Valentine's Swap Gift 2012

Two days ago I received my Valentine's swap package from my partner CyndyinLawerence.  

My favorite item, and my youngest son's as well, is the felted sweater tic-tac-toe board that is also a bag. The Xs and Os (aka hugs & kisses) are also made from felted sweaters, and they are all very soft.  My son and I played a few rounds of tic-tac-toe after I opened the package.  If you look above the bag you will see a blue bookmark as well.  My close up photo of it was blurry, so I won't be sharing it.  

My partner had gone to the Oz museum recently and gave me this postcard from there.  She said that this hat was the hardest thing to make.  My son said that I looked very pretty in it.

She has 3 bunnies, so she made this dishcloth with a bunny on it.  I'll think of her every time I use it.

This cupcake is very large.  The beads and sequence came from a t-shirt that she turned into tarn (t-shirt yarn).  

She said that this was grass, but my son and I both think that it is a bunny.  Either way it is squishy and soft and very cute.

She made a card out of fused plastic bags and potato chip bags.  She also gave me several notecards, my favorite being the unicorn throwing up a rainbow.

She also sent me this strawberry chocolate tea.  I've never heard of such a tea before.  Also included in the package was some soda tabs for me to make things out of.  She did not buy anything for this swap which is pretty cool.  Also she used reclaimed yarn for many of the projects (from unraveled sweaters).

It was great getting to know her and making things for her during this swap.  I feel that I have made a new friend.  I loved everything that she had made for me.  We both mailed our packages on Saturday, but mine isn't suppose to arrive until Friday.  I can't wait to share what I made for her.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Sticker Pictures

This is a pretty straight forward and a simple one, make pictures using stickers.

The supplies are stickers and paper.  However crayons and markers should have been included in this so that kids could use their imagination more when making their pictures.

This would also be good for making bookmarks.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Miscellaneous Paper Crafts

Every once in awhile the library has a "recycle" craft day where they bring out all of their leftovers from past crafts.  This was one of those days.  The kids colored a page full of flowers and circles.

Then we cut them out.

You can either glue the circles on top of the flowers, making the center of the flower.

Or you can just let them glue them anywhere that they want to.

The next project was a brown paper bag fish.

After coloring his fish, my son glued a popsicle to the back of it turning it into a puppet.

The next paper we got had a moon, a star, and a sun on it.  Some were pre-cut for the kids.

After coloring them, we glued popsicle sticks to them.  Now we have night and day puppets.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: People

This is an easy enough craft.  Just find a stencil of a person or a gingerbread man, trace onto some card stock or recycled cardboard, and cut it out.  Then let you child decorate their person.  You can give them more than just markers and crayons.  If you have scrap fabric, yarn, buttons, beads, or other things, let them use those supplies to make their people come to life.  You can also take popsicle sticks or paint stirrers and glue them on the back of the people to turn them into puppets.

Valentine's CAL

Today I started a crochet along (CAL) in my ravelry group with a friend.  So far there are 5 of us who plan on making the patten.  What pattern is it?  It is a square crochet cable pattern that has 4 hearts in it.  Crochet cables are not a common thing.  When you think of cables you usually think of knitting.  So a group of us wanted to learn, and possibly be able to translate cable knit patterns into crochet patterns as a result.  Here is the free pattern that we are using for the CAL.  The pattern says that it is for an afghan, but I'm making a hot pad or a dishcloth by using cotton yarn for it.  Right now I'm on round 6.  I plan on finishing it tonight.

I've been busy making lots of things, but I can't share anything yet because they are for my Valentine's swap partner.

ETA: The pattern link works now.  Thanks for letting me know about the error :)