Giftedness

If there's a good part about saying goodbye, it must be in the gifts! I love making presents and while farewells aren't my favourite, at least there's an opportunity for crafting involved.

Last night I whipped up a crochet gift bag to hold a wine bottle. I had seen a pattern somewhere, but I couldn't find it when I needed it, so I did my best. I used Bernat crochet cotton and it took about 2.5 50g balls to make this project. Basically, I worked 2 circles in hdcs and then crocheted the two layers together to make a stable bottom. (See the handy photo.)


Then, after crocheting one round in the backloops only, I continued in hdcs all the way up, joining each round with a slip stich and starting each round with 2 ch. I worked two rounds near the top in hdc, ch, hdc, ch, etc. to give a spot for the ribbon to be laced through.

To make the handles, ch 11 and then skip over 7 hdcs before completing the round. On the next round, slip stich through all of the ch stitches and then just continue on. I did a round of slip stitches around the top for a neat finish.


Finally, the flip flops! Also crafted in Bernat cotton, these only used a fraction of a three different colours. I LOVED making the flowers....I'm envisioning some cute baby caps in the near future with big girly blossoms on the side!

To make the flipflops, I bought a pair of rubber flops at Michael's for $1.50 and wrapped and knotted green crochet cotton around the upper piece. Then, using a sweet pattern I found on this awesome site, I created two flowers from two different colours. Finally, I attached each flower using a safety pin (pin it through the green yarn, the flower, and the green yarn again to give it a good hold).


Estimated cost for the wine bag: $5.00
Estimated cost for the flip flops: $4.50

Gifting and thrifting. ;) There you have it.

What's Next?

I did some cleaning in my office this weekend and was surprised to find that a number of craft items have ended up mixed in with my office supplies! (I was also shocked to learn I have 4 rolls of double-sided tape in the drawer. I NEED TO STOP BUYING DOUBLE-SIDED TAPE!)

Despite the fact that I have several unfinished projects on the go, craft supplies travelling through my hands were all the inspiration I needed to start dreaming of new projects. That, combined with the regular emails I receive from Lion Brand and marthastewart.com has left me making lists of things to make! Good thing summer is coming soon....

Here's two great baby afghans from Lion Brand that would use up some yarn:
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/90233B.html?noImages=
- "Crochet Landscape Throw" (apparently the link is down. I'll have to post this one later...)

Homemade Baby Shower Gifts

This is the afghan I made for my soon-to-be niece/nephew. The pattern is from Bernat's website, made in Bernat Satin Sport and Bernat Satin yarns. I like these yarns for baby projects since they're soft like baby yarns, but they come in bolder colours than the traditional pastel pinks and blues. (The cashier at Zellers was very excited when I bought the yarn and told her it was for a baby blanket.) Since I used a lighter weight yarn than the pattern calls for, I used a smaller hook as well. I can't remember what size it was, though! Update: It was an H hook. I remember this because it was yellow. Gotta love colour-coded hooks!

The final stages of gifting can be the most fun! The mom-to-be is a sewer, so I wrapped the gift in fabric (which is much more forgiving when wrapping a gift with soft, rounded corners). A couple of metres of grosgrain ribbon from the mill end store and a sparkly butterfly that was actually a Christmas ornament from the dollar store and things are looking good.

There's a little trick to wrapping with fabric that makes sure no raw ends are exposed. Basically, you lay the blanket over the fabric and then fold the fabric and blanket together in towards the middle. Flip in the ends and then fold, square-by-square from either end. Secure with ribbon.

I forgot to pick up a card, so a quick raid of my craft drawer left me with the following idea. Write a cute message on a 4x6 piece of watercolour paper using a permanent marker. Draw in a border, highlights and random lines with Crayola watercolour markers. Blend the marker to look like watercolours using a small wet paintbrush. (Be careful not to use too much water....traveling water droplets can mix random colours together!) Let it dry and mount it with double-sided tape to a plain card. (Don't worry if it curls a bit while the "paint" is drying....the double-sided tape will flatten it out again.)

Bootie-licious

You've gotta love a craft project you can finish during the length of a movie! Last night, I let hubby pick the film (Master and Commander) and then focused most of my attention on mastering and commanding the baby bootie pattern I found on Lionbrand.com. I made two small changes to the pattern: I took one row out of of the instructions for the sole and I used a J hook instead of a K hook because I liked the way it looked. :)

I have to admit, it took me three tries to get two booties that looked reasonably symmetrical, but now I think I've got the pattern down and will crank out a few sets of these to have on hand to replace the bow on baby shower gifts. I used Bernat Satin yarn in Lemon Grass to make these tootsie toasters. It takes about 1/4 to 1/3 of a ball of yarn to make them, so it's a great way to use up leftover bits.

Heartfelt Thanks

We wanted a special way to say thank you for all of the help, support and generous gifts we received as part of our wedding. These cards did the trick! We purchased packs of plain cards and envelopes from Michaels and then spiffed them up with a 4X6 piece of scrapbooking paper, topped up with a few pieces of cardstock trimmed to size and a heard cut from red felt (heartFELT, get it?) with a border stitched in pretty blue embroidery floss. Add a couple of hearts to the inside (we used a heart-shaped paper punch and the scraps from creating the 4X6 mats) and you've got yourself a lovely card.

A few brand name products that made the project easier:
- my Fiskars paper trimmer (by far my best papercrafting purchase ever)
- my Sharpie pens (for the {heartfelt thanks} lettering--they don't smudge or bleed)
- UHU glue stick (I glued the felt hearts to cardstock with white glue, but used UHU for everything else)

Have A Ball

It's called a pomander. The day of my wedding, I heard it called a pinata, a purse, a pompom, and a Christmas decoration. I had a lot of fun making it and I'm so grateful to my florist friend for insisting that I finish it and carry it down the aisle when the jobs were piling up and the days to go before the wedding were slipping away.

I really wish I had photographed the process step-by-step, but here's the gist of how I put it together.

To Make The Flowers:
1. Cut three circles from felt: one small, one medium, one large. (I used a felted sweater. One ladies size small long-sleeved turtleneck had enough fabric even after shrunken down to complete this.)
2. Stack the circles on top of each other and attach a piece of jewelery to the middle. Use a bit of hot glue if it's an earring. For clip-on earrings and scarf clips, snip a small hole through the centre of each piece of felt and slide the back of the clip through.

To Make The Ball:
1. Wrap a 1.5" wide strip of ribbon around a 6" styrofoam ball. Use straight pins and hot glue to secure the ribbon. Lotsa pins. Lotsa glue. Nobody sees this part. Leave a loop of ribbon for the handle.
2. Starting directly on top of the ribbon, attach flowers to the ball, using straight pins and glue. (Put a bit of glue under the flower. Spear the flower securely to the ball with pins. Pin them through the first and second layers of the flower so the top layer of felt conceals them. Put an extra little bit of glue on top of the pin head to keep it from pulling out.)
3. Work in a straight line around the "prime meridian" of the ball. Then, work in smaller circles on each side until the sphere is covered in flowers and the styrofoam isn't peeking out anywhere. I glued and pinned on a few small scraps of extra felt where the styrofoam was peeking through in random places.

It's probably not all that clear, but the gist is there. Ask questions if you need to!