Prayer Flags

This is a swap post!
I entered into the Prayer Flag Round 2 Swap on Craftster.org and opted for 2 partners.
If you're not familiar with these Flags, they are around 5x8ish inches and often have little inspirational words/phrases on them.
Here's a link for an awesome blog all about it.

My partners were "playswithneedles" and "sharalee"

Here's Sharalee's

Her theme was Breast Cancer Awareness and I choose the word "believe" from her list.

I tried a new technique with fabric marker to get the watercolor paint look.

Then I did free motion embroidery on the sewing machine for the background fabric to get the squiggly outlines.

Then Playswithneedles flag

She chose a nature theme and I picked "let go" from her phrase/word list.

Free motion embroidery was implemented again for the big leaf...

I used my stamps in brown for the letterage, but the ink wasn't coming out dark enough.

I then took my copper sharpie marker to darken the letters.

The bunting was book pages out of a Hardy Boys book the spine had already come off of.

Sewing paper is fun! I'm going to have to look into that a bit more soon!!!

Here they are, my round 2 creations. 

"To Do" list

Here's another pinterest inspired project

DIY Dry Erase Board!
Everything was already lying (laying?) around the house so very cost effective. (heh heh)
Alls ya do is frame a pretty piece of fabric under glass and hang. I love those quicky projects. It makes me feel like I've accomplished something.

I hung this frame of beauty on the door leading to the garage with the velcro 3M strips. (Love those things)
This particular door is hollow and with my luck I'd hammer a big hole  right in the middle. Think Bam Bam from The Flintstones.!

Monday's lookin' pretty rad!

It's a Me...Luigi!

From some reason, and I have a theory which I'll state later, Will is obsessed with the green clad plumber Luigi

The pattern from Laura Michels- Crazy Crochet Lady Blog was an easy one to follow. I, unfortunately, only had DK weight in the green so I thought I could hook 2 strands together and be fine.
I was wrong.

It's a tad tight on him. I tried to block/stretch the cap, and that helped, but I think I'll be making another hat soon as he will probably grow out of it in a week! 

OK, now for my theory on why Will's all about the Luigi:

Morgan, his older sister, has told Will he is NOT allowed to like the color RED.

Since birth, she has been telling him this.

I think he's staying away from Mario out of fear from the wrath of an older sister.

These kids remind me of Lucy and Linus from the Peanuts cartoon more and more each day!

Lady Rainicorn Scarf

I present Lady Rainicorn....in crochet!
From Adventure Time, Lady Rainicorn is the lady-friend of Jake the Dog, companion of choice of Princess Bubblegum; ruler of the Candy Kingdom in the Land of Ooo, and all around awesome gal brave and true.

I hooked this scarf up for Miss Morgan as a Christmas gift...but Miss Morgan is sneaky and spied me just finishing up the sewing on of the yellow felt mane.

Sneaky Morgan!

I didn't really have a pattern for this. I went off of a ripple pattern in the Vogue Patterns Volume: Crochet (I can't remember the number...) and for the face, eye, and horn I hooked by trial and error.  

Update:

Miss Morgan wasn't too keen on wearing Lady Rainicorn as a scarf, it was a bit long for her admittedly. 

I opted to drape the scarf on Morgan's curtains as if she was flying around her room!

Like I said, Morgan was un-keen on using this scarf for its intended purpose...

Until the temperature here in Minnesota reached an ungodly -5 degrees Fahrenheit! 

Now, she LOVES to wrap the magical stripes 3 times around her neck and face.

I can breathe a little easier knowing Morgan's face is protected by the rowdy queen!

New Use For Lego Minifig

I decided that a turkey meatloaf was in order for the bitter cold weather we've been experiencing.
But were to put the ring while my hands were wrist deep in squishy, meaty goodness?

Behold!

I just happened to have Mr. DJ man (series 8) sitting right by the sink! 

Those little guys are great for EVERYTHING!

Lego Displays/Painted Spice Rack!

I'm sure I've mentioned my love for Lego.
I have a specific love for what is known as the Lego Minifig.
Sigh...

When you get to a certain number of things in any collection you need SOMETHING to display/store them on/in. I chose to paint some spice racks in an obscene color of yellow.

Here they are naked

After 1st coat of acrylic paint.

After 2nd coat...

Perhaps a primer coat would've been prudent?

I'm sure there's some primer around here somewhere.

Why is it I have to relearn this lesson over and over?

Sheesh!

Minifig Bride HATES painting 4-5 coats of anything!

grrrr.

Crochet Lalaloopsy Hats!

I hooked up 5, count 'em 5, of these hats and I must say I'm pretty proud of me.
We have 5 little girl cousins all under the age of 9 around us for the holidays, so I thought in one way or another these would be enjoyed.

I went off of a basic hat pattern sized for kids and used Vanna's Choice in Beige for the skin.

The hair was made from whatever I had in my stash and ranged from Super Saver to Simply Soft. 

I can now say with complete confidence I can do a crochet spiral in my sleep!

For the eyes I used some BIG buttons, hot pink felt for the cheeks, and black worsted weight yarn for the mouths and eyelashes.

While I adore the idea of Lalaloopsy and the look being all crafty cool,

I'm not a fan of the full on plastic the dolls are constructed from. 

This was my compromise with Morgan...

not that she ever said she wanted one.

To be honest, I thought they could be made and I wanted the challenge.

As with Mount Everest, i did it because it was there.

heh heh.

C is for COOKIE!

Will did not have a scarf and was feeling a bit left out.
Will loves Cookie Monster.
Will also loves his MeeMaw's chocolate chip cookies...
This idea seemed to be a no brainer!

This was a pinterest inspired project and the original can be found here.

Velvetdragon over at craftster did the honors.

I love how the eyes turned out with the 2 different size buttons (thanks the Melissa!).

It gives him that koo koo for cookies gleam!

Little Fabric Basket

This is a little sewn basket I made for Aunt Nancy as a hostess gift for Christmas Day.
The measuring tape fabric is the very last remnant from a years ago purchase at Crafty Planet (LINK)...an awesome craft store in Minneapolis I wish I could visit WAY more often than I do.

The fabric basket tutorial can be found at the ever talented Leslie's Art and Sew Blog !

This is my "go to" pattern for a basket such as this. 

So well written and a very quick sew up too!

You can also find Leslie as Leslieshappyheart on Craftster.org often paired up with the 

amazing Susanab. They've been hosting so many amazing crafty swaps on the site.

Most times, I can't resist. 

First Linking Party!

I was dinking around on pinterest, big surprise... I know.
I discovered this site "Sew Many Ways"...
She has lots of organizing ideas, blogging tips, and tutorials. Just about everything, right?

Well, there was this thing called a "Linking Party" that looked interesting and I'm kind of all about trying new things with my blog so I thought I'd give it a whirl.

Hope I did everything right. (tee hee)

Happy New Year!

So, it's officially 3:04 in the morning and officially the year 2013.
I'm not awake because of any awesome celebrating or whoopin' it up with champagne.
My Will has some kind of post nasal drip thing (most of the family has now caught a cold that like a Christmas fruitcake, no one wants but it gets passed around anyway) and his stomach muscles hurt from all the coughing he's doing.

Let me repeat that.

The poor 3 year old's stomach muscles hurt. Not his nose, not a sore throat, not even an icky tummy due to drainage...

He's breaking my heart and is SO my handsome New Years Date.

Will this fall at the Pride Fest Parade