Making Valentine's

Theres nothing like making last minute Valentine's.  O.K., so maybe not so last minute since all the materials used were already prepared.

Here are the outside of the cards that I made for my sons.  I used card stock, corrugated cardboard, chenille stem, recycled food boxes, stickers, and google eyes to make them.  Some of these materials were used on decorating the inside of the cards.

I've been decorating the heart toilet paper tube that spookycuddles sent me.  I also added a magnet to the back of it.  The starfish and the words came from a Valentine's Day card.  

This cute little heart is the back of a green tea box.  The center heart was made by my youngest son's fingerprints.

If you look at the first picture you will see a red wooden bird at the bottom.  I glued a magnet to the back of it.  I also cut out some foam circles and glued two egg carton ladybugs to them.  I plan on gluing a magnet to those as well.

Chocolate Box Upcycle

Friday was a big Valentine's card day for my mail box.  I received this fabric postcard and door hanger from Australia from peace2knit.  She embroidered on top of the card as well.

I also received this circular card from minervas-hand.  As you turn the card it spells out my name with a word that represents that letter and me.  

I also got this beautiful card from my mom.  Friday night I taped a new episode (episode 34) of my local access t.v. show "Its Easy Being Green."  On the show I made this jewelry box out of the card that my mom gave me and an empty box of chocolates.

I made sure to pick a box of chocolates that had a plastic separator inside of it.  This will allow me to keep my necklaces and earrings separate / untangled.

The one on the left is the one that I made last year.  You can see the tutorial on how to make it here.

Now I have one jewelry box for necklaces and one for earrings.

Also for the t.v. show I wanted to show one way that you can upcycle the heart shaped chocolate boxes.

Inside of the small one I cut out heart shapes from 2 pictures of my kids and glued them in.  I plan on glueing a picture hanger on the back of them.  They have become little shadow boxes.  The baby picture is from my 2nd son's birth announcement.  I also cut out a heart from the side with his name, date of birth, and weight.  With the next empty box I will glue that in and add a baby keepsake to it as well.  With the slightly larger box, I glued the front and inside of a card that one of my sons received from his grandparents on Friday.  I plan on keeping buttons inside of that box.  Since high school I have been using empty chocolate boxes for craft storage.

Pinwheel Blocks

I turned in my 3rd pinwheel block at my local quilt shop today.  You can see it on display in the above picture. It is the black, white, and green one that is in the 4th row, 2nd from the left.  I wanted to show the other pinwheel blocks that people had made as well.

When I got home, I made two more of the 3rd pinwheel block.  I want to make 5 of each block.  One will go into one quilt and the other 4 will go into another quilt.  I went ahead and pieced 4 of the 3rd block together.  You can see that a pinwheel forms in the center of the 4 joined blocks.

I also pieced together 4 of the first block.  It also has a pinwheel in the center of the 4 joined blocks.

I finished sewing 7 reverse applique blocks for a quilt for my quilt guild.  I also corrected 6 blocks that two other people had made.  I counted two of those blocks as 1 finished item (part of my 365 items in 2011 goal), even though I had worked on 80% of those blocks myself (cutting the fabric, making the template, and then correcting the sewing by sewing them again).

This has been a big quilt day for me.  All of my errands revolved around quilting, and I made a total of 9 quilt blocks, corrected 6 blocks, and pieced together 8 blocks.  I did not count the pieced together finished pinwheel blocks as part of my 365 goal.  I'll count the finished quilt top as 1 item.  It looks like I might reach that 365 item goal by April.  I will still keep track of how many items I make this year though.

I'm looking forward to making the 4th pinwheel blocks.  I already started cutting the fabric for them tonight.

January's Pinwheel Block

I just finished making 3 pinwheel blocks.  This is the 3rd pinwheel block in the pinwheel block of the month through my local quilt shop.  I am going to turn it in tomorrow and get the 4th block pattern.  I'll also pick up my 2nd block while I'm there.  The quilt shop has everybody's blocks on display so that we can see all the different color combinations that people used.  

Here is what two of the blocks would look like if they were sewn together.

What have I been up to:
- I went to the Historic District Commission meeting last night to get sign approval for the Earth Fair signs this year.
- I also went to a quilt guild board meeting last night.
- Last week was my town's Recycling Committee meeting.  I'm a board member, and I needed to give a progress report on the Earth Fair.
- I've also been dealing with putting the raffle quilt for my quilt guild together.  I am only making certain parts myself, and I have been delegating the other parts.  A good chunk of the next two days will be on buying and delivering different parts of the quilt to people.
- I also need to prepare for the taping of my t.v. show on Friday.
- Today I finally moved things around in my dinning room so that I have a permanent place for my sewing machine.
- As far as other projects go, I have been knitting a cabled cowl.  I'm a little burnt out on making a lot of quick projects, so it is really nice to be working on one project for a while.  Plus I just love working with the fisherman's wool.

Valentine's Cards & Winterfest/Winter Rest

The beginning of every February in my town is Winterfest.  Winterfest is a 3 day series of events that takes place all over town.  This year I volunteered to help out with the craft table at my church on Saturday from 9 am - 3 pm.  My church calls their event Winter Rest, because you can come, sit, eat, and listen to some live music.  My friend who was in charge wanted part  of the craft table to be for making Valentine's cards for a charity that will be giving them to people who can't leave their home for one reason or another.  Here was our set up.  I die-cut out different hearts from cardboard food boxes, colored card stock, and painted corrugated cardboard.  There were also some painted and cut heart shaped toilet paper tubes mixed in.  Then there were some pink, red, and purple cards made from card stock, glue sticks, white glue, markers, crayons, and stamps.  On top of that, people could also make egg carton lady bugs and love bugs (using the cut out hearts, google eyes, and chenille stems).

Some one gave me a Panera catering box to use.  I love it!!!  I want more.  You can see the two inserts being used for the different items above.  

I had fun die-cutting some of the food boxes, like this cat food box.  A friend of mine picked the cat heart to make a Valentine's with.

We had so much fun sitting around making Valentine's cards and listening to great live music.

You can see two of my love bugs and lady bugs above.

I made these 3 cards. 

And these as well.

One girl wanted to make a card for her math teacher who says that "Math is not F.U.N. fun."

I suggested that she write "9/4 Four Under Nine" means that math is fun.  You can see her card in progress above.

We collected 19 cards for the charity.  There were a lot of great stories that went with the cards that people made for others.  

I was surprised when a lady came up and wanted to buy this card that I had made.  When I said that she could have it, she said that she wanted to donate money for it.  So I sent her to my friend who was in charge of the event.  Many people donated money that day.  

The same girl who made the math card also made this cute little card.

I also made this little heart ring using a chenille stem, a heart, and google eyes.

We had a decent turn out considering all of the ice and snow and the weather prediction for that day.  Many events had been canceled for that night due to the weather.  People enjoyed themselves though, and I got to see many familiar faces.  At the end of the day I took home the left over supplies (excluding the ones that I borrowed from the church, like the markers and glue).  Now I have the supplies for the making of many Valentine's cards.  I just might have a card making day with my kids soon.

Valentine's Swap Package #2

I came home today to find a package from my friend delights sitting on my door step.  Can you see me jumping up and down and in circles?  I couldn't wait to open it to see what she made for me for Valentine's Day.  I couldn't believe my eyes!  Everything was wonderful!  So here is the break down of what was in my package.  There was an origami floral box containing crochet chocolates and a crochet chocolate dipped strawberry.  I could smell the chocolate, even though the smell was just in my head.  There was a yellow plarn (plastic bag yarn) chapstick holder with Juicy Juice chapstick inside.  She gave me several mini clothespins for many different occasions.   She knows me so well, because I really wanted some for different occasions to hang up cards that I receive.  Do you see that gorgeous crochet flower?  It is a pot holder that she designed.  I love it!  I'm very into hot pads and pot holders.  

She also makes these very beautiful heart broaches from felted wool (from old sweaters).  I was hoping that I would get one from her.  My camera took a slightly blurry picture of it without my knowing, but it is really beautiful.  If you would like one to, she sells them on Etsy.

Then she went beyond just crafting for me.  She made my sons felted mittens from sweaters.  They loved them.  My youngest son really needed a good pair of mittens.  I've had bad luck finding good ones for him.  I guess that means that the universe wanted me to wait for these marvelous mittens to arrive.  She also sells these in her other Etsy shop.

Last but not least there was a handmade floral envelope containing a beautiful handmade card inside.  There was also two very unique envelopes that looked like mason jars.  The jars were see through so that you can see the peas and tomato seed packets inside.  They also had very cute tags attached to them: "Peas Be Mine" & "U R 1 Hot Tomato."

Thank you delights!!!!!  I love everything!

Yellow Plarn

Within the last 7 days I have received a lot of plastic newspaper bags from 2 friends.  There were a lot of yellow bags, so I made yellow plarn out of them today.  For those of you new to the word plarn, it is plastic bag yarn / yarn made from plastic bags.  

I was able to make a nice size ball.  This is probably equal to two yarn cakes (if I wound it on my ball winder).  I want to spin it, so I'm going to leave it in ball form for now.  However I prefer my plarn in yarn cakes because otherwise they unwind to easily.