For the Tooth Fairy

My daughter's recent trip to the Dentist led to the discovery of her first wiggly tooth! On our way home we stopped at a craft store and I let her pick out the felt and ribbon. That evening I made a simple tooth door hanger so we'll be well prepared when the Tooth Fairy arrives.

There is a small pocket on one side for the tooth and a large pocket on this side for money. What's the going rate for the Tooth Fairy? I believe I received twenty-five cents, but there has been a tiny bit of inflation since the 80s. Is a dollar enough and perhaps a little extra for each tooth thereafter?

~ jeannine

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Two for Tea

Remember the Tea Box storage bins I made? Well I made two more. They are part of a pretty set of three sitting on a shelf in my studio.

One is filled with stamps

One with postage

One with tape

and they all still hold the scent of lemon verbena

~ jeannine

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Handmade Gifts Part 2

I have several kinds of lavender plants in my garden and so I planned to put together some scented bath salts using my flower buds and some essential oil. I was hoping to find a local shop that carried the oil and in my research I discovered that I live a mere 20 minute drive from an organic lavender farm! Huzzah!

A quick stop turned into a family trip and a small purchase turned into a gift of pumpkins for each of my girls from the generous gardener, Lynda. We roasted the pumpkins and made several batches of pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin cookies. She asked us to return in the spring and she'll give each girl their own tomato plant. I foresee several more varieties of lavender in my garden in the coming years.

The recipe for the bath salts was simple. Epsom salts and a dozen drops of oil. A few buds and a hearty shake to mix them up. Top of the jar, seal it up and package as desired. I stamped the kraft paper with a snowflake stamp and white ink and finished it off with a small drawing on each jar.

Making these gifts has inspired me to continue making handmade presents each year. Do you make any of your gifts? Please share your story! I'd love to hear what you made.

jeannine

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Handmade Gifts Part 1

At the end of each holiday season I resolve to start making my gift list as soon as possible and finish shopping in the summer. By Halloween I realize I forgot to make said list and panic while cursing my unorganized habits. This year was much the same (why break with tradition, right?) with one small change -- I made a few of our gifts.

The first handmade gift was seed sharing. I successfully saved a large envelope full of shelling peas and I still have a jar full of seeds from my gorgeous False Indigo plant from Ottawa. I dusted off my InDesign software and combined a sketch of the plant with some well set type. I printed it onto heavy kraft paper and used a seed packet template I found online.

Did you make any of your Christmas gifts this year? Please share in the comments, I'd love to see them.


The next Handmade Gifts post will be about the bath product I made using a locally sourced treasure.

jeannine

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Doodling on Coffee Mugs

Looks pretty good, right? Well, it almost turned out.

I found various links for Sharpie drawings on mugs or plates and gave it a try. Instead of using the regular markers, I used Sharpie Paint pens. They're oil-based and for some reason I thought it might work better than office-use pens. The mug lasted through the bake time to set the colour but didn't hold up with a light hand wash. After a gentle scrub there were scratch marks and it was apparent it would wash completely away in the dishwasher.

The marker investment won't be wasted. I'm currently using them for my nesting dolls. If anyone else plans on using this method for a gift, make sure it's on an item that won't get regular use. I think I'll put this slightly imperfect mug in my studio as a holder for my new pens.

I know showing a craft idea that didn't work out isn't a new thing. I think there are several other blogs dedicated to botched Pinterest & Martha Stewart crafts. I'm curious, though. Do you have a post or story to tell of a project gone awry? Did you keep trying until you got it right or give up?

jeannine

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From Tea to Storage

Over this past winter I became a regular tea drinker. Every Wednesday night I would brew a pot of Calm Tea and drink it all while catching up on Downton Abbey. Next to my Friday night bottle glass or two of red wine, it was my favourite part of the week.

Once the tin was emptied I tried to peel the label off to use it for stamps and stickers but quickly realized it wasn't going to be an easy endeavor. The solution was to slather on some glue and stick some of my origami paper onto the label.

Cardinal & Owl admiring the pretty tin

The best part, other than having pretty storage for my collected stamps, is the smell of lemon and mint that wafts up every time open it up.

On a slightly related side note, I looked at the list of ingredients in the tea and I have many of the plants growing in my garden. Perhaps I'll try my hand at saving leaves for tea.

Have you reused a coffee or tea tin for storage? Send me a link, I'd love to have a look!

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Busy Hands, Decorated Wrists

At the end of a trying day I really only feel like wrapping myself up in my fuzzy robe and watching a movie. Unfortunately (or fortunately), there is a nagging feeling in the back of my brain that tells me I need to DO something other than be a lump on the couch. I have eased the nags by taking out my embroidery floss and making friendship bracelets. I recently found a helpful tutorial with tips on Purl Bee with a few different patterns I haven't tried yet.

It helps to read the comments in tutorials because someone left a wonderful tip about using a cardboard sheet with slits in the bottom to keep the floss in order.

Without the cardboard with slits, my floss was becoming a large tangled knot at then end. Pretty to look at but quite frustrating.

Turns out I had been making my knots far to tight and the bracelets were curling up into a tight ball. I tried again and it worked much better.

I have a large collection of floss and a couple of girls that love to dress up, so my hands will be kept busy and their wrists will be colourfully decorated for months to come.

Do you make friendship bracelets? Do you have pictures of what you've made or links to good tutorials you've discovered? Please share them in the comments!

...J

Friendship Bracelets

The other day I found a really interesting tutorial from Honestly WTF for chevron friendship bracelets. The only downside to this tutorial I found is that since I've never made one before I had a lot of questions that aren't covered in the steps.

About the same time Anika mentioned making bracelets for her niece & nephew. I asked if she could recommend a tutorial and she went one step further, she created her own! Her new blog, Classettes, will house her craft, art & design tutorials and the first two posts were friendship bracelets. I finally had a bit of a lull this weekend and took that opportunity to watch this video, gather my material and give it a go.

I started by making one for my daughter. I have been wearing a friendship bracelet from Sumi Senthi's mail art package and my daughter had been requesting one of her own.

For the wee little.

Anika's tutorial was easy to follow and thorough. I made an alternating red and pink strand for my daughter. Through most of the process she was hanging over my shoulder, asking questions and wondering why it was taking so long. For the record it was only a 10 minute project but that is an eternity to a 3 year old.

And one for me!

I had about half of it left so I made a small one for myself as well. This one is half pink and half red.

I'd like to try this out again with other colours and experiment with adding some beads. I'll likely try out her other one and then I might be savvy enough to try the chevron bracelet.

REFERENCES 

Anika's Bracelet tutorial 1
Anika's Bracelet tutorial 2
Honestly WTF Chevron Bracelet

Getting Crafty

I've never been much of a crafter. I know that may seem odd given my art background, but crafts have rarely given me much satisfaction. I've tried many different projects and perhaps the lack of enthusiasm in the past has a lot to do with the projects I've chosen. After hunting and gathering many expensive materials I discover that either a) I'm not good at said craft or b) no one has much use for the 500 wine glass tags I've just made.

Now that I'm using more social media, I'm seeing a wider range of projects that appeal to me. They are often a nice way to reuse material I may already have on hand or the number of materials are very limited and the instructions are much more detailed.

My first renewed craft attempt was the Craftberry Bush Blue Glass Mason Jar tutorial. This appealed to me because I had a couple of interestingly shaped jars on hand, the materials were few & easy to gather and I loved the look of the finished product.

It turned out pretty well. She is absolutely right when she says that the thicker or darker the application the more it will streak. Even though I read this, I still went ahead and globbed paint onto the larger jar. It's easy enough to wash and start again, but I think I'll wait until I have more jars to paint and do them all at once.

My next project is going to be Plaster Cast Leaves. There is a maple tree with leaves the size of my head which should be perfect for this. I promise to blog my success or failure on this one. You'll either be amazed or laugh along with me.

Do you have any interesting craft projects on the go or something you'd like to try?

...J

(Mis)Adventures In Felt

Sewing has always been something that has interested and yet eluded me. My background in the stitch arts started with learning how to thread a needle and patch a hole or sew on a button. I learned these very practical lessons from my mother. In high school I took a semester of Home Ec. (do they still teach that??) and half of it was sewing. Many of the other kids in my class had a little experience because their mothers or grandmothers had sewing machines. I felt incredibly intimidated and somewhat lost. I believe our two projects were a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts. Both of which I made a little bit irregular and then refused to wear. My mom, never one to waste anything, wore my frankenoutfit. What a good sport! After that I had no real opportunity or desire to start learning again.

In my twenties I had a brief fascination with knitting and read through the book Stitch 'N Bitch. I tried a few of the lessons but could never get past making the test squares. One part learning curve, one part lack of attention span. Knitting turned out to be therapeutic. I kept my hands and mind busy, focusing on the stitches and could tune-out my stress. Plus, it was a task I could do while watching terrible reality TV -- hello... perfect!

During that magic time during my first mat leave when the kidlet would be down for the night around 7pm, I started researching and learning to hand stitch. I found some easy step-by-step how-to sites.

The Easiest & Perfect Knot

Which Stitch

My Preferred Stitch

I bought a bunch of felt from a chain craft store, some needles, good scissors and floss in multiples colours. After a few experiments, I tackled my first project -- a set of soft stacked blocks.

First attempt -- an ABC 123 block

I found a nice, thick font for the numbers and letters, printed them out, traced them onto tracing paper and used that to cut out the sections of felt. I put on a few tags for my daughter's little fingers. [[Sidenote: my first daughter would take any soft toy and turn it around until she could find the tag and then play, explore and chew on the tag until it no longer interested her. She rarely played with the stuffed animal. Now, nearly 3 years later, if she finds a tag she runs up to me and says "Mommy... CLIP IT!"]]

It was a fun project and turned out fairly well. It gave me a big confidence boost to try to make my own softie. I sketched bunnies until I found a shape I liked. I traced, and cut and sewed and stuffed and then gave birth to what I now, lovingly, call FUGLY BUNNY. It didn't turn out all that well, or at least how I wanted it to look. But, hey, learning, practice makes perfect, yadda, yadda.

Poor, poor Fugly Bunny. She means well.

For Easter I stitched a little egg gathering basket and added a few daisies. I used Futuregirl's daisy tutorial.

An egg catcher for Easter.

A bit more spare time came my way and I tried a few hearts and a 2D bird with a little embroidery. I like the bird and I discovered that the softies tend to look a bit better if they are not overstuffed.

2 hearts & a bird. How tweet.

My daughter was in LOVE with Pandas for quite some time. For her second birthday I decided to make a Panda softie for her. I sketched some options and created a nice template in Illustrator. After completing it I realized I had created a cousin for Fugly Bunny -- Fugly Panda. To save the project, I used an IKEA box frame and created a cute panda and heart background in Illustrator. I printed it and framed it and now instead of a toy, it's an art piece for her bedroom. Thankfully she's not old enough to be critical of my feeble attempts. And yes, Mom, I know my time is coming.

At least Fugly Bunny won't be lonely now that Fugly Panda has arrived.

After another botched creature I realized that I needed a little more help and instruction when it came to creating 3D softies. A great illustration does not necessarily compute into a nice softie. If I had to do a panda again, I think I would make something like the Anna Panda. Reading this tutorial has also taught me to 1) try making softies from one piece and 2) enough with the overstuffing. Really, QUIT IT!

I bought Stitched Toys around Christmas and have yet to try it out. She has some simple projects that could easily be customized by changing the design or colours.

WHAT I LEARNED

The inexpensive felt from chain craft stores doesn't last through the mauling a toddler can inflict upon it. It pills very quickly because it's not 100% wool. It's a fiber blend. This type of material is great for practice or a piece that won't be touched very often.

I seem to have a real overstuffing problem. No, really.

Insanely sharp scissors make an enormous difference. I remember using safety scissors on felt in elementary school and it still makes my eye twitch in annoyance. I think one could tear felt apart more cleanly than those terrible scissors. All my new scissors have to do is look at the felt and it parts in a clean line.

I like working with felt, embroidery and stitching even if I do make a family of fugly fellows. I hope to continue my (mis)adventures.