Yes, sometimes I put birds on things

I finally learned how to embroider! Thanks to Katie and lots of super cheap embroidery floss from Knittn' Kitten.



Here's what I like about embroidery: it allows me to feel productive while I spend evenings inside catching up on TV shows that I really should have watched awhile ago. TV and crafts go so well together.

Guerrrrrrilla Girls

Sometimes I think I would be happy making greeting cards for the rest of my life. When I'm asked about my dream job, I go back and forth between card maker and erotic baker.



Katie's b-day/going away card. (I MISS YOU, LADY)

The origami dresses were made out of security envelopes after I watched this tutorial a few times.

Hoops

I'd been meaning to do this for awhile.



I think they're CUTE.

Hair Clips!

My grandma recently cleaned out her garage and unloaded a bunch of craft boxes onto me, so I've been trying to come up with projects that require felt (she gave me SO MUCH FELT). I am suddenly super addicted to making felt flower pins.



I used this tutorial for the pink flower, and now I'm adapting them to make use of various buttons and fabric scraps hanging out in drawers around the house.

These are perfect to make while taking to long distance friends on the phone. I kind of want to make one each time I talk on the phone and then send them to that person afterwards.

let there be lamps

I made a lamp! For Joel. Using this bottle of mead from Honeymoon, this wonderful place in Bellingham that I miss all the time. This project took awhile to assemble, but I learned a lot about the right way to drill a hole into a glass bottle. I also found it immensely satisfying to mess around with lamp hardware for an hour and then plug the cord into the wall to find that it WORKED, there is LIGHT.



Also, adding rickrack to a $1 thrift store shade can work wonders.

Snowflake Curtains

I've said this before: I really, really like taking paper to the sewing machine. Maybe because it feels like something I'm not supposed to be doing? Whatever. It's fun.

I've been making lots of snowflakes lately. I'm kind of addicted to it. They were piling up, so I decided to sew some snowflake garlands.

Some to go in the kitchen:



Some to go in my bedroom (with the curtains that I just finished sewing):



They're pretty festive and cute and make me very happy when I wake up in the morning. And Jill just pointed out this 5-pointed snowflake tutorial. So now I'm going to try and master those.

Cute Things to Make From Soda Cans: Pt. 1

My sister and I made these for our mom awhile ago. For her birthday, in May. We dug through my neighbor's trash can and ended up with some nice & colorful magnets.



Tutorial is here.

Security Envelopes

People are doing all kinds of fabulous things with security envelopes lately. I've started to keep my eye on the security envelopes that show up in the mail, and holy cuss, there are a lot of different patterns. I'm excited to have found another free material to make pretty things out of.

Behold, my first security envelope project!


I cut up some envelopes and construction paper and decorated the front of a sketch pad that I gave to Joel for his birthday. Hearts and bird are way cuter when they come in patterns.

Hearts

I really like taking paper to the sewing machine. For Valentine's Day, I cut up all of my mom's Woman's Day magazines and made these heart strings for the nursing home she works at. (The kids I work with also made Valentine's for all of the residents, which was a-dorable.)



I also knit a bunch of dishcloths. Pattern found here.



I'm thinking about sticking with the heart theme and possibly partaking in some knit graffiti, inspired by this.

Turning ugly news into pretty stuff

I'm poor. I also have a lot of free time. So when I can craft things for free, I get pretty excited. The other thing about free crafts is that they almost always involve reusing materials that otherwise would have gone to waste. When I was working at a grocery store, I got really into crocheting and knitting with plastic bags. It was fun, but even more than that it was therapeutic. There were so many evenings where I would ride my bike home from work so frustrated with how many plastic bags I had seen leave the store that day. There was always some middle aged man barking "OF COURSE I NEED A BAG! ARE YOU CRAZY?" (usually he "needed" this bag for something like, oh, a single can of pop). Crafting with plastic bags became a kind of activism for me, as well as a release. My nerves were calmed. I could pick a bag up off the street on my way home and turn it into something pretty. I didn't feel as upset about over consumption when I could do a little something to offset waste.

Newspaper is my new thing. I remember reading in a zine once that mulching can be a really cool thing because you take really crappy news and do something really fabulous with it. Mulching becomes a therapeutic act in that you can take pictures of soldiers and the president and stalk brokers and turn them all into this thing that will prevent weeds from growing in your garden! (I for the life of me cannot remember what zine this one. If someone knows, please tell me.)

I was feeling pretty bummed out by every newspaper I saw back in December, so I decided to make newspaper baskets for Christmas. And it felt really nice; turning ugly news into pretty crafts.




A pretty good tutorial for magazine baskets can be found here.

Banners are hip, right?

My banner phase started in November, while I was falling in love with Learning to Love You More. We all kept talking about assignment #63: Make an Encouraging Banner.

This first one is hard to see, but when Joel, Mel, and I all moved away from Bellingham, we made a banner for ourselves that said ADIOS. We also hosted a Talent Show which I think was enormously successful. It included hula hooping, a couple magic shows, ukulele playing, a burping of the ABC's, Brooke reading Miley Cyrus' Party in the USA as spoken word, and lots of songs. Joel, Ben, Mel, and I sang and danced to Hold on by Wilson Phillips. And I think this picture was taken while Josh stuffed two whole doughnuts in his mouth...


Ben gave this "Be Your Higher Self" banner to Joel and I when we moved. He'd been working on it for weeks, ever since we started talking about making encouraging banners. I feel honored to have it in my possession after knowing how carefully he cut out each of the letters. Also, it is a nice banner to wake up to every morning.


My mom made this one for my birthday! (I forgot to take a photo while it was still hanging up in the living room)


Miniature banners are cute, so I made this diorama for my sister for Christmas. I thought it turned out nicely. (Natz is her nickname)


Now I'm going to make one and hang it in a public space. Any ideas for what the banner should say?

Pinz

I used leftover fabric from Christmas presents to make these hairpins for my sister. I think they're pretty cute. The tutorial, from Kayte Terry, is available here. I stuck pretty closely to the tutorial, except I didn't cut the top circle like she suggests.

I finally learned how to sew!

Last month, Jill taught Annie how to make an apron. Earlier this week, Annie passed the skill on to me. Since Annie is also a beginner, we ran into a few road blocks. It's nice to run into those with friends, because had I been alone I might have given up. I went to sleep at 3am that night, rather exhausted, but I had a new apron by my side!

I had never touched a sewing machine, even though I'd been eying them for years. I was so happy to discover how naturally it came once I'd figured out some of the basics (and gotten past those road blocks). I've spent a lot of time this week thinking about what I want my next sewing project to be...

Here's I am showing off my apron:


I brought the apron to our annual family beach trip this week. My mom really liked it, so I gave it to her. Here she is, excited to have a daughter who can sew:

saving the turtles

Here's some plastic bag yarn that I made this weekend! I am now in the process of using it to knit reusable bags. I found the tutorial for the yarn here, and the plastic bags for the yarn in the plastic bag recycling at Fred Meyer. I've been really stressed out about plastic bag consumption lately (that's what happens when you work at a grocery store), so this feels really therapeutic and constructive. This is also the cheapest crafting I have ever done. It doesn't cost a thing! All it takes is keeping your eyes open for plastic bags in trash cans and recycling bins. As the ladies who wrote Off the Map would say, "take what's free and you find freedom."