Granny Square Afghan

I've just recently relearned how to make granny squares. So, since I started out with this hot pink which is one of my nieces favorite colors, I decided to make her an afghan with pink and purple, another of her favorite colors. And, I decided to just make it one big square, granny square, that is. I also learned how to change colors. This is totally new for me. So, I started on Tues, today is Friday, and this is how far I've come. It's about 25"x25". I'm pretty stoked!

Today is 4/6/12 and I've made lots of progress on the afghan. It's over 40x40 inches now, and I have changed colors several times. I'm adding a picture of the afghan, and of me working on it.

 

 I've been making more progress on my afghan.  So far I've used 4.5 skeins of yarn, and I bought 2 more. It's measuring about 46 inches. I'm adding a pic of it on my full sized bed,.

4. 19.12 I've finished it! It's approximately 54 inches squared! Wow! It is an amazing feeling to finish such a large project! Now I have to wait until July to give it as a gift...and keep it secret...mostly!

Pictures below:

 And all rolled up, look how big it is!

What I recieved from the One Tiny Hunger Games Swap!

My One Tiny Hunger Games Thing partner spoiled me rotten, and I love everything! I immediately put on my new bracelet, mockingjay pin, and a pair of earrings. The best part, the jewelry totally matched the shirt I am wearing today! Unfortunately we weren't able to make the movie today, but we have plans to go tomorrow afternoon instead. So, no spoiling!!

First: Everything together!


Next, a close up of the super awesome jewelry box. She pasted my favorite part of the book onto the inside:


Close Ups of the earrings:

The blue ones are nightlock berry inspired. The other ones are girl on fire inspired.

Close up of the bracelet:

The bracelet is a combo of the nightlock berry's and Peeta's bread beads.

As an extra, the mockingjay pin:

Quick Kids Paper Craft

My kids were being uber loud and annoying before bedtime, so I knew I had to find something for them to do.  I have a bunch of white cupcake liners that I set aside, so I pulled those suckers out and said, grab a chair, we're going to make some flowers! I pulled out the colored pencils, and while they decorated their cupcake liner flower, I cut strips of green construction paper for them to use as stems.

I told them they could cut my strips to whatever size they wanted, and then glue them to the paper (I picked blue to look like they sky--I doubt they noticed!) and then glue their "flowers" to the top of the "stems." We used glue sticks.

On the left is my 6 year old daughters. On the right is my 4 year old sons. He decided to make a person instead.  This gave us about 15 minutes of calm down, quiet time, which was WONDERFUL!

Artwork Quilt for my Mom

I have finally figured out how to print onto fabric. My mom lives many miles away from me, and so she hasn't been able to see my kids as they grow up. So, I've made some simple quilts for my kids so I thought it would be perfect to print out some of their artwork, and put together a quilt for her for Christmas. I thought, if I'm going to endeavor into a project like this, I'd better start now! So, here is a picture of the art work I have printed out so far onto fabric. I am trying a vinegar bath and heat to set the ink. I found that tutorial here:

http://dollsanddaydreams.blogspot.com/2010/09/fabric-label-tutorial-made-from-things.html

And, here's where I am at to date:

I will update my progress as I go along.

 April 10, 2012
I got all the pieces I'm going to use to make this and printed and hopefully heat set well enough. This is how I decided to piece them together. 

And I sewed the quilt top. I haven't measured it yet, but it's about lap quilt size, which is perfect because my mom is in a wheelchair now.

Here's the quilt top sewn together. I used yellow and blue for my son's artwork and pink for my daughter's. All of the fabric is from the remnants at JoAnn Fabric's. Some of the pink is actually a very thin fabric, but it's ok! And, some of it looks pink but it's my son's b/c he had colored on a red/pink construction paper.  I have my backing fabric picked out. It's lots of crayons. I'll post about that when I pick it up.  This project is moving along nicely, so I may get it done in time for her birthday early May instead of for Christmas.

4/12/12 Project Finished. Here are the last of my pictures:

 I tied the layers together with these buttons. Here's a close up.

 Here's a close up of the crayon material I used for the backing. What better backing material for a quilt top of my kids' artwork than crayons?

 Lime green bias tape to close off the sides. It's not perfect because I'm still a newbie at making these, but it turned out pretty good nonetheless. I put green buttons on the corners of the front side, too.

 Al done! My mom is going to be so excited to receive this!

Craftster Swap #1--One Tiny Hunger Games Thing--Earrings

These earrings are like the Big Bang Earrings I made myself. In fact, I think I'm going to make myself a pair to wear when I go see the Hunger Games movie. I'm just going to post pictures. If you want to read how I made them, just find my Big Bang Theory Earrings post. Awesome. Thanks!

Craftster Swap #1--One Tiny Hunger Games Thing

I joined my first Craftster swap, which was a One Tiny Things Hunger Games Swap. I was so ecstatic to learn that I was partnered up with someone who is stationed in Alaska--where I was born and raised! In fact, ask anyone--one an Alaskan, always an Alaskan....anyway, as soon as I read her questionaire, I knew what I had to make!

The question was: Is there anything that you'd risk the cornucopia for? And her answer was, weapons or something to carry water.

Now, a one tiny thing swap means you make something tiny. So, I was originally going to make a coffee cozy or something, but I came across this tutorial :
http://pinkchalkstudio.com/blog/2006/07/10/whiplash-challenge-water-bottle-carrier//

And knew, I'd have to try to make this water bottle carrier.

One of her favorite quotes from the book were "If we burn, you burn with us." So, I knew I'd use that. I was so pleased I already had most of my materials from those Hunger Games pillowcases I've made and blogged about earlier.


Firstly, I cut out my shapes for my fire, and circles for my bottom. I used heat and bond on the backs of my fire pieces.






I adhered it to my brown piece, and cut a strip for the top. The strip on the top I had decided to embroider with her quote, "If we burn, you burn with us."





See.








I hand sewed through the flames to keep it attached to the brown. Sewing through 3 layers of heat and bond is not easy!




Between the layers of brown is insulate, as well as the orange circles for the bottom.

I tried several times to get the inside invisible seam right, but each time I did succeed, I managed to not have my carrier wide enough to hold a 591mL bottle like it's supposed to. So, I had to pull out seams a few times. I even had to add in some fabric to get it right. I had a heck of a time getting the bottom circle right. So, I used the orange for my handles to go around the bottom of my carrier. It's not perfect, but it's pretty good.

Another look at the carrier:


I'm pleased with it. I really hope she likes it. She should be receiving it today, so I'll find out. I made her some earrings, too. I'll create a blog post in just a minute about those.

Chalkboard Paint

I had never tried out chalkboard paint. I've wanted to, but I hadn't. I'm responsible for the Easter party in my son's pre-school class. This includes gift bags. I like to put together gift bags. I got the kids chalk. Of course, they can't have just chalk, so I wanted to make them individual Easter appropriate chalkboards. Bunnies, of course! I was going to give my husband a go at trying out his dad's scroll saw again, but when I saw super mini 20 cent/piece bunnies and eggs, I swooped up enough for the class, and some spray on chalkboard paint, and I was in business.



First, my supplies. Black chalkboard spray paint, 15 bunnies, and 15 egg shape cut outs.




Then, I brought them outside, and I used a Pizza Hut box (I love recycling) to spray paint the first side. I let them dry, and spray painted the other side. Super easy, super quick.





Ta da! I know have mini bunny and egg chalkboards for my son's class.





That will not be all that goes into the gift bags. I have some little plastic odds and ends, but I am also going to put in the "peeps s'mores" that I have pinned on one of my boards. I may even make cute bunnies out of paper bags for the gift bag it self.

This whole project was just over $10 which works out to about $1/kid, but I have paint left over, so not even that much a kid. I hope they like them!

Bazinga! Earrings

I apologize for the photo being sideways. I am having a heck of a time with pictures lately. I have them the right way, and they when they upload, they turn sideways and I can't get it back. Sorry!

Anyway, I LOVE BIG BANG THEORY! I was making some earrings (new thing for me) for a partner in a Craftster Craft Swap (will post about those when she receives her package next week) and bought enough of those mini charm frames for me to make myself some earrings. So, of course, I wanted Big Bang Theory earrings. I originally was going to make a pair with a picture of Sheldon, and a pair with a picture of Leonard, but I came across this, and decided to go Bazinga! instead. I have a nice necklace with the word Bazinga! that I got from Etsy, so it will be fun to wear this with that.

Anyway, so get the picture frame charm. Attach earring. And ta da! Badda bing! Bazinga!

Sewing For Kids--Stuffing Pillows Pizazz

Have you ever wondered what the best way to get kids interested in sewing was? The answer is simply,make something that they can stuff. I can't tell you how many pillows I have made with my kids. They are "sew" easy to make too.

Yesterday my 6yo daughter wanted to sew a pillow. She made a quite large approx 16x16 inch pillow which ended up using up most of the stuffing I had. And, I had a BIG bag full. I had promised my 4yo son I would sew a pillow with him, too, but we had an unexpected visit from our neighbor, and so we had to post pone that until this morning. Anyway, we didn't have much stuffing left, and he's been talking A LOT about Buzz Lightyear (you know, the dude from Toy Story). So I thought, hey, let's find a coloring page of Buzz online, print it out, he can color it (not related to the sewing, obviously) then I can cut it out and use it as my template for a Buzz doll/pillow.

I don't have any fabric at home for a Toy Story recreation, but I did find some scraps of this cool fleece Batman fabric I'd used when I'd made him a small blanket/quilt and yes, Batman pillows. This is me pinning Buzz onto the Batman material. I decided not to cut his legs apart. I didn't think there would be much space when sewing, and it would just be easier to not do it.


This is how it turned out:

So, my son now has a Batman themed, Buzz Lighter year doll/pillow thingy.