Category: Crafts

Sounds silly, right? I mean, it’s only January! Well, after talking to you guys on Facebook, I realized many of us are in the same procrastinate/leave your stuff for the last minute boat, and many of us spend the days leading up to Christmas in a total sewing panic. And honestly, I’m tired of it! I want to do a handmade Christmas every year, and every year I bail at the last minute. Well, NO MORE!

So I decided this year I was going to spend all year making my Christmas gifts so that when the holiday rolled around I’d have this stack of handmade goodness to choose from. 15 gifts sewn in December seems like an overwhelming number doesn’t it? How about 1 a month instead? That sounds totally reasonable!

Every month I’ll post one Christmas project (maybe more!) and a tutorial to go along with it. We’ll have a little linky party and keep each other accountable to knock out our holiday sewing list early. I thought the 25th would be an appropriate date! I’m going to blog about my projects, but if the gift is for someone specific, I’ll leave that detail out so they don’t know it’s theirs (the ladies in my family read my blog (hi girls!)). I’m also going to do some home decorating things, maybe my girls Christmas pj’s, stuff like that.

So join me, will you? Have a project ready to share by the 25th of this month and we’ll kick off our best handmade Christmas yet!

When my Grandpa was in the hospital, I felt very restless. There wasn’t anything I could do for him, but I needed to stay busy to keep from dwelling on the situation. When I sit at my sewing machine, my mind wanders and I do great brainstorming. But for those 2 weeks every time I sat down I found myself crying minutes later. I preferred to lose myself in tv, but then my hands were anxious to do something.

A few years ago I’d tried to teach myself to crochet so I could make a cute little toy for Sofie. It ended disastrously and I packed my yarn and crochet hooks away. But, I decided, this might be the right time to break them out and try again. That first night I made this hat!

I followed along with a really helpful tutorial on YouTube.

To figure out how to do each stitch, I preferred the video tutorials by The Knit Witch (scroll to the bottom of her videos to find the basic crochet, double crochet, etc).

Once I finished the hat, I decided to try my first written tutorial. Why not jump in with both feet, right? So I made a little flower to put on my hat.

Imagine my delight when it fit Chloe perfectly!

After that, I was hooked. (pun intended!) I started finding other patterns to follow and was crocheting a hat a day. I loved learning a new craft, especially one I adored so much, and it kept my hands busy during the saddest period in my life. Next I made a few hats for Ella, but they’re all still too big for her, so I’ll show them off in the coming months.

Then I tried one with a brim for one of my nieces. But since I was still new to the art and figuring out gauge and yarn size, it came out a LOT bigger than I’d expected!

As you can see, it swallowed Sofie’s head whole! So I gave it to my sister instead of her daughter!

Then Grandpa died and I completely stopped crocheting. I’m not sure why I stopped, but I just didn’t want to do it anymore. But a few weeks ago, realizing Ella was about to be here, I picked up my hooks and got busy again. I fell over myself when I found this capelet and knew Sofie just had to have it. It’s big on her, but that just means she’ll get lots of use from it!

                          

I think this is the only thing that excites me about the weather getting colder. I’m eager to try out some new patterns I’ve found and maybe make some of my own! I think my family might all wind up with something crocheted in their Christmas gifts this year!

I received a really amazing email a few days ago I wanted to share:

Hi Melissa,

I know you covered the Cranes for Kids program when it first launched last month and we’re excited to let you know that OshKosh B’gosh and its parent company, Carter’s Inc., announced that it has received more than 2 million origami cranes in response to the program. They will be donating $1.5 million worth of clothing to the children of Japan.

Can you believe that?! Over 2 million cranes! How amazing!! There was such a huge number of cranes sent in for the children of Japan, that they are nearly doubling the original amount they were willing to give! I’m always deeply moved by the spirit of giving and I’m so honored to have been teeny little part of this project.

          

So if you made some cranes, too, THANK YOU! You’ve done a huge thing for some children on the other side of the world and the kindness you showed will undoubtedly touch the lives of some very grateful little people.

          

Visit the official Cranes for Kids website for updates, pictures, and videos as they travel to Japan in June to distribute the clothes and the cranes.

I love handmade gifts and I try to give them whenever possible. But this year for Mother’s Day, I was stumped on what to do for my Mom. I stumbled upon this idea and knew it was perfect!! My Mom is a huge bracelet person and loves her Granddaughters more than anything else. I love this idea so much and I’ve been dying to share it!

I consulted my sister, since I’d need pictures of her girls, too. She told me the instructions on the blog I found were a little off—the 4×6 size pictures recommended would be way too big. She’s done crafts with Shrinky Dinks before and was a great resource!! She told me she was unable to find regular sheets of Shrinky Dink plastic, but had gotten a kit from JoAnn’s for $5. And sure enough, I found this Creativity for Kids set in the kids crafting section at JoAnn’s for $4.99:

                                       

It comes with 5 sheets of 4×6 Shrinky Dink plastic, a hole punch, 2 chains and some jump rings. But I wanted nicer and slightly larger jump rings, so I picked some up at Michael’s, where I also found the bracelet.

To make the images, I took pictures of my girls, and used the silhouettes my sister had taken of her girls. I loaded them into Photoshop (there are many picture editing sites you can use for this, and if nothing else, open the images in MS Word and change their size) and adjusted each head so it was approximately 2″ by 2″.

Then I used a regular pen, and traced them onto the textured side of the plastic straight off my computer screen. I used 2 sheets for all 5 heads (and had some left over on the second sheet). I changed their hair some to fit my idea better, and I made stumpy rounded-off necks so the silhouettes wouldn’t have sharp edges. Then I cut them out on the lines and punched holes at the top of their heads. The leftover pen marks don’t matter because they’ll get painted.

And for size reference, with the top from a gallon of milk.

Then I lined the tray from my toaster oven with foil, sprinkled some corn starch on it, and stuck all 5 Shrinky Dinks in at once. It took them about 20 second to shrink up and lay flat. Then I removed the whole tray and let them sit about 10 minutes to harden and cool. Trust me, you have to wait about 10 minutes before you try to move them!! I got all excited on my test round and tried to lift it immediately and it was a complete disaster!

And again, with the milk lid. Boy they really shrink!

Then I took them out on the porch, and using Krylon for plastic spray paint, painted one side,

then waited about 15 minutes, flipped them over and painted the other side.

I waited about an hour for them to dry really well, then I attached them to the bracelet with the jump rings. I did it all with my fingers, no additional tools necessary!

Then I fawned over their tiny little profiles in excitement, hardly able to keep it a surprise from my Mom!

This project is fast, simple, and extremely inexpensive!!
I used my 40% off coupon at JoAnn’s, making the Shrinky Dink kit $3.
The bracelet was $2.99 at Michael’s in their jewelry section (called Jewelry Essentials chain and is 8″ long).
The jump rings were also $2.99. I used 9mm rings and there are 85 in a package. I also used a 40% off coupon at Michael’s and it just happened to take it off the jump rings, making them $1.79 (or $.02 each).

But when you break it down further, I used 2 out of the 5 sheets of plastic, for a cost of $1.20. The bracelet remained the same price, and I used 5 jump rings for a total of $.10. So out of pocket, this priceless gift cost me $4.29 to make and only took about an hour!! And my Mom LOVED it! Happy Mother’s Day, Mom! I can’t wait to add our 6th little profile to your bracelet!

Back in March, we had to take my computer to the Apple store for a repair. And since I can’t step foot into a mall without indulging in an Auntie Anne’s pretzel, after dropping off my MacBook, we swung through the food court. Sofie noticed a banner hanging in the mall with Tinker Bell on it and pointed it out to me. I glanced at it and acknowledged her, more interested in my pretzel than the banner, but then for some reason, I decided to read what it said. And to my great excitement, it said they were opening a Disney Store in the mall–and Mickey and Minnie were going to be there! The date was still a few weeks away, but I immediately cleared off the Saturday and told The Hubs not to make ANY plans.

And because I’m me, I can’t take my girls to meet their favorite “celebrity” without making them a shirt to celebrate the event. Must be the latent sorority girl in me! A year ago my freezer paper stencil skills left a LOT to be desired. But I think I’ve come quite a long way in the last 10 months! I whipped these out in a few hours one night the week before the big event. I had to keep them hidden, just to keep them clean!

Sofie was thrilled to put her shirt on Saturday morning, even though she had no idea what she was in store for! We got to the mall and made our way to the meeting area with an hour left in the meeting time. Sofie about lost it when she saw Mickey!

          

While we were waiting in line (about 15 minutes total–it was SO reasonable!), Minnie came out to relieve Mickey from the child-hugging duties. I thought Sofie’s arm was going to fall off she was waving so hard!

But Chloe? She didn’t really care!

                          

As we got closer, Sofie got more and more anxious. We’d ask her, “Are you going to go hug Minnie like the other kids are doing?” And she kept replying with a firm, “NO.”

                          

But as we got up next to the stage, The Hubs asked her one last time and she whispered, “yes.”

I don’t know if it was my hormonal-pregnant-Mommyness, or the pride I felt for my shy girl overcoming her profound fear of strangers, but I burst into tears at the sight of them together.

And Minnie noticed Sof’s shirt!

It was worth every second of the tedious exacto knife cutting for those few priceless moments! It also gave me hope of a successful trip to Disney in the next few years.

And the next day, we went to a cousin’s Mickey Mouse themed birthday party. Tucked carefully at the top of his gift bag was a Mickey Mouse shirt, made the same night as the Minnie’s, and deeply coveted by my girls. Looks like there’s more Mouse shirts in my future!