baby gifts

My friend Nancy just had a baby boy (okay, he was born September 3rd) and he's just too cute! I sent Nancy and Ruffin a package recently and wanted to show you what I made...

I crocheted trim around fleece and added a monkey motif. It's a pretty small blanket, meant to be used in a carseat or stroller.

I made another changing pad using the Bernina pattern. This one was fun because I used my free motion presser foot for the very first time to quilt it! It was pretty cool to be able to make all kinds of wavy lines.

I picked this lovey up at Target to continue the monkey theme of the gift. I read somewhere that if Mom sleeps with the lovey and then gives it to her child, it will hold her scent and comfort Baby. Interesting concept.

No present is complete without something for the new mom! I sent Nancy one of my zippered pouches and a crocheted headband.

I put together a cute little card to tie it all together.

Congratulations on the birth of your beautiful baby boy, Nancy! I hope you liked your package. :)

birthday and thank you cards

I wanted to keep a small supply of thank you and birthday cards on hand so that I don't have to scramble to make them every time I need one.

This one is my favorite thank you card.

This is my favorite birthday card.

I like the concept of this one but the stamping is a little wonky.

I have a scrapbooking magazine and I modeled this card after one I saw in there.

I used my new edge cutter on this one.

Yay for a stash of cards and crossing off another project from my list!

if you don't mind...

I'm going to interrupt our regularly scheduled project list for a new project, because I can. :)

While trolling around blogland, I came across a new blog:



There are lots of fun crafty tutorials on this relatively new blog, and I thought this one was particularly neat. In fact, I thought it was so fun, I've already bought the boxes and partially filled them with stuff as my "Back to School" gift for my teaching partners!*

I skipped the ribbon part and bought smaller boxes. WalMart has these little ones for only two dollars each. And yes, I made one for myself, haha. I'll only have two teaching partners next year (instead of three) so it wasn't a big deal to make a third for myself. I filled it with fun stuff from Staples, and each box also has a coordinating permanent marker that I'll tie on with ribbon later. I'll add some chocolates into the empty compartments before school starts, and maybe throw in a Starbucks card to start the year off right. :)**

*Yes, I know, school JUST ended and there's over two months til I go back. Give me some credit for planning and executing really early instead of really late this time.

**The scrapbooking papers came from my endless stash of stuff.

volunteer gifts

I had four lovely ladies who volunteered their time regularly in my classroom every week during the school year. I wanted to give them a little something to say "thank you for helping me wrangle 22 five and six year olds fearlessly and with good humor". What to do?

I ended up getting them gift cards to a local ice cream shop and a scratch ticket. I was orginally going with a "sweets for a sweet volunteer" theme but decided that was lame... so I left off the cheesy title.

I also made four different thank you cards to go with the gifts:

(this is the front of the first one)

(and the inside)

(2nd card)

(3rd card)

(4th card)

It was a very small token of my gratitude, but it seemed to go over well!

Sorry for the really bad photos. I'm having bad camera mojo today.

swapping with mia, part 2

You can read about what I sent Mia here on her blog, but I wanted to add a few more details. (You can also read her hilarious account of mailing my stuff here... really, it's so funny! You gotta love four-year-olds.) Go ahead. I'll wait. :)

I wanted to make Mia something from every crafty category I dabble in: sewing, crochet, and scrapbooking; plus my first foray into plastic canvas since I was 10 years old.

The first thing I made was the amigurumi turtle, using this pattern. Problem was, with the natural cotton yarn I used, his head was MASSIVE. Made the little thing topple over like nobody's business. Here's the prototype:

His head is on the left, body on the right. Because they ended up basically the same size, he wouldn't stay upright. I didn't bother to add legs or eyes... he just went right into the Dark Bin of Unfinished or Ugly Projects. You know you have one.

I redid him with a soft acrylic yarn and used a smaller hook (I think? I don't remember if I actually did, but I meant to!) for the head. He stays upright on his four little legs and I gave him beads for eyes. Much better!

Next, I made coasters. I found a woven tea towel at a local thrift store with Colorado-themed pictures on it, and used this pattern. Technically the pattern is for cocktail napkins but I thought they were too small. Coasters it is! I made a set of six.

The one above is one of my favorites. We actually live near Big Thompson Canyon and I just love the flower. The one below is my other favorite.

Next, I made a mini sewing box. I used plastic canvas and this pattern. Inside the box, I made dividers for three spaces: a mini pincushion, buttons and thread/safety pins/needle threader.

I made a set of scrapbook cards, using some of my favorite papers and embellishments. I liked them so much I *almost* kept them for myself and made a different set for Mia. Lucky for her, I decided to send them on!

The last one is my favorite. I love how the curves in the paper and the flap of the card create a moon and stars effect. (Not sure why the "thanks" one is so blue, I took all the pictures in the same light. Oh well. Never said I was a great photographer!)

Tippy the Turtle came from Hobby Lobby. I thought Mia's Boys would get a kick out of it. Apparently he grew pretty big!

The apron was one of my favorites. I'm so glad she liked it! I was out thrifting (I don't think I told you this, Mia!) and saw this awesome sheet set with retro flower/tree looking things. I snagged it immediately, and a minute later saw the tiny flower print sheet set that matches it so nicely. I am developing a serious love of thrift stores. I used these two fabrics and this pattern to make Mia's apron.

Last, I made a post-it holder. I also made one for myself. :) I've seen instructions all over the web... just use an acrylic frame from Wal Mart or a similar store and go to town with scrapbook paper and embellishments. I hot glued the post-it pad because it was to heavy to hang by the sticky stuff alone. Hopefully it'll easily peel off when Mia needs a new set of sticky notes! We teachers have a serious love of office supplies!

Yay! This was the most crafty fun I've had in a long time. Mia is a lovely person to have as a bloggy friend! Go to her blog and show some bloggy love!

swapping with mia

OH MY GOSH. If I knew every swap I did would be *this* much fun, I'd do it EVERY DAY!

Waaay back in January I published my 100th blog post. I wanted to do something to celebrate, so I proposed a swap with anyone who wanted. Lucky for me, Mia emailed right away! We exchanged several emails to get to know each other (and, btw, it's FREAKY how alike we are!) finally decided that we'd make some stuff to send to each other and set a deadline of March 1st.

Life got in the way and we both ended up sending our boxes late. A month late. Um. Whoops. Good thing my thinking has always been "better late than never"... it was actually funny, that it ended up that way... one more similarity between Mia and I. (Please ignore that grammatically awful sentence as my excitement over the swap has temporarily muddled my brain.)

I got Mia's box on Monday night and HOT DOG, it was awesome! I opened the box to find this....

and here's a little teaser....

and inside I found these.

Gorgeous placemats crocheted from strips of fabric! LOVE it! Mia also says they can be used as chairpads and I think I love that even more!

Next I saw this...

and here's what was inside!

The most adorable cupcake apron. Hmmm... I didn't tell Mia how much I love cupcakes, but she knew anyway! She's so smart. It's also funny that we both made aprons for each other!

Underneath the apron was this:

Isn't it beautiful? It's the softest shawl I've ever touched, and it's the perfect shade of smoky blue. It also came complete with a shawl stick thingie to hold it closed. (Actually I initially thought the shawl stick thingie was a hair stick thingie, but luckily realized it's proper use. It didn't stay in my hair, anyway!)

There's more! This box was packed to the gills. Here's our next category:

Yay! I love fun stuff for my classroom... things that make it feel homey. This definitely foots the bill:

NO WAY! It's a bunting personalized with my name. How neat! I have the perfect wall space in my room to put this up and it's going up today! Here's an excerpt from the email I sent Mia: "I should mention here that at one point I was wearing the apron, the shawl, and trying to hold up the bunting for Hubby to see all at the same time. He thinks I'm nuts. (And normally when I exclaim over cute stuff he sort of rolls his eyes and sarcastically agrees with me but thinks I'm being such a girl. However, when he saw the bunting, he exclaimed "That's really cool!". High compliments from him, let me tell you.)" Haha! Here's a close up.

I also found this in the box...

It's the cutest little pouch in the same fabric as the bunting. I love owls!! The box was rounded out with some fun scrapbooking supplies:

Whew! She really hit the nail on the head. From the first email, I knew this would be a great swap. We found that we really have lots in common, which made it easy to make things for her and easy to love everything she made! Everything was so great... Mia is such a talented crocheter and sewer and I really love each and every item. Thank you, Mia! It has been such a pleasure to get to know you!

In my next post I'll show what I sent her. :)

scrappy

I know I've talked about my sewing and crochet, but did you know I also scrapbook? Well... I have the supplies to scrapbook, anyway. I get around to using the stuff maybe once a year.

So, I needed to write some thank you notes for gifts I received at my birthday party... I whipped a couple up this morning. I like to keep my designs simple. The blue one is my favorite.