Category Archives: craftiness

Jan3

Kirigami everyday

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It really doesn’t take much to make me happy. Good food, quiet time and new crafts are right up there with flowers, cross stitching and a movie I want to watch again (I’m really picky as I get older though about movies). This little rip-off calendar is making the entrance into the dreary days of January more fun for me! That’s the practice one, then the ones for the last few days. Notice that the one you cut for the previous day is displayed on the current page-cool! And on the bottom is a sneak peek for tomorrow’s snowflake. I have almost mastered the fold-I have to rethink the fold lines (on the calendar page there) and do eventually get it. It comes with detailed directions too! Then you cut out the printed design. Tomorrow’s will be rather wing-like! I’m adding these to my collage scrapbook. My niece Tori would love these. I can cut squares out of new paper and redraw the patterns and let her go to town.
I will learn some other folds-starburst, spider, quilt, half/square fold, pop-outs, 3-D flowers and weaving and bows. All for $7.50! Run to Borders and get one! (uh oh-tomorrow is a starburst fold!)

Dec22

Gifties

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I guess it’s safe to post these as three of the five (as far as I know) have received them. These were for my pals over at tribe.net. Six of us are pretty close and in the last few months we have been sending mail art to each other. I decided not to do paper for the ornament exchange and do what I do best-cross stitching! I used my sewing machine to finish them off. With the stuffing I added some blue spruce pine needles that smell like citrus. They really like them which makes me smile. I was working on them when I was getting over my tummy bug, so that helped me recover.


Dec21

Wrapping marathon

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That’s all I’ve been doing. I wrap for all one person, and move on to the next. I want my niece and nephew to have their own special paper too. I’m almost finished-I have a few of my nephew’s gifts to wrap and my father-in-law’s. Brian and Sean only have to wrap gifts for me (and Sean for his dad and grandparents). Then I stick bows on the packages or use pretty ribbons to finish them up. I don’t do bows until the last minute as they like to pop off, so I have to use tape to hold them on. Plus who likes a squooshed up bow?
Here are a few things I thought you’d like to see:

I’ve been trying to finish this little bear ornament since high school! It only needed a few stitches and assembly, which I did yesterday. I redid the mouth and metallic stripes on the drum. And I added the fringe to the scarf. Those are my initials from 1976! I did learn how to make cording too. : )

This is a gift for my mom. My brother Dave had uploaded a bunch of slides from the 1950s he found, and this was one of them. That’s Ruth and Alan-Christmas 1954 (we think). So besides Christmas, why the photo in a frame? I took a few of their good china (what was left of it is just little chipped cake plates) and smashed them up to make mosaic pieces. So although the dishes are pretty much gone, here is a sample of the grape pattern with even the maker in a chard of the china-one the bottom there. Let me tell you, it was hard to break up! The grout should dry a bit lighter. This is a my favorite photo of them. My ‘pop pop’ died when I was 6 weeks old-a long time ago!

Nov29

The postman always rings…

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…more than once for me! I’m still celebrating my birthday 10 days later thanks to AnneMarie from the Netherlands and my friend Angela from N.Y.
Here are the surprises from AnneMarie. What a wonderful stitcher and a perfect finisher she is!

The Prairie Schooler is my favorite cross stitch designer, so AM did a black bird autumnal design for me. The book is a pretty DMC one featuring fruits. The two kinds of fabric will be well utilized. Thanks so much AM! I’ll send you off one of my special collage cards soon.

Today a package came from Angela. She had designed 3 gorgeous scrapbook pages for me! One for my birthday, one for Cosmo the cat and one with a Victorian flair. I’ll add some photos and share with you.

I am making some goodies in the form of gifts. The glue isn’t cooperating, but I plan to make 6 on these ‘items’ to start off with. I don’t want to say what they are, but I’ll show you in a couple of weeks. I put on James Taylor’s Cmas cd and went to town. That’s the best medicine. : )


I ran across this at Rocks in my Dryer. Shannon wanted to know some cool Christmas ideas. I would say the Christmas Memory Book I did about 11-12 years ago was pretty neat. I went through my mom’s photos and added many of my own to the collection. I made nice scrapbook like pages on 8.5″ x 11″ paper. I went from when my siblings and I were little to when our kids were little. I asked each family member what their best memory of Christmas was. I got some interesting answers! Everyone had their own page which I typed up and used different fonts for everyone. I got enough copied for all my brothers and our mom and put them in red plastic report folders that I decorated with sparkly snowflake stickers. I still look at mine!

Oct27

Making stars

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Picking up my crochet hook again recently lead me to try for the umpteenth time to make stars needed for Brian’s American flag afghan that is now going on 3 yrs old. If at first if you don’t succeed, try, try again. Finally it dawned on me how the directions wanted me to make the 5 points for the star! Some of those directions are sure vague. I now have actually made 10 stars from last night to tonight! I’ll probably only do one side as there is a definite wrong side to the afghan. Hopefully in the next few weeks, I’ll be able to post a finished photo of the finally finished afghan. My mom has a finished Granny square afghan she made for my nephew and she never finished it because she didn’t put a border on it. I think that’s the easiest part. I just picked up a crochet book with a ton of borders in it. I’ll have to get her busy with it again.

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Oct25

Pin cushions

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These are some pin cushions I made over the weekend. I had a bad night Friday night (had insomnia) so it was nice to sit at the table and do something creative. The round pin cushion isn’t actually finished yet. I will probably add some ribbon to the edge. I took a candy tin and spray painted it a tan color. There are two layers of batting so there is something to stick the needles into. It is a Prairie Schooler freebie called ‘Stick it Here’.
The other pin cushions are so easy to make! The bottoms are a spool of thread. Don’t pick up the ones that cost $2.50 each like I did! The tops are half a styrofoam ball cover with fabric. The red one has a little glass ‘drop’ with a mushroom inside that someone sent me when I ordered a handmade glass item from them. I thought it looked cute hanging from this. Mom saw them and asked if she could have one! I plan to make more!
My mom stayed overnight and will probably be here another night. She needed to get away from her house, plus she got to go to the Olive Garden with us!

Oct22

Crocheting!

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The crafters over at ’25 Things for Charity’ have inspired me to try my hand at crocheting again. I started with some booties for babies. I actually had to look up the different stitches it’s been so long, but I caught on right away. Brian seeing me crocheting booties made him do a double take! ~LOL~ So I sat tonight while ‘Three Wishes’ and a special about ‘The Smithsonian’ was on and did most of one bootie. It needs it cuff-that top part. I really like crocheting as it’s so fast and you get end results right away. I don’t have to pay attention that much after I get going. Booties are a little different because you have to make the heel part.
Crocheting won’t take the place of cross stitch for me, but I like to use my hands creating and this is a nice diversion.
I’ll post them here and at the Charity blog when I am finished.
I asked mom if she wants Sean to get her on Monday (his birthday) and she said she would really like to come out if she feels strong enough. Mom hasn’t been here since July 4th. She’s been in sort of a downward spiral since Hunter passed away. She even called the vet to see where the dog was cremated. She had to tell me this when I was trying to eat Lean Cuisine chicken parmagiana. He’s in Quakertown.
~Update~
Here are the booties plus a matching fedora that I made in a few days! That is my childhood doll-Thumbelina modeling them, but they are really too big for her.

Sep30

Halloween sewing

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Yesterday I was cutting up fabric to make little Halloween pillows that you hang from door knobs, from the center of wreaths, etc. I have one pinned together and it is looking cute. I am hoping to make and sell a few on eBay. I bought a pillow from a craft store and decided I could use it as an example. I went on the web and looked for Halloween cat designs (more vintage) than the one used on the store bought pillow. The front has a felt center where you add the design. I cut the design out of felt and glued it on. I added embroidery floss whiskers, etc. Later I pinned and basted the pilllow while watching tv. I need to do more assembly line stitching to work faster. I’ll post a photo when I complete a few of these.
I also want to make a ‘pumpkin head’ doll that I saw in a magazine. I need to look for baby ornamental corn for it’s feet, but I got a nice variety of pumpkins from JoAnns. I like using the creative side of my brain!
BTW, off topic, but it got to around 41 last night. Not to worry as next week it will be in the low 80s (that’s hot for this time of year).