john's first father's day.

While we were still in LA, I bought fabric for a bag to make for John, but I couldn't get my machine to work with canvas. I figured it was just too thick, but then, at Christmas last year, I discovered I've been putting my needles into the machine backwards...like a complete dope. When I tried to sew the canvas with the needle facing the right direction, it worked just like it was supposed to. Well, it worked anyway. I found canvas (technically, this was called duck cloth, whatever that is) to be incredibly hard to work with because it has no give whatsoever. It barely even folds. I could cut it like paper, but trying to turn it inside out to work on a detail was a little like working with cardboard...or something that doesn't want to be turned inside out or manipulated at all. So, all this means that I had to make special concessions throughout. I also made tons of mistakes, but I don't think most people will notice...but..you know...I do. John seems pretty psyched about it though.

Here's the front:



I have more pictures here.

Almost immediately after finishing John's bag (which, now that I say that, isn't totally finished because I'm thinking of adding a cell phone pocket to the strap), I started working on a quilt for Jack. I finished it up tonight. I'm in love with the contemporary, not-too-babyish fabrics.

christmas crafting recap.

Now that Christmas is over and I have time to breathe again, I put up pictures of the gifts I made for Christmas. They are here. The gifts pictured are: a cross stitch piece for my sister that says "Life is a Journey," a lap quilt for Mickey (John's mom) that matches the pillows I made for her for Mother's Day, a tablerunner for my mom inspired by a Frank Lloyd Wright stained glass window, and crayon rolls for my nephews. I also made a candle holder for Mom (it didn't photograph very well) and some raspberry rhubarb jam for my dad.

We went to Atlanta for my birthday and New Year's. It was nice to take a break after crafting at break-neck speeds and working through the holidays. I had a nice time and got to sit and read. And now January is half over already. Unbelievable.

red alert: christmas crafting in december.

As my mother and sister will attest, I'm already sick of Christmas music. Not all Christmas music sucks, mind you, but there seems to be a wild theme this year, where ever I go, that the likes of Wayne Newton, Neil Diamond, and worst of all Johnny Mathis will be there, destroying perfectly fine carols. Johnny Mathis has the anti-Christmas voice to me. I hear his voice and I immediately want to punch something. And I'm not a violent person, normally. He just hits a nerve. A very irritable nerve that likes to punch things.

As Christmas gets closer and closer, I'm trying to pull together all the projects I started throughout the fall in my attempt to make as many gifts as possible. I've been thinking about Christmas gifts since late August or so. Unfortunately, I didn't get near enough done before December, so I have three weeks to do a lot of crafting. I'm actually kind of excited about it. It feels sort of like a challenge. I finished a gift earlier this week and I'm close to finishing another. The clock is ticking...

christmas ideas.

I tried working on a rather ambitious project yesterday. It's a Christmas present, so I won't go into details. I didn't get very far with it. In fact, I got just far enough to realize it's going to be harder to do than I thought. I'm going to figure it out, but I wasn't up to the task yesterday.

My goal is for all of the gifts John and I give this year to be handmade. A couple of them might be made using John's fancy-pants computer, rather than something more traditional like a sewing machine or Elmer's glue, but this is my plan and I make the rules. I've almost finished my sister's present. I know what I want to do for my mom, but I'm not sure when I'll ever be able to actually go get the stuff to make it. My dad's gift is a little up in the air still. I have no ideas yet for my brother-in-law or my father-in-law, but I've got ideas like crazy for my nephews. Some of my ideas for the boys include:
Soap with little toys suspended in it
Dress-up hats (this might be too hard for me, we'll see)
Felt puppets
Crayon rolls, like this
And I've also thought of some stuff that might be fun to do with printable magnet paper, if I can find it.

It's the beginning of October, so I'm giving myself until mid-November to start working on these things in earnest. If I'm still nowhere with the gift-making process by then, I'll break down and start shopping. We shall see...

nice fabric is way too hard to find.

I'm watching Pocahontas. I love this movie so much that I can't make objective observations of it. It's a cartoon based on real people, but, like, none of it is true. But I freaking love it. I remember seeing it in the theater with my grandparents and my cousin Megan. Megan and I were super-crazy into Pocahontas.

I've had the music from this movie in my head for two days, so it's a relief to finally hear it. Yesterday, Amy and I went to our store and put furniture together. Today, I stayed home and worked on our book order. My head feels fuzzy from overconcentration. (That isn't a word, is it? It is now!) As stressed out as I feel and as worried as I am, as I stood in my living room earlier, looking at my bare windows, I realized it has been way easier for me to start pulling together a bookstore than for me to make curtains. Which is why I still don't have curtains. That makes no sense. Why don't I have curtains?

fishy business.

Here's Mickey (John's mom) with the pillows I made for her for Mother's Day. She really liked the Route 66 pillow I made for my mom and asked that I make something for her. Their living room is a yummy sherbet green color and she and Gus love to fish, so I made these fishy, green pillows.



My sister has been telling me I should make a bunch more and sell them. Each one took about 2-3 hours, not including shopping for fabric, so I could make several in a day. Plus, if I didn't make each one unique, I could save time cutting all the fabric at once, since the measurements would be the same. I don't know if I'll do it, but I'm thinking about it.

group photo.

That's basically everything. The only things not there are the things I gave away (the bracelet, the photo box, and the pillow) and those plastic bag wallet things, which I can't find.

i'm so glad april is over.

I did my last craft today. Well, not my last ever, but the 30 Days of April Craft Challenge of Death is over. The amazing thing is, I still had an idea for a project I never got around to making and I just bought fabric this week--some today, in fact--for multiple projects. I had a major fight with my sewing machine on Monday. I had to manhandle the thing to finish this bag. I had planned on a cute ric-rac accent, but when I had to sew the handles on by hand, I decided a plain, ric-rac-less bag was good enough for me. I was surprised the machine worked so well today, when I made this pillow (the small, black one):



I even used my fancy zipper/piping pressure foot (something that was way more exciting to me than it should've been). I can't account for what made the difference. I'm just happy it worked.

little glove kids.

Even though I did have an artsy, craftsy evening with my nephews on Friday, it didn't really feel like I'd fulfilled my April obligation. As I sat on my couch, vegging out after the evening of babysitting, I noticed the castoff fingers I cut off the glove to make Georgia's head. (If that sounds bizarre, and I can see how it would, read my last post.) I always love coordinating toys and the idea of toys for toys, so I made a finger puppet that looks like Georgia. It tickles me.

Yesterday I made another little glove doll, but this time I had the right kind of gloves. It looks much more like an actual animal, but it isn't nearly as cute or endearing to me. To make up for it's institutional look, today's craft was a pink fleece scarf embellished with buttons. I haven't named it yet, but I'm leaning towards Irma (we watched "Irma la Douce" last night while I made it), but it sort of looks like a boy. By the way, Jack Lemmon is hilarious in "Irma la Douce".

funny little glove girl.

A few weeks ago, shortly before the April Crafting Marathon of Doom started, I found this video for making animals out of gloves on the Martha Stewart website. The girl who runs a blog I check from time to time called Homemade by Jill made an adorable bunny using these directions. When I was at a grocery store with my mom yesterday, I saw a pair of gloves of $1 and instantly thought: "Glove dog!" Before April started and I became craft obsessed, I probably wouldn't have even remembered the idea of glove animals. But now...every free second I have, my brain is full of felt and glue.

Unfortunately, the gloves weren't the right kind. They had the thumb offset into the palm. You know the kind. Well, that made my project turn out a little wonky because I didn't have a straight side and had to overstitch to compensate. Plus, the head didn't turn out right. Partially for the same reason, but also because I had to cut off the cuff and then the whole thing was a little too small. But since I didn't cut the cuff off the one that made the body, when I went to sew the head on, it had a giraffe neck. To fix that, I folded down the cuff and stitched the head to the middle. The ears are pointing in odd angles, so it looks nothing like a dog, even when I fold them over, so I didn't bother pinning them down. So. It's a little alien creature. And I actually really like her.



I think the kicked-out leg makes her look saucy. I embraced her essential wonkiness and gave her mismatched, but super girly eyes.



I named her Georgia because I watched a few episodes of "Designing Women" (takes place in Atlanta, theme song is "Georgia On My Mind") and an episode of "Futurama" with the Harlem Globetrotters (constant whistling of "Sweet Georgia Brown") while I made her. I think she looks like she'd be into poetry and Elliot Smith.

Tonight John and I babysat our nephews with my mom. My "thing" for today feels a little like cheating: an afternoon of fingerpainting and bookmark making. I'm putting up pics in the gallery.

clown or caballero?

Yesterday my mom showed me her stash of old patterns and this afternoon I went over to her house and kidnapped the whole box when no one was home. Shocking! Don't worry. I'll give 'em back...

Here's one of the most awesome ones:



I love this for so many reasons. I love the illustrations, which isn't surprising. But more than that, I love the combination. Why a clown and a caballero? Is it because they both start with C? If so, did McCalls also make a "Boys' or Girls' Lumberjack and Lederhosen Costumes" pattern set? The possibilities of alliterative strange profession and cultural dress combinations fascinates me. (Especially since I can't think of any more.) But I love this pattern the most because my grandmother actually made it using the colors on the package. I didn't know people ever did that. Here I am in my grandparents' backyard in 1985:



Obviously, it was probably about 1987 or '88 when it actually fit me. It wasn't made for me, after all. By the '80's, I think maybe McCalls would've been selling Rockstar / Russian Soldier combos.

I scanned the image, printed it, cut it out, took the covers off an an ugly and unused journal, recovered the covers with fancy paper, stuck on the clown and caballero, covered the covers with Contact paper, punched out the holes, and put the covers back on. My inspiration came from this blog. Here's how it turned out:

nature craft.

I made a couple of nature-themed crafts to close out the week. The first was my Thursday craft, a photo box:



It's just a plain, white photo box that I decorated. (What I mean to say is that I didn't build the box, I just made it pretty.) I used some gorgeous Amy Butler papers that I got back in November and have been saving for something good. Something with...longevity. Seriously, when I found this paper at Michael's, I nearly cried. I've briefly mentioned Amy Butler before, but I don't think I can really express how in love I am with her designs. I want to frame each piece of paper. Or wallpaper my bedroom with it. Or maybe just the inside of a box so that I can crawl into it when I'm sad and be hypnotized back into cheerfulness by its awesome colors and beautiful shapes. Yeah. I like this paper.



This is the box lid. Cutting out that tree was sort of a horrible idea. The outcome was totally worth it--I love how the green-yellow pops off the hot pink background. And I love that it's got the obvious "family tree" metaphor going for it. But it took forever. I mean it. I must have been cutting that tree for at least 3 hours. I'm sort of obsessed with photo organization and this is the first in a series of boxes meant to sort out my family's oldest photos while still allowing them to be thumbed through individually. I think there's something pleasantly tactile about looking at pictures and I want to preserve that.



These little candles were my craft for today. I had all the supplies for making a candle already, but I've never bought a mold before. (Anna and I used dog toys as molds in our Tuesday Craft Days of yore.) So, I called up my mom this afternoon and said, "Hey, got any sand?" And without asking me why, because she's my mom and she knows that I occasionally have very random needs, she said yes. And, because she's also a grandmother, she indeed had a whole box of sand! Yay! I made holes in the sand and poured my molten, honey-suckle-scented wax into the holes. Twenty minutes later, I shook off the sand to reveal these lumpy little guys. They were easy to make and I think setting up this little scene really jazzed 'em up. Perhaps fresh spring greens and wildflowers would make all my crappier projects look nice? Ah well, they're not bad. And anyway, they're not for indoor use 'cause the sand will constantly be falling off. Ideally, these sandy candles should be made with citronella wax. But whatever. They're sorta shoddy, but the more I downplay them, the more I like them.

I have no idea what I'm making tomorrow. I have a pretty bad cold right now and the NyQuil I had last night is taking its sweet time wearing off and not making me feel light-headed. I'm getting sick of crafting and have already killed my good glue stick. I've bought a cheap replacement that I'm sure I'm just going to love. But at this point, I don't care to glue anything. Ever again.

for post #300, my favorite non-aquatic animal.

Here's a close-up view of today's thing:



I stenciled this pretty blue okapi onto a shirt using freezer paper, just like I did with the Godzilla tie. This design is much more detailed though and took me quite a lot longer. I think I love this even more than my 80's necklace.

Thanks to John for drawing the feet!

april's half over.

John was gone basically all weekend for guys-only, somebody's-getting-married partying. And at first I thought, "Okay, cool, it's been a long time since I had an evening to my self. It might be nice to have a night without watching any part of Future Weapons or anything with exploding heads, zombies, giant monsters, or robots." Well, it started out well. My Friday craft was placemats made from Christmas cards I've been saving for the past few years for just that purpose. I hung out at my parents' house and made brownies and watched "White Christmas" (it was a theme) and my mom helped me with the placemats. The idea for the placemats came from ones my grandmothers both made. They cut circles out of the card fronts though, rather than squares, and the end product was sort of oval-shaped. That was fun, but then I went home to my creaky, empty house in the deep, dark woods. Alone. Yeah. So what did I do to take my mind off my troubles? Cross stitch and Designing Women! I pulled through.

After I finished John's tie on Saturday, I spent my evening watching the new movie Lifetime has been pushing for months (I usually hate Lifetime movies, but this one was based on a book I've been sort of wanting to read) and working on the cross stitch thing. The movie, "The Memory Keeper's Daughter," was flat and boring and further confirmed that I should only watch Lifetime for the recycled sit-coms. The cross stitch was a kit from the big craft box from when I was in high school. I think there are two more in the box with different designs. This one took a while, so I'm not sure if I want to tackle another one this month.

John being gone for two nights totally sucked. I was lonely and bored. Whatever happened to enjoying an evening alone? Ah, well. He came back on Sunday anyway.

I finished up the cross stitch kit last night:



We watched "Atonement" last night, too, and I really hated it. I think this little stitched flower has bad movie joojoo.

finally figured this one out.

This was a project I tried before Christmas, so I could give John something extra special. I didn't really know what I was doing then and I just made a huge mess. Today, after some research, I made this:



I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

fishy paper cuttin'.

I've still been crafting every day. I'm running out of ideas. Plus, I can't figure out what's up with my sewing machine. It's either the tension or the needle...or it's just bad thread. Who knows? Anyway, it's annoying. Here's my thing for today:



I really had fun with this one. I want to do more in this direction. In that box of stuff from my younger crafting years, there's about 10 X-acto knife blades. (Awesome!) I want to start doing more detailed designs, too. We shall see...

it was laura in the tv room with a glue stick!

We had a great weekend with Jim, his lovely girlfriend Abby, and Adam. They got here late Friday night and headed out on Sunday afternoon. Plus, Chris came by on Saturday, too. What do we do to show our guests a good time? Let them cook for us and suggest to play board games! Our friends are awesome! They love Clue as much as we do!

My Sunday project was sort of lame. It turned out fine, but it was so easy I felt guilty letting it count. I just did a little rubber stamp embossing:



To make up for yesterday's lameness, I spent more time on today's thing than any of the others. It's a little booklet with 8 blank pages:



There are bigger pictures here.

today, a bracelet!

We have company for the weekend, so I had to do this quickly this morning.

this one was quick.

My thing for today:

eighties charms or eighties' charm?

Oh, yay! Oh, yay! Oh, yay! I love the thing I made today! I made a necklace I know I'm actually going to wear. The big charms are made from Shrinky Dinks. The images are from books I had as a kid, but they're of characters that were already 80's-fabulous and famous: some random, big-haired Barbie, a few Muppet Babies (Piggy, Kermit, and Fozzie), and a couple Fraggles (Red and Mokey). The other charms are vintage Lisa Frank. About a month ago, I got 3 boxes of craft supplies that were mine from before I went to college. (My mom had boxed it all up to make room in their family room closet for stuff people actually use.) I went through the stuff this morning and it was awesome! Rubber stamps, card stock, fabric crayons, and tons of beads, just for starters. That's where I found the Lisa Frank charms. One of the ones I chose was the painting rainbow panda. Love it! Technically, he's from the 90's, but I think he looks quite at home with Princess Piggy.

Here are all the charms:



My favorite thing about this necklace is that the charms all clump together, so it looks different depending on how it lies. Examples: