Monday, December 29, 2014

So I haven't actually ridden off into the sunset...

I've been a wee bit scarce around here of late, and it will be just a wee bit longer before I can get back to regular posting, but I have a good reason. First of all, the holidays were CRAZY, but in a good way. But it's had me busy mostly every day, between photo shoots, finishing up Christmas gifts, and attending multiple family and work (Nick's) events. And then there was the tea. Sawyer somehow managed to knock a cup of tea halfway across the couch onto my poor laptop, which I was actually using at the time. Fortunately it's still under an extended warranty protection plan, so it's being sent off to be repaired, which I'll certainly be glad to get done, but in the meantime I'm without means to post photos, a circumstance that isn't quite conducive to being a successful craft blogger. SO...hang in there for me. When I get back I'll be posting all about the Christmas gifts I made, as well as a few other crafts I've got lined up. Happy New Year!

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange

Twice a year Linda at Craftaholics Anonymous hosts a Handmade Gift Exchange. This is so much fun! If you've never participated in one of these, I highly recommend giving it a whirl. I wanted to show you what I made for my partner Lauren, and what she made for me.

Here's what I sent Lauren:

First I made her some of the Christmas gift tags we did for the Ladies Craft Meeting at church a few months ago.



I also made her up a set of one of a kind cards like these.


I made her up a set of cute pillow boxes. Tutorial here.



And I sent a few pieces of handmade jewelry.

A pair of coiled bracelets. Tutorial here.


A pair of silver wire wrapped earrings. "Tutorial" here.

 

I had a lot of fun making the earring card for these.

These dropped bead earrings, tutorial to come.



And I sent her a 12 x 12 pillow cover featuring the title of my favorite Christmas song.


I really hope she loved everything!

And she sent me this AH-MAY-ZING Christmas wreath!


Isn't it gorgeous?


I just love these colors! In fact, I have a Red and Aqua Board on Pinterest, and this beauty is going straight there as soon as this post goes live!


Thank you, Lauren - I love it!


And thank you, Linda, for hosting this awesome exchange again!

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Thanksgiving Outfits

Did you guys have a good Thanksgiving? Ours was wonderful! Phenomenal food, a truly wonderful time with the whole family together, and babies, babies, babies! This year the 5 and under set included Lily - 5, Sawyer - 2, Levi - 2, Lawrence - 1, and Adelaide - 6 1/2 months.

A few weeks ago my sis-in-law and fellow Pinterest addict Rachael and I were oohing and aahing over some cute little dresses online, and we decided that we should make matching Christmas dresses for Lily and Adelaide. Then we decided that we might as well go ahead and come up with something cute for them to wear for Thanksgiving. And if we were going to make the girls matching dresses, we couldn't leave their brothers out. So we decided to make Sawyer and Levi matching turkey shirts. And of course if we were going to make them for Sawyer and Levi, their cousin Lawrence was going to need one too. And if Sawyer, Levi, and Lawrence were going to be little gobblers, then we certainly had to make one for Jackson, their honorary cousin. You can see how my crafting gets out of control.

So anyway, Rachael, my sis-in-law Leah (Lawrence's mom) and I got together for a day of sewing, and we made dresses for the girls and shirts for the boys.

I made Sawyer a turkey onesie like this for his first Thanksgiving when he was not quite 11 months old. I've mentioned that he was a preemie, and while he's all caught up now, for a long time he was very small for his age. I just have to show you what a ridiculously cute, tiny little turkey he was in 2012. This was a 3 month onesie.


Gah! Why isn't he so tiny anymore?

Anyway, we decided to make peasant dresses for the girl with their initial appliqued on them. We followed this tutorial, and let me tell you: Mind. Blown. This was SO easy! I'm going to make tons of these! In fact, it's what we'll make for them to wear for Christmas too, and I already have the perfect corduroy pulled out to make one as a Christmas gift for Lily. And I plan on making a matching one for her doll. I also made one for my friend Amy's little girl's birthday, and I barely got it out the door without Lily claiming it, despite it being 3 sizes too small for her lol.

Please excuse the picture. I ran out of time to shoot it at home, so I snapped a quick pic of it laid out on the Jake and the Neverland Pirates coloring table at the party. :)

Here are Lily and Addie in their matching dresses and headbands.


It's hard to see the monograms here, but Lily's has an L and Addie's has an A in brown corduroy just above the hem on the right side.

And the turkeys...


Want to see the back? Here you go...


Which of course quickly turned into this:


Not to worry, soon they were best buddies again. :)


The shirts were just purchased black t-shirts with turkey faces and feathers hand cut from eco-felt and just sewn on with a straight stitch. We even freehanded the pieces. Easy peasy!

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The Fault in Our Stars Earrings



Have you read The Fault in Our Stars? Have you seen the movie? I read the book on my Kindle, then took Taylor to see the movie this past summer. And yes, we totally cried. Not quite like the lady behind us though. She was hardcore loud ugly-sobbing through pretty much the whole movie. I kind of felt like I should get her a Gatorade when it was over. Whoever you are, lady, I hope you eventually recovered. You know, fiction and all. But anyway.

One of the most beloved parts of both book and movie is the gentle banter between Gus and Hazel where they have a hard time hanging up the phone and keep stretching out the conversation with "Okay?" "Okay." "Okay?" "Okay."....and it becomes their thing. Their always.



I've seen all kinds of memes and pictures all over the internet honoring that little word, not to mention tons of accessories, many of them DIY. So I thought I would try my hand at a project of my own. I asked Taylor to give me a hand, and together we made up three styles of TFiOS themed earrings.


For this easy project I pulled out one of my favorite crafting materials: Shrinky Dinks. I used a sheet of the frosted and a sheet of the opaque white. Before you get started on cutting out your clouds, turn your oven on to 325° to preheat. Now, to cut out the clouds I used a Fiskars X-Large Cloud Squeeze Punch. You can totally cut these out by hand if you don't have a cloud punch. In fact, my first version of this was a set of best friends backpack tags I cut out by hand for Taylor and her bestie, and they disappeared immediately. But they were about 3 times the size of the earrings, and my cutting skills on anything small are highly suspect.


I'm going to show you the steps to make all three pairs of earrings at once. Of course if you just want to make one pair, just follow the directions for the pair you want. The first pair will require one cloud punched from each sheet, and the second and third pairs will each require two clouds cut from each sheet. So to make all three pairs, cut 5 clouds from the opaque white and 5 clouds from the frosted. A quick note: I made all my earrings with the white cloud on top and the black cloud on the bottom. Apparently this is backwards. But this is my blog, so nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah! If you want to make them the "right" way, just switch all the black and white clouds in the instructions. No biggie.



Imagine you see 5 frosted clouds here too. You'll see them in a minute.

Take your 5 frosted clouds (see?) and color them completely with black Sharpie. Color on the rough side. Taylor helped me with this.



Let these dry for a minute, and in the meantime take your 5 white clouds and use your black Sharpie to write {Okay?} on each one. Write it as neatly as you can, but you're going for a handwritten look here.


Now take your black clouds and, using a silver Sharpie, write {Okay.} on each of them. You can write on either side. I chose to write on the rough side, because sometimes the shiny side tends to show a little scuffed after baking.

Now we're going to punch the holes for our jump rings. When you bake Shrinky Dinks, any holes shrink right along with the rest of it. For the tiny jump rings I'm using, a 1/8 inch punch makes a hole that shrinks to just the right size, but if you only have bigger jump rings, you might want to use a 1/4 inch hole punch. These are the holes you will punch for each pair. You can click on the picture to make it bigger if you have a hard time reading it.


Once you have your holes punched, place your clouds writing side up on a piece of paper on a cookie sheet. I usually use a lunch sized paper bag.


Slide them in the oven to bake, checking them after about 90 seconds. At that point mine were still curled up a bit, but a few seconds later they were all lying flat, which is how you know they're done.



When I take Shrinky Dinks out of the oven, I press them quickly with an acrylic stamp block, just to make sure they're all nice and flat.


See how much smaller they are? 


Now we're going to attach our findings. Here are the findings you'll need for each pair. Again, click the picture to make it bigger if you need to.


For the first pair, just glue your earring posts right to the back. You will be using one white cloud and one black cloud, both hole-free. I actually just used high temp hot glue for these, and they've held up fine. Taylor has worn them several times and they're still holding fast. But you can absolutely use something like E6000 if you prefer. Just make sure you let them sit for the instructed amount of time before wearing.


Add your earring backs and you're done!


For the next pair, you're going to use a jump ring to attach a black cloud with a hole punched in the top to a white cloud with a hole punched in the bottom. Repeat for the other earring. 


Now glue your posts to the backs of the two white clouds and add your earring backs.  Done!


For the last pair, attach your black and white clouds together like you did on the last pair, then carefully open the loop at the bottom of your earring hook with a pair of round nose pliers. 


Loop it  through the hole at the top of the white cloud, making sure to put it on so that the clouds will face front when you wear them. Carefully squeeze the loop closed with flat or needle nosed pliers, being careful not to crush it. Repeat for the other earring and attach the backs. All done! Now you'll be the envy of your book club!


I had so much fun making these that I whipped up another couple of pairs using different punches I had. These were made with a Fiskars Large Cupcake Squeeze Punch. Aren't they fun?



And the other day I found this retired Stampin' Up ornament punch for $2.99 at the thrift store they just opened up practically walking distance from my house! Score! (On both the punch and the new thrift store!) It turns out there are entire Pinterest boards dedicated to all the things you can do with this punch. Seriously. I'm so excited! I punched 6 ornaments from frosted Shrinky Dinks and colored them with pastel Sharpies. They turned out with this cool stained glass effect, and I love them!




I may end up going over the edges with a silver paint pen as well. I haven't decided yet. I love how many options there are with this craft! Shrinky Dinks are always a winner around here!