Crafting 101

So for a few moments, I stopped sewing (I seemed to be doing a lot of that lately) and picked up my crochet hook. Our music minister’s wife is having a baby soon and her shower was today and my goal was to make her a blanket for their baby-to-be!

If you’re on Ravelry, I have all the details here! If not, you need to be! LOL! I used Vanna White’s Baby yarn, though not quite as soft as I would have thought it would be, but I couldn’t find these colors in Caron Simply Soft. The theme was a jungle theme so I wanted to use the colors they picked out.

The pattern is from LionBrand and with your imagination, you could make this look so awesome in any color! I made one of these before with different colors and a different pattern and it made a totally different blanket.

I hope that she liked it, she acted like she did and I wanted to get a photo, but I was too far away (there were lots of people at the shower), but hopefully one day I can get a photo with the baby using it! TTFN!

My apologies for neglecting my blog! Life has been absolutely crazy during August and the first part of September. We are going through another deployment so we are trying to get into a routine and all that and of course, school has started! I have been busy busy and have made loads of things lately that I will need to get put up here. I hope that you are still hanging around and will check out my blog in the next few days. Happy September!!

I found this bag online today over at Happy Together and had to share! She has a tutorial to make this really cool purse made out fabric scraps and a purse from the thrift store. Check out her blog to see how to make this! I plan on making one of these as this is a cool idea and neat way of using up all your scraps. I know I have a ton of scraps that I’m not using.

If you have little girls about to start school, here’s a cute way to use up some scraps of ribbon lying around in your stash.  This tutorial comes from The Long Thread and it looks super easy, super simple and fun! I think I will try this for my girls. Do you think it’ll help them to keep from losing them so fast? We shall see! It does give me another idea for gifts!

So, sorry for not posting much, been enjoying the summer a lot! Once school is back in session, I should be regular again with the posting. Hope you’re enjoying your summer!

My girls had a birthday party a few weeks ago to go to and I decided to try a new pattern that I got from Oh Sew Easy Life Style: 20 Projects to Make Your Home Your Own which I got from the library. It’s for a backpack and it took me about two hours to make, but I was using a pair of jeans so that took a few extra minutes. Here’s a photo of the backpack. I think it turned out cute! I lined it in pink and the straps are pink and there’s a pink ribbon to close it up. Next time, I’d make the ribbon longer just for added length. But it’s cute I think! She loved it!

I have more projects that I’ve been working on to post here. Check back to see them in a few days!

So we checked the mail today, I realized we hadn’t checked it in a few days and it was a good thing we did! Deanna had an invitation to a birthday party! So what did I do this afternoon? I made another purse! I asked Deanna what her friend would like, she’s a tomboy, but girly at the same time. So I decided to recycle some jeans, do a little crocheting and a little bit of sewing and boom! Purse is made!

I cut off a pair of size 7  or 8 jeans that were messed up in the legs and such so they were in my basket to recycle. So I cut the legs off, sewed up the bottom, made the lining and crocheted a strap for it. Pieced it together (had to do some hand sewing since I didn’t want to break my needle) and there it is!

I have a few more photos here for you to look at.  I think it turned out cute! I closed it with some elastic over the button for the jeans. It’s very unique and fun! TTFN!

I’m sure that each of us knows someone who is going through cancer treatments right now or we know of a local hospital that treats cancer patients that need some sort of support. If you are a crocheter or knitter, take a weekend or a week to make a hat or two for your friend, family member or for your local hospital. You can check out the hat patterns here at headhuggers.org where the patterns are free and easy to follow. And if you don’t have someone to make one for, you can always donate them to HeadHuggers and they will make sure the hats get to someone who needs it. Thought I’d pass this along! TTFN!

Everyone loves a no-sew project, right? I do! This one is easy and it’s fun! I made a no-sew photo/memory board a few weeks ago for one of my girls. I have more materials to make more that I plan on selling. I also plan on making one for my classroom at church.

The materials are easy. You need cardboard, batting, material, ribbon, tacks and a hot glue gun. A iron is good too if you need to iron the material first.  You wrap the batting around the cardboard and wrap the fabric over the batting andhot glue it down. Just be sure to pull it tight! Then you run the ribbon across one direction and then the other, hot gluing the ends. Then use tacks to put the criss-crossed ribbons down. I put ribbon at the top to hang it up, but you can use whatever you wish.

That’s it! I took me just about an hour to make this one. They are easy and fun and there’s no sewing required! TTFN!

Yep, It’s a cute little Dora bag for little girls! I made this quickly this afternoon with some scrap fabric and leftover straps.

I have some more that I plan on posting later this week. I just need to post them and get them online. I hope that you’re having a good summer. I’ve been busy with the kids being home. Been swimming and having lots of fun. But I’ve been sewing when it’s been raining which has been a lot.  Again, hope all is well! TTFN!

I love stumbling on new ideas! On of the many jobs I do online is answer questions for people online. One question I got was someone wanting to know of a craft to do under $5. I did a search and found one! This craft is awesome, it takes some time, but could be done while watching TV which is a good use of time. Check out the directions to make a coaster out of the curling ribbon that you get with balloons or use for gifts. This is really good for scraps.

It does take a few days to dry since you have to coat it, but otherwise, it would be done in less than an hour or so depending on how fast you go. Try this out and let me see how yours turns out! I have to get ribbon since I don’t have any right now to try, but all the supplies can be purchased for under $5 which is sooooo cool! TTFN!

It’s always hard to figure out what to get or make for your child’s teacher especially when they’ve been teaching a long time and even when they’ve just started teaching. It hit me a few days before school was out that I needed to figure out what to make them! I had two days to do this in. I had to act quick! I decided to make them a flag!

You’ve seen the flags I’m talking about. You usually see them in gardens or hanging outside people’s houses. I made these out of cotton, not meant for hanging outside, but maybe they’ll put it on their door or hang them in their room. It’ll be interesting to see next year!

These took awhile overall to make. I’m not sure how long, I worked on them for hours, but mainly because their letters were rounded. They aren’t the same dimensions either. I didn’t really measure, I just worked with what I had. I did use a coffee can lid and the coffee can to make the circle in the ‘Q” and freehanded the “D”. I layered the “D” for effect since the background was busy. I didn’t layer the “Q.”Also, the “Q” is on a fat block.

I do have a contrasting fabric sewn onto the back of each flag, I just forgot to take a photo of the back! I sewed a dowel rod into the tops of each one and sewed ribbon to one for a handle and cord to the other.

I think they turned out cute, what do you think?