250th Blog Post!

I used the gadget on random.org and it told me #52 so I counted down to the 52nd facebook fan and the lucky winner is Louise Griffith!  Congratulations!  Since I already have your address I'll drop your prize off in the mail today.  Hope you like it!

Red, White & Blue Dishcloths

A good friend of mine has a birthday right around the 4th of July.  She is also due with twin boys who I made receiving blankets for here.  Since I had the gifts ready I decided to mail them over a month early.  I know that if I just let them sit around I would forget and then they'd be late.  I'm pretty sure I hadn't posted these dishrags yet so I thought I'd do that today.  They are so easy to make.  Just use cotton yarn and make a granny square keeping in mind that they will shrink a bit with repeated washing.  Makes me kind of sad that I'm completely out of cotton yarn.  But I have quite a few dishrags that I haven't gifted yet so I guess I don't need anymore right now.  Off to the post office!

Sisters Rock!

We invited the Sister Missionaries to have dinner with us tonight.  On the way in the door they spotted my pile of headbands so after dinner they went through them and picked a couple out.  We had such a fun time visiting with them.  They are so cute and look great with their new headbands.  They are both from UT.  I told them I hadn't blogged yet today so they let me take their picture so I could post it.  I'm so glad we have Sister Missionaries in our town!

Jj is for Jaxon

Was going to travel to the "city" today since our fridge and cupboards are bare but it was raining pretty good this morning and with the road construction we just didn't want to deal with it.  Then the power went out for a couple of hours so we couldn't walk on the treadmill so we went over and played with Jaxon while his mom went to a meeting.  Such a cute little guy.  I made this for his 2nd B'day that is coming up in a couple of weeks.  Since we desperately needed milk & bread we went to the next town over this afternoon and picked up a few things and printed this out at the local print shop.  Glad to know I can make color prints there since the closest Officemax is over 80 miles away.

Ee is for Ethan

I found this great clipart site and made a couple of these signs on Sat.  Looking for a local print shop to print one out and see how it looks.  I think it'd be great in a black frame.  What a fun baby shower present!

Birth Announcement

I've been playing around with doing printables for a while now.  I have a long way to go to figure things out but I did make this today for a friend back in AZ who had her first baby yesterday.  The font is called "Grilled Cheese".  I'm not sure how it ended up on my computer but I like it.  The owl is a free download off the internet.  If you search for images of owls it will be one of the first pictures to pop up.  I changed the colors a bit.  I did the font layout in libre office and then saved it as a pdf and then imported it into GIMP.  Not the easiest method but as for now GIMP isn't as type friendly as it could be so this was the only way I could figure to get around it.  There seems to be an unwanted line under the owl pic.  Probably a result of an error in importing the pdf.  If you want me to make one for you let me know!

Handcreme Cozies

I had a couple of these Nivea handcreme tins so I crocheted some little pockets to hold them.

10 more headbands

I picked up these stretchy headbands when we went to town last week.  Finished them up today.  I tried one on and it's a bit tight for my liking.  I think these would be best on young girls.  I had fun picking out the fabrics to match the headbands.

Rosette Headbands

Trying to put together a boutique next month as part of a local celebration.  In preparation I’m replenishing my inventory.  I had 10 metal headbands that I hadn’t added flowers to yet so I went through my fabric and whipped up some this afternoon.  These pictures do not do them justice.   They are so cute.  I was thinking they would be a fun party favor for a little girls birthday party.  If you need some let me know!

99 cent workout tshirt

Yesterday, I grabbed plain, black tshirt to wear as a workout shirt before I headed out to use the treadmill.  The tshirt had a really high neck that was constricting and awkwardly long short sleeves.  I'd picked it up at the 99 cent store intending to spruce it up a bit but hadn't done anything yet.  I immediately cut off the neckline and the hems at the bottom of the shirt and the sleeves.  It felt better already but I didn't want these pieces to go to waste so I made them into rosettes as shown below:

The center flower is made from the hem of the tshirt.  The top two flowers are made from the hems from the sleeves and the bottom two flowers are made from the neckline.

 Closeup of the largest rosette.  I think the serging gives it some nice detail.

I hand sewed the three flowers from the hems of the tshirt and sleeves to the front of the tshirt as shown here.  I ended up cutting the neckline a little bit lower so it wouldn't be so constricting.

Sorry for the awful picture here but I made an inverted pleat on each sleeve and hand sewed a rosette in place made from the neckline.

I'm glad I finally took the time to redo this tshirt into something wearable.  It's going to be a great workout shirt.  Most tshirt refashions that I've seen combine two shirts so I really like this project that I used the scraps in new ways and only used one shirt.

I really miss having a 99 cent store close.

crocheted flower hairclips

Last month when I was in ID my cousin's daughter asked me to make some crocheted flower hairclips similar to one she had purchased.  It had a fabric covered button for the center but since I don't have the supplies to make those, I decided to use antique buttons instead.  I went through my button collection and found a few that I liked.  My mother in law stopped past the house last Wed. evening and I showed her what I was working on.  She said I could go through her buttons and use some of them as well.  It took me a couple of tries but I finally figured out a pattern that I like.  Some of my crochet thread was quite thick so I could just one strand but for most of it I had to double it up which required stringing it through the house and then wrapping it back up doubled which was a fun endeavor.  As you can see, these flowers have anywhere from 6 - 8 petals since I was trying out different styles but I'll probably be making them all the same from here on out.  Now I just need to attach them to some alligator clips to finish them up.

Custom Order Headbands

My friend custom ordered a couple of headbands for her girls at my boutique Saturday and I finished them up yesterday.  The green/purple combos are for her little girl that is all about Tinkerbell and the pink headbands are for her girly girl.  Seeing the their faces yesterday when they picked up their headbands was priceless.  They were so excited.  Makes me happy that I can bring joy to little princesses.

Blessing Certificate

Since I missed posting for a couple of days I'm posting twice today.  Here's a little project that I've been wanting to do for a while now.  Picked up a document frame in town yesterday and glued a rosette to it this morning.  Will be gifting it for a belated 1st B'day present.

Sunflower Quilt

Here's the quilt I was talking about in my last post.  The sunflower material I bought a long time ago.  I think I was going to serge the edges and make it into a picnic tablecloth.  My mom spotted it when she was helping me pack up to move a couple months ago so she took it and brought it back to me a couple weeks ago in the form of this quilt.  I really like the fabric that she picked out to go with it.  I'm so lucky to have a mom who is an avid quilter.  She is constantly making quilts to give away and every once in a while I'm lucky enough to receive one.  Without her I wouldn't be addicted to crafting since.  Thanks mom!

Snap Bags

So this is the project I was working on last week at my parent’s house.  I spotted them at the quilt show we happened across in St. George on our drive from SLC to LA two weeks ago.  When I showed them to my mom she told me she already had a couple of them.

These two bags my mom won as door prizes at a quilt retreat she attended in March.  The ladybug bag holds a pill box.  The other one is quilted.  Each uses two different fabrics since the lining fabric folds over to the outside for the casing at the top.

This is my version.  I used two leftover quilt blocks (one for the outside and the other for the lining) and then I used some leftover quilt binding for the casing and to make the prairie point.

The secret?  The casing at the top holds two pieces of metal measuring tape.  You pull on the prairie points to open the bag and then “snap” it back together to close it.

I think they are a brilliant little invention and the fun thing is you can make them any size you want.  I got a measuring tape to cut up from the dollar store and used tin snips to cut to length.

I’m thinking this would make a great class.

The only problem is that I was limited to one carryon suitcase on my trip back and I left my fabric and measuring tape behind.  I should’ve left my clothes and brought the craft supplies instead!  I’ll have to have my parents send me a box. : )

I’m lucky that my mom saves me her quilting scraps so I can make rosettes and other projects with them.  She even brought me a quilt a couple weeks ago when my parents drove up here to pick me up.  Maybe I’ll post a picture of it tomorrow.

Ruffled Jar Openers

After making scores of jar openers I decided to start adding ruffles to them and I must say they are much cuter with ruffles because isn't that what's important in a jar opener - how cute it is?

After looking at several dollar type stores and finding out that the shelf liner they carried is now mesh so it wouldn't work, I found this grid shelf liner at Wal-Mart.  The roll was 20" wide by 4' long.  I cut the squares 5".  After doing a sc all the way around, for the second row I did a sc, chain 3, skip a stitch and then another sc.