garlands garlands garlands!

wow, where did the last month go? we often say that time flies, or that time goes by very quickly, but honestly, this year has REALLY flown by!

i have great admiration for folks who can blog regularly, and folks who read blogs regularly, but i don't know how they do it - i can't even update my own blog regularly, much less keep up with others!

i've been working on lots of things the last little while, and kept intending to blog about them... that obviously didn't happen!!

i've been really overwhelmed lately, and felt like i had too many projects on the go, and that i was working on little bits and pieces without actually finishing anything.

some of the bits and pieces i've been working on were garlands, because i LOVE garlands, and they've been a good low key stress reliever type craft to work on periodically. i had a grand plan to post a different garland every day for a week - but now xmas is less than a week away, and most people are probably more organized than me, and actually have all of their decorating completed already.

i thought i'd post them all anyway, because they were fun to do, and i quite like them. maybe i'll repost them again next year, earlier!

the first bunch of garlands that i made were these snowball garlands. i found bags of small styrofoam balls covered in the iridescent clear glitter at the dollar store, and fell in love. i decided to pick up colours from the iridescence with beads, and string them into garlands. i still have a TON of the snowballs left - i think i need to make some garlands with no beads, just snowballs!









then i made super quick and cute ribbon using my much-loved ruffler foot, and spools of chiffon ribbon from the same dollar store. i like the turquoise one better - i think the fuchsia ribbon is a bit too wide.... the fun thing about these garlands is that if you don't want to use them for your tree next year, you can use them for your next sewing project!





i also made a few strands of card garlands, the same ones that everyone does cause they're so easy and cute. punch out the circles with a paper punch, and then use stickers to adhere them to your string. easy-peasy! i've seen them made with recycled xmas cards, and that's lovely, but i really wanted mine to be more cohesive, so i bought a half full pack of christmas cards from a thrift store, and punched all my circles and ovals from them.



and then i started playing with measuring tapes. i loooove measuring tapes.. i wish they came in more exciting colours, but i can't really complain when i only paid $1 for 4 of them! i learned the hard way a few years ago that the super cheap measuring tapes aren't actually accurate, which is so bizarre, but that just means you don't have to feel bad about cutting them up to make them into other things!

first i made a chain



i sewed the ends together on my sewing machine, using a teflon foot, since measuring tapes are plastic coated.



i used 3 measuring tapes to make a garland that measures about 70".



i cut the blue pieces about 7" long, and i don't think i would cut them any shorter than that. i tried cutting a yellow tape into smaller pieces, and the chains didn't hang as nicely, and they looked a little off.

so i chopped them into smaller pieces, and played around with that idea.



i sewed through them with bright blue thread, again with the teflon foot.



it gets tangled super easily, but the left over spools from the ruffled ribbon garland work perfectly for storage!



i played with a black and white tape as well - the result isn't as christmasy, but it would definitely look fun hanging in your studio year round!





sooo... those were my garlands. i had a few others that i was going to do as well, but garlands were pretty low on my priority list. the only reason i managed to get this much completed was because i started them super early, before i realized how much i had on my plate!

3minute, 2dollar bunting decoration!

when i walked into work the other day, one of my coworkers had started decorating our area, and had put up a fabulous string of bunting. it looked really sharp from a distance, and it wasn't until i got much closer that i realized how she'd made it.

it was napkins!

duh! how have i never seen this before? as obsessed as i've been with bunting for several years now, and as obsessed as other craft bloggers have been, you'd think one of us would've come up with the idea by now! (someone may have, if so, link to them! i haven't seen it though, and google didn't find anything either)

this was the simplest, fastest, cheapest bunting ever, but it can look amazing. the one at work uses napkins that have an all over fall leaf design on them, and as much as i hate the colours of fall, it looks awesome.



i picked up a spool of metallic purple cord, hung it on the wall, and slipped the napkins over it. if you wanted to, you could put a strip of glue or doublesided tape on each one, though that might add another 2 minutes or so to the project!

the cool thing about this idea is that once in a while i totally fall in love with a paper napkin design, but i'm always torn. what am i going to DO with them? i hate paper napkins. they're super wasteful, and it seems really consumerist to buy new ones for each and every event, but you never have enough left of each design to use them again! i could use it in a collage, but do i need 24 napkins to use in a collage? this is a fabulous way to use them as decor!



i have really awesome spiderweb napkins in storage, i should go dig them out....


(fyi, it probably took me me 5 times as long to take the pictures, edit them and post this entry, than it did to make the garland!!)

simple little garland

now that i've spent way too long making the blog look pretty, it's about time i actually updated!

i've been working on lots of small things, ongoing projects, and things that i've forgotten to photograph, but even so, i'm super behind updating.

among others, i realized that i never got around to posting the garland i made back in february!

this was just a simple project, something that i could do while hanging out with friends and watching a movie (whip it - such a fun movie!)



i used a fiskars squeeze punch to cut the scalloped ovals (i love those punches, they're so handy, and they cut so nicely!) out of an old book, and then a cheapy punch to cut hearts out of the scraps. i ran the hearts through my xyron, and then used staZon ink and a makeup sponge to colour them red.


it would've been a lot easier to just cut the hearts out of red paper, but i like to complicate things sometimes. for that matter, it probably would have been easier to run a piece of paper through the xyron, and then punch out the hearts, rather than trying to slide teensy hearts through it, but again, i complicate things!

i stuck the hearts smack dab in the middle of each oval, and then ran them through my sewing machine, leaving a thread chain between each one. easy peasy!

i hung the garlands along my shelves, and they're still up here! i kinda want to make more garlands using different shapes and stuff, but then i'd have to take these ones down, and i haven't been motivated yet.

catch up post #4! quilted stocking, owly garland, owly ornaments

mmmm, christmas! so many fun fabrics!

when taloola and i were matched up in the stocking swap, i really wanted to make her a "naturey" stocking that was still somewhat christmassy, but wasn't too country. i thought it might be a lost cause, but off i went to my crawl space to search through my ridiculously large bins of fabric, and i found the perfect fabric with birds and several others that matched incredibly well. it was fate!

i cut the fabric into strips, and cut out two stockings out of cotton batting and two stockings out of lining. i foundation pieced the fabric onto the cotton batting pieces, creating two quilted sides. after they were both done i went back and stitched around each of the red cardinals, though that's not visible in the pictures. it was just for visual interest anyway!

after i'd stitched the two quilted stockings together with the lining and turned it inside out, i added the cuff at the top, which also has cotton batting in it.


i can't decide which side i like best!

i still had lots of the fabric left over, and i really wanted to make her something else with it, so i toyed with the idea of making reusable christmas bags for wrapping out of it, which seemed practical, but rather boring!

the next day i ran across the owl garland tutorial on moonstitches, and i knew i'd found the answer!



i carefully cut out the owls to minimize white spaces among the branches on the birdy fabric for half the owls, and cut out the other half out of the plaid. i used the same cotton broadcloth for all the bellies, to tie them all together.

i searched through all my white buttons searching for sets for the eyes, which was much harder than you'd expect it to be, given the size of my button collection, but finally found 13 sets! i picked up some goldy embroidery floss and a roll of matching ribbon, and sat in front of the tv one night (watching CSI, i'm sure!) embroidering the beaks and sewing on the eyes. i strung the owls onto the ribbon, and then realized that the ribbon was much more slippery than the twine used in the tutorial, so i tacked each owl to the ribbon through the back.


after i finished the garland, i realized i couldn't stop making owls!

at the same time, i was trying to think of a little something i could send to some of the mods for a christmas prezzie that would be easy to ship and fun to receive, and could be worked on while i was visiting family in manitoba last month.

owls were the perfect solution!

they're lightweight and flat, so they just slipped into the christmas card, and didn't even add to the shipping cost when i took them down to the states to mail (i love USPS! so cheap, and y'all have those fun knitting stamps this christmas!).

i cut them all out, sewed them together and pressed them nicely, and then i took the buttons and ribbon and embroidery floss with me on my trip and finished them while driving across canada and then while sitting in my grandma's kitchen listening to her and my grandfather bicker!



i didn't even attempt to find enough buttons in my stash for these ones, i got my cute butt into dressew in vancouver and bought them! i especially love the buttons i used on the blue owls. i wasn't able to get many extra of them, so it was a good thing i made less blue owls!

i'm still going to make more i think, just to give to random friends and family. they're just so damn cute!

catch up post #2! atcs, a dress and a cropped hoodie, a christmas garland and a baby's 1st "gothmas" ornament

a few more atcs...

these were "angel" cards for the Y and Z atc swap on craftster that i made the first set for. (angel cards are needed when someone flakes on a swap)

a pale yellow doily coaster from daiso, recycled japanese paper from daiso, a yellow brad and some yellow star grommets, yellow DYMO tape (!!), and a piece of yellow tape measure ribbon.
i like it a lot. and i hate yellow!


i wrote up a page of Zs in word, then photocopied it in reverse. i cut out a ATC sized piece out of each, and printed out a zebra print design from google. i made a sort of stencil from the design, carefully drawing it onto the back of the black background Zs, then cut them out and glued them onto the white background, to reproduce the zebra print. then i decided it needed some colour, so i added the red square with a z, and the brads just for fun. the zebra in the upper corner is actually from one of my scans of vintage wallpaper.

some clothes i've made (these were christmas presents)

just a simple dress with a very deep v (you have to wear a shirt under it) made of a heavier weight fuscia jersey. it'll look lovely on her, the pink is perfect for her colouring.


and a plaid cropped hoodie made of vintage (new/old stock) plaid poly jersey




the material is sooo cool, it's 70s poly knit that was new/old stock at the fabric store, only $3 a yard (i still have multiple yards left, i love it!). just a simple cropped hoodie with puffed 3/4 length sleeves and buttons up the front.

i made myself one as well, but with different buttons. i love how the plaid works in these hoodies, it just looks so sharp!

my massage therapist kicks ass. he's understanding when i don't have the energy to drive all the way to his office, or when i've had a crappy night and sleep through my appointment (oops!) and he understands that i'm living on a pretty limited income at the moment and is cool with me paying him when i can. i met him years ago when i did community theatre with his wife, and my whole family's been referring to him as "dr dave" ever since. i see him twice a week, so really, i see him more than any of my friends!

he always decorates his office hardcore at christmas, so i decided to make him something to put up (i made him a halloween wreath in october and he loved it).

i fell in love with this fabric (and not just with the price - 50% off, huraay- but also with the fun designs!) and bought way more than i actually needed for it!

but i'll find a use for it, i'm sure!






i cut the fabric into 7" strips with my rotary cutter, then cut the strips into pendant shapes based on the pattern i drew up. i typed up "christmas" in word using 160 point font or something like that and printed it out. i traced the letters backwards onto wonderunder (oh wonder under how i adore thee...), then ironed them onto felt and cut them out. peeled off the paper backing, ironed them onto the fabric pendants, and stitched around all the edges.

i basted the rickrack around the two longer edges of half the pendant pieces, then laid them right sides together with the other half of the pieces. stitched just a teensy bit inside my basting, turned them inside out, pressed them, and then sewed them onto bias tape!

all in all, it took between 2 and 3 hours, and it turned out super cute!


and on the entirely other side of the spectrum, here's the baby's first gothmas ornament i made for torrin!

i decided that torrin really needed a "baby's 1st gothmas" ornament to go with the standard "baby's 1st christmas" ornament my mom gave them.


i went to micheals and found plain glass ornaments. instead of balls i got flattened balls (is there a word for that shape?) and i was super happy to realize that the ornaments i bought were WAY stronger than ones i've bought in the past that seemed to be thinner than a sheet of paper!

while i was there, i also picked up a fancy black paint pen, which they promised me would work on the glass.

i went to the scrapbooking store, and found a sheet of acetate with a cool black design on it and cut the insert out of the acetate, centering the design at the top. i used the fancy black pen to write on the acetate, and while i was waiting for it to dry, i decorated the top of the glass ornament with little bats on polka dots.

once everything was dry, i very carefully rolled up the acetate and slipped it into the ornament, then added black glitter (black glitter makes every project better!). unfortunately, the glitter had a few coloured ones mixed in, which were VERY obvious once they were in the ball, and i managed to get them out, but the writing on the acetate scraped off a teensy bit. i'm kinda disapointed, but oh well. it's still fabulous!

i filled the top with gluegun glue before putting the piece onto the ball, so that should stop the glitter from escaping. i topped it off with this FABULOUS black velvet rickrack i found at the scrapbooking store (MUST buy more!), and the ornament was finished!

very simple, but i love how it turned out.


(i also got him this AMAZING book, and they only had one copy, and i'm sooo sad! i want one too!)