Someone in this house is turning 30 today. I borrowed a wonderful idea from Maggie Mason and came up with 30 little gifts to give him for his birthday.



I wrapped them all in craft paper with bright ribbons and they do make quite a display. Peter was very surprised to see them all this morning. Finding/buying/making and wrapping all those presents has been taking up a lot of my time lately. I also put together a happy birthday banner - it's the same fabric as the stroller blankie because when Pete saw that he said it was the perfect color of blue.

Happy birthday, sweetie, I hope it's a great one!

Labels: crafts, family, sewing

On our ski trip last week we were lucky enough to get to celebrate our niece and nephew's 11th birthday with them! To save on luggage room I didn't bring their gifts along, so they are going to be a bit belated. I got an adorable cross-stitch kit for my niece (this one) because she loves crafting, and made these little covered button hair accessories. The purple pair are hairbands and the little flowers are bobby pins. These were so fun and quick to make up! Definitely more of these in my future.

Also a bit belated, my goals for April:
1. Stroller blankie for a new little girl.
2. Finish binding Red Barn quilt and clean up guest room. (March fail!)
3. Wedding embroidery for some friends that got married in March.
4. Artwork for above Ben's changing table.

Considering how crummy I did on my March goals these might be extra ambitious!!

March Goals:
1. Buttons for swap - finished and mailed on time!
2. Finish circle quilt top.
3. Bind Red Barn quilt. About half done with hand-sewing.
4. Pick up guest room enough to make the bed! Not done!!

Labels: crafts, monthly goals

I started my day by giving up on a quilt, admitting it was a big *fail* for the first time in my short quilt-making history. Luckily the day improved steadily from there, including helping set up for a baby shower tomorrow (see above standby tissue pom poms), having a nice lunch with my hubby, getting a pedicure, and having my family over for fajitas and black bean soup and tres leches. I hope you all had an equally lovely Valentine's Day!

Labels: crafts, misc

My sister posted a really cute idea on her blog today - play pizza!





A simple project using easy to find materials that takes about 10 minutes. Perfect! It doesn't hurt that it is being demonstrated by my adorable nephew. What a great idea!

Labels: crafts

These are for my niece Maegan, for her newly decorated bedroom. I could have used a little more practice with the Mod Podge (there are some wrinkles) but I think they will look great on her wall. The "A" has loops to hold photos and is from PBTeen with some added fabric and ribbon for color-coordination.

Labels: crafts, paper craft

I got these adorable felt letters from MiChiMa and attached magnets to the back so they can go on the fridge. I'm sending them along with a baby present for a big brother. I like the so much more than plastic letters.

Labels: crafts, etsy

I'd had this idea in my head for ages and Martha gave me the push to do it when this project showed up in my mailbox. I used plain knobs instead of thread spools and I enlisted my husband's help to drill holes in the top for short pieces of dowel rod, for rings. I think they're adorable. I hope my nieces like them! After the holidays I think I'll have to make myself one.

Labels: crafts

A couple weeks ago my sister handed me a navy blue shirt to turn into a Rice shirt for an upcoming football game. This led to some glitter experimentation, and when I felt it would work, I set out to make a Rice shirt. Well...



The brush slipped, and while the nice thing about fabric paint is that it doesn't wash out, the crummy part about fabric paint is that it doesn't wash out. Luckily I have a very understanding sister, and she even suggested the fix:



Voila! The spot is... well... harder to see! It turned out that we got free tickets to the same football game, so I whipped up my own shirt - without the footballs (and no "oops" spot) so we wouldn't completely match!



I did end up finding glitter everywhere when I wore it, so that part of my freezer paper stencil obsession may have to fall by the wayside!

Labels: crafts

In the past few years, when a celebrity has passed away, I haven't been any more upset than I would be hearing about any other stranger who had died. For some reason, though, when I read that Steve Irwin had been killed, it made me very sad. I know he did crazy things, and I've heard some say they're surprised something like this didn't happen sooner... But I feel the world has lost someone who truly loved life, who found success doing something they loved and sharing it with others, and who truly valued his family.

I was inspired to finally embellish a black tshirt that has been in my "to do" pile for ages...





You'll be missed, Mr. Erwin!

Labels: crafts

After taking on my simple stencil project and it turning out so well, I decided to take on something a little more complicated.

I've been wanting a shirt with the logo of my cousin, Johnny Chop, for a while, and that desire only grew when Johnny passed away in March. I got one of my favorite tshirts and black paint, and used a bumper sticker as a template.



I couldn't be happier with how it came out.

Labels: crafts

I finally tried playing with shrinky dinks. There have been some amazing shrink plastic pins here and here and so many more that I can't find right now. Since I've never played with free-form shrink plastic, I decided to try something a little larger just to play. Here are my shapes before decorating:



The package said I could use acrylic paint, which I had already, so I painted them up:



They didn't shrink so well. They're mostly all curled, and despite leaving them in the oven like the directions said, they never flattened out on their own.



The flower is especially bad.



And as Peter pointed out, paint doesn't shrink, so some of them ended up with interesting effects:



But a couple of them did turn out neat, if slightly curly:





All of these only used one of the many sheets that came in the pack, so I get to try again. I think next time I'll use colored pencils instead of paint!!

Labels: crafts

I am so late onto this bandwagon, but I finally made some marble magnets! There was a neat ad for scrapbook paper in one of my magazines, and I liked the samples but needed an idea for them... ta da, magnets!



I'm not sure I used the right kind of glue, or if they'll last, but it was fun and cheap, so I don't care!

Labels: crafts, paper craft

I made this fall decoration a week or two ago. I got the idea from a book I checked out from the library - crafts for under $10. The price was about right - I got enough pumpkins for this and another one for $3, the terra cotta pot was only $1, the leaves are from a garland (enough for more) for $3, and the raffia was $1 or so for enough for more than one topiary... So I think this came out pretty cheap! It doesn't look as good as I wanted, but it's cute, and sits on our kitchen counter. Maybe I'll try another one and it will look better!

Labels: crafts