Crafting in General
Back to Blogging!
Did you miss me? Er, maybe I should ask, is anyone still here?! It’s been a much longer break than I anticipated, but I think things are settled enough around our house that I can jump back into blogging regularly. I have a long, long list of things to share, including tons of quilting, some new crafty pursuits and plenty of tutorials. I’m even hoping to have a few new patterns ready to release in the next several months. Continue reading
Mini Polaroid-Inspired Magnets ~ A Tutorial
Valentine’s Day is only a week away! These cute little mini Polaroid-inspired magnets are a great personalized gift, and they’re really simple to make. I made two sets as Christmas gifts this year – one for my mom and one for my mother-in-law, and they were well-received by both!
I’m including two different templates – one with fun Valentine’s Day sayings and one plain one that you can leave as is or add your own little love notes!
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Little Embroidered Hoop Ornaments ~ A Tutorial
This is my favorite of the projects that I completed this Christmas because these ornaments hold such special meaning for our family! I’m so excited to share it with you! A little over eleven years ago, my husband and I attended an orientation meeting for prospective foster parents here in Florida. We had four children at the time, ranging in age from 13 to 4. Since Florida only allows foster families to have a total of five children in their homes, we wondered if we really could make a difference. We felt like God was calling us to do this, though, so we began the process to become a foster family. We were licensed in June of 2004, and our first placement – a newborn baby girl, straight from the hospital – arrived a day later. That little one stayed with us just a few months, but she became a forever part of our family’s history. She was followed by twelve more little ones, all age 6 and under who came into our home for long and short periods of time, each one finding a forever place in our hearts as we poured ourselves into their lives and their families’ lives while working together to support them through reunification or placement with relatives. In November of 2006, we said good-bye to our last foster daughter, just weeks before we left for a new job in Texas.
Jethro the Christmas Elf
I loved the idea of surprising my two little guys every morning with something sort of Elf-on-the-Shelf-style, but more fun and less naughty. I’d intended to start on December 1st, but that just didn’t happen. Instead, I went with inspiration from the 12 Days of Christmas. Since we’re only through Day 5, though, and I’m totally making this up as I go along, I’ll plan to share the whole 12 days with you next year. In the meantime, here’s a peek at what Jethro’s been doing here at our house.
A Christmas Quilt & the Fastest Tree Skirt Ever
How are the holidays going at your house? We’ve been enjoying our traditional advent calendar activities, visiting with friends, cooking, crafting, playing … all the things that I want our Christmas memories to be made of. I posted a picture on Instagram a few days ago of a fun (and messy!) afternoon spent decorating some very yummy but not very pretty sugar cookies hashtagged #notpinterestworthy, and a sweet friend reminded me that life is not Pinterest-worthy! Before I move on to my crafts for today, I forward that reminder on to you. Have fun, make a mess, and enjoy this Christmas season!
Looped Fabric Christmas Tree~A Tutorial
Have you ever run across something in a store, picked it up and turned it over and thought that you could surely make it yourself? I know most of you are crafty people, so it probably happens to you often, right? This project was the result of one of those moments for me! The tree that I saw in the store was made with burlap, and while I realize that many of you probably love burlap, I’m just not a big fan. I figured I could make it work with cotton quilting fabric, though, so I headed home where I knew I had a giant styrofoam cone in the garage. (I think I actually had plans to turn it into a tree of some sort a few years ago.) I went right to work, and I adore the result enough that I thought I would share it with you!
Chalkboard Art~A Tutorial
I love sharing handmade holiday ideas with you each year, and I’m excited that I’m actually starting early in the month this time! Some of the ideas that I’ll share will include complete tutorials, some will be a little less structured (like today’s) and give you some ideas while pointing you to other tutorials or patterns.
I have wanted a giant piece of artwork with Isaiah 9:6 for our fireplace mantel for the last few Christmases, and this year we made one! Oh, and it was really fast, really easy and fairly inexpensive! I started with the free chalkboard background from How to Nest for Less. Erin suggests only printing it as an 8X10, but I found that it worked beautifully for a much larger print. I used Gimp, which is a free downloadable image manipulation software, and I cropped the background to 2250 X 3375 at 125 pixels/inch. This gave me a printed image of 18″ X 27″.
