Upcycled Sweater Scarves

Olive Oyl

 

I got my serger back from the sewing repair shop the other day and while I was headache free this weekend decided to sit down and put a few scarves together.  I love finding great sweaters at the thrift store (the one where I can get them for $1 each), cutting them up and piecing them back together again.  It's like creating art from puzzle pieces. 

Flower Power

Purple Crown

Pocket Scarf

After cutting out squares for an hour or so yesterday morning I sat down and found that I had cut enough to make three scarves and still have a few squares left over.  The fourth scarf was one that I had almost finished putting together when me serger died last weekend.

Now talk about a disappointment.  My serger isn't even a year old yet and it was only the second time I had sat down to play with it.  But I am grateful that the same gentleman who repaired my mom's machines growing up is still around.  He does awesome work and is very reasonably priced.  And now that it's all fixed up my serger is running better than ever........

Breast Cancer Awareness Hat & Scarf Set

Happy Friday everyone.  I wanted to pop in real quick and share with you this hat and scarf set that I made in honor of breast cancer awareness month.  I found this great ruffle yarn at Michael's last week in the perfect colors for a breast cancer awareness scarf so I couldn't resist making one of these sets.  I love how the pinks and white set up to make a beautiful ruffle scarf.  However, I wish that my camera allowed the true pink of the hat to show through. 

Oh well, we can't everything huh? 

And now it's time to get back to it.  There's so many projects to get made and only 5 more days left before I have to load and set up for my show.............

Coffee Sleeves

In between my knitting projects this week I have started making coffee sleeves in preparation for my craft show next Saturday.  These are just the beginning of what I've got cut out and going on.  After I put the first few together and saw how easy they were I talked my husband in to making a trip to Joann's for me to buy more fleece.

With mere fabric scraps and a few minutes behind the machine I'm able to whip these up quick and easy like.  And what great, inexpensive, gift giving ideas for teachers, bus drivers, co-workers, stocking stuffers, etc these will make for coffee lovers. 

Add a gift card to Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts or any other coffee shop

- OR -

add a couple packets of a good instant coffee inside the little pocket

 - OR -

place the sleeve around a coffee cup and fill the cup with some KCups.

I'm sure there are ideas for how you could present these for gifts but those are the ones that come to mind first for me.

Can you think of another way to present?  I'd love to hear it.

Cold Weather is Coming....

.....I can feel it in the air.  It has after all been cooler in the mornings and evenings - at least here in the Panhandle of FL.  Of course it always comes just as we prepare for the Mullet Festival and no I'm not talking about the hair.  LOL  Mullet is a type of fish that is very abundant in our local bays and waterways and for the last 36 years we've had a festival full of great food, entertainment (this year they've got Colt Ford, Jake Owens and Kellie Pickler coming), craft and other vendors as well as rides. 

 

Cold weather also means a need for new hats and scarves and I have been busy trying to get more made up in time for my next craft show the end of this month.  In doing so I was excited to discover that I finally got the making of these ruffle scarves down to 3 hours.  That means I can crank one out in just one night!  And with only two weeks left to get it all done that means I need to get busy, busy, busy so I can have a nice variety of them finished.

 

I finished this green set over the weekend and am currently working on a purple set.  I finished the scarf last night and tonight will get the hat done while we watch the WWE.

 

So what are you working on in preparation of the cold weather?  Christmas cards?  Hats? Scarves?  Holiday decor?  I'd love to see so if you'd like to share leave me a comment with a link to your project and I'll come take a peek.  Until then............

Last of the Hot Chocolate Holders

FINALLY!  I have finished my hot chocolate mug holders that I needed to get completed for the upcoming show in a couple of weeks.  There were only 6 left to do but after making so many I started forgetting what cuts I'd already made and what ones I still wanted to make.

Enter Teddy Bear Parade............with this being a new cartridge I knew I hadn't made any with these cuts yet and went to work getting them done. 

Then I also decided to use the gingerbread from Stretch Your Imagination as well as the Santa and mitten from Simply Charmed.

And since I used scraps from my stash I'm going to enter these last holders into the Super Scraps Saturday challenge over at Hiding in My Craft Room.  If you have some scraps you should come play along......

Boo Ha Ha Ha

Happy Friday everyone!  If you're like me you can't wait for the weekend to get start so you can get cracking on all those great projects you've thought about throughout the week.  But first we have to start and end our work day.  So before we begin the work day I wanted to share with you a quick and easy card I created for this week's Pause Dream Enjoy DT challenge.  I'm also entering this one in the black, orange, and purple challenge that's going on over at Hiding in My Craft Room.

This week our directive was to create a project on which we used the word Boo.  Luckily for me I had this great chipboard tag in my stash that worked perfectly with this ever so cute Teddy Bear Parade cut.  I just cut this little guy out at 2 1/2", put him together and away I went.......I told you it was quick and easy......just what I needed this week.

Now that you've seen my creation for this week's challenge pop on over to Pause Dream Enjoy and check out all the other wonderful creations our team put together for your enjoyment and inspiration this week.  Then create your own, link up and play along with us for your chance to win

Come play with us!

...

Halloween 3D Centerpiece

I made my first one of these back in 2010 for my husband whose favorite holiday is Halloween, but with the recent Movable Monsters free cut of the week last week I wanted to create another one with an updated look. And what perfect timing with this week's Just A Scrappin challenge directive being to create a 3D halloween project.

 

Now since I already had this project laid out from a couple of years ago I started with those cuts and then added in the new ones from Movable Monsters. That said, here are all the deets......

 

Using Happy Hauntings I cut:

 

The tree at 10" out of chipboard. I then used the chipboard as a "stencil" and traced it onto foam core board and then cut it out using a craft razor knife. I then painted the tree with brown acrylic paint and shaded it using black and a lighter brown. Once the paint was dry I came back and added a coat of clear rock candy distress crackle paint.

 

The four tombstones were cut at 3" with a piece of foam core board wedged between the front and back stones to add depth.

 

 

The two vaults were created by cutting the tombstones at 4". For the depth on this I used foam tape placed between the front and back headstones (foamcore was too difficult to cut around the cross). The foot stone was created by using the bottom portion of the tombstone only. For the center of the vault I cut a piece of cardstock 3" x 2 1/2", scored at 1" and 2" - turn a quarter turn and then score at 1/4" along both ends. I then embossed the cuts using my Sizzix faded brick texture and inked with brick red distressed ink. This was then formed to fit the head and foot stones to create the vault.

 

The skeletons were cut at 4". For the backside of the skeletons flip the cuts and hide all facial contours. To make them moveable/poseable I adhered the front and back pieces together with a piece of off white quilt thread between the bones.

 

Using Movable Monsters I cut:

 

The top half of two mummy and one zombie bodies at 2". Cut one zombie body in full length. When putting the pieces together use the quilt thread (instead of brads) to make the pieces posable.

 

At the bottom half of the bodies cut a toothpick in half and glue between papers. This will enable you to insert the pieces into the foam core board.

 

Now to put it all together. I found the moss landscape mat at AC Moore in the Halloween section. For the base of my graveyard I adhered a section of the mat to a piece of foamcore board using a hot glue. The tree was glued to the center of the square. To create the graves I cut four pieces of the moss landscape, folded it in thirds gluing all edges and then hot glued them in place. I then placed my skeltons as desired, gluing the necessary sections to keep them in place. Since I did not have any of the spider webbing stuff I used fiber fill to create the webs from the tree to the vaults.