Crochet Baby Poncho

 

A few years ago, I stumbled ( I say stumbled because to this day I forget what I was actually looking for, but that’s beside the point) upon the cutest little poncho that I’ve been pining over ever since. The problem then, I didn’t know anyone at the time who was having girls so that I could make one or millions. Everyone I knew at the time was having little boys. I may be the “best mama in the whole wide world” (to directly quote the kiddo), but my request to make a poncho for the kiddo would fall on deaf ears.

So it sat, bookmarked on my web browser for what seemed like forever. But when we found out we were having a little girl, I knew EXACTLY what I wanted to make for her and I knew the perfect yarn. I had 2 skeins of yarn in 2 colors  that I bought some 8 years ago when I was pregnant with the kiddo. Originally thinking I was going to make a blanket or something for him. Yeah that never happened and since then I’ve lost the labels on the yarn and lost one skein of the pinky color when our basement flooded some years back. And so the yarn sat in my plastic yarn bin, waiting for inspiration to strike when I’d want to use it for something.

I absolutely loved the mix of the pale pink and pale blue that gave the yarn a light purple color. The problem, I didn’t think I had enough because I only had 1 skein of it. But lucky for me, I was able to find some yarn that was similar in texture and thickness at work. So I dove right in. Of course there was another problem. I didn’t know how to make granny squares. Nor did I know how to double crochet. I only knew how to single crochet and the only thing I knew how to crochet was scarves. That’s it! Nothing more.

But there is a wonderful tool called Google and You Tube so I set about learning how to crochet granny squares and double crochet. Which are pretty easy in fact. I don’t know why I never tried to learn them before.

 

And so Persephone’s (yup! Our daughter is going to be named after a Greek goddess. It’s only fair, her brother was named after a Norse god) poncho is finished. It’s a bit larger than I thought it was going to be, but that’s ok. She will get more wear out of it that way. And I love how cushy and warm the poncho feels. It’ll be perfect for autumn afternoons romping around the yard or going for walks.

Now that I’ve finished it, which took maybe 3 days total in the end (1 evening after work to make the granny squares, 1 evening to sew them together and start the edges, and 1 afternoon before work to finish the bottom edge and weave in all the ends), I might just have to make one for me! Because let’s be honest, I’m a bit jealous now! But that will have to wait as this mama has other projects in the process of being worked on, including one that uses the yellow green yarn that I bought at the same time as the purplish one that I just used.

So here’s to the start of a productive and creative 2014!

 

 

 

 

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Found Object Wind Chime

I haven't been participating in craft swaps as much as I used to. Especially now when things are just so busy around the house now that warmer weather is starting to set in. It's hard to believe that in another 2 months it'll be time for our annual camping trip with the family (here's hoping for a sunny, dry week that week).

But when I saw a swap for a wind chime, I couldn't resist. My mom has a small obsession with chimes and they are all over the house, inside and out. This was the chime I made for my swap partner.

For the Found Object Wind Chime/Mobile swap over at Craftster

Everything I found for it was out of my stash or from around the house. The spoon was up cycled from a previous chime that had broke. The long metal pieces were left over from our kitchen remodel. They are the extra pieces that came with our pendant lights that I had drilled holes into.

It was a lot of fun to create. And hubby seemed to like it as well since he's put in a request for another one. 

A creative spastic kind of day

You know the type of days where you just can't focus on one project, you need a bunch of different ones to work on at one time just to make yourself happy? I call those type of days my "creative spastic" days. Yeah..today was one of those days. I threw a load of laundry in the washer (yeah I've been doing that all day too), sat down to play with my new fantasy film to make some faery wings, and found myself needing to sew at the same time. Normally, these "creative spastic" days don't usually result in finished projects. They usually just add to my never shrinking projects in progress shelf in my cabinet.

I haven't finished my wings yet, but I did finish 2 sewing projects that I've had in my head to do (one of these days I really should write down all those projects that are floating about in there). 

We have 2 dogs. 2 very cute, but messy dogs. And they are far from dainty eaters, they are hounds. Boy do they like to make a mess when they eat. We are constantly mopping up water that they splash out of their water dish. And if the water doesn't get mopped up, it makes the floor under the dog dishes yuck! I've toyed with the idea of getting one of those mats you put under the dishes. Problem is, they can be expensive and trying to find one that matches the kitchen without sticking out like a sore thumb is next to impossible. 

So with a bit of fabric left over from the tote bag I whipped up the other day, a bit of sweatshirt material, and some non slip shelf liner from the dollar store, I whipped up a mat for under their dog dishes. And while I was at it, I sewed one for under the cat food bowl that sits on our dryer in the bathroom downstairs. 

Food bowl mats

The mat under the dog dishes in action

Orion trying out the new mat

So I'm feeling pretty accomplished for actually finishing something I started for around the house. I am hoping this evening I can work more on my wings for my little faery. I'm really excited to see how they turn out.

Tutorial - Faery Magnets

I love Faeries. Not only do I love them, I love crafting them. Here is a tutorial that I had written for the February Fairies event over at The Whimsical Cottage. In case you missed the original posting, here it is again. I'll also be adding it to my tutorial page. So get ready for some faery fun!!

We're going to make Faery Clothes Pin Magnets.

For this project, you will need:

Wooden clothes pin (the No Roll kind)

Craft paint or any kind of acrylic paint

Embroidery floss

Sand paper 220 grit

Magnet strip

Glue (I used E6000, any strong glue will work)

Wire (20 - 22 gauge)

Drill/dremel

1/16 drill bit

Extra bits (paper, fabric scraps, flowers, beads, etc)

Wire cutters

Round nose pliers

Scissors

Pencil

Paint brush

Small piece of card stock (for hair construction)

What you may want:

Tweezers

Small eye hooks

Vice/clamp (for holding the clothespin while drilling)

Safety glasses

Mask (for dust)

Step 1:

Determine which side of your clothespin you want as the front. With your sand paper, sand the front edges of the clothes pin a little bit to round the edges. You can sand the edges a lot if you wish, but it’s not necessary. Also sand any rough spots on the clothespins.

You may find that after sanding the edges of the clothespin, you loose a little bit of definition between the sections of the pin. Take a small piece of sand paper, folded it, and gently sanded in the crease of the clothespin, especially at the front, to bring back a bit of definition lost during the majority of the sanding.

Step 2:

With your pencil, determine where you want the holes for the arms drilled. Once you have determined where you want the hole, draw a small dot. It’s best to put the dot as close to the center of the clothespin as possible. Repeat for the other side, eye balling to make sure they are even. Rule of thumb: You want the hole you drill for the arms to be slightly larger than your wire, no larger.

Be very careful and use a slow speed when drilling. Hold the drill straight up and down. Drill your hole all the way through the clothespin. You may need to sand the hole a touch after drilling to remove the flaked wood. Touch up with skin tone paint if needed.

Step 3:

Now we're ready to paint. Whatever color you are using as a skin tone, go ahead and give your faery a coat of paint. There's no need to worry about painting the back, unless you are making a hanging faery. For my faery, I used light flesh tone paint. After the first coat of paint is dry, give it a second coat.

Step 4:

When your paint is dry, it is time to add the arms. Use your wire cutters and cut a piece of wire 5 – 6 inches in length. With your round nose pliers, grasp one end of the wire tightly and curl the end of the wire with the tip of the pliers to make a hand.

Insert the uncurled end of the wire into the drilled hole and pull through. Determine the length of arm you wish your faery to have, bend at the shoulder to secure the desired length. Bend at the shoulder for the other arm. Clip the excess wire and curl the end into the second hand. Half way up the arm, make a second bend for the elbow.

Step 5:

Take your pencil and lightly draw the facial features. (At this point, if you wish for your faery to hang, screw your eye hook in the center top of your clothespin until finger tight). Once you have a rough idea of how the face will look, it’s time to give your faery a bit of hair. I choose to give my faeries hair at this point because it helps me to visualize the faery's final personality and what they will look like in the end.

For this step, choose a color of embroidery floss for the hair. Cut a small length of your hair color and set it aside. Take your cardstock, hold it in one hand and begin to wrap the floss loosely around the cardstock starting at the bottom and wrapping upward. Continue to wrap a total of 15 times. Once you have finished wrapping (making sure you finished wrapping at the bottom of the cardstock), cut the remainder of the floss and set aside. Take your small length that you had cut previously and feed it between the cardstock and floss. Slide the floss to the top of your wrapped floss and tie tightly. Remove your wrapped floss from the cardstock and cut the loops of thread opposite your tied knot.

Step 6:

Arrange your “floss wig” so that the knot is on the underside, make sure you keep the 2 sections of hair even. Place a generous amount of glue on the top of your faery's head. With the knot in the center of the head, press your wig into the glue and arrange your hair, making sure you cover all exposed sides.

Step 7:

Now the fun part. Let your imagination go and have fun with it. This is also the point you will begin to decide what type of faery you wish to create if you didn’t already have an idea in mind once you began. Don't be afraid to layer different elements to create your faery.

I've decided mine was to be a Woodland Faery. For this one, I painted the faery's top green. I then glued a piece of green fabric I had cut into the shape I wanted, then roughed up the edges a bit. I layered a piece of leather I had fashioned into a belt with a tiny gold bead as a clasp.

For the wings, you can use paper, feathers, lace, fabric flower petals, etc. For my faery, I used an acetate butterfly that came with some scrapbook embellishments. I cut the butterfly in half and glued each section onto the back of my faery. Once the glue has dried, cut the strip of magnet into the length you want and glue that onto the back of your faery. Finish off by painting your faery's little face and add a bit of embellishment if you wish.

And there you are! A cute finished faery of your very own!

The different faery possibilities are endless! Have fun with it!!

Inchies!

I've never made inchies before. The inchies I made for the Dotee Swap over at Craftster was the first time making them. I had fun and while waiting for my packages to arrive at their new homes, I decided to create some more inchies.

What are inchies? They are 1 inch by 1 inch little pieces of artwork. Like ATCs but much smaller.

I had a frame that my sister had given to me forever ago that had always needed something, but it wasn't your standard frame. Inchies were the perfect solution!

I couldn't just stop at faeries. Nope, had to make some more! Faerie inchies led to some cute bug creations.

 Which then led to...

Monster Inchies

 Monsters! Aah! No, not really. These guys are mini monsters from something the kiddo and I worked on the night before after swim lessons. I drew the monsters and TJ helped design them but telling me what they needed to have.

On the 12th and 13th days of Halloween, my Witchy gave to me...

A start on the kiddo's costume!

Yesterday I was looking through some costume ideas and that's when I saw it. A costume after my kid's own heart. He is big into watching race cars and monster trucks. In fact there's a kid's cartoon about monster trucks that he loves watching and will watch over and over and over again.

So as you can guess, when I saw this on Martha Stewart.com, I just had to show the kid...

What was his reaction? Nothing less than complete excitement! And we just happened to have some extra large cardboard boxes hanging out in the garage waiting to be recycled.

There's not much to look at right yet. Right now it's a few boxes, but the imagination is working over time. I have so many ideas for it. I might just need to take a trip to the hardware store this weekend :)

And what project would be complete with a little extra help? Especially Orion help.

Going...going...

Gone?

Nope! Just inspecting the inside of the truck. Beware of cats who think they are pit crews.

Back to crafting!!

Happy Crafting!

~ K. Michele

Craft: Jewelry Shelf

I have a small jewelry box that I have sadly outgrown. I've had it for years and it just didn't have the room I needed after all these years.

My dad had on his bar downstairs a shelf that was made for all his cassette tapes. Well since moving the bar around and packing up a lot of his music into storage boxes, I snagged the shelf for some storage on my craft table.


Unfortunately for my craft table, the shelves weren't wide enough for my little storage bins. So I got a new storage shelf that was on clearance for my craft table. And then the old shelf sat on the floor under my craft table for a few months only because I didn't have the heart to put it out in the garage. I knew if I put it out in the garage, it would have probably ended up in the fire pit out back, fueling one of hubby's many fires (he is such a pyromaniac sometimes).

The idea struck me last week to give the shelf a new purpose in life.

This is the shelf before: (I apologize for the blurry picture)

I grabbed my handy Dremel Multi-Tool (love that little tool) and proceeded to cut out one of the shelves.

A bit of supplies, that I already had on hand, the shelf was given a new look.

I painted the inside of the shelf 3 different shades of blue. I had a piece of acetate with a really pretty screen print on it that I cut and glued to the inside. I then took some ribbon and trimmed around the acetate for a finished look. There are 21 cup hooks in 2 rows inside the shelf. And I added 2 hooks on the side for the longer necklaces that I have. And of course, there is room for more hooks if needed down the road.

The other 2 shelves I decorated with glitter covered chipboard scrolls, some white painted dots and a felt flower that my friend Andréann had included in one of our swap packages to each other (she does amazing work with felt). I stapled a piece of wire across the inside of one shelf to hang my many pairs of earrings. I also made dishes for the second shelf, but they aren't finished yet. But as soon as they are, I'll add them in.

And here is my little jewelry shelf in action. It sits on my dresser. There is enough room for all my earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings. I am very happy with how it turned out.

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele

Craft: String Art

I love craft shows. A few years ago I used to watch all of the craft shows that were offered on DIYnetwork and HGTV. Last year I discovered that both networks had cut back on their craft shows drastically, as in almost non existent. Which is a total bummer because I had gotten so many ideas from those shows. Everything is now renovations, interior design, etc. Don't get me wrong, I like those shows too, but I do miss my craft shows.

My absolute favorite show that I used to watch all the time was called B. Original with Michele Beschen hosting. I loved this show and when I catch past episodes, I still watch them even if I have seen them before. Come on, who would have thought to make outdoor seating out of concrete blocks? Ok I would have eventually, but still. The ideas were very creative and easy to do. In one episode she showed how you can take the simple techniques used in string art to make a valance for your window (unfortunately I can't link to that episode because it's no longer available on DIY or HGTV).

So anyway a bit of a back story. I made these last year when we lived in our apartment. In our living room, we had a huge, HUGE window that went from wall to wall. The window was almost 10 feet in length and was about 6 feet wide. The only window treatment that we had were those boring white vertical blinds, which was great for blocking out the sunshine (which was needed during the summer with the afternoon sun). I loved the natural light (which is something I greatly miss being at my parent's house), but it lacked personality. I remembered the episode with the string art valance, but being that we were living in a rental opted for the rental friendly option. A long curtain rod, some picture frames, fishing line, eye hooks, yarn, nails and some stain glass paint, I had some pretty nifty window decorations.  (Ok so you'll have to take my word on that one. I'm still trying to track down the photo I took of it all up and hanging)

Forward a year later and a move. The same frames were sitting in their box. Not any more! It was time my boring new hallway get some "fancy" artwork.

These are just a few of the string art pieces. I have one sitting in our family room window (it was too heavy for my hooks). Some of the frames had their glass removed and used with other pieces, mainly the stain glass ones.

Pink and purple with beaded dragonfly

Fire

Yellow Fan

Drips

The non string art that hangs in our bedroom window

This one is in the window of the family room amongst the dragons and a few glass pieces

These were so simple to make and definitely add some interest to a normally plain wall and hallway. 

Happy Crafting!

~K.Michele

Gypsy ** Loads of Pictures**

For the latest round of the WWP swap over on Craftster, I was inspired to make this little gypsy girl. Instead of making it out of fabric like I originally wanted to, I decided to do something different. I had been itching to make something out of paper mache again (it's been years).

The first thing I needed was to figure out what sort of base to use because I wanted to use up some of the paper pulp I had bought a while back. While doing a bit of research, I stumbled upon a website with instructions on how to make a paper mache doll.

While I used a few of the steps for the gypsy, I created a lot of things as I went along. 

There was quite a bit of  the instructions that I did change as I went along. First thing, I didn't have wallpaper paste laying around and since I didn't plan on doing any wallpapering any time soon, I wasn't going to go out and get some. So Elmer's Glue (Elmer's Glue-All) became my very good friend. And I used newspaper to cover the doll instead of handmade paper. Another change that I had made was that I used some 1/4 inch wooden dowel for the legs instead of wire or chop sticks. Also instead of wrapping the arms in paper mache, I chose to leave them bare, in this case I believe it worked. Another change that I made was using air dry clay for nose and ears and yarn for the hair.

The head of the doll was made the same way as it was suggested on the website. I pushed it onto the edge of my computer desk to give it the little ledge where the eyes would be. I liked doing this because it gave an indication where the nose and cheeks would be as well.

In progress

Earrings

In all honesty, the earrings were the first thing that I made. I definitely worked backwards on this piece. The earrings and her bangles were made and finished well before I even knew what kind of face or clothing she was going to have. 

The ears are a piece of air dry clay that I formed and glued to her head with E6000. They needed to be shaped just right so that her earrings could dangle a bit and move. This was not an easy task, I went through several ears until I had ones I was happy with.

Once everything was covered with a layer of paper and dried, I added another piece of paper and glue where it needed, making sure the entire styrofoam piece was covered. After the ears and nose were dried and attached with my trusty E6000 glue, everything got a coat of white paint and then 2 coats of a flesh color that I mixed up.

The hair was the fun part for me. I knew I wanted to use some of my Homespun yarn that I just love using for doll hair. But how to attach the hair without having a flat hard spot where the glue dried, that was the question.

And it was a question that was easily solved! I drew where the hair was going to be attached with my pencil. I then cut along the lines that I drew with my craft knife.

To attach the hair, I figured out how long I wanted the hair to be once it was attached to the head, then doubled the length so when I folded it over, it would give a really nice coverage.

I held the hair with the middle of the strand over the cut where it was going to be attached to. I then took a clay tool with a flat edge (butter knife would work too), and shoved it and the yarn into the cut.

I kept doing this until I finished the area I was working on. I needed to be careful to not make it too thick haired. I added double layers where it mattered, base of the back of the head, the front above the face, top of the back of the head. In between, I used single strands of yarn, but attached them the same way. The end of the yarn was pushed into the cut, making sure that when the hair was flipped back, the little tail (if there was any) was under the hair. 

When I had all the hair where I wanted it, I took and glued it all into place by adding a thin line of glue where the head and hair met (on both the top and bottom of the hair).

To make sure the hair stayed in place, I then glued on a piece of trim that was left over from my sister's holiday dress. A bit of E6000 glue behind the ears, and that little headband wasn't going to go anywhere.

The blouse and skirt were both based on the circle skirt, just scaled down to the doll's measurements. The little corset was my own creation.

And here's a photo that my swap partner had taken of her new friend.

I am really pleased with how she turned out. I'm definitely sure that this little gypsy will not be the last one I make.