Crafting Party Update and PINTEREST CHALLENGE

Our first crafting get-together was small. I think perhaps the date didn't work well in many people's schedules. I ended up with 4 braided head bands and 1 scarf by the time day was over. I still have a pile of tee's in my dining room and some other things I'd like to make, but not bad for an afternoon's work.

I love the scarf. My husband and I like to go salsa dancing. Won't this be a fun accessory?

Ok, Pinteresters. I've got a CHALLENGE for you! I have two close people I know of going to do a couple months of missionary work this spring and summer. My challenge to you is to use your Pinterest Passion for good! I am aiming to collect 75 headbands for girls in Honduras by March 31st, 2012! You can use any pattern or style for any age girl, but the idea/pattern etc., must be either an original design OR come from Pinterest!

We will have a second push later this spring to support an orphanage in Peru. More details on that later!

What an excellent way to bestow some motherly love on these girls!

Playing on the Walls

I am embarking on a new project today. I took the 1980's wallpaper down from the last room in my house this summer and painted it instead. The bathroom now looks a little plain, so I am going to use some vinyl and original canvas artwork to spruce it up. I can't wait to get it done and to share it with you.

In the meantime, I have a couple of pics to share with you of some vinyl lettering artwork I did the middle of January over at my friend, Angie's, house. The first one is in her bedroom. We originally only did the "Wake Up" and "Wonderful" in the light blue, but it was a struggle to see them. Since I used the Cricut Craft Room to make the projects, all I had to do was "un"slant the lettering and cut again in brown. Now it looks like the blue is a shadow. The scroll work above was a metal piece she already had on the wall. The font is from Opposites Attract.

This one is on the back wall of her laundry room, which she completed as part of a remodeling of her home. I love the saying - it fits my friend's mothering style to a "t" (completely practical). It looks like the "n" in laundry is smaller than the other letters, but it isn't. All the letters were sized evenly in Cricut Craft Room, so it is an optical illusion. The scroll above the letters came from the Cricut Cake Basics. The center flower is from page 64 (filgree3). The trails to each side of it are from page 55 (swirl4). I used the "flip image" on the R one to create the mirrored images. The fonts are from Plantin School Book and Opposites Attract.

The two of us also did a Marilyn Monroe saying on the wall of her tween's playroom. The wall was brown and the vinyl was white and red with silver stars sweeping from the top L down to the bottom R of the wall. The saying was something about make-believe. She also has some hollywood glamour posters up in the room. I thought she was very creative in coming up with a way to update an older child's "play" area! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it.

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

T-Shirt headbands

I created these headbands during my December crafting frenzy. There are two different styles. One us a 5 section braid and the other is a plain band with flower. I have worn the flower one a couple if times. It is very comfortable and stays in place nicely. I wish I would have made the band just a little smaller though as it stretched even more than I thought it would. My crafty friend, Melissa, and I are hosting a simple crafting time in which we will show you how to make these.

We will be doing this on Sunday, January 29 at 2 PM. Melissa and I are going to create a group that will get together somewhat regularly for varied crafting. Given the recent fascination with Pinterest, we think there will be no shortage of ideas. Again, we will do SIMPLE crafts.

If you would like to join us, please contact us directly. Please bring your own old t-shirts. Stained, printed, faded are all OK and will not affect your project. You will also need the head circumference of the one you are making your bands for and fabric glue of some sort. I like Aleene's or Fabri-Tac by Beacon Adhesives. If you have a portable sewing machine, matching thread, rotary cutter or scissors, please bring them.

Purses Galore!

I love to make my Christmas gifts for other people. That way, I know they are getting something one of a kind. But it makes for a bummer on my blog postings, since I have to wait until all the gifts are given so I don't ruin any surprises. This year, I was inspired by my friend Melissa to make purses. So with the help of my sewing machine and a couple of great patterns, I went to town! This purse was made for my son's first grade teacher. It's Simplicity Pattern #2396. It has a button and loop closure at the top. One side has three low pockets, the other has a single larger pocket. The style looks a lot like the hobo bags by tween daughter is into, but the fabrics make this a great purse for a holiday gathering.

I made two of these bags. It's the same pattern as the purse above, just without the gathering and yoke top. It has a snap closure. The sides of the purse get their shape from fusible fleece, which the fabric squares are adhered to. Seam binding is then sewn into place over the seams, given the purse a quilted look without the work of piecing. The one mistake I made on both purses was not double checking that I caught all the fabric when I sewed the binding into place. So when the purses were used and twisted, i had a little piece of fabric slip out from under the binding in the same spot on both purses. As opposed to disassembling the purses, I used a little dollop of Beacon Adhesive's Fabri-Tac to keep the fabric under the binding. These purses were for my mom and mother-in-law.

Last, but not least, I switched to McCall's Pattern 6045. This pattern is not for the beginner, but the purse is so stinking cute it is well worth tackling the project!

For your next teacher's gift, dump the apple and look to their classroom for inspiration. This is a room where teachers are able to express themselves and make their environment their version of home. This teacher's room is done in hot pink and lime green with zebra stripes. She frequently wears those colors as well. Someone had mentioned one of the sororities uses these colors, but I don't know if she belongs to it or not. While this purse is too young for my taste, it's perfect for the person it was made for!

Inside, both sides have 3 pockets each. The top is closed with a 14 inch zipper. The purse maintains it's shape with Peltex. This "fusing" has the consistency of fleece but the structure of foam. The last detail that just loved was the carnation flower. The best thing about this purse design was it allowed me to adjust the length of the purse and since its intended recipient is quite tall, I made the straps as long as possible.
I want to make this purse for myself - I already have a leopard print picked out. Now I just have to find the time to make it. Sighhhhhh. Too bad the sewing and crafting are easier than finding the time to do them! Here's to finding lots of time for crafting in 2012!

Album Cover

I've been very busy the last few months with my scrapbooking. I wanted to share the original cover I created for the scrapbook album of our cruise to the Bahamas this summer. I am proud to say that only 14 weeks after our marvelous trip, the album is all scrapped! It's quite a large album. I am guessing it has probably 100 pages to it! I have a fear that someday I will end up with Alzheimer's and forget about all these fabulous things that have made my life so rich. I suspect that when I am gone, many of these albums will be dumped on my kids. The family albums will be meaningful, but the personal albums - well, "not so much" to use a popular phrase.

For the album cover, I modge podged two pieces of cardboard that come with my page sleeves/protectors. Then, I started layering images from the brochures I collected during our trip. It doesn't meet the criteria for acid testing, but it is one personalized - and may I say, ROCKIN'! - album cover!!! I was even able to use leftover luggage tags! I used my Cricut to cut letters from vinyl for the names of the places we visited on our trip. I used 3-ring metal binders for the spine/binding. I had to upgrade to a larger size ring as I kept adding more pages! In hindsight, I should have re-enforced the holes better as I have one top hole on the back (the middle picture above) that is pulling through. Nothing that a little more modge podge can't fix, though!

I have been doing other crafting as well. I hope to get posts up of that soon. I also taught both my daughters how to sew this summer and am working on birthday and Christmas sewing projects too. Hence, the blog becomes the least of my concerns. Thanks for looking!

Cupcake Party!

My middle child wanted a cupcake themed party for her recent birthday. Aha! Another theme! So much fun!

I found cupcake necklaces and wooden cupcake cut-out for $1.00 each at Joann's. Then, I purchased baker's hats from Michael's and the girls colored and otherwise decorated the hats. I found a GREAT website/blog called http://www.bakerella.blogspot.com/. She even has a book recently published all based on her baking genius. We made cupcake bites (chocolate poured into candy molds, cake balls pressed into the chocolate and then the tops dipped into colored candy melts). Then, we made cupcake pops - cakeballs on lollipop sticks dipped in chocolate to look like mini cupcakes. We took regular cupcakes and turned those into milkshakes (strawberry cupcakes, ganache, icing to look like whipped cream, gumball to look like a cherry and two mini-straws). Really, what's the fun in making a cupcake look like a cupcake? Finally, we decorated plain cupcakes however we wanted. Using our baker hats and dress-up clothes, we strutted our best cupcakes down the runway in a cupcake fashion show.

Instead of a cake, the birthday girl wanted a cake made out of cupcakes. So, I came up with this. It was a hit!

In the morning, we had muffins and quiche cups to round out the cupcake theme. A great time, indeed! But also so glad it is over!

Capadia Design Challenge

Diane over at Capadia Designs, http://www.capadiadesign.com/2011/05/some-inspiration-and-challenge.html, was hosting a challenge this week based on a take out box from a restaurant. I rotated the image on the box as my design layout for this page.

There wasn't much to journal about, the pictures say it all. So, I used the Rub A Dub nursery rhyme as a springboard to say something fun about these three cousins: Rub a dub, dub. Three cousins in a tub. And who do you think they be? The diva, the shaker, the cupcake baker, Turn 'em out knaves all three!

I used vellum for two of the medium sized circles and mulberry paper for the base behind one. It was fun to revisit these types of papers. They used to be popular about 8 years ago. I still had some in my stash - I used to think they were gold and saved even the tiniest scraps. The little dots running horizontal on each picture were self-adhesive glitter dots. I used buttons on the top L circle and braided, self-adhesive rope in lime green across the middle of the page.

One more page done in getting caught up with the Hailey album. Sigh.