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!

Merry Christmas!

Hello everyone!  I feel like I still have a lot to do including cleaning the house again because I've been neglecting all the cleaning so I can finish all the Christmas stuff.  Today, I got a lot of organizing done and donated 4 bags of clothes, toys and books to Goodwill.  But our poor bathrooms and kitchen are still neglected.  Hopefully, I can get onto that tomorrow. 

I wanted to share the goodies I made for my son's Kindergarten class.  I spent about 4-5 days to finish these.

I used the stocking die from Sizzix to cut out 19 felt stockings.  I hand stitched them and added a loop so the kids could hang them on their tree.  I hot glued the red pieces.  Originally I was gonna do red stockings with white trim but the green felt was on clearance so I went with those and changed the trim to red.

Then I used the gingerbread die from Sizzix to make 19 felt gingerbread men.  They are double sided since the die cuts all the eye and button holes, and the mouth.  I glued black felt for the eyes and red felt for the buttons and mouth under the body so those colors would peek through.  I tied 38 bows using my bow maker.  It was fast to cut all the pieces and tie the bows.  The longest part was probably sewing and stuffing these.  I didn't stuff them a lot and realized they looked better being a bit skinnier.

So because the gingerbread men are double sided, we added a candy cane to each side.

Here they are all packed up and ready to be passed out.  I think the kids in my son's class like them.  I did hear some positive comments!  Though I think next time I need to start earlier! 

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

candy cane mice

Hi again!  I had plans today to take my boys for a haircut but the weather didn't agree with me.  It has been raining all morning and not just a light drizzle either.  It's pouring and the water is puddling around the yard.  So we decided to stay in and make our traditional ornaments that I'll share another day. 

Today, I want to share the treats I made for my boys' classmates.  My daughter doesn't pass out class treats anymore but just a handful of gifts to close friends.  They all got calendars this year!  While I was looking for simple crafts to do with my youngest one's class, I came across candy cane mice.  I'd never seen them before and my boys loved them.  Of course, because they like rodents.  I wasn't too sure if girls would like them but I thought since it is their treats to give I would let the boys decide.  There are tons of templates online.  I used this one HERE and found a cute poem HERE. 

If I had oval or egg shaped dies, I would've just used that but I don't so I ended up finding a circle die that was close in size to the template.  I cut out all the felt circles and then used the template to trim the excess off.  I sewed 2 pieces of felt together and left a small opening for the candy cane.  Because I used 2 layers for the body, I didn't cut out the 2nd pair of notches shown on the template.  I like the way this looks better.  If you want to just make one layer then you would need that 2nd pair of notches to hold the candy cane in place.  You can also make these out of paper too.  I sewed on the inner ears to the big ears also.  My boys helped with sliding the ears through the cut openings.  Then I did the hot gluing of the eyes and pom pom nose.

My youngest one wanted the mice bodies and ears to be mismatching.  Kind of more whimsical, I suppose.  He was able to put all the candy canes into the felt bodies.

My older boy wanted all matching bodies and ears.  I ended up making 45 mice.  I started early so I didn't have to rush.  Sewing them was fairly quick too.  They hang nicely too on the tree.  Just have to make sure the hole for the candy cane isn't too loose or the mouse will slide off.  After Xmas, these felt mice might look cute on pencils. 

I packed them all in clear bags and tied the poem around with yarn.  I love using yarn to pack up goodie bags.  My boys said their classmates loved them especially the younger ones.  I'm glad they thought the mice were cute.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Mitten Tag/Ornaments

Hi!  Here are some mitten tags I made from Spellbinders mitten dies.  One side has the red felt and the other some PTI cardstock so we could write the names on.  I used Liquid Stitch to glue the mittens together and the snowflake.   

The red felt I just bought at Ben Franklin.  It cut pretty well.  The snowflake is the medium sized one from My Favorite Things Die-namics dies.  I used PTI felt for the snowflakes.  I tried using less expensive felt but it just wouldn't cut cleanly even when I tried to fatten up the layering recipe on the Big Shot.  Even with the PTI felt I used a sheet of cardstock to cut the snowflake out nicely.  I used some ribbon for the trim and red baker's twine.  I colored some clear bling with my red copic pen for the center of the snowflake.

On the reverse side of the mitten, I used PTI's Tiny Treats Xmas set (I use this set a lot!).  I thought the mittens matched so nicely.  I added some stickles.  That's the extent of my glitter use--it's not as messy.  The year is stamped with PTI's Simple Alphabet.  

Tied the mittens onto some teachers' gifts that I wrapped up last night.  And after unwrapping the gifts, these tags can also be used as ornaments. 

Will be entering these in a couple of challenges too.  ACLP's Tag It! challenge and Lollipop Crafts Christmas Tags challenge.

Can't believe it's almost Christmas!  Still have a lot to do.  Thanks for reading!

I "sew" need a vacation ...

This is my card entry for TGF's Farm Fresh Friday challenge for the week.  It's my first FFF.  I don't know why I wait til almost the last minute to participate.  It's the pressure of the deadline, I suppose.  So the challenge was to incorporate some sewing or even faux sewing on 2 layers of DP or cardstock.  I have a sewing machine under my craft table and I haven't used it at all!  It's a few years old already and I bought it cause I wanted to learn to sew but never really got around to it.  I didn't use it for this challenge either.  I used my paper piercer that I just got and hand sewed the outline of the clouds in the sky and some of the "waves" in the ocean DP. 

So while I was cleaning out my storage room this past weekend I found all this felt!  Ahhhh!  So I made a little palm tree for Dress Me Ian to cool off under.  There's some hand stitching on the leaves and the tree trunk.

I used some yarn for the bottom scallop portion and just weaved it through.  Don't look too closely at my coloring on Ian.  I was running out of ink in my Copic pen.  But I'm happy I just got new ones from All That Scraps today!  It's always fun to get new crafty things. 

Anyway, hope you're having a good summer.  It's almost back to school for the kids.  Thanks for reading!

PTI Think BIG Challenge

Hi!  Have you ever seen those cute little headbands they have for babies now?  The ones that have a flower almost as big or bigger than the baby's head?  See HERE for a sample.  I think they are so cute!  So when PTI announced the Think BIG Challenge (HERE for details) I wanted to try to make something like that but with PTI felt.  It is a PTI challenge after all so I tried to incorporate as much PTI stuff as possible.  It is easy to buy a silk flower and headband and glue it together to achieve a similar look. 

Here's the flower I made all with PTI felt.  I used Nestabilities Big Scalloped Circles Large for the green, pink and the yellow piece on the bottom that I sewed everything on to.  Nichole had shown us this for making a flower HERE.  You just fold the piece in half and then half again.  I just used the largest scalloped die for the green and the 3rd largest for the pink.  The small yellow pieces are made from the Beautiful Blooms 2 dies.  I used a large needle and yarn to sew it together.  Kind of thick but still manageable.

The button in the middle is also from PTI.  It had a little indent in the middle so I glued a little SU rhinestone in it. 

I thought about attaching the flower to hats and plastic headbands but I really wanted the elastic headbands so I could give it away as a baby gift.  I only hope she has a girl!  If not I hope to find someone who would give it a good home.  I ran out and bought the headbands from Macy's this morning. 

I sewed the headband to the flower and then hot glued another scalloped felt piece to cover up all the messy yarn.

Just to show you the size as compared to a PTI stamp set.

Tried it on my daughter's dolly.  Yeah, it's pretty big.

Then I thought about how to package it and came up with this.  This is the back.  I cut one of those clear boxes that PTI stamps come in.  I rounded the corners and punched 2 pairs of holes near the top and bottom and tied the headband to the plastic with twine. 

The front.  I'll probably place it in a clear bag.  Just don't have one at the moment.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!

whatcha doin'?

Hi!  So happy that I got to pick up a few Tiddly Inks Wryns during a great sale!  I was so excited that I printed some out and made a card last night for Tiddly Inks Challenge 81 -- Fabric Fun.  I actually stayed up really late to finish and good thing it was the weekend so I could sleep in this morning even if it was just an hour more.  Kids--why do they always wake up so early on the weekends?

So ever since I first saw this Whatcha Doin'? Wryn, I thought she'd look great looking out a window or something so that's the idea of my card.  I kind of wish I had one of those window frame dies.  But have to make do with what I got.  I used PTI felt for the clouds (also PTI dies), grass and flowers.

I printed the sentiment out and used MFT's Say What die to cut her little word bubble.  I also made little bows with embroidery thread for her hair and cut out her tiny little hands to stick out over the window (a bit challenging).

I put together a little picket fence and impressed the woodgrain (both from PTI).  There is felt grass behind the paper one using MFT's grass die.  I die cut the tiny flowers from felt (also a bit challenging) using an old Sizzix Hello Kitty die and added some rhinestones to them too.

I spent a lot of time just crafting yesterday and so maybe I lost track of what chores I had done.  I thought I had put the laundry from the wash into the dryer but realized at night that it was still sitting in the washer.  OR maybe it's because I do the laundry soooooo often that I can't keep track and everything just blends in together.  Sigh, in any case, I do the laundry way too often.

Thanks for reading!