by Erin McMorris. There are also some squares from Jennifer Paganelli's Sis Boom line. These fabrics are offered by Free Spirit Fabrics. Free Spirit has a wonderful website featuring tons of hot designers. There are also lots of free quilt patterns for each of their collections.

For this quilt, I simply sewed together a pack of 30 6.5" pre-cut squares from a charm pack I purchased on Ebay from materialgirlchic. I added some squares from my stash to make a 40 square quilt. I used a single layer of polyester quilt batting in the middle, and then backed it with hot pink fleece. Then, I sewed the quilt, right sides together, leaving a little spot at the top for turning. Then I machine-quilted squares in each square. Since I am a beginner at this, I thought it turned out pretty darn good. To finish it off, I couldn't resist adding a few pom-poms at each corner.

Warm & Fuzzy Holiday Music

We have a family joke that we only allow Christmas music to be played at our house after Thanksgiving.  We may not have our decorations up in a timely fashion, but you can bet that we have good music playing.  Since we have been pulling out all our old cds and transferring them to mp3s, I thought it might be fun to give you a sampling of just a few of the notes coming from our house this holiday season.

1.  Shawn Colvin - soft and dreamy!

                                                                            

Holiday Songs And Lullabies

2.  James Taylor - Makes me HAPPY!

James Taylor at Christmas

3.  Jars of Clay - I discovered last year and really liked it.  By the way you can download a free track here.

Christmas Songs

4.  The Carpenters - I get teased endlessly about this one.  But, it is the ONE I HAVE TO HAVE!

Christmas Portrait

5.  Bing Crosby - It isn't Christmas without this one. We love the MOVIE too!

Bing's White Christmas

And, in all fairness, you can't for get Rosemary's version of the same thing!

Rosemary's White Christmas

I could go on and on and on.  Thanks to Amazon, you can hear a sampling over in the sidebar if you are so inclined!  

Handmade Gifts to Go!

I finally finished the ornaments for the ornament swap. It was great to see all those little houses wrapped up and ready to go to their new homes! I made a trip to the post office with 10 of them. Hopefully, they will arrive at their destinations (California, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, Rhode Island, Spain, Texas, United Kingdom, and Wisconsin (2))

Now, I have moved on to my next goal - getting all the gifts out in the mail to relatives. I like to send gifts to my nieces and nephews who live on the west coast. I made this little bag up for my 5 year old niece. I was inspired by the little bag that Anna Maria Horner made for her daughter written about in this blog entry.


I used some Alexander Henry (fabric for the imagination!) for the base. It has little birds on it. I am really impressed with the weave of this fabric. It is top quality!

I am particularly proud of the monogrammed "K" on the front. It was my first attempt at this type of embroidery, and I am pleased with the results. I used a carbon template from the Sublime Stitching: Hundreds of Hip Embroidery Patterns and How-To book. The book has pages and pages of reusable templates which come in handy at the least expected times! The accenting fabric is from a charm pack I purchased several months ago. Charm Packs are packs of squares pre-cut out of coordinating fabrics. You can find them on Ebay or at online fabric stores. I think these are from a Moda Charm Pack.

I filled the bag with some amigurumi birdies, a little blankie, some mini-markers and two little coloring books. I crocheted the little birds about a year ago, during my amigurumi phase, and was saving them for something like this! I can't remember the pattern I used, but on a quick search I found this free pattern that looks really similar!

Full House

My two older boys, 14 and 17, returned home this weekend from boarding school. We spent Saturday at the school attending workshops on the college admission process. It was extremely overwhelming but exciting at the same time. I can't quite believe that I will have a child in college in the near future!

With a full house, it is hard for me to focus on crafting. With the constant demands for food, entertainment and clean laundry, I don't think that I will be able to post much until after the Thanksgiving holiday. We are heading up to New England on Wednesday for a couple of days to spend some time with our relatives. I hope that there might be a little bit of snow. We haven't had a good snow here in several years. And, since it is basically flat, farmland, my kids don't ever get to go sledding. It would be such fun to get in a bit of that with the cousins!

I was able to finish up the little house ornaments for the Christmas Ornament Swap before the boys came home. My kids think that I am a little loopy, making so many. I also was inspired to make a couple of Christmas trees to go along with the houses. Then I finished off with the needle felted sheep that I make. Basically, I have a complete village now.

Day 2: Little Glass Frame Ornament Tutorial!

Here is an EASY ornament that you can make in 30 minutes! It is also a good project for school-aged kids with adult supervision.

SUPPLIES NEEDED:

Glass Pebbles from Craft Store - Larger Size (about 1")
Sculpey Clay
Scraps of Holiday Material & Ribbon
Small amount of Wire
Glue Stick
Scissors
Holiday Stamps



1. Position a glass pebble on top of holiday fabric to create a frame of pattern on fabric. Cut out a square of fabric around the edges of the pebble.

2. Rub glue stick on bottom of pebble and on fabric square.



3. Glue fabric onto pebble, centering your pattern. Cut circular shape around edge of pebble. It doesn't have to be precise, because clay will cover edges.



4. Make a ball of sculpey clay about the same size as your pebble. Work it in your hands to soften it. Shape it into a flat circle a little larger than your pebble.



5. Cut a small amount of wire and make a loop.

6. Smoosh loop into back of clay.

7. Position clay onto back of fabric on pebble with wire in the top center back.

8. Form a frame around pebble with clay.



9. Use stamps to stamp pattern on back of ornament.



10. Cook as directed on clay package. This is where adult supervision is required. Be careful, the little ornament will be HOT!



11. Let the ornament cool and harden. Then string ornament through the wire loop with a small amount of ribbon.

12. Your done!



Instead of material you could use old Xmas cards, or a small picture of a child or pet. I also made one with silver jewelry finding as the wire and a bead at the bottom. Instead of an ornament, this could become the focal point of a necklace. Add a ring and make a key chain. The possibilities are endless!