Stockings

I REALLY need to be doing work right now.  Both my real job and my crafty job.  I won't even mention housework, cause let's face it, I only do that when it becomes a health issue.  BUT, I had to stop for a few minutes and show you my latest project.  I have been looking for Christmas stockings for my family.  I married this past May and between me and my husband we have five children.  You just can't go to Target and pick up seven stockings that coordinate.  I thought about doing red for the boys and green for the girls or something like that, but could never find what I wanted.  So, I decided to make my own.  I wanted them all to be different, but the same.  Ya know what I mean?  I went with a variety of homespun plaids for the bottoms and corduroys for the tops.  I embroidered each one with our names.  I do plan to go back and put the year on them somewhere because hopefully we will use them for a lot of years.  I love the fact that as our family grows I can make more that will blend in perfectly because I am not limited to any particular color or fabric.  If we ever live in a world with no plaid and no corduroy something bad has happened and we probably won't be hanging stockings anyway.  So... without further ado, here they are.  I am so happy with the way they turned out.  I am usually looking at my Kreations and thinking "I should have done this..."  or "I should have done that..." but I am really happy with these.  They turned out just like my little mind imagined.  I rarely use patterns for anything, but I did for these.  I struggled through the instructions, not always understanding what I was doing, or why... but it was almost like a miracle.  I did the last step and a fully finished stocking appeared.  The last step involves putting the lining on the outside , inside out, which didn't make a bit of sense to me, but I did it anyway, and lo and behold, it WORKED!  Okay, are you ready?  Here they are.

I love that all the girls have lace trim on the bottom of the cuff.  Again, the same, but different.  I let Owen, Emily, and AJ pick out their fabrics since they were with me.  AJ chose one that is a little different, but that's okay.  I wonder how many stockings we will end up with through the years?  Hopefully a bunch.  Merry Christmas everyone.  Back to work!

Wool coffee Sleeve

I am back today to show you my newest project.  I have collected a couple of wool sweaters and wanted to try "felting" them.  Basically, all you do is wash it in your hottest water setting and dry it on your hottest dryer setting.  I went from three sweaters that were my size to three sweaters that wouldn't fit my three year old.  :)  It was like something you would see in a comedy when the dad does laundry.  Only this time you get to cut it up and make cool stuff out of it!  I made a simple pattern out of a piece of ordinary craft felt and used it as a guide to cut my first sweater.  I knew I wanted to do a felt applique on it but wasn't sure what to do, so I looked through my Papertrey ink dies and came across this beautiful snowflake.  I knew instantly it would be perfect on the soft blue wool, so I cut it out in a soft white wool felt and hand stitched it to the felted wool.  I finished it off with a white button that had been given to me a while back when I had a bright idea about making my bridal bouquet out of buttons.  That didn't really work out...  But, I do now have a fabulous collection of white buttons and think this huge button is the perfect finishing touch.  I hope you enjoy it.  Let me know if you are interested in purchasing one.  I only have enough wool to make a few of these.  I have two striped sweaters that I will soon be destroying with my trusty scissors, so stay tuned!

Does this thing still work?

I have been making a lot of jewelry the last couple of months and am in the process of building a website.  I have no idea what I am doing, but I am excited about the possibilities.  I have been in such a kreative mood lately.  I have so many different projects I want to try!  Anyway, I was just making sure everything still works.  I hope to do more blogging in the near future and this site will also be getting a makeover.

Card Workshop

Hi everyone!  I want to invite you all to a card-making workshop I am leading at my church September 25 at 10 am.  The cost is only five dollars and you will make four cards to take home.  I am doing my best to make the cards simple enough for beginners with no experience, but also challenging enough for experienced crafters to enjoy.  If you want to come please RSVP to me at owensmom1@yahoo.com so I will know how many kits to prepare. 

Baby gifts

I recently reconnected with a favorite great-uncle who I haven't seen in a while and found out his grandson, my cousin, and his wife just had their second baby.  I didn't even know about the first one!  So, I wanted to make a special gift to send to them.  This is what I came up with. 

I monogrammed a cupcake and the older little girl's name on this store bought apron.  Then I took a strip of coordinating fabric, added ric rac to the top and bottom and a few buttons and a bow.  I love how it turned out.  Hopefully it will hold up well after many washings because I pre-shrunk everything and made sure everything was stitched on very well. 

Here is the close-up of the apron.  It felt like I was scrapbooking with fabric! 

Sergio is the new baby.  I made him a set of three coordinating bibs with matching burpcloths.  The bibs are made with white terrycloth toweling on the back to make them very absorbent for teething babies who drool a lot.  I made sure to wash and dry all the parts and pieces in hot water before I cut the fabric so hopefully there will be minimal shrinkage in the final product. 

Here is a close-up of one of the sets. 

I don't know if the recipient of these gifts will see this blog, but just in case, I want to say congratulations again.  Sergio and Amelie are both beautiful children.  I pray God blesses you, your marriage, and your children!  Every good and perfect gift is from Him. 

more cards

Just playing around with my sewing machine.  I never have much luck sewing with paper.  These are some misc. scraps I had laying around.

This is me playing with a new white ink pad I got.  So happy to see how well it shows up on black!

New cards

Hello.  I've spent some time making some cards this weekend and wanted to share a few before I leave for a concert in a bit. 

I was inspired by a card in the new Cards magazine to make this quilt card.  I used solid colored cardstock and stamped each of the squares.  I just learned how awesome Versamark is!  If you don't have a versamark stamp pad, move it to the top of your wishlist!  You can stamp it on any color or cardstock and it is shows up a shade darker.  I used it for the flowers on the pink and blue squares above.  I used green ink for the green and yellow squares.  The original card had real stitching on it but I didn't want to bother since I don't have very good luck sewing on paper.  I didn't want to mess up my pretty squares so I "stitched" my card with a white gel pen.  I did drag out the sewing machine to stitch the buttons.

Okay, don't say it!  I know the bow is too far to the center, but I had stitched it to the base ribbon with my machine when I thought the card was going to be vertical and I didn't have enough length so slide it over.    Other than that I am happy with this cute little owl card.  I used the yummy polky dotty paper that brings me such joy when I see it and the Versamark again on the kraft background block to make the dots.  It is out of my comfort zone to make animals in colors that are not their normal colors in nature, but I got a little crazy and made a green owl.  I like him so much I might do a blue one or yellow one next.  I'm edgy.  :)

This one isn't very exciting, but I was trying out another new product.  Embossing powder.  I didn't do so well at getting the excess powder off before heating it so it looks pretty messy.  I used a paintbrush to try to knock the little sprinkles off, but wasn't very successful.  If you have any good suggestions let me know.  It is so fun to watch that powder turn shiny!  I can see a lot more embossing in my future. 

I have half a dozen or so more cards that I made this weekend, and will try to post them later this week, so check back soon!  Have a great evening!