Valentine's Day Garland

I saw a cute garland on Naptime Journal that I liked. I have an 8' wide opening from the dining room into the living room that I wanted the garland to go on. She used pink - but that didn't match my decor in the house, so I stuck with white, black, and red. But I think one out of just pink - a few different shades - would be adorable.
I bought 2 sheets each of black, white, and red felt. I used red glitter felt - but it's hard to capture that in the picture. I found cookie cutters and traced them onto cardboard to get templates of the circle and heart shapes. And then I used spray adhesive to put the hearts on the circles. But beware - that spray adhesive is a beast to get off your hands. I tried using nail polish remover and that didn't help much; I guess I shellacked my fingers pretty good.

I hand stitched some black embroidery floss around the white circles to add a little to those ones since there wasn't the glitter detail there. Since it's hanging in a walkway, I also cut out hearts for the back side as well, so there are hearts on both sides of the circles.

Personalized Checkers

I stumbled across this idea in the early summer at The Thrifty Chick by Stacey (who unfortunately passed away in July). She was a very amazing crafter. I fell in love with her blog when I happened upon it early in the spring last year - you should stop by her blog to check out all her creations if you haven't been there before.

My brother and his wife love games, so as one of their Christmas presents, I made them their own checkers board - and with an IOU for future personalized checkers pieces for their children when they have kids.

I didn't have a checker's board, so I found one at a thrift store that was in "like new" condition. The brown pieces have an "N" for Nathan - but it's upside down in the picture so it looks like a "U". And then I used Stacey's link for the crown on the back of each piece. I cut out the k's and n's with my cricut in brown/ivory vinyl and then the crown is printed on paper and mod podged to the back.

I also mod podged paper and letters for the word "checkers" to the game box lid, but didn't get a picture of it before shipping it.

Record Bowl

I found this craft idea on My Naptime Crafts (love the name!!). My Dad's birthday is today and when I saw this idea, I instantly knew it would be a great gift for him. He loves records - but I didn't have any. So I made a trip to Value Village hoping they would have some good records. They had a ton of Amy Grant records, but I didn't think that would be a great one for my Dad. Then I found and Aerosmith one and B.J. Williams one that would work great.

Obviously, these won't work for food, but they can be a table topper/decoration to hold keys or other things.

I followed the tutorial, but my records weren't pliable enough to mold into the bowl shape. So instead of the suggested 200 degree setting on the oven, I had to do 250 degrees. And mine also took a little longer than her's did to soften. So, if you are going to do this craft and it isn't working, just alter the temp and/or time. I'm guessing altitude and ovens are going to affect it's pliability.

Patchwork Shoulder Bag Tutorial

I got a few responses showing interest in the tutorial for this bag, so here it is. It was quite photo intensive and wound up being 7 pages in Word, so I made it into a PDF and posted it at the link below.

Download TutorialIf you get stuck or need clarification, let me know.

Note holders

I saw this idea on Sister's Stuff during the summer and decided to make one for my mom and one for my mother-in-law for Christmas. My mom has a slight obsession with post-its (she got that from her dad) . . . so I figured it would be perfect for her.You just need one of those plastic 4"x6" frames (turned on it's back instead of upright) and scrapbook paper and embelishments.

Then, attach the post-it pad to the top - once the post-its are gone, they can just add another stack and keep using the holder.

Patchwork Tote Bag

I made this bag for my mom for Christmas. She loves Moda fabrics, so I bought one of their charm packs (called Arcadia). I had to make up the pattern for this - and used the same techniques for boxed corners and the lining that I used in the trick-or-treat bag in October.
The handles were lined with interfacings, as was the patchwork fabric to give it extra strength. Each square was 5"x5", so the bag was roughly 15"x12" in size.

I loved how it turned out. I was trying to work on a tutorial for this bag when I made it in September, but things got crazy and I didn't finish it. So if you are interested in a tutorial, leave a comment so I can see if there's interest out there, and then I'll finish the write-up for the tutorial.

I'm Back!

Well, our house closed mid-December, so I was able to move in a few days before Christmas. Now, we're just living in chaos until we can get things repaired and unpacked. Our new windows and cabinets are coming this month! I'll be so excited to quit using these ugly stinky cabinets. My mother-in-law helped clean and sanitize them as best could be done, but I still don't like the idea of putting clean dishes or food in them, so the kitchen isn't all the way unpacked yet.

I'll be slow at doing new crafts for a while since I've got to work on unpacking and painting the interior walls/ceilings first. The previous people were foreclosed on, so they really trashed the place - but we got new carpet, so it doesn't feel icky. They even painted the bathroom all BLACK! Gross - and they dripped black paint down the back of the bathroom door - i'm guessing they wanted it to look like blood drips - kinda creepy to be in there with the door closed.

So, for a while I'll be posting the things I made for people as Christmas gifts.