Snowflake Mittens

Hi!  Just wanted to share a couple of more mitten ornaments/tags that I made for Cheryl's kids.  Mitten dies are from Spellbinders and the snowflakes from MFT's Die-namics dies.  The snowflake dies are so delicate but I really love how detailed they are, especially the smallest one.  I really had to take care not to pull too hard on the smallest one since it was felt and if I tugged too hard, it would break.

Here's close up of the smallest snowflake.  I tried not to make this one too girly.

This is the reverse side.  I just die cut their initials in felt also.  I love the lace too.

The finished product/packaging. 

My 3 kids also decorated their own mittens since they were on vacation.  The boys even wrote down their Xmas list on a piece of paper and stuck it in their mittens.  My daughter never knows what she wants.  She's always been that way.  She never asks us to buy her anything, not even toys when she was younger.  So different from the boys who ask for something whenever we're out shopping!

We've already undecorated our tree.  After I came home from my after-Xmas shopping, I found that my daughter and hubby had removed most of the ornaments already!  I thought that was so fast and thought we could've left the tree up until New Year's.  Oh well.

Thanks for reading!

A Million Pairs of Mittens (part 2)

Hi!  Here are the mittens we made for my daughter's class.  Twenty-seven pairs in all.  My daughter placed 2 mini candy canes in each mitten.  Usually we don't give goody bags for my daughter's class cause now that she's in the 4th grade, I'm thinking they're not too into those kinds of things.  But my daughter really wanted to make something for her class and this was relatively inexpensive.  Time consuming, yes, but expensive, no.  Basically, I would cut and glue at least 10 pairs of mittens for 5 nights and then slowly also stitch them one pair at a time.  My older 2 kids got to glue on the rick rack felt pieces but they had to use a lot of Elmer's glue.  Even then, some wouldn't stick very well so I'd have to go back and use the Liquid Stitch. 

I hung some on the tree to see how they would look.  I think our tree is already dying.  What's the secret to keeping a tree fresh?

I made a few extra pairs of mittens.  That'll be for another post.  Thanks for reading and have a great day!

A Million Pairs of Mittens (part 1)

Hi!  So I  haven't blogged in a bit cause I've been busy making all these mittens.  And this is just for my son's kindergarten class.  I have yet to finish up my daughter's class.  I made 22 pairs of mittens for my son's class.  I first saw this on a Splitcoast Stampers tutorial.  I had some leftover inexpensive felt and lots of white yarn.  I did end up buying more felt, yarn needles, and something called Liquid Stitch from Walmart cause I don't yet know how to use my sewing machine.  So all the mittens were first glued around the edges (wait 24 hours to dry with something heavy on top) then hand sewn.  My daughter helped sew too! 

The Spellbinders mitten dies are super cute.  There are small ones too like the ones I used above to stamp the child's first initial and the year using Just Rite Stampers.  I crocheted the handles too, just a simple chain stitch and tied them on so it can be hung like an ornament.  The rickrack die is from PTI. 

We placed large candy canes in these mittens. 

We assembled all the goody bags tonight.  My younger son helped too.  We also added a small paddle ball toy that I bought again at Walmart when they were having their Halloween sale.  I bought a pack of 6 for just a quarter.  The colors are all Halloween colors like purple, orange and green but hey, it's so cheap!  My older son colored all the tags for the bags and wrote his friends' names on them.  I used PTI's Tiny Treats again.  The Tiny Treats series of stamps are so cute and fun for the kids to color.

The Trevor stamp is still up for grabs if anyone wants it.  Just leave me a comment saying you want it and will give it a good home.

Thanks for reading and hope you're having a great week!

Birthday Kitty

Hello.  I finally made a card!   I feel like I'm being relatively productive, but when I actually need a card, I don't have anything in my stash!  I think I agonize too much over what to make and where to put things and it takes me forever to finish a card!  I'm finally posting it now since it arrived in the mail to the intended recipient, whew, luckily it made it on time.  I thought I would have more time over fall break, like not needing to wake up so early to get the kids ready for school, but I don't know where the time goes, maybe watching too much X-factor!

First I wanted to use my new Spellbinders heart circle.  Which was part of my problem because I couldn't find any card sketches online last week that used a big circle!  And then I didn't want to waste too much time web surfing when I had to get this into the mailbox.  Then I wanted a birthday-ish image, so out of all the Wild Rose Studio clearance stamps that I had bought, this one seemed the most appropriate, except now I'm thinking I should have colored the cat gray or something to match the cardstock better.  And ack, but I don't actually have a sentiment on the front, which feels a little weird to me, but I couldn't find a good place to put it.  I actually wanted to use my Papertrey Ink Big Birthday Wishes but it was hard to squeeze those large sentiments, numbers, plus this large cat image onto the heart circle.

So I just put those on the inside.  Which is why there is a pink circle on a pink card since I had already glued the numbers down to the circle.  OK, that's about it for me.  Eva, I'm looking forward to more of your crafty creations.  I'm thinking at this rate, I better get started on some Xmas cards and forget Halloween already!

Happy Birthday Milton

And here's my 2nd card.  I actually didn't follow any sketch this time since the image was so huge!  I got this Milton stamp from the recent All That Scraps sale.  Now I'm thinking I should have gotten more while they were on sale!

Anyhow, I mostly just spent all my time coloring.  The image fit nicely within the largest lattice rectangle.  I just had to trim the card base down to 5.25 inches and rounded all the corners.  The sentiment is from a Borders and Corners set from Papertrey Ink, punched with a Marvy punch (yes, I actually bought the matching punch just so I could use it with these rectangle stamps so I guess I should make things more often!).  The red ink is from Technique Tuesday that I got during a class that I took at a Creating Keepsakes convention a few years ago.  It stamped pretty nicely.  I'm still looking for a nice brand of ink that has a nice range of colors.  I'm thinking at some point I may try the new Ranger Archival inks.  That is, if I can ever devote myself to crafting. Seems like school is only getting busier!  My older one seems to have so much homework, which I wouldn't mind if he could do it all himself, but I have to check his work and quiz him...while playing with, feeding and bathing the younger one.  I think once both my kids are in school, I will only want to veg on the couch with the TV. :-)  Hint, hint to Eva.

I appreciate you!

Well, that is the sentiment on my latest card.  But I also wanted to say thanks to Eva, for keeping up the blog, making so many beautiful and creative crafty things, and inspiring me to actually use my supplies (but then buying even more things too!)  I can't believe I lasted a year, even if I only managed to make things sporadically.  But it has actually been a pretty productive year for me...recording it all on our blog has been motivational.

Anyhow, I can't believe I didn't look at all these challenge blogs earlier, especially the sketch and color combination ones.  They help me out a lot with design ideas...I am the crafty-challenged one on this blog, I mostly enjoy the cutting and pasting parts, not so good at the creativity part.  Let's just say I'm lucky this is not my day job.

Anyhow, I'm playing along this week at the Play Date Cafe... 

And Card Patterns

 It's basically all PTI...cardstock, polka dot paper and stamp set, and Spellbinders...labels and tags.  I did cut the border with a Hello Kitty sizzlit border.

The ribbon was probably from Michaels.  I added some to the ends of the tag and stuck it down with a glue dot which was kind of difficult to place, I should probably try a different adhesive next time.

 I used the Bow-Easy again, somehow my bow ended up a little twisted.  I might end up gluing part of the tails down.

OK, after I saw the photo, it looked like the sentiment tag was too high up.  Luckily I didn't use much adhesive and could take it off without ripping any paper.  So I moved the tag down just a little, there was still old adhesive there so I couldn't really go any lower.  Was that being too picky?  That's why it takes me forever to make things too.

Have a nice rest of the weekend!