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I then took an out of date calendar and made an envelope out of the October page.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

Christmas Cotton Projects

I started this white cotton Christmas scrubby a week ago.  It is a variation of the red scrubby pattern where I doubled every stitch.

The pattern for it is: 8 sc in loop, dc twice in each st for 2 rounds, sc twice in every st for 1 round, and sc 3 times in every stitch for remainder (about 3 or 4 more rounds). 

If you hold on to the center, it is perfect for scrubbing dishes or for the shower.

It reminds me of brain coral.

I made this little cork elf yesterday, and I plan to make more today.  Irene is coming to us today in the form of a tropical storm.  My little elf is watching it before it gets worse.  I hope that he doesn't get blown away ;)  The pattern for him is here.  He was super easy to make.  I used size 5 dpns and Christmas cotton yarn, but I am going to use size 4 for the next one.  I might glue his hat to him and turn him into an ornament.

Vacation Crafting

We just got back from vacation last week.  I only turned on my computer once during the trip, and that was to make more room on my camera.  I'm going to be making two blog posts, and both will be kind of long so that I can show you everything.  This one will be all crafty goodness, and the other one will be photos from my trip.  I am loving my photos these days, and it feels good that my dad the photographer thinks that they are great.  Now on with the crafty goodness.

I finally finished this Buddha 2 weeks ago before we left on your trip.  He is 15 inches tall sitting and 24 inches tall standing.  He took me a few weeks to make, because I had a lot going at the time.  You can find the pattern here: http://craftingenue.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/littleuns-lotus-buddha.pdf

He's a birthday present for a friend of ours (my husband and myself).  Our friend loved him.  He said that Buddha is in full lotus on his shelf.

I also finished crocheting 3 more Ocean Grove washcloths 2 weeks ago.

I made my 4 year old son this rainbow bunny in time for him to sleep with him on our first night away from home.  He had also brought the other two bunnies that I made him to sleep with.  He picked out the yarn and said that he wanted a rainbow bunny.  The eyes are made from eco-fi felt.  I left off the mouth because no one thought that he needed one.

Here are all 3 of his bunnies in the bed that he slept in at his grandparents' house.  He picked out the colors for all 3 of them.  Blue bunny, Rainbow bunny, and Cookie.  

I started crocheting the orange amigurumi monster from Lily's Sugar'n Cream's Bright Ideas book last Friday.  It was hard to work on it during our trip, because I had to keep count of the rows.  Thats hard to do when people are talking to you, lol.  Its going to be a Christmas present for my 4 year old.  I want to make him all four monsters from the book.  It is one of those mini paper back books that you see next to the yarn.

While at my mom's house I saw this really cool looking scrubby in her sink that looked like brain coral.  She just made up the pattern.  Mine is tighter than hers, but then she didn't really give me much in the way of a pattern.  She just said to double every stitch.  Her center was much more open than mine.  I used the sparkly red Christmas cotton yarn and an I hook.  I single crochet 8 times into the center loop, then I doubled every stitch until I achieved the size that I wanted.  This could be used in the kitchen or in the shower.  I finished crocheting it yesterday as we were driving through New York.  I want to make another one using the white Christmas cotton yarn, but using either a hdc or dc instead of sc.

With the left over rainbow bunny yarn, I started making a large granny square blanket for my 4 year old. He fell in love with the one that I made for my mother-in-law 10 years ago.  He asked for a rainbow one.  Right now everything has to be either rainbow or blue with him, so I'm going to use both of those in this blanket.  This is how far I got last Sunday before I ran out of yarn.  I bought more yarn today, and have started using aqua yarn.

I'm starting to feel the Christmas crafting bug coming on.