Win A Silhouette Cameo!

I just wanted to take a quick second to tell you the amazing thing that is going on today.
Little Miss Momma is giving away a Silhouette Cameo!!! I'm super excited. Those of you who are my facebook friend can tell because I have been entering giveaway's all morning. Go over there and check it out, There are also some more giveaways, check my blog roll to enter more.

Craft Clay Ornaments

Keeping with my "what everybody got for Christmas" series of posts, this next one was also for my husband but from the kids. We made craft clay ornaments and I had the little one paint them for his daddy. I even painted one myself with baby girl's hand print, as a baby's first christmas kind of thing. Sorry I don't have any pictures of him working with the dough cutting out the ornaments. We were having so much fun I totally forgot to take pictures.

Normally I like to use salt dough, but I wanted to try something different and actually make something that I have pinned on pinterest. So I used this Easy Craft Clay recipe I had found. You use baking soda and corn starch (that's where your box of  baking soda went honey haha) and cook it on the stove, which was really cool to watch. It also comes out a bright white color which was nice.

Noah LOVED playing  with the dough, he rolled it and smashed it, after we cut out all the ornaments we needed (using a glass, and a straw for the hole) he played with the left over dough for a few hours, it took forever to get him to stop.

One thing I did not like was that the bigger ones we made cracked. You were supposed to let this air dry, which takes a few days, and over those days the craking starts. I would have much rather used a salt dough next time and baked it so that it came out right. But who knows, it could have been something I had done wrong. If you try it let me know how it turns out.

It took a while to get nana's handprint right, the internet makes it seem easy, but it's not, she did not like it. I even tried her foot, which i realized was too big to actually hang. When I first painted it, it didn't look christmas enough, so I added glitter with Mod Podge. I recommend if you do, add Mod Podge to top to seal it in. I just added the words with a fine tip sharpie.

He also had fun painting them, I was a little nervous about letting him use my acrylic paints because I never painted with him before but he was very good and we both had a blast. I tried to coax him into using more christmas colors,  but then I figured he was having fun let him do what he wants. But next time I think I may draw designs on a few for him to work on painting in the lines.

Stenciled Apron

Hope everybody had a wonderful Holiday. I know that I did! Christmas being over always makes me a little sad because I love it so much, but I am excited I get to share with you all the fun projects I made as gifts this year.

This first one was for my husband. A stenciled apron I made using freezer paper. Now this was my first time using freezer paper stencils and I am VERY happy with the results and have to use this technique more.

The technique is pretty easy and doesn't really need a tutorial but for the newbies to this I'll just tell you how I did it. First thing I did was cut my paper to 8 1/2 X 11  and printed off my design (on the matte side). After I had already printed it out, I had the idea to next time just set the font to an outline to save computer ink.

I taped my paper to the back of my cutting mat and cut the shapes out with an x-acto knife. Clumsy / accident prone people shouldn't have sharp objects, so the whole time I kept saying to myself go slowly and carefully. Once my hand started to get a little shaky I stopped and finished again later.

Once all cut out place on your fabric (don't forget to put the little pieces back inside, like in the D and the A) shiny side down. Iron down the paper with your iron setting to a medium to high setting. DO NOT over iron! After it sticks and looks good, stop. I think I started to over iron a bit and it started to picker up and not stick anymore in some places. Once attached take out our paint and paint away!

 Here it is all painted before I removed paper. Removing the paper is easy it just pulls right off any doesn't leave anything sticky. There were a few spots around the edges where it sort of bled through but that was where I over ironed, I think it adds character and over all I am happy how it turned out, and the hubs loved it!

Last Minute Gifts - Crochet Cowel

Today I wanted to show you one of my (very) last minute Christmas gifts that I made. Last Thursday my husband comes home and asks me to make something for his supervisor at work to give to her tomorrow. Freaking out on what to make with only having one skein of yarn and only a few hours I browsed raverly on a good and quick pattern. This cowl is super cute and only took about 5 hours of continuous work to complete ( I went to bed about 2am that night). I was super exhausted when I was done but was so proud I had created something so cute in such little time. You can find the pattern for this here and create one for yourself or as a last minute gift for someone else.

Lady A's Knits

Today I wanted to share with you a wonderful website called Lady A's Knits. This site is owned by my friend Andrea who makes WONDERFUL crochet scarves.

Everything is made by her from her original designs which are totally fab, and an even bigger plus is that each creation is a one of a kind so you will be the only one wearing it.

Here is just a sample of some of her creations

See that super cute dress on the mannequin.....it's made of wrapping paper....yeah, she's that amazing.

Check out her page now, place an order for a scarf or two (or a dozen). She also does custom work so she can supply all your warm and cozy crochet needs.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Today I thought I would share with you the hub's Christmas gift from last year. This adorable little crochet Christmas tree with matching tree skirt and even little yarn covered presents to put under.

This was such an easy project to do, it was my first "amigurumi" type project that wasn't a hat or a scarf, and although a very last minute idea (made on Christmas eve) I was very pleased with the outcome. Honestly it took only a couple hours for the tree itself, would have been shorter if I didn't have to keep pulling it out and starting over.

I found the pattern for it online, you can see it here, for my tree, however, I used a regular green worsted weight yarn (Lion Brand's Vanna's Choice) and the size hook it said on the label. Also I used some brown yarn and made a circle the same diameter as the bottom, stuffed, and sewed it on. This is stuffed with an old t-shirt because at the time its all I had, but I'm sure you would get a much fuller tree with some poly-fill.

For the skirt I just made a circle with a double crochet stitch until I liked the size,then added a scalloped edge. The yarn I used for this was Lion Brand's Homespun. I don't know if this is the correct way to do the edging, but the way I did it was: {single crochet in first double crochet, chain 4, skip next double crochet, single crochet in next}repeat around.

The boxes are just paper origami boxes. Here is the tute I used. I'm not quite sure how I made the smaller box, but it was made with paper also, after that I just used glue to wrap with yarn, used some yarn scraps to make a bow, and sat under the tree.

I have been wanting to make little ornaments to go on the tree, or at least a tree topper but I'm not quite sure how I wanted to make it. I felt that a topper should be made with yarn too, so if you have any ideas please leave them in a comment below ( I love stars, so if you know a pattern for a little 3D star that would be nice). I was thinking that for ornaments I would do pretty round beads on ear ring findings as bulbs, but I wasn't quite sure if it would look right since the tree "branches" are so close together. For right now, the simplistic look is just perfect.

I may make some garland from embroidery thread and beads.....when I ever find them in my boxes of stuff haha.