the potter pillow

made for my friend sara's birthday; she's a massive harry potter fan.

i wanted to turn it into a tote bag but then decided that if it was ever washed the ink would run and ruin it. the image is from a google image search i was doing for 'science' and all i did was print it out onto white fabric through my ink-jet printer. i'm considering making an entire series of these from my favorite books for my couch!

twins!

(For whatever reason, I seem to be having issues getting photos uploaded into posts!)

My friend Laura is having twin boys in June and her shower was on Saturday. Since I didn't have time to make blankets, I searched high and low for something I could make that was boy-orientated. I saw these adorable cloud mobiles and knew that was what I had to make; especially since on Facebook Laura's religious preference is "all you need is love". It just seemed fitting and something I knew she'd cherish. And I was right!

I didn't make them identical (even though the twins are) because that drives me up the wall. I also knew that everyone who showed up with a shower gift would have matching sets. (I was right, they did. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not my style)


It also helps that I didn't have white felt big enough to make clouds!



Tutorial wise, so incredibly simple I had no problems following directions. Always a plus in my book. It's just a simple, quick little project with great results.

Let's see how this works out

And last but not least...

The very last gift I had to make!

And we're off...

The first few gifts for Christmas have been made...(And everything I've needed to buy has been purchased...last week.) (I know, I know.)

The farm wall hanging. It's a Martha Stewart craft kit I got on clearance at Micheal's awhile ago. (And wow, they really marked it down. I picked up for $3.99 because the box was smashed.) Took all of 5 minutes to put together.




I saw these the other day Chez Beeper Bebe and bookmarked them because they were too cute to not save.



It's a huge set of 12, so I split them into two groups and made a little Velcro carry bag. One for a boy, one for a girl. I just printed on regular weight card stock and to make them a little sturdier, I just covered one side with clear contact paper. I substituted string for regular yarn because I had it on hand and gave one end a plastic bead to serve as an anchor.

I've also boxed up a few of the ornaments and have them ready to be sent off...but still have more to make. I see that as today's low-key project.

a little stitching

Embroidery bride and groom as a wedding gift for a dear friend who is getting married next weekend.






Made using this pattern!

yesterday and today: mark them as productive

Wedding favor labels, before: (I had to make 100 of them)


Labels after:


What I did with the leftover label centers and the extra tags on the sheets: (because you can never have too many stickers.) (Can you?)


I used some more of those rub-ons from last post to make a wedding shower card:


I made this as a test tile but ended up using one of the ones I had made for testing. It was a success! Super-hot tea didn't pull any of the glue or the rub-ons off the tile, so no worries there. This one I added a hanger to and am sending it to a friend as a "happy new apartment!" gift.

his and hers

You know, I'm really having fun with the creating something every day thing. It's nice stress relief.

A friend gave me a set of rub-ons from Luxe Designs. I just used them on top of regular white tiles I'd picked up at Lowe's a long time ago turning them into coasters. I still need to put some sort of backing on (probably felt) but I like how they came out.


I coated them with Mod Podge and it just occurred to me I probably should make a test tile to see how it stands up with a teacup. Can't give a bad wedding gift.


If it doesn't work I can always turn them into wall hangings!

I hate being short

Today's project: hand stamp the labels for a friend's wedding favors I've been working on.

The plan had been to stamp their names and the date of the wedding on each label, only I didn't have the right size stamps for that. Too big, too clunky. So I switched tactics. I think they are cute and very simple, but they weren't what I had in my head.



Even better? I thought I ordered 106...and just discovered there are only 47 in the batch. So now I have to reorder. So much for a simple and quick project!

back to school

For a friend who started another college semester on Monday.

Canvas + paper = instant gift

From this:



To this:

I just covered all the canvas with scrapbook paper. I did do some embellishments, like the one above, but mostly I kept them simple because they are a gift for a man. I wanted them to look like tiles.

I love how they came out. You can see all of them here in the Flickr stream.

Supplies, if you were wondering:

Canvas: from Dick Blick. I used all three of the mini sizes plus a few I had lying around.

Paper: mostly Scenic Route and some American Crafts and Sassafrass Lass. I usually buy my paper from Scrapbook.com .

Wrap up

Remember this recent post about a birthday gift for a friend?

I finally got around to wrapping and mailing off her gift. I am so in love with these two photos, especially the second one. Something about the darkness and the mood of it.

Here's the card: I just embellished a retro snowflake card from Paper-Source (they have such great sales!) with some ribbon and a few felt flowers.



It's not wrapping paper, it's Girl Scout scrapbook paper. The pink and green circles is the bulk of the paper and since it wasn't big enough to cover the entire frame, I had to use a section of the dotted circles on the back. (Check out the rest of the Girl Scout line. There's some super cute stuff there! In fact, I see some stuff I might need to buy!) I used the same ribbon and flowers on the package and the little birdie card was an extra from a recent Etsy purchase.



Up today: a birthday present for a favorite fellow blogger!

Now I know my A B C's

In the need for a few little girl birthday gifts, I just had to try this tutorial. Had to. I typically shy away from project like this only because I get to the middle of them and decide it's just taking too long. These held my interest, which was awesome!

I did not directly use Happy Together's technique involving washing/drying the letters. I try to not use my dryer in the summer time, so I came up with a solution: fabric fronts, felt backs.

Worked like a charm and it was a great way to go through some of my scrap boxes. Her tutorial was clear and easy to follow and the results are certainly charming.


Of course, the alphabet needed companions, so I whipped up some numbers also using the same fabric/felt combo.


The full set of letters and numbers are here in my Flickr stream.

Swish...back to the tutorials

It's been lost to me that part of the reason I started was this blog was so that I could try other people's tutorials and you know, clean out that massive bookmarks file I have.

My dear friend Carrie's birthday is coming up and I was at a loss as to what to do for her gift. I know she likes birds, but I always do birds. Birds = Carrie. I didn't want to do birds this time around. Then I came across this tutorial over at the Naughty Secretary Club and knew I had to do it.

It's not the best picture, but it's the best I could do at the moment. I hate waiting for things to dry!

The instructions were clear and easy to follow, but I was out of spray paint so I painted. And I put the glitter on the inside instead of the outside. I couldn't find the vintage postcard I wanted to use but thought the paper worked out well. Of course, I stickled everything to give it a little extra pop.



It was totally a use what I had on hand project, but I think it came out well. The only thing I hate is that (the) Lillie's head is cut off (that's how the photo was!) but it's cute all the same.

birthday mix 36

Every year for my birthday I do a mix cd and give it to all my friends. Last years was a book with each page contributed by friends. They gave up a list of the 10 songs they can't live without and I made a page with their track-list and everyone got a book and disc combination. It was so much work, but so much fun.

Every year is different. Seeing as how my birthday is Thursday, these are ready to go into the mail tomorrow!


The cd case, just felt with a fabric heart cutout:



Back of the card:

From of the card: (I know, cute, right?)


One of the envelopes:

Green head

when we bought it, we thought it was a lettuce plant. we put it in the ground and put the little plastic plant marker it came with with it. we read said plant marker. it grew and grew and grew. we thought it was iceberg lettuce. i posted a picture of it on my facebook page and my cousin brooke said "hey, that's cabbage."

sure enough, cousin brooke was right. it was cabbage. we laughed for a long while after going out to confirm it was in fact cabbage.

we pulled the whole thing out and gave the head away as a mother's day present. we probably could have let it grow again, but what's the point of growing something you wouldn't eat if it was the only thing left on earth to eat?

ELM -- a simple little baby gift

This coming Saturday is a meet and greet for my friend Carrie's newest edition, Miles. He was born in February and I sent a gift from their baby registry around that time and wanted something a little more Carrie friendly this time around.

I guess mother's like brag books? If my neighbor is any indication, the answer is yes; her purse is weighed down with them.

I made these just using some wool felt, sheet protectors, and appliqued on some letters from scraps. (One for Miles, Lillie, and Ellen.)



If you are wondering how I did the sheet protector pages, I just traced out an inch larger than my 4" x 6" postcard in a reverse L shape and ran it through my machine. I cut that out, used pinking shears along the top, then use the open side in the binding so that I'd made a little pocket. I thought the plastic would be fussy going through the machine, but I had no issues at all.

Best part? This is going to be my Mother's Day gift(s) this year!

Shopping list:

Wool blend felt from J.Caroline
(if I recall correctly, those I used are: Lemon, Pistachio, and Moss.)

Template for Alphabet from Martha Stewart (which I now cannot find)

Scraps from my bin and sheet protectors from another life.

A Peek, part two

Back in this entry I showed off the birthday present for a friend. In between making that present and her actual birthday, she and her boyfriend became engaged...so engagement gift making was a must. (!)

I bought these cards from an Etsy seller minus the box because I wanted to make my own. (Aren't they amazing cards?) After a hunt of several craft stores and websites, I finally found this box over at Create for Less.


A little green paint, some paper and ribbon from SEI, and it's all set. I still have to work on the dividers, but for the most part, this project is done.

Shopping list:

Box from Create-For-Less
(note, they have great prices, but some of the stuff you do have to buy in bulk!)

Penelope paper from SEI
(I so love SEI paper, even if it is a bit on the expensive side. They do have great selections in the clearance section, where this was, and they are super quick on the shipping side.)

The cards and the box I didn't buy
(125 cards for $13. I couldn't beat that -- I don't have the skills to make cards that lovely!)

a peek

Gift for a friend's upcoming birthday. It's a K and Company Gatefold album.

One of the sections.



The opening section. Because of how it's set up, you have page sets on each side and I decided to cordon them off with ribbon. I used different journaling boxes and embellishments throughout.



I LOVE the cover even though I had some problems with the knobs. They were supposed to, I think, unscrew and slide out, but I ended up getting a little violent with them and pushed them out through one side. I did the cover with some paper from SEI and then lots and lots and lots of Stickles.

I'd keep it for myself but I'm not a scrapbook type of girl.

Trash + Knitting. Trashy knitting?

Firstly. Despite having carpal tunnel and some kind of pinched nerve under my shoulder blade, I still love doing things like embroidery. And now, knitting. I finally broke down and bought a Knifty Knitter because I really want to make scarves and hats. I don't know of anyone (nearby) that knits and could teach me, so I took it upon myself to learn.

I had a shaky start. I had to watch the video instructions about 40 times and finally had to have it explained to me, but I finally got it.

First scarf, already shipped off to my friend Jeanine.


Second one. The first one I used a single strand of yarn, this one a double. I love how the double looks. So thick and warm. I ran out of gray, so I went to black, then thought I was buying this gray with black flecks when actually it was green with black flecks. The lighting must have screwed with how it looks because I also bought the wrong red for another project that I thought was the perfect match. Tri-color works, but not in the colors I wanted. But it was a well received gift, so it works out.



Finally. THE first birthday present for the L, daughter of friends. On a usual morning walk this was found on top of a junk pile in front of someone's house. It was too good to pass up, so it was brought home, taken apart, sanded, painted, and put back together. Then painted again. (I *heart* spray paint.)

The hair was a little tricky but I finally figured it out, taking two strips of fabric and sewing yarn into it, then gluing and stapling it onto the horse. There was a yarn tail, but I cut it out and covered what I couldn't get out with a little hand made seat. (Ha. The seat patterns doubles as a whale pattern!)

I love how it came out and the L seemed to like it, so job well done if I do say so myself.



P.S.
I've had several rather uppity people tell me that using a loom to knit isn't knitting. It's cheating. I don't get how that could be because I'm still putting a lot of effort into what I make. Sure, it takes only a few hours to whip out a scarf, but how is that cheating? Is knitting all the sudden an elite art/craft that people feel the need to point out my choice of loom is inferior? I'll never get people.