Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange Winter 2015

For several years now I've participated in the Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange, and it's always a blast! This round I was paired with the lovely Lisa Hickey of Caron Designs. She sent me such neat things! This was round one (yes, round one).

First was this gorgeous flattened wine bottle cheese tray. I've been fascinated with flattened glassware for years, but as I'm lacking a kiln it's not really a craft I can do, so I was thrilled with it. Unfortunately this beautiful piece got cracked in shipping. However, it worked out, as you will see.

She also sent this adorable handpainted flattened jar soap dish which currently lives beside my kitchen sink.

There were also these two delicious smelling soaps, one of which is in the above soap dish in my kitchen and the other of which is in our downstairs bath.

Last were these awesome original artwork greeting cards.

I contacted Lisa to let her know how much I loved everything, and I mentioned that the cheese platter had been cracked in shipping. The break was a very clean one, and I wanted to ask her advice on the best glue to use to repair it. I also wanted to let her know in case she wanted to contact her shipping company to be reimbursed for this damage. She generously told me that she would take care of it and that I should expect a new one later in the week! I promise I was not trying to wrangle a new one from her, but I was so touched by her generosity!

So a few days later I got another package in the mail, and sure enough there was another gorgeous platter, this one clear.

But also included was this lovely pair of glass bead earrings.

And this beautiful fused glass star ornament. When I was getting to know her work online these stars were one of the creations that really caught my eye, so I was thrilled to get one! It went waaaaay up high on my Christmas tree to keep it away from the grabby hands of the short people in my house.

So here's what I sent Lisa:

I made her these two little Christmas pillows from drop cloth and heat transfer vinyl. This one was made from drop cloth I hand dyed a deep cranberry red. The bell shape was purchased from the Silhouette Design Store. My favorite part of it is the tiny bell dotting the i in Jingle.

This one was left the natural color, and the heat transfer vinyl was cut from a Tulip Twilight Shimmer Transfer Sheet. (Not an affiliate link) I actually found these on clearance at one of the discount stores (Ross? Burkes? TJ Maxx? I can't remember).  I was a little nervous cutting it with my Cameo, but it worked great.

Next I made her three memory wire bracelets. I love these as gifts because they work for any size wrist and are easy to put on and take off for little hands that can't manage clasps well yet and older hands that struggle with arthritis and everybody in between. I wanted them to work well for Christmas yet still be versatile enough to wear the rest of the year, so I chose the colors accordingly.

I also made these fun snowman earrings, and they were embarrassingly easy to put together. 

They started out like this, so all I did was literally add the ear wires and backings.

Like always, this was so much fun, and I'm so grateful to Linda of Craftaholics Anonymous for hosting again and Lisa for partnering with me! I'll be linking up at the Handmade Gift Exchange Linky Party.

Poking my head up...

I've been trying to post for like a week now, but I'm sick, and it just seems like by the time I finish all the necessary tasks like feeding the kids and putting on pants, I have nothing left in me. It's nothing terribly serious, just a sore throat, but I'm on antibiotics now, so hopefully it's on its way out.

So here's what's happening. We have a contract on the house. Yay us! Actually, we had a contract before this one, but the buyer backed out because the inspection turned up some foundation damage. Boo! BUT, we are getting it fixed in 10 days, with a lifetime transferable warranty, so it shouldn't be an issue. Even with that, the first buyer didn't want to stay on board. Fortunately, he'd been in a bit of a bidding war with another buyer, and they were happy to take his place with the assurance that the foundation work is being done.

So now the race is on to find our next house. We found one that we really liked, but it sold the day before the contract went on ours. And we've since found one that we really love, but there are some issues with it that would have to be resolved for it to be an actual option for us. It's all very much up in the air from our viewpoint, but God has definitely been moving and providing, so we will see what happens.

So as far as crafting goes, there's been a little bit. Not much, but a little. And I don't have any tutorials for you right now, but here are a few things I've made.

Back in July a little girl at our church had a birthday, and I made her this fun candy colored paracord bracelet and earrings set. The bracelet actually ended up being a little small for her, so I made her a bigger one and she sent this one back to Lily.

My friend Melissa just had her gorgeous baby girl MacKenzie. Her nursery is done in gray and yellow with accents of teal in an elephant motif. So back in August for her baby shower I made her a few gifts. First was this paper banner with bows made using my Sizzix Bow Die.

I found this yellow and gray photo box at Hobby Lobby to put it in for gifting, and she can use the box in baby girl's room.

I made her a couple of curved burp cloths out of white terry cloth and this super soft cuddle minky.

And I also made her a faux chenille blanket. I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely happy with how the blanket turned out. The blue looked more teal in the store, and I should have used it as the one of the chenille layers and not the base fabric on the back. I should have sewn the lines half as far apart so the chenille strips would have been more even and stuck out less from the blanket. But it's still super cuddly, and she said she loves it.

My mother-in-law Brenda's birthday was also in August, and I made her this card.

It's very simple, but I like it. I'd really like to get into making cards on a more regular basis. I've got stamps, stamp pads, and embossing folders for days, but not much of a place to do it right now. And most of my stamps and ink pads are in storage right now anyway. When I get a craft room one of these days I plan on making up a bunch of different elements and having my girlfriends/sisters in law over for a card making party.

I also made Brenda this pretty patchwork zipper pouch.

The mint fabric was a duck cloth remnant from Hobby Lobby I think, and the coral polka dot fabric was from a pair of pants in the giveaway pile. I made my Mom a very similar one for her birthday in July.

Inside the pouch for Brenda I included this simple bead and chain set I made with these awesome metal filigree beads I got on clearance at Hobby Lobby.

We also had another Walridge Baptist Church Ladies Craft Meeting last month, but that one deserves a post of its own.

We could really use your prayers that God will show us to the house He has for us and that everything will go smoothly with the sale/closing on our own house. It looks like the timing may end up pretty tight on it - for us to close on the new home the same day as we close on the old home we will have to find the right house and have an offer accepted in the next week or so. Exciting times, people!

Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange

A couple of times a year Linda at Craftaholics Anonymous hosts a Handmade Gift Exchange. This is always so much fun! I've participated several times now, and I love getting to know new crafty people! My partner this time was a very cool lady named Laura, and she really nailed it with my gift! She sent me this amazing twine wrapped letter, and she captured my style perfectly!

Isn't it gorgeous? And with most of our decorative things packed away in storage, it was awesome to get something like this right now.

I sent her a sort of motley assortment of things. She's a pretty free form pinner, interested in a lot of different things, so it was hard for me to decide what to do. But she did tell me that she does some mixed media art pieces, and I recently discovered something pretty awesome with my Sizzix machine and some embossing folders, so I decided to send her some materials she can hopefully incorporate into her own creations.

Hobby Lobby sells 12" x 30" rolls of 36 gauge copper and aluminum and 40 gauge copper. For church camp this year we used copper and leather to make stamped bracelets like these that I made for a friend's daughter last year.

That worked pretty well for camp, but we had 3 hours a day to work with crafts, and I was looking for a way to adapt the concept to the 20 minute craft times we would have at Vacation Bible School this month. So I pulled out my Sizzix machine and my embossing folders and played around a bit, and I sent my crafty sisters these cell phone photos in the wee hours of the morning:

The coffee cups! I swoon!

Success! I was addicted! And it went very well at VBS. But anyway, I decided to send Laura some embossed sheets of copper and aluminum.

I also made her a leather cuff.

I even embossed some patent leather, and the effect is subtle, but I like it.

I also made her some note cards with coordinating envelopes.

Lastly, I sent her this pair of fun dangly earrings that I made. I hope to do a tutorial on them soon.

Of course I neglected to take a good picture of the whole gift, but Laura kindly took one when she got it, so I'm stealing it from her Facebook. It kind of looks like she has the same kitchen table as me.

As always, this was a blast, and I can't wait till the next one in December!

*This post did not contain any affiliate links.

Vintage Tart Tin Pincushions

Guys, we're getting ready to put our house on the market. This little home has been oh so good to us, but we're bursting at the seams, so we're working on saying goodbye. We've (well mostly I've, since Nick's been working) been packing up a good 45ish% of our stuff, and we've been stacking it all up in the garage in anticipation of renting a storage unit here in a few weeks. People, we've got boxes for days. And the number of boxes that are labeled Craft Room (faith, guys, it's called faith) is kind of embarrassing, in no small part because I've kept back the stuff I feel like I can't live without for potentially the next few months, and there's still enough stuff out there to build a pretty respectable igloo. You know, assuming igloos were made of boxes of fabric and happiness.

Once all this stuff is safely in storage, the carpet people are going to come and lay new carpet and we will be putting new flooring in the kitchen and bathrooms and basically making it seem like 13 years of kids and mechanic's boots never happened. And after the floors and the painting and the cleaning and the threatening the kids with doom if they spill anything, we plan on listing this bad boy and continuing to pray that God will send just the right family (come quickly, Lord).

In the meantime, my crafting is going to have to be, of necessity, a bit more streamlined. So while I still have my sewing machine and enough fabric to take care of any Etsy orders I may get, all my friends and family are forbidden to have any babies until I'm reunited with my box(es) of minky and flannel. And it may be a bit before I get to show you some of the cool crafting tools I got for Christmas.

But if (when please, Lord) I get my craft room, I'm going to not only have access to all my stuff, but I've got all kinds of decorating plans to share! For right now though, I wanted to show you the darling little pincushions I made for Christmas.

Any time I come across little vintage tin/aluminum tart/cupcake tins I snatch them right up. I've got several different styles collected, but these just begged me to turn them into pincushions.

This is another not-really-a-tutorial tutorials for you. It's really so simple that anyone at all can make them, but here are the steps.

• Gather your glue gun (high temp is better, but be safe), tin, scrap of fabric, bit of Polyfil or other stuffing material, scissors, needle, thread, and something to trace a circle with. I used a salad plate that was about 7 1/4 inches in diameter. I would keep the circle between say 6.5 to 8 inches across.
• Trace a circle right onto your fabric with ball point pen. It doesn't have to be flawless, but recognizably round is preferable.
• Cut out the circle. It doesn't even matter if the pen marks show, because the edges of the circle will be hidden when the pincushion is done.
• Thread your needle and run a loose basting stitch around the circle by hand.
• Pull the ends of the thread to gather your circle into a pouch-like shape, with the wrong side of the fabric on the inside. 
• Stuff your pouch with Polyfil/other filling material.
• Pull the threads tight to close off the stuffed circle into a ball shape. It needs to be stuffed firmly, but not so full that you break your thread trying to close it up. I didn't do that or anything. Ahem.
• Carefully squirt hot glue onto the underside of your ball (where the gather is) and quickly press it into your tart tin. Keep in mind that you're pressing hot glue onto a metal object that you're holding, so you may want to hold the tin with a towel/hot pad to keep from getting burned.
• Now fill your new pincushion with pretty pins and admire! 

Aren't they lovely? I just love the pairing of the fresh new fabric with the worn patina of the metal! And aren't those gold pins fun? These were so quick and easy, and the ladies who got them all loved them!