Photo Hike

My husband and I love to go on photo hikes.  We get some exercise, some fresh air, and get to take lots of photos.  Here are a few that I took today.  The place where we went has a lot of trails, lots of wild life (we saw a snake today, and in the past I've seen a large turtle and a deer), farm animals, and ice cream.

Halloween Swap Gifts for spookycuddles

Spookycuddles from Ravelry received her Halloween swap package from me!

There were requirements for this swap:

1. Make a Halloween decoration/decorative item (ornament, pumpkin, amigurumi, wall hanging, etc.).
2. Make a wearable item (jewelry, hat, scarf, scrunchie, etc.).
3. Make a treat bag with or without treats.
4. Make a paper item (ATC card, postcard, notecard, origami, etc.).
5. Make a Halloween kitchen / dining room item (dishcloth, hot pad, candy dish, etc).
6. At least one item needs to be made using fiber (knitted, crochet, felted, woven, etc).
7. At least one item needs to use a recycled material.

For her treat bag, I made her a nice size Kool Aid tote bag using Halloween colors: green, purple, and orange.  There are more pictures of the bag below.  I love the picture frame.  I used glow-in-the-dark paint on top of the purple paint, and 3 sizes of google eye.   That was for the decorative item requirement. 

The kitchen items are all candy corn themed: a knitted dish towel that buttons on a drawer handle, a knitted dishcloth, and a crochet plarn scrubby.  The wearable items are a pair of earrings and a matching necklace made out of plastic bread tags.  The jewelry and the scrubby go along with the recycled requirement, and the other kitchen items go with the fiber requirement.  We were also partners in another Halloween swap just for ornaments, so I made her the bat and the candy corn ornaments.  The bat used sparkly yarn, because she loves glitter and sparkle.  Just for fun I included some Halloween pencils, spider rings, a black cat parachute toy, and some Peanut Gang activity pages.  You can also see the Jack-O-Lantern artist trading card that I drew on watercolor paper.

I just love the jewelry, so I made a pair for myself.

I also gave her a stamp that said "I love vampires," because we are both Twilight fans.

The google eyes really add a little something something to the ornaments. 

The wooden "Happy Halloween" is actually a magnet.  You can see the parachuting black cat and a black spider ring in this picture.  I gave her an orange Kool Aid notebook with a paper bead tassel.  There is a cork witch (knitted and made using a wine cork).  I put a bunch of the items in the toilet paper tube treat containers, which I painted.  Most of these items meet the paper requirement of the swap.  I found a really cute pumpkin face kit at the dollar store and included it in the package.  I believe it makes a silly witch face.

I included a 2nd ATC (artist trading card) in her package.  The wreath ornament was made by crocheting around a plastic bottle ring.  Then I glued Halloween sequence on it.  The card was made using fun stickers.

The pattern for this ornament is:

- Chain 20 stitches.

- Take a plastic bottle ring and half double crochet around it.

- Join with a slip stitch.

- Triple crochet twice in every stitch around, and join with a slip stitch.

- Chain 15 to 20 stitches, and tie to the other chain length.

- Then just add accessories.

Here is the free candy corn pattern from Lion Brand.  I just added a chain stitch to one corner for the loop and glued on the google eyes and black yarn smile.  I kept two of these for myself, because they are just to darn cute. 

The bat pattern came from a crochet magazine.

Here are more pictures of the Kool Aid tote bag.

It has 2 pockets: a small one on the back/front inside, and a full pocket on one of the sides.

Here is the candy corn dishcloth pattern and the knitted dish towel pattern.

The plarn scrubby pattern is just simply crocheting a basic circle:
- chain 2
- crochet 8 times into the 2nd chain from the hook
- single crochet twice in every stitch = 16 sts
- 2 sc in next stitch, 1 sc in next stitch, repeat = 24 sts
-  2 sc in next stitch, 2 sc in next 2 stitches, repeat = 32 sts
- repeat until it is the size that you want.
I used 1 yellow newspaper bag, 1 or 2 orange newspaper bags, and one white shopping bag to make the plarn.

This ATC was made by watercolor painting on watercolor paper, then drawing on it with a thin black sharpie.  The paint is a little washed out in this photo.

To make this frame, I painted 2 coats of purple paint on a wooden frame, then I painted 1 coat of glow-in-the-dark paint.  Then I glued 3 sizes of google eyes on it.  Next I wrapped a ribbon around it, and tied a bow on one side.  The ribbon was then glued in the back. Next I glued the wooden piece to the ribbon.

This is actually my cork witch.  I forgot to add the pine needle broom stick to spookycuddle's witch.  I just used my modified version of this Korknisse pattern to make her.  My modified pattern is just using smaller needles and adding a few more rows to the hat and body, and of course adding hair.

Spookycuddles said that she like everything.  I'm so glad.  She has become a friend, and I love swapping with her.  We both love this holiday a lot, and I'm glad that I could add to her ever growing decorations. 

Soda Tab Creations

While on vacation in August I went to Roots, a very large Farmers' Market and flea market in Lancaster, PA.  I love to stop at a certain spot and see the soda tab creations of a special guy.  Here is what we saw this trip.

I always find his items inspirational. 

Spiders & Plarn

I mailed off my Halloween swap packages on Monday, and there were a few things that I kept for myself.  This little crochet spider is meant to be a magnet, but I might make it into a brooch instead.  It was a very easy pattern by Lionbrand, but it did require a lot of sewing.

Here is the pattern for this fun crochet spider.  Instead of knitting an eye cord and inserting wire into it for the legs, I used 4 pipe cleaners instead.  It was tricky getting the pipe cleaners to go through the body filled with stuffing.  I added 2 medium sized google eyes and 4 small ones to make him more creepy.

I also made 2 skeins of black and green plarn (plastic bag yarn).

I started making a bag out of the plarn this week.  Today I finished crocheting the base, and now I can work on the sides.

Tuesday Tot Craft Time: Apple Crown

The first preschool drop in craft time at our library this season is one that we did there last year, but it is still a fun one.  My son made an apple crown in celebration of apple season and Johnny Appleseed's birthday.  They provided us with 3 different colored apple cut outs and 2 stripes of brown paper.

The kids colored their apples with markers.

This was my favorite apple that my son colored.

I stapled the two brown stripes together and then stapled them in the right places around his head.  Then I stapled the 4 apples around his crown.  This was a fun craft for the kids to do.  We are looking forward to the next one.

Crayon Swap Package & Other Items

Before the Summer I lead a swap called the Crayon Swap.  We each picked a color that we wanted someone to make things for us in, and then we each made items in that color for the other person.  Recently I found out that one person's partner never followed through with the swap; so, I made her a bunch of things with her color in mind (turquoise) as an angel gift.  An angel gift is when someone sends something to another person without wanting anything more than a thank you in return.  The diamond patterned item is a notebook made from a juice pouch cardboard box.  There is a crochet soda tab flower pin, a plastic bottle cap pincushion that looks like a flower, a juice pouch notebook, a juice pouch coin purse, a small drawstring bag made from a t-shirt sleeve, 5 paper bead stitch markers, an artist trading card (my drawing), a crochet cotton scrubby, a crochet cotton dishcloth, and a crochet cotton floral hot pad.  She received everything last week and loved them all.  I'm so happy that she liked everything and that she got something from this swap.

Here is a close up of the hot pad.

Here is a close up of the scrubby.  Normally I knit scrubbies, but I found a crochet pattern for them.  It works the same way as the knit one: increase on one side and decrease on the other side, then do a running stitch on the sides to make the top and bottom like a circle / spiral.  Very easy.

The top stitch markers are the blue paper beads ones that I made for her.  I'm new at making stitch markers, so they aren't perfect. I found some cool skull beads at the craft store, and made some fun Halloween stitch markers for myself.

Here is the front of a card that I drew and mailed to a friend recently.

I then took an out of date calendar and made an envelope out of the October page.

Here is one of the Summer months calendar page turned into an envelope.

Here is a recent artist trading card (ATC) that I made using watercolor paints and a black pen.  An ATC is 3.5" x 2.5" - the same size as a baseball trading card.

ETA: Here are more photos of the swap package.