It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

My most recently finished sewing project is a secret, but I do have some holiday decor to share!

I've been trying to keep a smaller craft project at my parents' house, for when I need to kill some time between my garden center job and my flute teaching. They're generously letting me continue to do the majority of my teaching out of their house, since I live just over the next county line now. That, and our dogs are insane when they can't get to where the people are, and I can't teach with them around until we move to a different house where I can shut them in a room where they won't destroy everything in it. Maybe. Anyway. Mom is also letting me use the spare sewing machine in her sewing room as needed (yes, she has two set up all the time!), and a pattern that she had, so I made some Christmas stockings!

Hey, look, I'm pattern mixing! I wanted something cheery and fun, since December around here is often dark and blah weather-wise, and this funky black ornament fabric really stood out to me. The green stripey stuff is more for my husband, since green is his favorite color and he's not afraid of the brighter shades of it.  I normally don't go for rick-rack, but it needed something between the heel/toe and the main fabric, and decorative stitching was just eating the fabric like crazy. So this was a cute solution. And I'm ok with it making these stockings look more "homemade". (I still refuse to say that other phrase with my name in it. So there.)

I had originally planned to make the lettering red, but I couldn't find red embroidery floss in my pile of things. I did, however, find black pearl cotton. So, in the spirit of stashbusting, that's what I used to embroider the names. It only took a couple of hours one night while watching tv, and some disappearing marker. I'm pretty proud of how legible it turned out, actually!

I'd also originally planned to make a couple of smaller stockings for the dogs, but time is running short. So that can wait. It's not like we can leave treats or toys lying out like that, anyway. Knowing them, they'd eat the stocking!

I also made this wreath last year, but never blogged it. It's pretty simple, just ornaments wired to an artificial wreath that I bought at work on clearance. The ornaments have a bit of a story, actually--a couple that I'm friends with has an (almost) annual party around this time of year with an ornament exchange. Last year, when all of the dust from the white elephant-style stealing had settled, I was left with two boxes of cheap baubles in lime and hot pink--another friend had them leftover from decorating his boss's office as a joke. I didn't end up keeping the pink one, but I was able to use up most of the green ones on this wreath. So, all in all, a pretty decent holiday decoration for about $2-- not bad! Hopefully next year, we can find somewhere better to hang it than from the wall lamp...

Year-end crafting

Now that Christmas is over and all gifts have been given, I can show the rest of what I've been up to this month.

1. Herbal eye pillows. They're filled with flaxseed, lavender, and peppermint. I got the idea and the basic instructions from this blog that I found while Google-searching how to do it. The pillows themselves are bits of muslin from testing out that little black dress at the beginning of the year, and I was able to use some 100% cotton scraps from several projects over the last couple of years. I made one for myself, one for my mom, one for the cousin that I got in the family drawing on my mom's side (as part of an after-work relaxation kit--she's a nurse, so she has to put in some long days), and one that I'm not sure what to do with yet.

I usually make a necklace or two for my mom's stocking every year as well. So here's this year's--she mentioned she didn't have much gold-toned jewelry. It's hard to tell from the picture, but the chain is broken up here and there by some antique gold-colored freshwater pearl beads.

I also got some lovely sewing and knitting (mostly)-related gifts this year from my family...

New fabric! From left to right, 3 yards of a lightweight charcoal denim that absolutely has to become pants, a black/white/grey silky print (I think about 2 yards), and a yard each of 3 cotton prints for me to make a new bag, of this style. It's kind of cool that I basically have an entire outfit here! I'll just have to make sure to choose a pants and top pattern that will work well together.

 And I got new yarn! 2 skeins each of this really thin bamboo yarn (I'm guessing for socks)...

....and 2 of this lovely colorway of the Serenity yarn I like. For acrylic, it's super-soft and I love their color palettes!

A few other miscellaneous things: 3 knitting books (2 with some really lovely patterns, and one that's a pocket-sized tips book), a tiny circular needle which I'm guessing is also for attempting socks, 2 pairs of scissors (a badly-needed pair of new fabric scissors, since mine are rather dull, and some pinking scissors so I can stop stealing Mom's all the time), and a little pendant from my sis-in-law.

Here's the close-up-- we both love Van Gogh, and I already had the "Starry Night" pendant. So this is the "Sunflowers", of course. I love that it came with two little sunflower charms so I can make some earrings, too! (Sunflowers are my favorite flower, as you've probably figured out by this point.)

So that pretty much wraps up the holidays. My seasonal retail job is basically done for the year, so unless my job hunt proves more fruitful over the next couple of months than it's been so far, I've basically got no work other than my flute teaching until March. So I think a lot of my non-job-hunting/non-work time will probably be spent playing around with some of these things. I'm hoping to get that mock-up of the raincoat cut out this week. And I have one more holiday-related project up my sleeve, which must get done this week. I'm also planning on doing the traditional year-end wrap-up post at some point this week. But first, I need to figure out where to put all of this stuff...

Mission accomplished!

 I've just been posting up a storm lately, haven't I? Don't worry, it'll slow down very soon, as this is my last day "off" (other than my flute teaching and band work) before I go back to job #3 at the garden center. Thankfully, I had some warning as to when I'd be starting back up. So my main goal this week was to finish all of the machine work on my mom's dress so I could do the handwork on Saturday. (Being the not-so-closet geek that I am, Saturday's plans consist mainly of playing a game over the internet with a few friends. But it's the sort of game where there's more talking via a headset than actually typing on the keyboard or clicking with a mouse, so it's been a good way for me to also get several concentrated hours of off-machine craftiness in so far.) As of about 15 minutes ago, the machine work is done!

 Don't worry, it'll hang better than this. I haven't put the zipper in yet, because I'm going to use one of the methods I learned from the LBD class and hand-pick that. This zipper only goes partway up the back and there's a sheer part that will extend above, so the greater control of handwork is definitely desirable here. Plus, since part of the plan is for me to resize this slightly if needed to fit me after the wedding, it'll be much easier for me to tweak the back as needed if I'm working with hand stitches instead of the tinier machine ones! I'll also need to hem those sheer edges a bit, sew the bodice lining down over the zipper and skirt, and hem the skirt itself. So far, I'm rather pleased with how it's looking! (And also glad that I decided to serge the edges of the skirt pieces before sewing the seam-- I left the top of the skirt and the bodice pieces unserged, and they were a horribly fraying mess!)

Speaking of the serger, guess what? It's not broken again--I took it to the shop on Friday and the mechanisms are just fine. The problem was that the thread had gone bad! Which, I guess, shouldn't be a surprise, because there's a strong possibility that most of the serger thread I've been using is older than I am. (It was mostly stuff I got for free from a doll/craft supply shop that my grandparents used to run.) So I tossed a bunch of the stuff that I knew was older, and am going to have to start replacing it as I can. And because I did the brocade bits before this, the serged edges are not the cleanest at all. But the sheer, which was done with the new thread, is much, much better. I'm quite happy that I didn't have to get it repaired again so quickly!

The cat, who decided to be my sewing buddy for today, was rather more ambivalent about the whole thing. In fact, she was quite unhappy that I dared interrupt her nap on top of my pattern pieces to take a picture. Sorry, Cleo.

One last thing for today....decided to have a little St. Patrick's Day fun on a whim. Now, I'm not one who will just celebrate any and every holiday that happens around this time of year. I could care less about Mardi Gras, and I have a rather strong loathing for Valentine's Day. But St. Patrick's Day has always been a fun one-- I'm quite happy to dress the part (today it's my Shakespeare on the Green top, along with some Celtic-knot embellished jewelry), and I've been having fun with listening to some of my favorite Irish bands today (namely The Frames and Flogging Molly so far, but there's still a good chance I'll fit in some U2 and/or The Cranberries). Hey, I really am part Irish, so of course I want to have some fun with this! But anyway....on a whim, I decided to make some scones, since I had a little time to kill. They're total cheater scones because they're made with Bisquick that was already in the pantry, and I even cheated on the cheater recipe. (No heavy cream, so I used the nonfat milk that I had instead, and I didn't have chocolate chips, so I chopped up a dark chocolate-raspberry organic chocolate bar. There. Now they're healthier.) On an even bigger whim, I added some green food dye to make them festive. For total cheater baked goods, I thought they turned out pretty good! Once they fully baked, at least... I may have made them a little too thick to cook through properly until I cut them up and stuck them back in the oven.

Festive.

So I haven't posted in a week or so, but that doesn't mean I haven't been busy!
I finished these pajama pants last Saturday. And while most if it went together nicely, the elastic casing proved to be a bit more of a pain than anticipated. The first problem was, I didn't realize until I got to that step that there was no elastic that was wide enough in my stash! So I had to run out to Joann's (on the Saturday before Christmas) to get some. Thankfully, the line was not as long as I expected it to be.  Then there was the issue of trying to get it in-- apparently I stitched the casing just a little bit too narrow, so it took me awhile to wrestle the elastic into submission. Even then, there's a spot in the back where the elastic didn't gather properly (right where I left the opening-- I ended up just having to stitch flat over the elastic.) So not the most professional-looking pair of flannel pajama pants I've ever made, if the term "professional-looking" can be applied to pajama pants, but they're done, and they're very comfortable, and the flannel must be a really good quality because I've been wearing them for about a week and they haven't gone all wrinkly on me from being slept in.

And here's a closeup of the fabric--a very cheery print! As it turned out, I had a long-sleeved knit shirt in my refashion pile that perfectly matches the lighter shade of green. I'd gotten it at the thrift store awhile back because I liked the color, but it was a bit big for me, so I had a thought to use a dress I'd found on the same trip that matched it well as a trim, and cut it down to size. But it's been relegated to pajama use instead, which works for me-- I'm silly enough to want the top half of my pjs to match the bottom half! Plus one thing out of the recon pile is always a good thing.

I also made this necklace for one of my cousins for Christmas. (She won't see this post.) On my mom's side of the family, for years each of the cousins has drawn another cousin's (or occasionally a sibling's) name, and that's the one they buy a present for. There's enough of us that it was just too much for the aunts and uncles to buy a present for every niece and nephew. Even though we're almost all adults now, it's still pretty much a gift from the aunts and uncles, but I wanted to contribute something this time. My mom's been making a lot of bags like this one that I made several months ago lately, and she had the idea to make one each for the cousins that I and my brother picked (since both of us drew girls), and fill them with handy things. The cousin I got is still in college, so she got things like a pack of purse-sized notebooks, pens, a water bottle, snack food like chocolate and mini bags of popcorn, etc. And the print of her bag has butterflies on it, so for a fun addition, I made this very simple necklace to match--it's just a chain with some iridescent beads scattered in it, and then the butterfly pendant. (My cousin who just started working as a nurse this fall got something similar, and my sister-in-law made her a scarf to go with it.)

Aside from that, I spent some time earlier this week decking my room with some of my ornament collection-- I love my mismatched ornaments, because almost all of them were handmade or given to me by friends, so there's memories with all of them. But I've never really gotten to use them, until this year. So this is what I ended up with:

It extends to the end of the hutch, too...a bit busy with my dvd collection in the background, but between the impromptu garland (a very thick piece of jewelry-making hemp that I've never been able to figure out what to do with, held in place by extra-large binder clips) and a few other places I found to scatter them, I was able to use nearly the entire collection. Since I'm still living at home, it was really nice for me to have a way to decorate my space that's just mine, you know?

Anyway, that's all for the moment....though there will likely be another post today, since I'm very close to finishing a project I started on yesterday!

Finishing the Christmas roundup and the latest project...

Though my serger was my big crafty Christmas gift this year (combo for that and my birthday), I did get a few small craft-related things in my stocking. Mainly in the way of scrapbook adhesives and these lovely coordinating beads, which I'm looking forward to making something with, but the sewing machine needles, marking pen and machine brush are also greatly appreciated (and needed!) And as of this afternoon, since my tire rebate check came in, I finished off the Christmas gifts with ordering my subscription to Burda World of Fashion. So I'm guessing my first issue will be the February one? Either that or March. I also purchased the March 2007 issue off of eBay, because I saw this jacket that Alviana posted earlier this week, and based on the BWOF pic she pasted in, it looks like this design will be absolutely perfect for this embroidered suedecloth that I've had in my stash forever-- the suedecloth I was originally going to make the BurdaStyle Eva jacket with (since the corduroy one was technically my "muslin"), but I think I like this one better for it! And I did see several other designs that I liked from that issue when I looked at the magazine archive on the main Burda site, so hopefully it'll be worth the investment.

I should have taken pics, but I received some handcrafted goodies too. My friend Cassie and my brother's girlfriend both gave me crocheted scarves. (Cassie also included a matching hat and handwarmers-- so far I've used the handwarmers the most, because my hands are perpetually cold this time of year!)

Been sewing like crazy for the last couple of days-- spent a couple hours on Christmas morning and then nearly all of yesterday sewing together the main dress for my New Year's Eve costume, and a pretty large portion of today working on the accessories (a belt, which is done except for hand-sewing, and a necklace.) No pictures of any of it yet-- I don't think I'll post those until after the party, so that way I'll have a few of it all put together to show! But I should be home for most of tomorrow afternoon too, so I think I will actually be able to finish this costume tomorrow!

Christmas craftiness

Warning: VERY pic-heavy post ahead! (Which will make this interesting to read, because I can NEVER get the formatting right on these!)

I know this is probably an unusual time to be posting! But my family tends to keep Christmas rather low-key. My immediate family (my parents, brother and I) have this annual tradition of going to my church's Christmas Eve service, and then coming home, having sparkling cider and cookies, and opening our gifts. We go to my mom's parents and celebrate with her side of the family during the afternoon on Christmas day, and then the same thing with my dad's side of the family usually the weekend after. (Saturday this year.) So now that all my crafty Christmas presents have been distributed, I can post about them.
The first one is a recipe box I made for my friend Cassie. She's been saying for months now that she needed one, and I'm just glad she didn't go out and buy one first! It's just a plain wooden recipe box that I got at the craft store and covered with scrapbook paper, then painted the "Recipes" on top and did a little decoupage coffee/teacup on the bottom (she loves both) with some of my paper scraps.
She loves literature and collecting quotes, so I was quite happy to find an appropriate one to paint inside the lid!

And then I found these recipe cards that matched perfectly at AC Moore, so I got her several packs of those. She was thrilled to have a recipe box at last, and told me today that she's managed to get 4 in there so far.



Next up: the rest of the stocking stuffer necklaces I made for my mom, all out of stuff from her stash minus one pendant. These first two are ones that I'm pretty sure I did the Sunday before last...
Several of the beads from this one came in a little pre-packaged set (including that lovely Celtic pendant), so I was quite happy she had stuff to fill it out the rest of the way!
This next one with the leaf was made last Saturday (this was the pendant that was new)...

And then the next five were made on Sunday...

From sew and so

From sew and so

And the last one was made on Monday.























Finally, five sets of earrings that I made for my friend Julie.
She said I was cheating-- we'd agreed among my group of friends that we're just going to do the gift card exchange at our Christmas party (to be held in January.) But I told her it was all stuff from my stash and she was helping me use it up, so she was really doing me a favor. So I don't think she minded too terribly much.
And then this is how I packaged them-- just some cardstock folded accordion-style with holes punched for the earwires. Hard to see past the floss, but it says "earrings for special occasions"-- stuff like "cheering on the NY Jets" (the teal/silver pair--that's her favorite NFL team), "showing school spirit" (the blue and gold pair, which is the colors of the college we both graduated from, and her family gets season tickets to the football games every year) or "fooling people into thinking you're Irish" (the green pair--she's a redhead, but not Irish.)

Next post-- some of the handmade/crafty related presesnts I got!

300th post! (And Christmassy giveaway!)

Wow, I can't believe I'm at 300 already. So to celebrate, I'm going to try something new for me-- I've never done a giveaway before!

So I'm offering up 3 ornaments that I made this afternoon. They're made of felt with ribbon hangers, and about 3 1/2" tall. I doubt they'll get to anyone in time for Christmas, but should at least within the 12 days after! If you're interested, leave a comment, and I'll draw a name Monday night.

I've got at least 5 projects that I'll need to put in the next post, but I'll try to refrain from spamming this thing up until then too. ;-)

Friday Favorites, Episode 33 (last one of 2008!)

It's been a very quiet week for crafting here. I literally have not had a chance to do anything since last Saturday, other than put together a couple more necklaces for my mom's stocking and a couple pairs of earrings for a Christmas gift. I guess I should take pictures of those. Oh, and I made earrings to go with that red and black necklace I made for Mom a week or so ago, because she let me borrow it back to wear with my pantsuit for the band concert and I needed earrings for it. (Using another leftover bead and some of my thrifted jar supplies to make myself a necklace, so I'll still have something to go with it.)

But it's been a crazy busy week-- spent most of Sunday afternoon addressing invitations and planning Susannah's bridal shower, Monday was an extra-long teaching day because of adding a new student, Tuesday also ran late and by the time I finished eating dinner and showering and all I just wasn't up for it, Wednesday was the band concert (which went really well! Yay!), and then yesterday I had practice for my church's Sunday and Christmas Eve services, which I'm playing with the music team for. And then tonight I'm going to a party, though I'm hoping to have some time to work on unpicking the hem of my latest refashion so I can make it look better. I'm getting so desperate for creative time, though, that when I had some dead time at work yesterday, I sat there sketching out craft ideas! (It's not like I was slacking-- it's just the managers literally had nothing for me to work on at the moment, and I'd already cleaned the showroom. Ah, garden centers in winter.) I really hope I have time to do something tomorrow!

Anyway, on to Friday Favorites. I've decided to make this "episode" the last one of the year, since the last Friday is the 26th and by then I'm going to be in frantic costume mode in order to get things done before New Year's Eve. So I'll bring it back in about 2 weeks (I'm hosting a party on the 3rd, so between that and the party on the 31st, I'm going to have my hands full!) Anyway, I hope you've all been enjoying this feature, and hopefully I'll find lots of fun stuff to share in 2009.

Also, I'm not finished with the backlog yet, but I've started sticking all the tutorial-type stuff that I've been bookmarking on my Wists page so they're all in one place. Plus it has pictures.

Not surprisingly, almost everything is Christmas decorations this week.

Garlands: Dollar Store Crafts had a fun, colorful one of felt squares. Cheeky Magpie featured a rather intricate one of folded paper and (very carefully cut-out) stamped designs. And Whip Up linked to a paper chain link garland-- not the construction-paper version we made in elementary school, for sure! Looks so time-consuming, but the Renaissance lover in me is all, "Ooh, paper chain-maille!" (Plus it would probably be a fun way to recycle junk mail or something.)

Cards and Wrapping: Speaking of junk mail, I thought the gift bag made from it at Recycled Crafts was a really clever idea! Going back to Cheeky Magpie, I couldn't help but love her snowman cards-- Calvin & Hobbes is pretty much my favorite comic strip ever, and his snowmen always amused me. And for her blogaversary, the writer of SewDelish has free Christmas printables that would be great for gift tags or scrapbook pages or whatever.

Ornaments: The medieval-looking cd cross ornaments over at Ecologue were just stunning. I love the look of these fabric star origami ornaments at Zen Crafting. And that they can have a billion different looks depending on what fabric you use. And that it's great for scraps. Over at CraftStylish, they're showing how to revamp (or "resparkle", as they call it) those worn glass balls with charms and gems. Crafting a Green World had a nice kid-friendly ornament made from, of all things, recycled plastic ziplock bags (and some other on-hand stuff to decorate them with). And while not really an ornament, persay, I did like Creative Kismet's snowflake window.

Other: Which I suppose these would make good stocking stuffers or last-minute gifts. First one is these simple but cute bookmarks at Trail Mix. Over at Craft Apple, she made a bag from a cheap skirt found on the clearance rack. And Craft Leftovers had a free pattern for recycling sweater bits into some very cute armwarmers.

Ok, so that's everything for this week. Er, year.

One more bloggy announcement... next post is my 300th. Going to try to do something special for it. Stay tuned.

Friday Favorites, Episode 32

This one's almost entirely Christmas-oriented, so I'll categorize like that. Funny how I can never seem to set this up the same way twice...

Ornaments!

It seems I'm perpetually on the lookout for things that can be made with fabric scraps, and so of course I thought these "scrappy tree" ornaments from Dollar Store Crafts were really cute! And I like that they can fit a lot of different decor styles, depending on how the edges are finished and what sort of fabric is used. Whip Up had a tutorial for a vintage-looking fabric-covered ball that would also be a great use of scraps. This one's not a tutorial, but I couldn't pass up a mention of these metal ornaments by Creative Kismet because they're so fun and colorful. And though technically not an ornament, Recycled Crafts featured an easy-to-make (though undoubtedly time-consuming) felt tree garland created by scrapbooking superstar Ali Edwards.

Other Decor!

Also on Recycled Crafts, they have a tree skirt made from a bridesmaid dress. If this past year is any indication, it seems I'm in process of becoming the next 27 Dresses girl, so this one might come in handy! Cheeky Magpie had a pattern for a paper cone that can be used either as a fillable decoration, or flipped over as a paper tree (which she put lights inside for a really neat effect!) ThreadBanger's weekly DIY roundup featured wreaths of all different styles, made of everything from recycled fabric to ice to computer parts. Speaking of wreaths, Thimble had a small feature of different Christmas tutorials, of which my favorite was this paper wreath at the red thread. And sew it begins... featured a tutorial for an easy-to-make but complicated paper snowflake that's a great large size for window or wall decorating. And going back to Creative Kismet, she had this great paper-cut winter wall art.

Miscellaneous goodies!

Over at Quality Time, there was a tutorial for a patchwork tissue holder that would make a great stocking stuffer (and use up more scraps!) I liked this cocktail dress at Fehr Trade-- simple, but a great color. And Angry Chicken had a simple but good sweater reconstrutcion with a vintage vibe that would be good for more casual holiday gatherings.

My stuff:

I had some unexpected time off work yesterday, so I had time to go to Joann's (where I got some fabric on sale because I'm weak.) And I also did some sewing-- need a few finishing touches, but then two of my Christmas presents will be done. Hopefully will get those up tomorrow. No time tonight, since one of my friends is having her annual Christmas party/ornament exchange. I think I'm going to bring one of the poinsettia ornaments, so we'll see what I come home with!

Friday Favorites, Episode 31 (and the results of yesterday's poll)

First off, thanks to those of you that responded to my post yesterday. The vote is really close! But I've decided to go with the BWOF subscription. I am still a little nervous about trying to figure out the non-visual instructions, but since one of my ongoing craft goals (that so far I'm failing miserably at) is to reduce my stash of supplies/fabric, I need things that will enable me to use up some of said fabric stash rather than expand it, and patterns from the Big 4 don't really inspire me much these days, for the most part. Plus, since I haven't managed to find it in any of my local bookstores, the only way I can get any issues is to buy them online at something like $16 a pop. If I find things I like in more than 4 issues, it's pretty much paid for itself at that price. Plus, truth be told, I'm kind of feeling right now like getting nice fabric would be a waste of the money, since it's not like I have occasions to wear really spectacular outfits of pricier fabrics. It might just be a case of the winter blahs setting in early this year... *sigh*

Anyway, on to the link list, which I'll have to keep concise today since I have a major rush-around day going here.

First off, I'm finding Rostitchery's series of posts on how she's trying to hand-make her Christmas gifts/decorations completely out of things around the house rather inspiring. It's amazing what can be done with what's on hand. Weekend Designer had some really classy-looking ornaments made of ribbon and lavender, and on the other end of the spectrum, Thrifty Decor Chick featured a Christmas tree made of... *drumroll* Mt. Dew cans. XD (I learned about this one via Miss Celie's Pants.) Craft Leftovers has some tips for fixing broken ornaments, Sewtakeahike had a very cute ice skate gift tag, Crafting a Green World showed how to recycle old Christmas cards into gift tags, and Whip Up had a huge list of festive tutorial goodness. And on a completely non-Christmasy note, I thought the baby Princess Leia costume at Clevergirl.org was just too cute (in a totally geeky sort of way, but that's ok because I kind of am a geek.)

And with that, I'm off...hopefully teaching Cassie how to reconstruct a t-shirt tonight. Mwahaha.

Christmastime is here....

...and with it comes Christmas crafting!

From Friday night:
-Poinsettia ornaments made following the flower pinwheel pattern at Hello My Name is Heather. I shrunk the pattern to about 3" and skipped the stick.

-Snowflake ornaments--the two on the left were chipboard snowflakes I found in the scrapbook section, then painted and glittered up. And the beaded one was from a kit that we've had around here for ages. I might make some more, but it took awhile!



And then I've made four necklaces in the last three nights-- I'm in charge of my mom's stocking every year, and it's become traditional for me to make her a couple of necklaces. This year, she requested that I take her bead stash and go nuts. So more will be forthcoming, but this is what I have for her so far:

1. Monday's necklace, from a wooden pendant with a woodburned design, and wood and tiger-eye jasper beads.
2. One of Sunday's necklaces, from a shell pendant, cats-eyes beads, and silver spacer beads.
3. Sunday's other necklace, which was actually just a restringing job due to a broken clasp. I'm pretty sure I originally made this one for her, back when I was in grad school and on a trip to New Hampshire for a music competition (Mom came with me, and I brought beads to make jewelry in the hotel room. Which was nice downtime, since I was sick with a nasty cold the entire couple of days I was there!)
4. Last night's necklace-- silly to give a Christmas necklace in a Christmas stocking that she won't be opening until Christmas Eve, I know. But the snowman pendant was so cute that I couldn't resist!

No necklace tonight, most likely, seeing as how it's after 10 and I still need to get a shower and such. Didn't do it sooner because I was sewing. The good news is, the jacket is at the point where all I have left to do is attach the lining to the jacket, do the hems, and sew on the buttons and buttonholes. And then I am DONE!! I might even be able to finish by the end of the week! I'm sooooo excited to move on to other projects--maybe it's because it's something I had to do, but I just have not been able to get excited about this pantsuit, despite the challenge.

Friday Favorites, Episode 30

Happy day-after Thanksgiving!! Appropriately, most of my links this week are for Christmas stuff.

First off, even though I'm not buying anything today, I have a list of eco-friendly craft supplies, courtesy of Crafting a Green World. I'm kind of drooling over the bead collection. And wondering how my crochet friends would feel about yarn hand-spun from the seller's wedding dress...

Some fun decorations at Dollar Store Crafts. The first is Christmas ornaments made from those little metal wrappers that tea lights come in, and the second is a recycled cd decorated to look like peppermint candy. Yum.

Ok, so this one's not exactly Christmas-y. But I loved these "fairy lights" made from Christmas lights and recycled egg cartons at Whip Up. I'll have to find an excuse to make those sometime...a party, perhaps? I also had to take note of their list of tutorials for baby crafts--I think I have a couple of years until the next wave of babies, since it seemed like half of the women I know and their sister had a baby this past year, but I'm always scrounging for ideas (and ways to avoid the headache that is Babies R' Us!) so this should help.

Moving away from the holiday stuff-- I really liked this Dresden petal handbag tutorial at Quality Time. Not only cute, but a great way to use up those pesky scraps. And, well, this one really isn't crafty at all. But I also had to bookmark this list of music of interest at Angry Chicken. Because music feeds creativity, and I'm always looking for ideas of bands to hunt down at eMusic. Mmmmm, indie bands.

And with that, I am off for a night of movies and craftiness of the Christmas ornament variety with some of my friends. Ciao!

Bookworm award! (Oh yeah, and Friday Favorites, Episode 30...)

First order of business: Christine at and sew it begins... graciously bestowed a Bookworm Award on me.


The rules of this award are:
-pass this on to 5 friends

-Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56.
Write out the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that...

Closest book to me is Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice (started it just before Halloween, figured it was appropriate for the season, but this is proving to be a shockingly slow read for me!! Normally I'd have been done a book of this size by now! Anyway...

" 'For what!' Lestat grimaced, so that his face looked like a skull. 'Taking me out of school!' He threw up his hands and let out a terrible roar of desperation. 'Damn him! Kill him!' he said."

On that cheery note... :-P
Since the book thing never gets old, even if you've done it before, I'm nominating Mom2Fur @ Sorta Frugal, Sharon @ Adventures From the Sewing Studio, Gwen @ After The Dress..., Christina @ Stina's Stuff, and Antoinette @ clevergirl.org. Have fun!

And now, onto Friday Favorites! This week, it's pretty much a case of Christmas or not.

Non-holiday favorites: Another tutorial list at Whip Up-- picked this one because it had more clothes! And Dollar Store Crafts had a tutorial for a coin purse made from an old cassette tape-- I like this better than the wallets!

Holiday favorites: Confessions of a Craft Addict had the cutest little trees! Sew, Mama, Sew! has been doing a series of gift ideas for various people, such as this post on gifts for bookworms. They also have a woodland ornament tutorial that looks like fun. Over at The Long Thread, there's...bowling for elves? Well, they call it "skittles", but it's basically bowling. Back over to Whip Up, there's a tutorial for a pocket advent calendar (using gum), and a gift card box (which will come in handy for the gift card white elephant my friends and I are having!

Ok, that wraps it up for today. As for the pantsuit, so far, on track. Though I haven't started cutting yet, since I'm waiting for the tires on my car to get done!!

Friday Favorites, Episode 29

It's baaaaaaack!!

And loaded with stuff, as I did end up being able to get my bookmarks back, so this is the pared-down version of three week's worth of stuff.

So I'll sort it into categories.

Stuff people made that I liked:

Angry chicken's shadow box/thumb puppet theater was just too fun. And though she's been quieter as of late, I really enjoyed reading Lydia's post about a Martha Stewart roasted chicken recipe. I swear, the girl should be a food writer. The photography and the way she describes things never fails to make me hungry! And Whip Up featured a dress made entirely from fabric selvedges, and (of all things) a puppet made from old t-shirts, of...an earthworm. Finally, I was glad to see Krustallos' pattern review for a McCall jeans pattern-- I think I have this same one to try next in my quest for the perfect pair of jeans. And since I have that gapping in the back issue with jeans all the time, good to know that I'll probably have to make those adjustments!

Tutorials galore!!

I get blank envelopes on a pretty regular basis, from students who pay me in cash. So I'm looking forward to trying these envelope books featured at Recycled Crafts. They also had a tutorial for making new packaging boxes from old ones-- just in time for holiday gift-wrapping--and a bag made from woven labels. I loved the look of it-- reminds me of those Starburst wrapper chains I used to make! Over at Little Sweet Hearts, she made a tutorial for Hana Kanzashi-- those hair flowers that are featured in Memoirs of a Geisha. At Crafting a Green World, someone figured out how to make shrinky dinks from the type of plastic that disposable cups are made from-- I really want to try this for a scrapbook! And there were a whole slew of things at Whip Up: A pencil case that looked like a bunny. A chipmunk plushie made from a glove. (I kind of want to try it as a squirrel, since a couple of my friends and I have a lot of inside jokes about squirrels.) A flower garland from old catalogues. Another flower, in the form of a pincushion wrist cuff. And if that wasn't enough, they pointed me to a post by The Princess and the Monkey, that's an entire list of sewing tutorials for everything from bags to plushies. A lot of it is kid-oriented, but that should help a lot when I'm having to make gifts for my friends!

Cool blog of the week:
A heads-up from ThreadBanger, who pointed me towards Dollar Store Crafts. The entire blog is dedicated to upcycled crafts made from stuff found in dollar stores and bargain bins. I'm checking out the wearables category and my favorite so far is the "Eight Dollar Corset". The stained glass is fun too, as is their tattooed soap!

And with that, wrapping it up for today, as I need time to actually, you know, craft.

I've been tagged! (And a few minor setbacks)

Christina tagged me, so here goes... seven random things about myself.

1. I don't have an absolute favorite color. I used to say it was blue. But now I like green pretty much equally. And no particular shade of either-- I just really like blues and greens. And browns too, at least in my clothing choices.

2. I'm addicted to finding new music. It doesn't matter how many cds I have loaded onto my iPod-- I'm still constantly searching for new bands or cds to check out! So my subscription to eMusic is definitely a good thing for me-- 40 new tracks every month! (Incidentally, I wish that Blogger had the LiveJournal feature of being able to post what music you're listening to as you write...)

3. I hate Valentine's Day so much that, during my senior year of college, a couple of my friends and I invented our own holiday to take its place. We called it Single Women's Empowerment Day. And then exetended it to a month and shortened it to SWEM. The holiday kind of died last year, when J (one of the original 3 partners in crime) was engaged. I miss that.

4. I have literally scarred myself by crafting-- when I was 15, I sliced a huge chunk off of my fingertip with scissors while making paper beads. What really upset me about it was that my dad had planned to take me to a parking lot to get in some driving practice, but since I was bleeding all over the place, he took my then-13-year-old brother instead! I still have a circle missing from my fingerprint, as I found out a few weeks ago when getting fingerprinted for my band teaching job.

5. It's very hard for me to just sit and watch TV. I either have to be crafting or on the computer at the same time. Sometimes both.

6. I have never been able to develop a taste for coffee. Even when I worked at a coffeeshop. People give me drinks with coffee in them, and all I can taste is the coffee. I can't even distinguish different flavors of it. But I can with tea. Weird.

7. Despite the fact that I play flute for a quasi-living, I have no control over what notes come out when I whistle.

Let's see...tagging seven people (Man, I hate this part... if I linked to you and you already did it, let's just say you're ahead of the game, ok?):

1. Lydia at Lydia's Cozy Corner


2. Gwen at After the dress...


3. Oonabaloona


4. Antoinette at clevergirl.org


5. Mom2fur at Sorta Frugal


6. Caity at caityquilter


7. Sharon at Adventures from the Sewing Studio



Here are the rules:-Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.-Share seven facts about yourself on your blog – some random, some weird.-Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.-Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

Anywhoo...

I'm not entirely certain I'm going to be able to finish my bag in time for the BurdaStyle contest. I've run into a bit of a snag on trying to sew the strap on, in the form of "my machine will only take about 3 stitches in the entire thing because it doesn't like multiple layers of leather". I'm hoping that since it at least made needle holes, I'll be able to hand-stitch it on without inducing multiple stab wounds to my hands! And, you know, that the stitches will actually hold. Secondly, I did end up losing a lot of time on Saturday in pumpkin carving.

But I was happy with how that turned out, and it was crafty, so it's all good.

And then I lost pretty much all of Sunday, between blueifying S's wedding dress (we spent a couple episodes of Firefly on it and only got 4 flowers beaded... *sigh*) and this project that my church Bible study group is doing-- basically an Extreme Home Makeover of a girl's room (with the dad's permission, while they're on vacation)--she's the neighbor of one of the women in the group, the mom died of cancer last year, and the dad's pretty overwhelmed with trying to support his family and play the role of both parents. So she's basically a pre-teen with what was a toddler room, so we're trying to make it a little more age-appropriate on the cheap. I said I'd sew some pillows, and so I basically spent a couple hours on Sunday night starting that, had no time for anything crafty on Monday because of work, and then spent pretty much from 8 last night till 12:30 this morning trying to finish them. And didn't. I still have to hand-sew the open edges closed. But I'd like to think that the results will be worth it.

And then tomorrow is later work and cleaning, T and C are coming over on Friday night, Saturday I'm going to the Renaisance Faire, and Sunday is the deadline. Maybe if I can work on it Sunday...

Guess I'd better get on that hand-sewing. And tagging.

Friday Favorites, Episode 24

Another rush job, as I'm getting ready to head to Philadelphia to hang out with N! And hopefully get some craftiness in while we watch movies and stuff.

Lots of links today, because I'm also doing stuff I found last week (but wasn't around to post).

Tutorials that rocked:
At Whip Up, I found instructions for a "teepee" Christmas ornament-- great way to use up scraps, and a fun idea to hide a small gift or stocking stuffer in! And also a tutorial for paper fortune cookies-- another fun scrap idea!

At Craft Tutorials, someone posted instructions for how to make transparencies for papercrafting out of packing tape.

Recycled Crafts featured a "bookring book" that would be good for notetaking, scrapbook journaling on-the-go, etc.

Thanks to Trail Mix, I found a link to Amandajean's storage cube tutorial-- so cute, but functional!

Projects I liked:
Both from Wardrobe Refashion this time. The first is Auset's knit maxi-dress that reminds me of a Mondrian painting. The second is Sandira's "boxy pouch", for which she was also kind enough to provide a link to the tutorial.

And finally... Carnival of Green Crafts #5! I think my favorite this time was the person who made paper out of daylily leaves. And a stick to beat them with. (I guess blenders don't work for pulpifying plant matter that wasn't already turned into paper.) Kind of makes me regret all those daylily leaves I had to toss at the garden center. But I guess there's no chance that homemade leaf paper would be acid-free for scrapbooking....is there?

Finishing details and holiday projects

Been doing a lot lately...

My mom and I made these on Saturday morning. The original plan was to collect the pinecones ourselves, but the forecast called for rain so we picked up some cinnamon-scented ones at the store instead, and then glittered them up. (Red, gold, silver and green for the colors, but only the green is pictured here because I didn't have time to get them all on the table drying.)



Then I spent Saturday night into Sunday hanging out at Nicole's--she worked on some artwork for a coloring pages job she's doing, and I worked on scrapbook pages. No pics now, and most of them were adding text to already mostly-finished pages, but I still got about 10 pages done. Which, since I'd figured I had about 50 outside of the travel albums, is pretty darn good for helping me catch up.



I also spent some time fixing this skirt. It's an old picture because I'm too lazy to take a new one. Anyway, it looks the same, all I did was take it in a bit, which involved hand-sewing in the zipper and then sewing the lining back down to it. It took a couple attempts to get the side seam to lie flat again after that, but I think it'll look better now.

I'm having a sick day today, unfortunately--had to cancel teaching and such. So I've been working on Nicole's scarf, which will hopefully be done tonight or tomorrow, and I also made these two necklaces for Mom's stocking. She wanted a black or a natural one, so I made both. Sort of. Turns out my "black" beads are actually a deep red garnet, but next to the black sweater I'm wearing today, it still looks black. So hopefully that'll be close enough.


Oh yeah... my attempt at the Nottingham shirt from the last post is officially on. I went to Goodwill on Friday and found two green shirts that looked like they might work well for it. So they're washed and waiting for me to finish the brocade jacket.

Have a crafty jolly Christmas...

We finally put the tree up today-- due to the family cat being a bit on the schizophrenic side (ok, maybe more than a bit), we've been putting it up later and unable to use many of the ornaments we used to because she's a tree-climber. But we did come across some old ornaments that I needed to add to my personal stash. So in many ways, this post is a tribute to my mom, from whom I picked up most of my craftiness because she was doing stuff with me like teaching me to sew as soon as I was old enough to get how the machine worked.


When I was young, Mom started the tradition of making ornaments each year, and setting one of the resulting ornaments aside for me and one for my brother, so that someday when we both move out we'll have some ornaments to get started with for our own trees. These were some of the results:







(I think you can tell I'm a child of the 80s based on materials alone, but they're cute.)















And, of course, as I got older, I began to help her with the ornaments, the earliest ones being these painted ceramic ones.

Of course I jumped all over the Tweety one, because hey, music.


And I also helped with these seashell ones and the elf.

But she still made these ones for us. (I need to fix that bottom one...)

I'm at the point now where I can start making some of my own. Both of these were from a couple years ago-- the beaded snowflakes were from a kit (clear on cream background, brilliant of me), and the cat is made from polymer clay, much of which was painted, and a firm belief that Christmas ornaments feature too many trumpets and not enough flutes.

I'm glad for this tradition now-- when I eventually have my own tree, I think it'll be a lot more meaningful to have ornaments with some actual meaning and memory behind them rather than the cookie-cutter storebought ones. And if I ever have kids of my own someday, I hope it's one I can carry on with them.

On a less nostalgic note, having come to the conclusion that I need my own Christmas tradition anyway, I'm seriously considering making some ornaments for myself as well this year. I hope it's not too ambitious on my part, as I have Nicole's present to work on, as well as a need to get started on my swap stuff. I did get some supplies for the main project yesterday. At this point, I'm thinking perhaps I should concentrate on that more after Christmas is done though.

On a non-related note, if anyone who's familiar with how Blogger works is reading this, can you please explain to me how to avoid getting these stupid huge gaps between things in multiple-picture posts? I've been trying with the formatting since I started this blog, and I just can't seem to get it!