Christmas Quilling

I did a small quilling project two years ago for the Craft Month Challenge. It helped me get over my dread of quilling that was instilled when my mother would have me make quilled snowflakes for the craft bazaar and sell them for .25/each. It was the 80s but damn, that's cheap. (I'm so traumatized I tell you this story every time I mention quilling. It might be time to put it to rest.)

I didn't use a pattern for this. It's a pretty basic project, I only used coils; no teardrops or marquis or scrolls. You just need paper strips (they sell them in the craft stores now/again), glue, and a toothpick. Seriously, you don't need more than that.

Valentine's Week

The good news is I am making crafts. The bad news is that I am not reporting on them daily.
So here goes a long, picture heavy post to catch you up!

Valentine card. This card riffs on this one. I used the Petite Petals punch from Stampin' Up with Real Red, Rose Red, Cherry Cobbler, and Pink Pirouette papers. The centers are tiny pearls. Not sure which set the sentiment comes from. I see that the original creator die cut a heart to use as a template for laying out the flowers, but I just winged it. I know what shape a heart is. ;)

 This felt heart ornament is a riff on these. If you search for heart projects you will see a lot of very cute felt heart ornaments that I can only describe as regular, definitely cute but not whimsical or irregular. Kind of the opposite of this one. I'm not sure I 100% captured my vision, but I do like it.

It seems I am featuring the hutch in this week's photos. LOL.  Here we have a heart garland I made following this tutorial. She used super cute paper. Mine are a little less bright and fancy. Still cute.

Okay, these did not come out the way I imagined at all! I started with the pictures on this tutorial, and I did the painting mostly the way she suggests. I guess the handle was not half-heart-shaped enough. Also, I think I traced the outside of the handle, but I should have traced the inside. Then the heart on the mug body would have matched the handle better. They're not awful, just not what was in my head! (Get the oil-based Sharpie! It'll stand up to washing.)

Hello! This is Shepherd's Bush Be Mine Tag. These little kits work up so fast. I think it took me about two hours to do. I did briefly think about painting the sled white--I saw that in one of the Strawberry Sampler's newsletters--but I like the dark wood contrast. And pink and brown maybe out but they are fabulous together.

I saw these wrapped hearts here, and I thought they were so cute! And it's a craft that requires shapes and yarn and that's it. No glue. No sew. Just wrap and go. (You attach the hearts to the wreath form with wooden skewers.) But something just doesn't work here. It's so Gender Reveal Party. Welcome to the baby shower. Not Valentine's Day. I don't get it because I used the same colors they did. Maybe I just didn't realize how shower-y their colors were until I had done it myself? Oh, btw, that gold one uses crochet thread. While it is possible to do this with crochet thread, I'm not going to recommend it!

And the party. The Fake Party as the dude calls it, since I put all this stuff out and then don't have anyone over to eat it. This time we're having mix-ins with our date night movie accompanying popcorn. Except we ran out of popcorn. I bought a ton of mix-ins and no popcorn. (Heavy sigh.) Pretend the red bowl is overflowing with popcorn. This time, I created printables using Microsoft Word. Insert-->shape-->the heart is under "basic shapes." Then I filled it with the pastel colors of conversation hearts--white, green, peach, yellow, lavender--and used a san serif font in pink to replicate the Necco treats. One half of the toppings are savory--cheese, pretzels, nuts, spice mixes--and the others are sweet--Mike and Ike's, mini Reeses, honeyed almonds, and the Valentine's day M&M's. (Do you know how hard it was to save those?) The dude is going for the savory, but I pretty much live for the salty-sweet-crunchy combo.

Still with me? You are a trooper! Now that I am back on track, I'm going to try to swing by every day.

The Power Went Out So I Went on Vacation

Dear Loyal Followers, I am sorry for this pitiful start to Craft Month. It seems something has come up at every turn! We got our power back on Monday night so we were able to sleep in our own (rock hard) Tempurpedic bed. And then on Tuesday we started our drive down to Asheville.

The way this was going to work out in my head was that I'd make all the crafts on the weekend, and then share them with you during the week. And then I couldn't make the crafts because my fingers were blue. But I want to do Craft Month. And since this is my Craft Month project, I decided I'd do 31 crafts and I'd show them to you when I could. So I went to Asheville and had a good-ish time (complicated story but a four day vacation where you spend three days driving is no sort of vacation at all). When we got back, it was to the realization that our power might be back but our internet was still out. And my Google phone doesn't play well with the Blogger app. Go figure.

So let me quit bitching and tell you about the four crafts I have for you today.

What's a birthday without a birthday card? I used my all-time favorite Stampin' Up! set, Flower Shop, with the matching punch. I paired it with a DSP I don't remember the name of (oops). Not sure if you can tell, but the green top is embossed with small dots.

For Day 3 of Birthday Week, I made a matching gift bag. I gave this to my sister for her (belated) birthday when I saw her Saturday. She liked the bag, but was a little disappointed she couldn't throw it out. (We were going to see the Peking Acrobats right after I gave this to her.) I love making gift bags.

Continuing with papercrafts, I made this cake topper. I had thought about adding "birthday" but  with a word so long, I wasn't sure I'd be able to do the engineering to get the "happy" to hang nicely. While photographing it, I did think that one could make each letter of birthday a separate pick (using toothpicks) and you could have those letters closer to the cake. You could then also use this for an anniversary cake or any other happy occasion!

The good part of taking a vacation where you drive three out four days is that you can get some stitching done! (When you're the passenger.) I was trying to come up with another craft for birthdays, and remembered this freebie from Erica Michaels for Rainbow Gallery threads. The pattern is 14 years old (and considering how little I remember these days, the fact I remembered a 14 year old pattern festering in my freebies file is a miracle. Although they do say you lose short term memory first!) but is also still on the web. You can find it here (see June).

I didn't use Rainbow Gallery threads for this; I used DMC. Here's my conversion:

• Flame: 3078
• Candles: 3042
• Chocolate: 840
• Bottom layer of cake: 316
• Top layer: 778
• Bottom icing swirl: white
• Top icing swirl: 316
• Stand: 3042 for one symbol and silver cable for the other
• beads: 00123 and one I stole from a Mill Hill Celtic Santa kit (watch me be nine beads short)

Okay two more Birthday Week crafts to photograph and tell you about. Then I'll turn to Valentine's Day. I hope to be caught up by the weekend, but that's all up to Verizon. And Skylar*.



*They say this isn't hitting Philly. But with my track record you can't be too sure!

Somewhere Safe

How many time have you put the buttons or charms from a kit or chart pack "somewhere safe," only to tear the room (or house!) apart looking for it. What if every time you needed to put something somewhere safe you knew where to put it and find it. Would it be a miracle? The idea for today's craft started forming around that miraculous place.

Then I started thinking about how I might 1) add decoration to it (of course!) and 2) incorporate that into Papercraft Thursday. I started thinking about the coloring books with their swirly patterns and then I thought of quilling.

These days you probably know what quilling is, but back when I was making quilled snowflakes in high school for my mother to sell at the bazaar (for a quarter, don't get me started) everyone always thought I was saying quilting. (Yes, lady, I have no idea what the craft I am doing is called. Thanks.) I taught myself, but I don't remember how...maybe I stumbled across a book in the Ben Franklin? That sounds like something I would do. I remember the first time I had met another quiller--at a craft fair in the Royal Ridge Mall where she was selling quilled floral Christmas ornaments. She must have thought it was insane this teenager getting so excited about her work that everyone was ignoring! But people, I knew her pain and isolation. Anyway, this Renaissance craft is having a bit of a renaissance these days. At least I could find quilling paper at Joann's.

I had much grander plans, but you can only roll so many papers in a few hours...

This is a photobox but now it's where all the small but important stuff will go. This is all from my head, but I am sure Pinterest and the Google can help you find more information about quilling if you're interested.

Oh How Real those Roses Seem to Be

It's past bedtime, and I've just finished this paper flower tree. I got the idea here, and I think I should have done something different at the top. As it is, I spent the whole evening making flowers. This might get a little remake come April. Or December, whichever.

Onward.

But first, to bed. For tomorrow we rise at daybreak.

The Exploding Book

It's going to be difficult to give the full effect of today's craft which is an "exploding book"*. It looks much more complicated than it is to make. I wish I'd had more time to decorate it and add photos, but I had a train to catch.

One thing I would have done differently is that I would have used regular paper rather than designer series paper, which is a little thicker and didn't fold around the cover as well.

This is another craft that relied on recycling--the cover is made from a Greenies box. It would have been made from a cracker box but I kept cutting the wrong size. Measure twice, cut once? How about read the instructions twice, cut once.

* I wish there were a better name for this.

Papercraft Star

There is nothing alliterative and crafty that goes along with Thursday. Trust me, I spent hours looking at the thesaurus. So, Papercraft Thursday will focus on non-card items made from paper.

This is a Scandinavian-style woven star ornament. I used this tutorial, which is a video. If you do better with text and photos, you can try this one. I chose this paper because it has a Scandinavian feel to it, and then for some reason, I made my twists backwards so that the snowflake print is the main focus with just little peeks of the other. But spatial relations isn't really my strong suit...

...as you can see here. I made a dog's breakfast of this one. I twisted the points in the wrong direction. {sad trombone}

These didn't take very long at all. Seriously, I felt like the trimming the strips (6" x 1/2") took longer than all the gluing together. I think I might make them to decorate the Christmas presents next year. (My sister is like Martha Stewart in the wrapping room, and she's always disappointed that I'm the kind of person that wraps something in tissue and throws it in a bag from the dollar store.) (Mind you I get some very nice gift bags at the dollar store, and at a price I'm willing to pay!)

Wreath Wednesday: Pinwheels

I am one of those people who changes the front door wreath seasonally. I'd love to change it monthly but I'm a few wreaths shy of a calendar. (There's a new one for you. "Oh, that idiot? She's a few wreaths shy of a calendar.")

Most of the months I am missing are in the spring and summer range. (I actually have three wreaths for October.) When I was perusing Pinterest for ideas, I came across several pinwheel wreaths. Very spring-y I think. I chose these three papers from the Birthday Bash series from Stampin' Up and whipped these pinwheels up pretty quickly.

Directions:
Paper pinwheel wreath directions from HGTV.
You can make pinwheels with one sided paper too.
With double sided paper but with the crazy addition of eyelets.
Someone made a variation (mistake) that you can learn from.

Love Your Traveler

With the girls, stamping. Including my niece Lala. Back to work! See you tomorrow.

Edited to add: Here's the original inspiration.

Love Your Whovian

This card has winged its way to the UK. My BIL should be opening it soon. This is right up his alley!

The directions for the Tardis card aren't awesome if you are a card crafter. There are some much easier ways to do the things she outlines in these directions. You can do it her way and things will work, but if you have some experience, you may wish to use, say, a paper cutter and square punches.

I'm not going to lie to you, the map fold--the interior--was difficult and frustrating. I have no ability to rotate shapes in my head, so I called in the dude, but he fared no better at following those instructions. If you're an old hand at origami, you should be okay. Otherwise try to find a video. (We couldn't.) But it is imperative to make the fold--it has to be bigger on the inside.

I finally just sort of did my best, and as it turns out, that was good enough!

Happy birthday, Alan.

Love Your Lobster

I know I said I wasn't going to be able to get this done this weekend, but we had to have our car inspected before we left, and it took hours and hours. So I put myself to work. (I made two things, started a third, folded two loads of laundry, and still had an hour left, so I went back to the craft room!)

While masculine cards are harder than feminine ones, they are a lot easier than, say, masculine cross stitch pieces. Still I was happy to find this lobster card.

It's a great one to make for your favorite Friends fan! Though you could just as easily make it a birthday card, because who doesn't love a little lobster for the birthday? (I may be projecting.)

Also, I am happy to report that those Alton Brown pecans are ah-maaaaaaz-ing! I can't stop eating them.

Love the Last Minute

Drive by post: Origami shirt. Card.

To bed.

Love Your Bucket List

Last night I was convinced I was going to have today off so I could work ahead on my Craft Month projects. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we hardly got any snow. (I feel for my friends to the south, however.) After a delayed opening (and I don't know where that time went) it was business as usual.

When I first saw this, I think on One Pretty Thing, or maybe in Papercraft Magazine, I fell in love with the quote: "I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list." I definitely thought it could be made to be more masculine. First, lose the bow. I knew I needed to find a map scrapbooking paper to make it, and when I saw this 7 Gypsies paper at Joann's I felt like I was on to something. Then I found the balloon stamp. And I thought that carried through the "antique"ness of the paper. And you know how I love to stamp quotes with those typewriter style letters and cut them out like that.

The dude really likes the map. Of course, the only part I didn't have any hand in. Still, it could be framed to hang in a map room or it could be a neat first page in the scrapbook where you document all your travels.

Errands and a Last Minute Craft

The nonprofit wing of the Craft and Hobby Association, who sponsor Craft Month, have this website cre8time with the slogan "Reclaim your Creativity." The goal is for people to find eight hours a month to craft (in the face of responsibilities that make crafting seem "selfish").

 Last night, I had to work at making time to get my craft on. (Well, except for the part where I spent the morning stitching with my old ladies at the library. More later.) I spent the afternoon running errands. Then it was dinner time. Then I had to walk the dog...the next thing it was nine o'clock and I was fading fast (oh, wild Friday night!)

Paper crafting is my usual go-to craft when time is a little short but this was no shortcut. I decided on the Flower Pot Pocket. It  wouldn't have taken that long except that I spent loads of time choosing paper for the flowers and then changed my mind about the ribbon, and had to spend loads of time choosing paper for the flowers all over again. {Sigh}

Earlier in the day, at Old Lady Stitching--should I call it Library Tea and Stitch since we have some new visitors?--we had a swap. Some people rooted around in their garages and attics and brought yarn and crochet thread and cross-stitch patterns from the last century. I brought in a bunch of yarn project leftovers, a couple of fancy yarns I'm never going to use, and a couple of knitting books. I also brought in eight balls of eyelash yarn but I saved them for Linda because she knits chemo caps (No Hair Day) for a local hospital. It was my intention to knit those but that was three or so years ago. I know she'll get it done. While combing through the crap stuff I found a skein of Thick and Quick, a spool of gold cord, a spool of gold crochet thread with metallic shots (these last two for ornament hangers), and a bag of poly-fil. The items that went unclaimed are going to go to some teens who are doing some project or something, but let's face it, most of us buy more craft supplies than we can use in a three--or thirty-three--year period and sharing with others makes room...for more stuff. (It's true. I went to Joann's and AC Moore yesterday!)

Folding Paper

There's a whole website of crafts people find on pinterest and fail to replicate called Pinterest Fail. I don't find it all that funny but BuzzFeed pulled a few of them and no matter how many times I show this to people, I crack up especially at #9 and #17.

I know a couple of my projects from last year merited inclusion in the fail category. Probably more than this one does because it is not horrible; it's just not perfect. And it's made from folding paper. How hard can that be? Video directions here.*

I'm most disappointed in that gap at the bottom. It was just frustrating not to be able to get it all to line up. I think if I did this again, I'd use regular paper. I used light cardstock because it was the only two sided print that I had. It made it hard to get the folds just right (see also the white petals at two o'clock.)

*Be prepared to be frustrated by the slow video. Most of her videos have a few hundred views. This one has 5000--slows things down a bit.