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.

Hodge Podge End of Year Update

Guys. Come on now. You didn't really think I was going to go the whole rest of 2015 without blogging again, did you? Okay, okay, so I'm cutting it close, but I've been a little busy. Here's all that's been happening:

First of all, the house. We got the foundation work all completed, and it is now completely steady and under a transferable lifetime warranty. Unfortunately, the buyer ended up backing out with no real explanation the very day we were having the work done. So that was disappointing, but the foundation repair needed to be done either way, so we are more prepared than ever for when the right buyer comes along. We also put in new kitchen counter tops and new backsplash along the sink wall, so it went from this:

to this:

Halloween was definitely better this year than last, but I didn't do anything crafty in the costume department. Or take really any pictures, apparently. This seems to be the sole picture I have of the two littles who trick or treated. Lily was either Rapunzel or Sophia the First, depending on her mood and whether or not she wanted to wear the wig. Sawyer was a little more put together as a pirate. But seriously, what was the deal with this picture? Mom/photographer/blogger fail.

We also had a couple of things going on with the ladies ministries at church. Our Teachers of Good Things group had their quarterly craft meeting, and this time around we made easy burlap wreaths. Nick came up with a pile of wire coat hangers and helped me (mostly just did it for me) shape them into wreath forms. Then we just unhooked the top, accordion folded burlap ribbon, threaded it on, and rehooked the top. My awesome mom, who is a licensed florist, whipped up burlap bows for everyone.

My SIL Leah the wreath model.

We used basically this tutorial on Just Call Me Homegirl although as I mentioned, we accordion folded the burlap instead of zigzagging/twisting to save on time because our church life center had a second event happening after ours. In retrospect, I wish we had followed Homegirl's tutorial more exactly, because folding it the way we did required more burlap (about 15 yards a wreath) and I found that over time it tends to compress and sag down to the bottom. I think it would work well this way if you were to first use a fabric stiffener on the ribbon.

We also did a fun Christmas Sock Exchange/Cookie Party. Everyone brought a fun pair of new Christmas socks filled with goodies and we all baked cookies and exchanged socks. So fun!

In other news, I finally got to upgrade to a Cameo, and I did a lot of fun projects for Christmas with it, I made a couple of cool guy gifts out of paracord, I made some awesome drop cloth Christmas stockings, and I participated in the Craftaholics Anonymous Handmade Gift Exchange again, all of which deserve their own post. Happy New Year, guys!

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.

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!