Back to Stay!

Life in our home has taken some interesting turns in the last 2 months, but we are adjusting and in spite of the fact that my DH is unemployed and at home all the time now (in the county with the highest unemployment rate in the state). We knew this was coming a while back and were well prepared when it came to pass. What I wasn't prepared for, was all this "togetherness time." It sure is different to be under the surveilance of my "beloved boss" 24 & 7. As I said, we are adjusting. We've worked on some long overdue projects around the house and of course homeschooling our little girl goes on and I have been working harder on weaving my rugs for a local gallery where my stuff will be at this summer. It sounds so busy, but I realized that I have apparently been finding quite a bit of time for stamping, when I started taking photographs of my recent cards. So here is the first of a bunch of cards I have to share...I am committing to posting more regularly in 2010.
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My LoveBirds card has a Pretty in Pink base card and Mambo Melon Scalloped Heart, with both pieces being run through my Bigshot with Stampin' Up!'s Elegant Bouquet Embossing Folder. The birds and the branches were all punched with SU's new Extra Large Two-Step Bird Punch from page 10 of the Occaissions Mini Catalog. I sponged the birds' bellies and wings and the branches with Platinum Shimmers that was in the Holiday Mini Catalog (and still available as are all the Big Shot items in there as well). The label was punched from Modern Label and Word Window, and the words were from the set "Three Little Words" available for sale in the Big Catalog, or as one of the free choices for a Sale-a-Bration selection. To finish the card, I dotted the birds' eyes with tiny spots of black shiny paint, and added stick-on diamonds on the word window.

C-ya later!

Felted Sweater Tote Bag Gift

Here I am with another secret sister gift I have been working on, this time for a new secret sister. The gift theme this time around is to be “making something new from something old” or in other words to recycle something, but the catch is…something we haven’t done before! What a challenge that turned out to be to just find something I haven’t done before, since I have been crafting and recycling since I was old enough to read, beginning with a potholder loom and trying everything I could find.

Felting is something I have wanted to really try for a while. Last year I attempted to make slippers, the wool didn’t felt properly, so I “felt” it would be all right to try again and pray for success this time. My research to find an easy pattern with good instructions was found here, and I began with a sweater that was already partly shrunken.

One thing I realized about felting wool, is that one needs the agitator in a washing machine (top-loader) to do this quickly. Having a front-loading washer, I ended up doing the agitating by hand (my 5 year old daughter was delighted to help) in a sink of hot water…and had better success when rubbing the sweater against itself, especially the inside, which I needed to make as meshed together as possible.

Then it was a matter of drying it and cutting it out, which was easy. Stitching took a bit more time, I thought a “blanket stitch” would work well, but after having most of it stitched, my stitches looked too uneven, so I pulled all that out and used my sewing machine to turn the edges under.

I added a deep narrow pocket on the front for her cell phone or checkbook, and used an old Sizzix flower die on my Big Shot to cut out the flower trims, adorned with old buttons and carpet thread to detail them a bit. I threw a few flowers on the backside of the bag for good mearsure too. I saved the sleeves to maybe use on another pair of slippers for my little girl.

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Remember when I said I started crafting with potholders? The rug used for a background under the felted bag in the photos, is one that I wove with loopers very similar to what I used way back then!

Hope she likes it!

Cheryl