She's crafty - she just can't type

How to make a Mario or Luigi hat -

2007-10-12T16:51:00.000-07:00

My kids are very particular when it comes to their costumes. They like all of the details to be just right, so a couple years ago when they wanted to have a Mario themed birthday party I started making prototypes of the hats that we'd give the guests as favors. After a few unsatisfactory attempts I finally came up with this version - which happily turned out to be the easiest to make. We ended up making 16 of these one evening. The kids were able to help tracing the circles and cutting them out, I just had to supervise and sew.

Polyester fleece is one of my favorite costume making materials. Like felt, there is no right side or wrong side and it doesn't fray so raw edges are fine. But unlike felt, fleece is stretchy and elastic, so measuring and sizing can be very casual. Since it's kind of thick it holds shapes really well and even really messy sewing gets blurred in the fuzz. My sewing machine usually needs to be cleaned after I work with fleece, but washing the material first gets rid of a lot of loose fibers. Sewing by hand is also a reasonable option for this project, and as crazy as it sounds safety pins or staples would also work.

Two hats can be made from half of a yard of fleece (1/4 yard will be too narrow.) These hats will fit anyone from a toddler to an adult.

Fold the fleece in half so that you are cutting out two pieces at a time. I use the lid from a 5 gallon pail to trace a circle on the fabric. (I use whatever marker I have around, it won't show.) You don't have to use a lid, you just need to make a circle with at least a 12" diameter.

Cut out the two circles and keep the corner that is left over - this is going to be the bill of the cap.
Round off the corner and cut off the thin ends.
On one of the rounds, trace a smaller circle. It should have about a 4.5" diameter. This is going to be the head hole. It seems small, but fleece is stretchy, remember?
These are all the parts cut out.

Sew the two rounds together about 1/2" from the outer edge. Sew along the outer edge of the bill.
Turn both pieces inside out.
Place the open edges of the bill along the edge of the small circle and stitch all 3 layers together.
The hat is now ready for the finishing touches.

I like to use white funky foam or fun foam - whichever you call it - to make a circle for the initial - trace the lid from a can of frozen juice concentrate if you want to keep the lid theme going . I use a safety pin to secure it in place, if you make the safety pin come out and go back in through the letter it will be almost invisible.

Black funky foam mustaches complete the look - we just attach them with double stick tape.

2007-09-14T13:09:00.001-07:00

Lots of thrifting and treasures this week. I bought the beet, the pea pod and the carrot you see here a couple years ago when I was working at the nursery. There was a squash there too - but the week I decided to go ahead and buy these it was gone - someone bought it! After it sat there and collected dust for probably 3 years! So last week when I saw the squash at goodwill for $1.21 I grabbed it.

At a garage sale I found these - 32 cloth napkins made of linen - $2. Maybe a future embroidery project?
At the other goodwill - an apron kit from the fad-of-the-month club. Not even kidding, that is what it says. I love the little birdies, I guess there was whole co-ordinating set of pot holders, place mats, napkins, and the apron. I don't know about you, but I always make a point of matching what I wear with my pot holders and place mats!
Monday we visited our friends who now live in Athens, she gave me a box of fabric including this vintage pink/brown pattern. I have lots of ideas for things to make with it and probably won't run out, there are about 10 yards of it. Thanks Sondra!
A couple weeks ago I bought a bag of embroidery things at goodwill - I usually just buy the unfinished kits for the hoops and the unused floss - and this bit of yellow gingham with orange embroidery was in one of the bags. Today I made it into a wrap skirt for Hazel with some previously thrifted seam binding. She loves it - her favorite colors - and she said, "It's like one of those cooker skirts!" (She means an apron.)

And I made a wrap skirt for myself too - cut down from a muu-muu/housedress type thing that was in with the fabric from Sondra. It is a really cool patterned fabric, and now Hazel and I will be ready for our beach vacation coming up!

Moving-

2007-06-13T18:57:00.000-07:00

I wish our house would sell and we could move, but no. Not yet, anyway. I've decided to consolidate all my blogs and throw in with Scott all one one single - hopefully updated regularly - blog here

Becca's basket

2007-04-05T20:19:00.000-07:00

Since she called to thank me for it today, I can post pictures now. I sent her a personalized cell phone, two crochet chicks (I was on a chick kick before the ripple blanket derailed me,) a granny squares doll blanket that is folded up so you can only see the edges, a wind up egg laying plastic chicken, a water whistle, and a photo album of doubles of interesting pictures. Happy Easter Becca!

Stuff to hang on the walls-

2007-04-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

So my house is for sale and even though we just had gorgeous pictures taken of the kids I'm trying to keep it all "impersonal." But the bare walls are making me sad - so here is what I have come up with:
Fabric in embroidery hoops - got the idea from Posy gets cosy (Yes, I'm copying her every move) who got the idea from the purl bee . . . I'll update when I get them up on the wall tomorrow.

Then I came across these cards that I saved from a trashed game so long ago that I can't even remember any more details, but I like them so I bought a few of these (50% off today!)
And with the help of my fav spray paint - rustoleum american accents in "oregano" - and some xmas paper from world market (since I don't actually use wrapping paper but can't resist pretty designs)I made these:

And closeups -

Hazel's bed

2007-03-26T17:56:00.000-07:00

I bought the bed skirt and mattress at the twins club sale, then Scott and I made the bed frame yesterday. The flowery sheet is a recent goodwill purchase and I've been working on the blanket for a while now. I'm really happy with how it all came together!

flashback - re-do of the play stove

2007-03-03T06:06:00.000-08:00

Glass knobs for the stove controls, old cds for the burners. I think it needs some kind of cute clock painted on it. . .

and in use (she's making pancakes)

update on the ripple blanket-

2007-03-03T05:46:00.000-08:00

Took some time off but I'm back at it again - I might even join the Ripple-a-long that is going on out there.

funky foam cell phones-

2007-03-02T14:45:00.000-08:00

Had way too much fun making these yesterday -
Scott and I (finally) got cell phones and part of the packaging was a piece of cardboard w/ a cellphone shape cut out of it. Dashiell used that to trace a 1 layer cellphone, and that inspired me to make a 3-d version.

2007-02-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

12 or so hours later

2007-02-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I really can't do random, I know I'd just use up everything I like best and then be left with lots of rows of what I don't like as much. And I don't want to have to get more yarn; and I'm using a combination of unstrechy 100% cotton, springy 100% acrylic, and some cotton/acrylic mix, so I have to have them intermixed somewhat regularly. So I figured out about how many rows I can expect fron each yarn and cut a piece to represent each row. I kind of slapped them down as fast as I could and then did some swapping around to break up cotton blocks or acrylic blocks and color chunks. Then I taped them to this paper and am using this as a pattern for my randomness ;-)

This is what it looks like so far - the colors look wrong on my moniter, the blue is a periwinkle, the pink a peach, and the purple more of a lavender. . . but you get the idea.

Nothing but potential-

2007-02-16T06:39:00.000-08:00

Fixin' to make one of those crochet ripple blankets that I've been seeing all over blogland. I think I finally figured out what the pattern is (no, I couldn't just wait to actually get the pattern book!) I started one and frogged it yesterday because I had a few rows where the pattern wasn't quite right yet and it was going to end up fitting a queen-sized bed and I just want it for a twin!
This blanket is supposed to be a stash-buster, but yesterday I just had to go get some more yarn because if I'm going to spend all this time on it I might as well have the exact colors I want, right? And Mamacatfish - if you are out there - Look! I bought *pink* yarn!

fabric xmas wrap

2006-12-26T18:41:00.000-08:00

I know I'm a freak but when I think about all the wrapping paper that gets thrown away at xmas it causes me an almost physical pain. A few years ago (3 actually) I decided that I would just make a variety of fabric gift bags in xmas prints to re-use every year. Well . . . I never did make the fabric into bags, but I use it to wrap our gifts every year anyway. The past two years I taped it in place - it holds just fine, you won't want to throw it around a lot or anything - and then I used curling ribbon in different colors to designate which family member the gift was for. This year I didn't bother with the tape (I hate spending the time pulling it off later) and just tied yarn in different colors around the packages to hold it all in place. I think it looks really nice and this year I had all the fabric re-folded and ready to put away by the time the last presents were opened.

snowballs!

2006-12-26T18:35:00.000-08:00

I've been crocheting these snowballs in different sizes and in different yarns - packed them away with the xmas stuff now but first took this picture. Not often that you get to say, "No snowball fights in the house!" especially in GA!

This is what I've been doing the last few days-

2006-12-19T14:58:00.000-08:00

Gifts for my husband's co-workers and sugar cookies for his students to decorate.
My kids are begging for vegetables!

furniture update-

2006-12-19T14:52:00.000-08:00

(I need to take some pics when it isn't dark)
Holy wow were you right about the copper color Mamacatfish!
I should have bought 3 cans, oh darn, another spraypaint shopping trip.

Game boy cozy-

2006-12-16T15:32:00.000-08:00

Wool, dyed by the boys back in my felted vegetables phase. On the way to the washing machine for felting . . .

Bath salts update-

2006-12-15T17:12:00.000-08:00

Very happy with my packaging - found some flowery mini-muffin liners at the grocery store and popped the salts into them. Oh, and they are like rocks now, no worries about them holding together! I put 3 salts in a tiny tin can (recycled tomato sauce cans) and wrapped the whole deal in tissue paper. I made tags with more muffin tin liners and punched circles and wrote "'Florida Hippy' orange patcholi bath salts made by Helen and Hazel"

I just put a bunch of bigger cans filled with water in the freezer. I'm thinking I'll nail designs in the cans to make them lanterns and put bath salts and a candle in them - instant funky spa!

Homeschooling Hanukkah candle centerpiece

2006-12-15T16:15:00.000-08:00

Latkes with sour cream and applesauce for dinner tonight - I wanted to do something with candles also. My trifle bowl, some epsom salts, and 8 tea lights and we had a festive centerpiece in about 30 seconds.

Crafty compulsion of the day-

2006-12-15T09:14:00.000-08:00

I'm packing up the xmas boxes and having my usual, "NOT GOOD ENOUGH!" freak out. So I'm making some bath salts to maybe include before I seal up the boxes. I wanted to make fizzy bath bombs, but my citric acid isn't here yet, so this is roughly the bath bomb recipe without it.
I'm not sure if they'll stay in shape, so they might just be packaged up as loose salts . . . but this is what they are doing right now.

Xmas ornament cards-

2006-12-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

This is a project that ended differently than it started. . . I was just going to make cards out of circles with pictures pasted to them to kind of look like ornaments. Then after all of the work I put in cutting everything out (and especially the 65 pictures I took trying to get a good shot of each of the kids) I realized that it would actually be easier to attach the whole thing together if they were actually ornaments.

Each circle has a loop of yarn for hanging on a tree. In the card form, the top of the loop is taped to the ornament above it. I put an extra piece of clear tape directly on the back of the cards and the loop is taped to that so the paper won't get ripped when it is taken apart.

4 done, 16 more to assemble. I was thinking about how cute these would look on my Mom's "wall(s) of cards" when I designed them.

Fashback! Sock dog

2006-12-14T06:25:00.000-08:00

Made this about a month ago. The pattern was from the Martha Stewart Holiday Handmade Gifts Magazine, socks pilfered from Scott's sock drawer. Hazel has a new favorite toy.

Everybody must get stoned-

2006-12-13T15:04:00.000-08:00

I made these cat toys for all of the cat owning members of the family. The dog socks and the stripey socks were the boys' when they were babies, and the pink ones were $1.00 a pair at Target. It was a great excuse to buy cute little socks . . .
They are stuffed with fiberfill and catnip and sewn shut at the top. Note - if you are making them you should keep then in a ziplock baggie so your own cats don't get into your stash.

Freaking!

2006-12-12T15:12:00.000-08:00

Just looked at the calandar and realized that I've got to kick it into hyperdrive! I should go to the post office this week to be on the safe side, I've got some gifts to finish up fast!

Cousin Memory Game

2006-12-11T08:30:00.000-08:00

Another present for my niece - a homemede version of the game Memory.
I punched out pictures of my kids and lots of cardstock. Each card has an orange back, a middle layer that is just there for stability and to thicken the cards, and either a photo or another piece of cardstock with a stamp on it. I used modpodge to hold everything together and stacked candles on top of them as they dried to keep them from bending and warping.

Since my niece isn't two yet I thought my sister could separate the photo cards from the stamp cards and use them separately, then re-join the decks as she gets older.

Have to figure out packaging still, I was going to put then in a parmesean cheese container but there would be a lot of empty roon in there. . .

What I would do differently next time: not much - if I was making this for an older child I would have more pictures. This time I just used what I happened to have (leftovers fron xmas cards) and I'm happy with the split deck option. I'd like to look for a rectangular punch, I think that would make the cards easier to play with.

My trigger finger is itching!

2006-12-07T13:34:00.000-08:00

Got this furniture from a friend who is moving. Did I mention that I have a little bit of a spray paint habit? Well, I do. And this set is just begging for a coat of it!

Stole-

2006-12-07T13:26:00.000-08:00

Knitted for my niece-
I made her some dress up clothes last year and want to continue the tradition-

Crafty compulsion of the day-

2006-12-05T14:40:00.000-08:00

I used my new hole punch - it is a circle with about a 1.5" diameter - to make a million circles out of the freepeople catalog. I love the colors and patterns and backdrops. I'll probably use them for decoupage.

Mouse cat toy, pre-felting

2006-12-05T14:36:00.000-08:00

This slit is so I can stuff himwith catnip afterwards.

I'm on a crafty bender right now-

2006-12-05T10:19:00.000-08:00

So I'm going to try to keep up with what I'm doing now and then add what I've done in the last 6 months or so-
Right now I'm working on:
1. cat toys - crochet mice made of wool and/or funfur, felted and stuffed w/catnip
2. xmas cards- had an idea I 'm trying to follow through on - this might plunge me into the dreaded world of scapbooking.
3. xmas presents - knit, crochet, sewing, and more!
4. Community blanket project - 8x8 squares, knitted or crochet that well combine for a friend who is having a baby.