Sock Monkeys

Now that they have been giving as gifts, I can show you my first sock monkeys!  I didn't take pictures along the way, but here is the inspiration.

 

I was surprised that they were fairly easy to make.  I like the blue one better than the pink.  The pink looks more like a cow to me in the face.  I got the eyes too far apart or something.  Also, the blue argyle pattern had extra stitching that seemed to not allow the sock fabric to stretch out so much.  It seemed as if the pink just kept stretching.  Also, I won't use pink thread to attach eyes again.  I should have just redone the eyes on the pink one.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully they bring joy to the nephew & niece that got these for Christmas.  At least I know my nephew loved on his blue monkey for a bit.

 

Christmas Card Wreath

Over the years I have had several ways of displaying Christmas cards.  But a few of those ways were purchased before everyone went to the photocards.  Now, I want to see all those faces.  Especially of the friends that are far away. 

 

I found this inspiration a while back. And then got bored one day in November, knowing that there is always at least one or two cards I can expect either right before Thanksgiving or right after.  You know who you are.  I had everything I needed in my closet. 

 

A ring of some sort, ribbon, clothes pins, paint, and a hot glue gun.

 

 

I had bought this chipboard circle many, many years ago.  And I can't remember why.  I tried to do a fall wreath with it and it was a failure.  But I had already cut the circle (if you look closely you can see it at the bottom of the ring in this picture.)

 

I painted it green and also hot glued the split back together.

 

This is the fun part.  You don't want your ribbon to ravel.  So after cutting a lot of ribbons to lengths just a hair larger than the length of the clothes pins, I melted the ends near a flame.  And without causing any damage to my fingers!  Or catching any on fire.

 

See that purple mat?  It is awesome.  I bought it on clearance at a craft store (I can't say which one because it isn't the one my wonderful sis-in-law works at) and it is awesome.  Hot glue just peels right off.  You need one if you don't have one already.

 

Now the tedious task of hot-gluing all the ribbon to the clothespins before the hot glue isn't hot anymore.  I won't say my fingers didn't get really, really hot at least once or twice.

 

Then comes hot-gluing them to the circle and figuring out pattern and spacing.  I laid them all out once or twice to determine how many I wanted and the spacing that looked right.  Oh, and be sure to make a few point toward the inside of the circle.  Most of them clothespins opened to the outside, but every 4th pin I pointed to the inside. This allows for more cards to be displayed.

 

I covered the split with a bow.  I found a tutorial on how to do the bow, but I didn't save the link anywhere.  I think it was something like a six-loop bow.  It actually said to use 4 things of ribbon, but I was fine with just three.

 

I used another piece of ribbon to make and loop and hang it on a very barren wall with a 3M Command hook.  Those things are awesome.

 

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture with it full.  Next year.

 

So while I don't think it is an entire post worthy, but to show I did do a few other pins from Pinterest I pinned some time ago.  You must try these cookies. 

 

 

I obviously didn't swirl the dough as prettily, but they were good.  And oh so buttery tasting.  Just be warned they aren't cooking you can do in under an hour.  Lots of chilling hours involved.  But worth it.

 

Pirate Fairy Boots

These weren't as fun to make as I had hoped.  But they were fun.  Next time I'd do things a bit differently. Hopefully you find these posts more of what not to do, than thinking I do anything the way they should be done.

So my inspiration came from here.  And she did a fabulous job, unlike mine.  I'll say maybe her daughter was a bit more patient in the process.  Or she may just not hurry through projects the way I tend to do.  Either way, these boots turned out adorable, even if she only wore them for about an hour.

 

Supplies needed:  Knee high socks (I actually bought these for me last year some time out of the Michael's $1 bins, but thanks to the tightness, I was never able to wear them on my football player sized calves), Duck Tape, eyelets, shoe strings (or I use paracord I got with a coupon), and then shoes.  The Inspiration said to use slip on shoes, but both sets of baby girl's shoes I could have used are on the way too small side and I wanted her to be able to wear these again if she wanted.  I had these flip flops that were a bit large on her still, so we tried those.  Shoes would have been better.  Since the flip flops have no heel covering, it made the sock really tight against the back of her foot.  Next time I'd find shoes that would work.

 

Shoe on first, then put the sock around the shoe and leg.  I decided to turn the sock inside out for two reasons.  First to make the inside of the shoe more fun looking.  Second due to the type of sock I didn't want her toes getting caught in those little strings.

 

Follow the directions on the Inspiration.  I forgot to take between pictures.  Once the sock is up you start wrapping the leg in duck tape.  Oh, the top wings.  Those are cut out of a stiffer fabric and then wrapped in duck tape.  Then they are taped into the boot.  Inspiration does it much better than I did.  Once the entire sock is covered, the fun part starts.  You have to cut it off.  Inspiration recommended surgical/medical scissors.  I didn't have any (but after this I will be finding a set) so I used regular scissors very, very carefully.  I only poked baby girl once.  And some how managed to not cut my fingers trying to keep the scissors off of her legs.

 

Once the boot is off, you tape the cut edges and apply eyelets.  The add strings. 

 

From this view you can see what I mean about the heel and the flip flop.  A shoe would have kept that back out a bit farther and made them easier to get on and off.  Next time I'll find shoes.

 

Inside with the argyle print showing.  Oh, and I also did not sew the seem like she recommended.  Mainly because I ran out of time and because I'm not sure I had the right kind of needle.

 

But for the hour she wore them, she was the cutest Pirate Fairy around :)

 

"Quilted" picture

I was needing something to do one day.  Just had the need to make something.  I went back through my "Mommy Craft" board on Pinterest and found this inspiration.  Looked easy enough.  I was able to do it a little easier thanks to my Creative Memories Shape Cutting tool.  Only thing is that the hexagon shape has rounded corners so I decided to paint the canvas a coordinating blue first and mine wasn't as large.

 

 

My supplies

 

I love ModPodge :)  I also planned out my pattern before attempting to attach the hexagons to the canvas.

 

 

Making sure to overlap around the edges.  Which turned out to be a pain on some side pieces having to trim little slivers of paper.

 

I also decided to add a letter.  I have had this wood letter for at least 11 years.  If not longer.  It has found a home in my paint bin, but finally has a purpose.

 

Final project now hanging on my hallway wall.

Dimensial Flowers

I wanted something fun and springy for my front door.  But it need to be somewhat flat because of the screen door.  The previous owners installed a nice hook on the door that just beckons to have something on it constantly.

I found this inspiration on Pinterest, and yet, somehow didn't actually pin it.  Well, now I have :)

Being that the instructions are from Fiskar, they use fancy punches for this project.  Amazingly, I don't have those punches.  But I have plenty of scissors, a ruler, and a pencil.  I   used two different shades of orange even though it is hard to tell in the picture.  Plus a fun bright green for leaves, the flower centers, and a background to hang them on.

Instead of using the "Banner Year" lever punch, I drew straight lines and made triangles.  I drew two lines 4 inches apart.  Then did dots every 3 inches on the lines, offsetting them by 1.5 inches.  And then cut out all those little triangles.  Does that make sense?  (I forgot to take a lot of pictures of this project.) I then followed their folding instructions.

It also helps to have a cute little helper to cut up all the scrap pieces of paper into even tinier pieces that you later get to sweep up off the floor.

So this is the final product.  I followed their instructions, just without the fancy punches.  I glued the same green from the leaves & center to a piece of cardboard to have a background.  The looped green ribbon to make a hanger.  From the top of the flower to the bottom of the flower is about 15".

t-shirt dresses

This is the post you have all been waiting for!  I get Family Fun magazine.  If you don't, you should.  You can find deals all the time for cheap, I mean really cheap subscriptions.  I don't remember which one it was in, but they had this idea.  And I thought it was perfect.  My daughter loves dresses.  I don't get it.  But she loves them.  Once in a while Target runs sales on men t-shirts.  I got these shirts for less than $5.  Sale plus Carthwheel coupon (if you shop at Target, use Cartwheel.  Thank me later.)

The week of Dr. Seuss's birthday the school had all these fun themes each day.  On Friday it was dress as your favorite book character. Thinking I knew my daughter I figured she'd go for Pinkalicious and it would be easy to dress her in pink head to toe and we'd be done.  She threw me a curve ball.  Maybe even a spit ball.  She said Belle.  Yes, like Beauty & the Beast, Belle.  Well, Friday is also PE day.  Can't really send her in a frilly yellow dress, which is what she wanted.  So we compromised and went for book reading Belle, which is more my daughter anyway.

So Family Fun's instructions will be better than mine, but here it goes.

Get your t-shirt and turn it inside out.  

You'll need a dress that fits now to get the arm and neck openings right.

This is one from this week.

I used my disappearing ink/mark-b-gone pen and traced the current dress to the arm pits.

 Then I drew a straight line from the end of the arm pits to the corners of the shirt bottom hem.

Before cutting out I put pins on the line and then in other places around what will be the dress to hold it together.

Now, on the blue one I also cut out the neck to be square to imitate Belle's dress.  On the two I did this week I left the original neck lines in tact.  Then cut out the dress from the bottom corners to the top of the straps.

Sew a straight line from the corner of the bottom hem to the end of the arm pit holes.  Turn right side out and you are done!  Ten minutes and you have a cute little jumper dress.

Now, I did try these on her.  The arm pits are a little big.  I may take up the straps a bit to make them were she would be able to wear them without a shirt under.  Or they may make good pool cover ups.

This is her Belle dress.  I used a Men's small shirt for the blue one.  The red & orange shirts were mediums and I made the body a bit wider.

Bonus of the blue one was I was able to cut a strip from one of the sleeves to make her a matching blue "ribbon" for her hair.

This is the red shirt.  You can tell the difference in the collar.  I left the original t-shirt collar intact. You can also see this one is a bit more loose fitting than the blue one.

camera bag

I needed, well wanted really, a bag that I could use as a quick camera bag and be able to have my normal purse stuff as well.  Not that I carry a lot in my purse, but I'd like a bag I can put my DSLR in, my wallet and my little bag where I keep Advil, bandaids, chapsticks, etc.

I really like this bag from Thirty-One, but couldn't stomach the price tag.  I was in my craft closet looking for thread for another project that you will see soon.  And I found this pattern, specifically the middle pattern, C.  Based on the picture I didn't think it was going to be big enough for what I was wanting.  Then I took the pattern out of the package.  I was wrong.  It was plenty big.  The pattern actually specifies to use gingham fabric.  Which as much as I love, I didn't have.  But what I did have was the fabric my mom used a few years ago to make me a baby carrier.  

I did this kinda in a hurry.  (Do you see the "Pin-the-tail-on-the-dalmatian" still on the wall from a little boy's party?)  And I tend to make a mess when I get into something quickly.

And then... ta da!

See!  My DSLR and my wallet plus room.  Success!

So I made modifications.  First, I didn't use gingham.  But I did use plaid! :)  Secondly, I left off the outside pocket.  Didn't really make sense for me.  Thirdly, because I did this in a hurry, I didn't have a zipper for the inside pocket.  And, honestly, I've never done a zipper.  So I winged it and just left it as an open pocket.  Forth modification was in the fabric.  The pattern called for the top inside piece where the clasps are to be the same fabric as the outside.  I didn't have enough.  I also put the fusible interfacing on the inside fabric instead of the outside since my outside fabric was pretty stiff already.  Last modification was that I made the straps long enough that I could use this bag as a cross-body style.  I got used to an awesome diaper bag that my "twin" gave me years and years ago that was cross-body that I can't go back to a normal purse.

And the best part, it was free!  I already had everything I needed.  I did have to apologize to my son for practically ignoring him for a few hours one afternoon.