Eye Glass Bookmark

I made these bookmarks for some of my family members as Christmas gifts. The tutorial is here. I thought these were great for eye glasses or for pencils and highlighters.

toddler mittens

We are half way done with our Christmas vacation (sniff sniff). Portland was so full of snow (18 inches!) that we just cuddled inside a lot. My daughter isn't a fan of mittens because her little fingers couldn't work. I crocheted her some fingerless mittens with this pattern. And they are winners! I used Peaches and Cream cotton yarn. Probably a weird choose for mittens but that is what I had and thought the colors were fun for her. Punky Brewster like. Plus we found out this vacation that she does not like to touch snow so the chances of them getting wet are slim.

scenes of Christmas

We are off soon for a family Christmas. I have been having trouble deciding what craft I could bring with me to keep me busy and that transports well. I have a little embroidery to do so I might try to pick a few colors of floss but then it is so hard not to bring them all. But I am SOOOOO into crocheting right now. I stay up late every night working on some silly thing just to practice and try new stitches. Made some cute baby shoes the past two nights. seriously the cutest. so yarn and hooks are definately coming with me.

Oh if you are in the mood for Christmas music, Accu radio has a great selection and you can customize your songs. Merry Christmas!

felt letters

I read this yesterday on Posie Gets Cozy: "Isn't it a great time to be a crafter? There is so much out there for us to make. I LOVE IT." I was just thinking that too. I know we are in a time crunch to get crafts done before it is too late to mail, give, or enjoy, but really it is AWESOME all the ideas and sharing going on!

I got this great comment from Kindershop yesterday. She not only made the scribble ornaments she made the whole process easier! Thank you so much for sharing!


Okay on to the felt letters!


Basic directions and ideas are here. I hung Lilly's up in her room next to two other "L" projects. I should move on from the letters, for her at least. Lilly "made" the N for her BFF as a Christmas gift.

Last minute gift:

Crochet a kitchen scrubbie! These are so great. We have even used one to clean the shower! Tutorial and directions here. I made a bunch for Christmas goodies. I need more mesh!

The green is a thicker mesh material while the white is tulle. I like the tulle but the mesh ones seem sturdier.

purl bee birds

Yes these really are cuter in real life. Directions and pattern here. I think I will keep these up for awhile after Christmas maybe make some more. Sort of a happy January garland.

Crafting Food Night

This really shouldn't be called crafting food night, there is not enough time to eat with all the crafting going on! We made these mitten ornaments, directions and pattern here. I would love to make a whole row of them, use them as an advent, or hang them on the tree! The initial mitten seemed to be a big hit. We used the split stitch for the letters.

food gifts

Give me an A! Both of these recipes are AMAZING! We are making Oreo Truffles and Cinnamon Roasted Almonds for some food gifts.

I am seriously addicted to the truffles and they are really stinkin' easy. I tried using almond bark like the recipe. It was a sugary disaster. This stuff is weird. So I melted dark chocolate chips instead for the dipping. heaven. I keep these in the fridge because just a minute in hot hands will cause some meltage.


The almonds I have made before and can munch on these all day. I don't change the recipe one bit.

Happy Gifting!

stitched gift tags!

There are TONS of super cute and trendy gift tags out in blogland. Unfortunately, most of them look their best in color and I don't have a color printer. Stitched gift tags are where it's at for me. I am not going to reinvent the wheel. Make and Takes is where I learned how to stitch cards, her basic instruction post is here. The only thing I do different is instead of a punching awl and cork board, I use a push pin and carpet. I like doing these small gift tags because they take less time to stitch and there is something about a simply wrapped gift with ribbon and one of these cards attached. Click on the picture below to enlarge and print or click here for the pdf file.

ribbon stocking hanger

We have all this brick in our apartment that makes it hard to decorate. This ribbon stocking hanger was exactly how I wanted to hang our stockings. I didn't take pictures of each step because this was very spur of the moment but wrote the steps below.

:: Take two different sizes of ribbon. I sewed the top end of each ribbon together, just to make sure the smaller red ribbon would stay in the middle of the wider green ribbon.

:: Once I figured out where I wanted the stockings to hang, I sewed buttons through both pieces of ribbon with embroidery floss.

:: Attach the top of the hanger to the wall and hang the stockings!
These stockings are all handmade. The big ones were made by grandparents when we were both born. Lill's was knitted by a family friend. I am hoping to make new stockings for all of us soon that match but don't match (you know that mean?). I am still thinking of what I want to make and since we usually are blessed by spending Christmas with family, I will just keep thinking about all the possibilities.

Pillowcase dress of sorts

I didn't have a pillowcase but I had this old fabric. I think it might have been a bit stiff for this but oh well. I used this tutorial from Red Instead blog.
a little big huh? I took in the sides a few inches and then it fit pretty good after.

I like the look of this dress over jeans and a top. It should fit her for a few seasons too. Do you like that hat? I traded this Etsy seller some socks for it. If you wanted to purchase a hat like that it would cost you 10.00! Isn't that crazy cheap? This size was for a 3-12 month old and it barely fits my girl but she won't let me take it away.

ornaments

These little babies came from a post on CraftSylish. Super easy and super cute! I have done a lot of crafts covering and using cardboard lately. I wonder if making a big wreath would work with cardboard instead of a styrofoam form. Because I don't have any styrofoam but I do have a lot of cardboard and I have seen a lot of cute wreathe ideas but I didn't star them in google reader and I am feeling particularly lazy to go searching for them.

Skinny Scarf Crochet Pattern

I was trying to make a scarf for my niece. I really loved a pattern from the book, Teach Yourself to Visually Crochet (which by the way is an excellent tool for MANY stitches). I chose bright purple and snow white yarns for her scarf. The snow white goes in the middle of the purple. It looked so delicious in pink and white on the model in the book. Well as I am working up the scarf I realized I hated the purple with the snow white. It was too much of a drastic color change with the pattern. My husband was NO help at all in giving his opinion. He tried, he really tried to have an opinion but he just gave up (it was actually kind of cute, watching him search within himself for an opinion about this purple and snow white scarf!). Anyways, I ripped the stitches of the scarf out and came up with this pattern. I LOVE IT!! I think it will be perfect for my ultra stylish niece.


Skinny Scarf

Skill level: beginner
Yarn: Lionbrand homespun (I used Grape)
Hook: Size K
Swatch Gauge: it doesn't matter for this pattern, experiment!
Time: 1-2 hours

Finished Scarf Measures: 1 3/4 in x 98 in

Abbreviations
CH: chain
ESC: extended single crochet (Insert hook in next ch, yarn over, draw a loop through (2 loops on hook), yarn over, draw through one loop on the hook (2 loops still on hook), yarn over, draw through both loops on the hook.)

Starting Chain: Chain a VERY long chain. This pattern is worked in the length rather then the width. I lost count for how many chains I did but it measured 98 inches.

Row 1: Work 1 ESC into second CH from hook and in every CH across to last CH. CH 2, turn.

Row 2-3: Work 1 ESC into first stitch of row and in every stitch across to last stitch. Fasten off and weave in ends.


That is what I did but add more rows or use different yarn or whatever!

Questions on crochet basics? ask me or check out Craftmaina's blog

reindeer

embroidered reindeer flour sack towel

Isn't this pattern great?!! There is a whole bunch of cute patterns to download at Andrea Zuill's Blog. I really like her style of embroidery and found her blog just a few weeks ago. Speaking of new to me blogs. Check out Craft Gossip. She featured my scribble ornaments today here. What a plethora of how to's this site has! (One Pretty Thing also featured the ornaments yesterday!)