two straight lines

Charm

Hi, I just wanted to pop in a say hello.  We've been on spring break here, and now I'm on a deadline.  The above picture is my most recent piece for Wondertime.  It is a fabric charm made (theoretically) from a swatch of your child's clothing.  I made these from fabrics from Lucie's room, but also may make some from one of my Mom's old dresses.  Wondertime actually found a  donut shaped charm that did not require drilling for the magazine shot, but these are the ones I made. 

If you do this project, take your time and do several coats of mod podge on the charm, and you'll end up with a really nice and super smooth result.   The base is just a 1" wooden square. 

In the April issue, my project was the God's Eye with variegated yarn.  Those are really fun, and perfect for Cinquo de Mayo. Be back soon, I promise;)

Been Around the Block

My quilt square for the Virtual Quilting Bee destined for Mama Urchin's playroom.

Now I need to go buy a non-crap iron. Bye-bye Rowenta. Hello Black & Decker. I took the internet's advice and spritzed it with water (rather than using steam) and it added a boatload of tiny wrinkles.

Time to Sew

Giving + Receiving

OK, I know I am a little late to the party on this one, but I wanted to review a few of our holiday gifts for this year now that almost all of them have made it to their recipients.  I will be mailing the last two packages this week (that's you H. and M. & P.)  It's just that due to the snowstorm we had mid-December, I had to ship many more gifts than originally intended, and to me, shipping things is right up there with talking on the phone.  Don't much like it.  And because Elliot missed the week of school before the holidays, we just gave gifts to his friends and teachers today.  So basically, this goes down as the l-o-n-g-e-s-t gift giving season on record.

A while back I mentioned that I was giving many gift cards this season, and that I wanted to come up with a nice way to package them.  I was clicking from one blog to another one night and something reminded me of the Blueprint article showing wooden clogs as beautiful holiday "packaging."  It had just the simple rustic look I was going for.  So here's the plan.  This year I gave several gift recipients a pair of wooden clogs that I painted, filled with a few small goodies + a gift card, as well as the following letter from my kids:

Now, from here on out for these pairs of gift recipients (each person received just one shoe, but is married to another recipient, who has the other shoe), we will collect small goodies-- hopefully throughout the year-- and then send them each person's spouse who will fill the clog on behalf of St. Nicholas.  I thought it would be a challenge to come up with interesting small objects for the shoes for each person, and it would be fun to involve their spouse.  I hope that this is a process that they begin to look forward to.  The bonus?  My plan is to buy a pair of wool socks that I fill throughout the year, and then ship them in that form, so the wool socks can serve as useful gift wrap as well as shipping material.  And because the items are small, and will be a combination of handmade, consumable, and special items, hopefully they won't add too much clutter to the lives of others.

For Elliot's classmates, we took the advice of Amanda and purchased a bunch (100, I think) wooden acorns.  I sewed little felt bags from some hand-dyed wool that my stepmom gave me last year.  The beauty of these, is that I didn't have to trim the fabric at all, I just folded in half, sewed around three sides, trimmed the side seams with pinking shears, flipped right-side out, folded a few inches over, and placed a small red snap in the center.  A few gift tags by Natascha Rosenberg (I love Little Red Riding Hood!) and I was done.  Elliot picked which bag went to which child, which was fun to watch.

I made each of Elliot's teachers a gourd birdhouse (for those of you who don't know, Waldorf schools are big on natural and handmade items) painted Hummingbird green.  For these I used another gift tag by Natascha Rosenberg.  I accidentally printed these HUGE, but I loved them that way.  All of the gifts for school were well received, and we got several small treasures in return.  I love that Elliot sees the pleasure in giving and receiving little tokens like this.

The final idea I wanted to tell you all about is something that my husband and I came up with last year when we didn't want to spend a lot of money on each other, but still wanted to make the other person feel special.  The best thing about this idea is that it can be done for almost any budget, and really is not limited to Christmas at all-- really Valentine's Day would be perfect.  We try to give a gift for each of the five senses.  Now really, if you think too hard about this, every gift on the planet could fall into these categories, but don't overthink it.  We try and concentrate on ideas that are simple, useful, and consumable.  Sort of a way to show someone that you were really thinking about them, not just running out and spend X amount on something that will just sit on a shelf or something (but if the recipient would really enjoy a small something for a shelf, that's perfectly acceptable!)  Some things are free, some things cost very little, and some things can be a little more of a splurge.  I'll give you my list from this year just to give you an idea.  This is what he bought me.

Sound- burned CD's of 10 episodes of This American Life for me to listen to in the car.
Sight- this book
Smell- Kiehl's Original Musk
Taste- some loose tea
Touch- Icebreaker Sweater

We have a lot of fun with it.  My husband is a very good gift giver anyway, but since we started doing this, I always feel very pampered.  There is nothing better than knowing that a person was really thinking of you when they bought your gift.

Sprucing Up

Here is a quick little project I did recently.  I purchased the wooden magazine holders from IKEA and covered them with a cute wrapping paper that I found.  When I went to pick out the paper, I really had no idea what I would buy, but I knew I wanted it to be green and blue-green.  I assumed it would be a little more subtle than this, but when I saw this sweet little girl, I knew I would love looking at her.  I cut the pieces very randomly and laid them out this way as well, hoping to get a dreamy quality, just odd snippets of this girl.

I used my Xyron machine loaded with permanent adhesive.  I first experimented with Mod Podge, but decided that it would definitely make me crazy having to decoupage 24 of these.  The first one was bubbling, so I knew I would be bug-eyed by the 5th.  I am definitely a realist when it comes to crafting.  I usually take the time at first to discover the "happy medium," how to achieve the desired results without going batty in the process.  If any of you have considered a Xyron, but didn't know if you would use it, I really recommend it.  I have had mine for maybe 3 years now, and use it all of the time.  And I have never had to buy replacement cartridges yet either.  I love the fact that it doesn't require power.  I usually let Elliot do the "rolling" for me.

After finishing these, I found myself considering cannibalizing my Martha Stewart Living magazines- gasp!- I never thought I'd say that, but I really feel that with 24 holders I've reached my limit, and would like to start keeping a few other magazines, like Selvedge.  I think I find the crafts and good things to be my favorite projects, and don't really need to reference things like "how to hire a mover" so much any more, been there, done that.  But a daunting project it is...

Update: I've had a lot of questins about this, so I'll try and answer them the best I can.  I bought the wrapping paper at Hollander's in Ann Arbor (Kerrytown).  They've updated their website (also on my sidebar) for internet shopping, but I don't see this particular item there right now.  Best to call and describe it--  I'm pretty sure they still have it.  The paper I used for my wall decals was also from there.  In person they allow you to buy half sheets, but I don't know if that is an option online.   They have a really nice selection of paper and offer classes as well.  I still order my solid papers from Paper Source because their prices are much better.  Did I ever mention that I used to be an assistant buyer at Paper Source in Chicago (back when there were only two)-- what a wacky place that was.

My Xyron is the 900, purchased new on ebay.  I think I paid around $80 for it.  For this project I made a cardstock template and traced and cut out the pieces (including the hole) and then ran them through the Xyron two at a time, longways.  They come out with a paper backing and thin plastic on top.  You just peel that stuff off and stick.  Voila!

A Toy for Kitty

On Sunday Elliot and my husband came home from the pet store with treats for all of our pets.  For Clio the cat, there was a small tub of Cosmic Nip.  Apparently Elliot had turned his nose up at all of the premade cat toys.  No, he's really not like Mommy, at all.  "Mommy make one" he says and I oblige.

A little wool felt, some leftover fabric sewn to make loops (what is this called, exactly?), one small dowel, and one tiny office clip (because, you know, the fish must be removable), and five minutes.  We couldn't find the cat that night, so left it on the table, where kitty found it.  Which leads to middle of the night nip frenzy.

Next up, Sally's magnetic variety, which we've had on our list since Camp Russell.  Thanks for the reminder, Sally.

A Birthday Cape

I guess no amount of scary photoshop effects will improve this picture that I took in the wee hours, but this cape had to fly away to preschool today.  I offered my services to Elliot's teacher and she took me up with a request for special birthday capes for each student.  Birthday celebrations are very important in Waldorf schools, and this will be presented to the birthday boy today during a special ceremony.

I used a pattern from Ottobre 04/2004, and am very happy with it.  It is cotton velour from Weir Dolls lined with printed cotton from JoAnn's.  I really just used the shape from the pattern, winging the rest of it.  I found the velour pretty hard to work with, but I really haven't sewn knits too much.  I'd love any knit suggestions, since I have a whole rainbow of these to sew (8 more). I used a walking foot, which helped a lot, but wasn't sure whether to use the ball-tipped needle for the knits, or a regular one for the poplin, so I just used a regular one.  That could have been my mistake.  The edges were all misaligned as I made my way around, but thankfully when flipped inside out, it wasn't at all obvious.  Phew!

I made bias binding for the ties, and put a snap on, figuring most kids this age can't tie a bow.  There are wool felt stars at the end of the ties in orange.

I really enjoyed making this, and tried to think about the fun this boy will have playing with it.  I have been watching the children each day to see what colors they favor, because I bought nine different colors of velour.  Today's birthday boy has a really pretty dark complexion which will look nice with this royal blue.  I can't wait to pick up Elliot to see how things went, and to see if his teachers liked the cape.

Minimalist Birdhouse

A while ago I was perusing Design Sponge and ran across this modern birdhouse which I liked very much.  I was reading the comments on the post and was struck by one mentioning the material used for the birdhouse- polystyrene.  He (or she) said-- "um, yeah it's cute - but are birds really going to live in a polystyrene house?"-- among many other things.  I really encourage you to go and read the other comments, they were very enlightening.

I love well designed products as much as the next guy, but I have come to realize that sometimes it just represents excess.  So, this is my twist on a more natural modern birdhouse.  We often see gourd birdhouses, but they are usually left unpainted, or are painted decoratively.  How about just a simple coat of non-toxic paint?  Add in a little twig perch.  This is the time of year to pick up gourds at your farmer's market to preserve, or better yet, buy one predried, cleaned and drilled right here.

I like their simple graphic quality, and would love to see many of them dotting a wooded area.  We have a woods across from our house that has a few nature trails in it, and I considered painting a bunch of them and hanging them over there.  My only hesitation is that someone would steal them. 

They would also make nice holiday gifts for those "hard to craft for" men in our lives.  What kinds of gifts are you making this year?

Thankful

OK, so I realize that I've pretty much become the world's lamest blogger.  A few months back I posted about how great blogging has been for me, and then my life took a turn that I felt coming, yet somehow I was completely unprepared for.  I've been busy enough with my two sweeties plus my Wondertime work (I'm happy to say that I now have several projects under my belt) and even the best laid plans have fallen to the wayside.  Now the end of the summer is staring me square in the face.

So, here is a tiny project for a rainy day.  I came up with it for the magazine, but it was a no-go. It would be cute on your desk at work, or several scattered down the center of a table.  Make one, make many, make them with your kids, make them to celebrate after your kids head off to school.  Just make them.

Materials

1 tin can (yay, recycling!)
1 piece of crepe paper (the folds you find at your party store for 59 cents are perfect, expensive double-sided crepe paper actually doesn't work for this at all)
1, 3 " styrofoam ball
T-pins (12 or so)
enough fabric or paper to cover the can
double-sided tape
serrated knife
scissors

Cut your styrofoam ball in half with a serrated knife.  Squeeze it just inside your tin can with the flat side up, so that the top of it is where the top of the can used to be.  Cut 12, 3 1/2" rounds out of your crepe paper.  I fold my paper to cut several at once.  Make a fist with one hand, and put a crepe paper round on top of the thumb side of it.  Now stick your index finger from the other hand in the "hole"  Get it?  That's the flower.  Now take a t-pin and stick it down inside your bud, being careful not to push it through.  Stick your bud in the center of your styrofoam ball.  Continue making little buds until the top of your can is blooming.  Now cut a piece of paper or fabric large enough to cover your can, and apply it with double-sided tape on one end.  Smile.

PS- I'm sure you could make these with tissue paper, but I LOVE crepe paper, so trust me and try it. 

One in Ten

My contribution to the One in Ten Charity Auction-- a patchwork scarf.  Flax colored linen and a Japanese import, reversing to a blue-green botanical print.  The bidding begins August 19th on Ebay.