For Valentine's Day

Were you as taken with these felt, rose clips from Purl as I was? I immediately found a scrap of red felt and tried one out. So cute and pretty easy to make. A bit time consuming, but satisfying in the end. I used a bigger barrette than the pattern called for. Those little ones just don't hold enough hair. It was easy, I just made the pieces that cover the barrette a bit bigger. It did take a few tries to get it right, but it worked out just fine. I made one for each of my nieces and one each for my girls.
While the girls were making their Valentines I made a few as well. I think they are pretty sweet. The doily is actually quite small only 4 inches across or so. The initial is stamped on using the girls' set of alphabet stamps. Now to get them in the mail. They'll be late, of course. That's how it goes with long distance love.
Last year we made this I Love You garland. We still have it up! It has faded quite a bit and lost a few hearts, but we still enjoy looking at it. This year it's all about the Love Note Pillows. I saw another clever use for pants' pockets today. Have a look (scroll down a bit).

Finished Project Update

It's nice to actually have cause for an update. I had a very productive weekend. It felt good.

Cake stand from Design*Sponge. Made this awhile ago, but I haven't been able to get a decent photo. This is a tricky little bugger. Think the lemons helped.

Embroidered drawing, inspiration from The Creative Family by Amanda Soule. The embroidery on this one took considerably longer than the Kitty Wall Hanging. This one is set on some decorative paper and then inserted in a clip frame. See the original drawing here.

Skirt with fabric from Marf who was de-stashing, consequently I ended up "stashing." This is the first skirt I've ever sewn. Good thing you can't see it too closely. I've got plans for more!

Rag Dolls - Strawberry Style

My obsession with strawberries continues . . . I spent most of Sunday afternoon trying to make a strawberry rag doll. That is a rag doll who's body is a strawberry. Let me explain. I'd recently watched Emily Martin, of The Black Apple fame, show Martha Stewart how to create darling rag dolls. Inspired, I printed out the directions and templates and decided to give it a go. Only I didn't use the templates (that's where I got into trouble) as I wanted my doll to have a strawberry for a body. Didn't turn out so well. See my first attempt here. So I ripped it apart, salvaging the head and limbs and settled for something simpler. Behold Stella Strawberry!

During my mad frenzy of sewing, I thought about the other 2 rag dolls I own (remember, I'm going through a huge nostalgia phase.) Both made by my mom. The kitty doll is special because she is stuffed with my baby blanket. The polka dot doll hung on the wall of my nursery along with many others. She is the only one that remains. My clever mom.

I took many pictures for this post, only to find out they are too small and pixelated. Anyhoo, I figured out the problem, but can't remedy the pictures I already took. Very disappointing . You can see them on my flickr steam if you're interested. . . I need to go to bed.

Stuff I Wanna Make

Would you believe I crossed one thing off my list today? Yeah, it was even before I had this list. Wow. Here goes:

1) A Terrarium - Saw these adorable ones on The Crafty Crow. The photography in this tutorial is amazing. My terrarium will definitely have to include gnomes, mushrooms and deer. I'm thinking succulent for the plants, though.

2) Cupcake Pops - from Bakerella. She is totally amazing and these cupcake pops are absolutely adorable (could also be described as barfy cute. Hi, E.L.) Ms. Bakerella was on The Martha Stewart Show demonstrating this cupcake phenomena. Now, to create a reason to make these. Anyone having a birthday? p.s. I also want to make this recipe. It'll be the perfect Book Club dessert.

3) Recycled Cakestands - Found at design*sponge. And just so you know, in my mind I've already made gobs of these and given them to all my friends. They all *loved* 'em.

4) Homemade Pretzels - Crossed this off my list today! I saw this on The Crafty Crow and for some reason it stayed with me. Just had to make the soft pretzels. You'll find the recipe here at Pepper Paints. It is touted to be the famous (or infamous) Aunt Annie's recipe. Ya know what? They really did taste like Aunt Annie's. They were delicious. This was a wonderful project. My 4 year old loved it, my nearly 2 year old was content holding a chunk of dough and watching. I was content eating WAY too many. Needless to say, a good time was had by all. Easy, fun, delicious and not too messy - all the makings of a great kid project. Try it.

Blog Projects

If you haven't checked out The Crafty Crow yet, you really must. My oldest and I just tried the Straw Painting. She was so into it! It ended when I started to worry about her passing out from all the blowing. Here are the top 3 projects I'd like to get to next:

1) Homemade Chia Pet
2) Paper Doll Chains
3) Nature Boxes



Separate from kid projects, I stumbled across The Purl Bee ~ an absolute GOLDMINE. It is full of fabulous projects, tutorials and loads of inspiration. Here are the 3 projects that I'm newly obsessed with:

1) ZigZag Quilt
2) Good Luck Gift Bags
3) Swatch Portraits

M.M.L. (More Monkey Love)

Here are Mrs. Pink and lovely lime green. The pink one has eye lashes and nostrils done with embroidery thread. The lime green monkey really really wanted to have button eyes, but I don't have any buttons. Found some that would have been perfect on a Hawaiian shirt of my husband's. Brown coconut shell buttons. Was very tempted to cut them off but, through a little self-talk, realized that wasn't the way to go. I have a vision of yet ANOTHER trip to Joann's in my future.

Monkey Love

Okay, I've had sock monkeys on my mind since Christmas due to the sock monkey calendar and a devilish sock monkey tree ornament given to me by my mom. So during lap time (not mine) last week I whipped up this shirt for my oldest daughter! Whaddya think? Found the puffy sleeved brown shirt at Old Navy on clearance - wish I would have bought every last one they had. I'm going to make 2 more - for my youngest and niece. I have some pink fabric all cut out. Love pink and brown. Not sure if I'll offer these shirts in my shop although they are very fun to make! I love going through my scrap bags and using up all my bits and pieces. Check back to see more monkey love!

Product Review - Clover Mini Iron

I've been eying this gadget for some time and was super excited when I received it from my mom at Christmas. I hoped it would make ironing the unfinished edges back on the fabric squares I use for my oneises much neater and easier. The good news is that it does work - it actually created a crease that kept the unfinished edges back. However, it took twice as long as my regular iron and didn't keep them back as well. I think the iron needs 3 improvements. It needs to be hotter, heavier and needs a steam feature. The bottom line: A regular iron works *much* better. This will work, though, if a regular size iron is too big for your project.

Have you used a new product or gadget and want to give the low down? Send me your reviews and I'll post them on my blog.