Learning to Embroider & Making Scarves

Since I've been in the midst of yet another papercrafting creative slump and the guys have been playing video games all day I took the opportunity to play in other crafting ways.  Today I broke out the embroidery machine that my dh bought me for Christmas and decided to see how well it would embroider on sweaters.  I was very pleased with the outcome and decided to turn my play pretties in to one of my upcycled sweater scarves.

 

Don't you just love these adorable snowmen marshmallows?  I absolutely fell in love with them the moment I saw them so I had to buy the designs from Julia's Needle Designs here.  Of course seeing how well these turned out I know that I'll have to do some more but after making seven different upcycled scarves today (not all embroidered) that will have to wait for another day.

Don't get me wrong, making these scarves is easy as all get out.  Just cut a few squares and rectangles, serge them all together to your desired length, then back with a piece of flannel and boom - DONE.  Seriously, what could be easier?  And I get compliments on them all the time.  Of course the hard part comes from finding great sweaters at the thrift store.  But, if you're lucky like me you have a great one close by that sells their clothes dirt cheap.  And by cheap I mean yard sale cheap - not like some of these chain thrift stores that want almost new prices.  But I digress.....

 

....and since tomorrow is another glorious day off for us, I have a feeling that the guys will be back to their video games - and that means I'll have more crafting time.......just one of the many things I love about a long, holiday weekend. 

 

Hmmmm, wonder what I'll craft up tomorrow?

December Celebration Project Book

Happy Friday and four days till Christmas......Today is the start of a brand new challenge at

Pause Dream Enjoy Challenges where we are celebrating.  This week was a kind of anything goes week in that we created any type of celebration project we desired.  As you can see I stayed with a Christmas theme and created a journal of sorts.



 

 For this project I used my Bind it All and my Cricut.

The covers for my journal are the pre-made 6" square chipboard covers  that I cut down to 5" x 5 1/2". I then cut 6" squares from the cover papers and then folded over the edges and added a solid red square to complete the inside cover. The journal pages are all white with the exception of the two 'divider' pages.  (Now that I think about it I should have added some verbiage on a few of the pages to help liven it up and get the journaler thinking. Hmmmmm, I'll have to do that next time.  ;o) )

 

Instead of adding a tab to the divider pages I chose to make a tag using the Christmas Cheer cartridge and added a ribbon to act as the tab.

 

The Santa on the cover was cut from Simply Charmed. I flocked his hat and coat and embossed his beard and hair.

And now that you've seen my project be sure to check out all of the other wonderfully done celebration projects our team created for you this week.  Then after you've been amply inspired, create your own, link up and play along with us. Our Sponsor for this week's challenge is

Cardz TV Stamps

http://www.cardztvstamps.blogspot.com/

Prize: 1 Stamp Set of the Winner's Choice

Here's my project for this challenge:

Come play with us!

...

Santa's Coming Gift Bag

So what do you do when you have a small gift that needs 'special' wrapping?  Why create your own wrapping of course!  And so for those small gifts that need giving I have created my gift bag with tag all in one.

 

For this project I used TBBM, Simply Charmed and a few scraps from my handy dandy scrap drawers.  (This my friends is why I never throw my scraps away.)

 

I cut the 'shopping bag' from TBBM stretching the cut so that it was 11 1/2" long and a little over 6" high.

My Santa and Chimney are from Simply Charmed. The chimney was cut at 4 3/4" and Santa was cut at 4".

To create the chimney I embossed the bricks and then inked over them with fire brick red distressed ink. The snow cut was covered with MS snow glitter. 

To create Santa I embossed his beard/hair and flocked his hat and coat. The gift tag in his hand was cut from TBBM at 1" with the words "For You" printed on the tag.

 

Oh and wait, it gets better.  You ready for this?  I made this one so that Santa can "go down the chimney".....

 

All I did was pop dot the chimney to the front of the gift bag thus leaving room for Santa.  Pretty nifty 'eh?  lol

 

 

 

Checking His List Clock

I so wish I had more time to sit in my craft room and craft - especially since this is my favorite time of year.  But with life being so crazy I am finding that that seems to not be allowed right now.  And so today I'm pulling one of my old Christmas projects out from 2010, dusting it off and re-sharing it with you today.

 

I love buying those inexpensive clocks from Walmart and altering them to turn them in to specialized gifts.  And this is one that I did just for Christmas. 

 

For this one I used:

 

Christmas Greetings for all of my cuts.  The reindeer were cut at 1 1/2" and Santa was cut at 3 1/2". I also flocked Santa's beard, moustache, boots and mitten. The brim of his hat was done using flower soft and I embossed his handy, dandy list. 

If you haven't altered a clock before you should give it a try.  And if you aren't sure how to start I have a tutorial that you can download.  On the right hand side of my page there's a link that says tutorials and cut files.  Click on the scrappin' box and then click on the altered clock and it will download a pdf file complete with instructions.......have fun! 

Santa Toilet Paper Cover

 

After making a couple of snowman TP covers I just knew there had to be a way to turn this adorable pattern I found on Brenda's (aka Loom Lady) blog  into a Santa.  So after much thought I sat down this past week, gave it a whirl and this was the end result.  Now I must say that I'm pretty pleased with the outcome and just absolutely ecstatic that he turned out so stinkin' cute.

 

So how did I do this you ask?  Well first you need to download the snowman TP cozy pattern here.  Using a red yarn (I used Lion Brand Homespun) follow the directions for the body.  After creating the 'brim' do a color change and follow the directions for the head using a flesh tone yarn.

 

To create Santa's beard I used a white boa (single strand) and on the front portion of the face I stitched a take on the lazy daisy embroidery stitch.  I did this stitch on every row from the color change to almost half way up the face. 

 

Santa's eyes are nothing more than 15 mm animal eyes that I found in my stash since I couldn't find matching buttons in the size I wanted.

 

For Santa's belt and buckle I used a black ribbon from my stash and created the buckle using a scrap piece of plastic canvas and a gold metallic cord to stitch it up.

 

For Santa's hat I e-wrap cast on the red knifty knitter 31 peg loom using a single strand of boa and a single strand of 4 ply white yarn.  I did an e-wrap knit for 8 rows, made a brim and then did a color change with a single strand of red eyelash and a single strand of 4 ply red yarn.  Continue to e-wrap knit in the round for 10 rows.

 

At this point I started to do a decrease on each side and knit in a flat panel.  So what you do is create your decrease on each side, e-wrap knit in the flat panel style for two rows, do another decrease on both sides of the row, e-wrap knit for two rows and repeat until you have 11 pegs left with loops remaining.  Continue to e-wrap knit until your hat is the desired length and then do a drawstring cast off.  Now stitch the sides up together, add a pom pom and viola!

Blue and White Hot Chocolate Mug

Happy Friday everyone and welcome to this week's Blue and White challenge hosted by Pause, Dream, Enjoy.  As you can tell by the name of our challenge this week's directive was to create a project using the colors blue and white.  And as you can see I cheated a little bit and added a pop of red to mine.  In true fashion with my busy life right now I did it without thinking but the gracious hostess that Janis is she told me I was okay.  lol

 

Now I have to admit that during this time of year I love making these hot chocolate mug holders.  They are such a quick and easy gift to make for teachers, bus drivers, co-workers and whoever else is on your list.  That said, for this mug holder I used:

 

Everyday Pop Up Cards and George for the mug.  I welded two of the mug shapes together and then used George to create the slit for the hot chocolate packet to slide into.

 

Joys of the Season for the polar bear.

 

And now that you've seen my project be sure to create your own card, layout, mini album, gift packaging, etc. using blue and white.  Then link up and play along with us for a chance to win a prize from this week's sponsor.

 

Need some more inspiration first.  Check out the other awesome projects created by our design team.

 

Oh, and this week's sponsor is

 

Mark's Finest Papers & Stamps
Prize: Train Talk Stamp Set

Come play with us!
...

Tis The Season

Can you believe that it is already December?  This year has been flying by so quickly.  I honestly cannot believe that it is time to put up the tree (done last weekend), get Christmas cards mailed (did mine two days ago), and wait for Santa to come.  Of course it doesn't help that our weather here in Florida is still hitting the low to mid 70's for a high......

 

But I digress.  Today I have a card to share with you that was created for the Cricut Cardz Challenge over at Cardz TV.  Now this will be our last challenge for the 2012 calendar year, but we will back with more fun in January.  For today though our directive was to make a Christmas or Hanukkah card using the card feature from any cartridge we desired. 

 

For my card I chose to use:

 

The card feature from Quilted Christmas - this cartridge has a ton of beautiful cuts

 

The sentiment on my card is from Jolly Holidays - this cartridge quickly became one of my favorites last year when I purchased it

 

And now that you've seen my take on this week's challenge be sure to check out all of the other wonderful designs our team created for you this week.  Then create your own, link up and play along with us.  The best part is if you still have Christmas cards to make this challenge is perfect for any inspiration you might need...........