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Way behind in posting this but here is the final week, days 22 through 28!

Day 22 was finishing up 2 projects started in an earlier TAD

Day 23, while waiting at the doctor’s office. I expected a longer wait but it was actually a shortish wait so therefore I only finished 1 of a pair of heart earrings.

Day 24, the start of a sleeping sheep amigurumi

Day 25, using my sizzix machine and felt and buttons! These turned into brooches.

Day 26, finished the sleeping sheep amigurumi started on day 24!

Day 27, fun with waterslide decals!

Day 28, a Madagascar pillowcase for Sienna! Thought it only fitting that I end my month of TAD with something for her. She was a witness to all my creations that sadly weren’t for her so finally! Something for her and she loves it!

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Here are days 15 through 21. As always, see the all my TADs here. Only 1 more post about my thing a day 2010!

Day 15, a hedgehog made out of felt, an extra for a swap. I gave my partner the option to wear it as a pin.

day 16, another extra for a swap, a dog made out of felt. Sienna loved playing with these guys.

Day 17, the start of a Kokeshi stuffie embroidered. Haven’t decided where this is going yet. More photos at TAD.

Day 18, sewed this cute cupcake fabric onto a dishtowel for a swap.

Day 19, appliqued dinosaur shirt made for Yan Ling’s son Carter, who was born in the summer.

Day 20, a crochet cat pillow, or soon to be. This is for a swap too.

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I’m behind in my postings for thing a day. You can always see my current/all thing a days by clicking here. I  left off at day 7 so here is days 8 through 14 (any pattern links can be found at my thing a day posts).

day 8, a brooch made as an extra for a swap.

Day 9, the start of a toddler messenger bag for Sienna’s friend, Emma.

day 10, stamping resin beads. This was a lot of fun. Next time I think it’s better to stamp using a real dark ink. It will show better on the ears. (extra photo at TAD)

Day 11, a Zakka cat pillow using a pattern from Stitching magazine, fall 2009, for a swap. More photos at TAD.

Day 12, a felt snowman that Sienna couldn’t wait to get her hands on. I let her play with it before I sent it to my swap partner. More photos at TAD. I also finished Emma’s bag!

Day 13, a sock bat for a swap. My first sock creature. The eyes glow in the dark.

Day 14! Valentine whoopie pies with a cream cheese filling. Quite yummy (’despite how it looks’ according to Yves!)

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I had a busy month of swaps in January! I had fun doing them all!

Be My Valentine, Stitch and Bitch Embroidery Group (make 1 finished valentine theme stitch project)
I sewed her a shopping tote (pattern from a new bag book I got) and used the heart pattern from Badbirds. I received a cute heart wall hanging from my partner.

Fake Fabric Food. I made a T-bone steak for my 2 partners. I received fish n chips and a valentine cookie from my 2 partners.

Various heart ornament swaps
Crafting Queens group:

What Does Your Heart Say?

These 2 heart patterns from Orange Flower sketchbook but I don’t see it on her site anymore.
Handmade Heavenlies group:

Made using my sizzix!

Japanese Magazine/book Inspiration swap in the Zakka group. My partner likes eyeballs with wings.

Hand Carved Swap. My partner likes the Japanese characters Monokuro boo

One of my favorite swaps, Wacky, Silly and Unusual Holidays, February.

February 20 is Love Your Pet day (pattern from the long thread)

A heart brooch for Valentine’s day. The other 2 holidays I chose were the 7th, send a card to a friend day and the 23rd International Dog Biscuit day (I printed out some homemade biscuit recipes and included a cookie cutter)

Crocheted a heart bookmark (Crochet Spot) to include as an extra in one of the packages.

From the stitch and bitch embroidery group, Weekender Embroidered dish towel. The Love pattern is from Floss Box, the cupcakes from Lolly chops and the heart from an embroidery pattern book. (Notice that pink gingham yet again? It’s one of Sienna’s old receiving blankets I’m reusing!)

An extra to include, a crocheted flower brooch (I used a thicker cotton yarn). Pattern from goodknits.

Handmade Harajuku swap in the Harajuku girls group. Make 3 handmade items!

My partner likes Miffy. Pattern from This and That.

Pucca keychains made using Tim Holtz’s fragment charms. I was delighted there was an official Pucca website with images to use!

Hello Kitty magnets printed on magnet paper and topped with Diamond Glaze. I didn’t like how the diamond glaze came out so  printed out some more without putting the glaze on.

And last but not least! Sweet Treats in the Crochet Cuties and Amigurumis group!

A chocolate cake from my Tasty Crochet book. It came out pretty big!!

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Peter asked me back in early December if I would crochet him a set of cheeses for his cheese fiend friends, Nate & Mari for a Christmas present. He didn’t mind that he would get them way after Christmas and I gave it to him early February! These patterns are from Eternal Sunshine’s Etsy shop, a talented crocheter and fellow Brooklynite! While these guys don’t look as nice and polished as ES’s, I’m pretty happy with them. They’ve got character! I laughed out loud after putting on the gouda’s red rind. I called it a pompadour while Pete was calling it an afro. The jarlsberg was actually a knit pattern with a crochet rind but since I can’t knit (yet), I followed the gouda pattern and then glued felt dots on it for the holes. I think I did a good improvisation even tho the rind is on crooked. It just looks like he had a wild night.

Group shot! Mozzarella, Gouda, Jarlsberg, Bleu Cheese, Tetilla, Valencay, Colby Jack and Epoisses

You can’t really see the eyes from this photo but it’s there!

Here’s a picture that Mari sent me of the cheeses on their sofa. They love them!

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I joined thing a day this year for the 2nd time. Thing a day is in it’s 4th year. I don’t remember which other year I joined but I do remember that I didn’t post a thing to it! I vowed not to do that this year and am going to really commit to posting something daily. I don’t really have a problem being creative daily but I do get lazy to download the photos and post something daily. Anyway, you can follow my things a day at my posterous site daily but I plan to do a weekly follow up my this blog. Any links for the patterns will be found on my thing a day posts. Here is the first week!

Rachel was hosting a craft night at Etsy labs on the 1st and I went out to support her. She was demonstrating altered matchboxes and the theme was Valentine’s day. These are what I made. Super cute! She wrote a re-cap on the swap bot blog and you can see photos of me there too!

Sunday I went to Heather’s meetup where she was doing Old Hollywood cards. I don’t stamp much lately but I thought these would be fun and useful to have. There were 4 designs and I didn’t get to finish 2 of the designs so I made sure I had all the components and finished them at home (the last row) on the 2nd.

Day 3. I joined an Ugly Doll swap in the Felt and Stuff group so these are the pieces all cut out. The hand stitching was done later that night in front of the TV.

Day 4. The Ugly Doll is finished (notice one of the eyes is different! I lost the button so had to replace it. I actually like this one better) This doesn’t really count as a thing-a-day since it’s just finishing up yesterday’s. I also crocheted this little flower brooch. I made it look fancy by putting it in a jewelry box on top of a necklace. This is the 2nd time I made this pattern. The first one I used a thicker cotton yarn. I sent that in a swap.


Day 5, a fabric origami basket from a pattern online. Doesn’t look as nice as the original but cute.

Day 6, acrylic magnets. I used Tim Holtz’s fragments, print outs of some of my favorite holga shots, diamond glaze and some E6000 for the magnets.

Day 7, personalized hair clips for a friend’s daughter. She’s turning 4 and has nice thick hair so I thought she might like this. The 2nd shot is just to show the type of clip I used since the clips off to the side in the first photo is not the same. Not sure if I will use those.

Whew! I did the first week! I’m proud of myself for being diligent in my posts.  I hope I can keep this up for the rest of the month!!

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Here are a few swaps that I hadn’t posted yet because they were mainly Christmas swaps (and lots of people actually had the patience to wait until Christmas to open them!)

Part of these items were for a 12 days of Christmas with a twist swap (for each day, you send the appropriate amount of gift, i.e, the 11th day would yield something with a quantity of 11). My partner is a fan of pin up girls and Bettie Page. I used a collage sheet from piddix to make magnets and bracelet blanks and found a royalty free, vector image of Bettie Page where I made tags.

These were for the Wacky Holidays November swap. I crocheted a pie holder for Pumpkin Pie day and an apple cozy for Eat a red apple day.

Some items from the Handmade Christmas swap. My partner loves mermaids, cupcakes and palm trees. I pulled out my rubber stamps and made her notecards. I colored the mermaids with twinkling H2O’s and made their hair different colors. The cupcake is a potholder and the palm tree/flowers are luggage tags from the book Pretty Little Presents.

This was for a different Handmade Christmas swap. I’m proud of myself for doing this round bucket, round is not easy for me!

A crochet earring swap, which I told my partner I would make her new ones since some of the beads did not survive the mail system!

A profile Surprise Christmas swap. My partner loves the Flyers hockey team so I made these magnets with their logo.

These last two were not for swaps. This one I made for my new nephew in Thailand that was born in November. A little felt heart mobile.

This shirt I’ve been wanting to “fix.” My parents, in their oh so subtle way, bought this shirt for Sienna LAST YEAR (they tend to buy big) so now that she could fit it, wanted to have her wear it.

I bought this book of iron ons from Chronicle books (the name escapes me now and I’m too lazy to go look at the title!). I picked this iron on to put over it (i ironed it on one of Sienna’s old receiving blankets) and then sewed brown zig zags around the edge to match the seams of the shirt.

Although you could still see what it says underneath in this shot, you can’t really tell when she is wearing it. Unfortunately, it faded after the first wash. I didn’t read the instruction on washing so I’m sure I did something I wasn’t supposed to do.

I also made a set of placemats using a tutorial on reprodepot’s blog but I forgot to take photos of it! I made them for my mother in law for Christmas.

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That’s what Sienna essentially asks me. I enjoy the hustle and bustle and excitement of Christmas but I am actually looking forward to getting back to a normal routine. I guess that makes you a real adult, huh? Anyway, I can prolong it a bit by posting all the ornaments (and some tags) I made for various swaps on swap-bot!

How the Grinch Stole Christmas ornament swap

The skull flower is from Sublime Stitching

The robot stencil from the Stencil Me In book. I used Tulip fabric spray for the color.
The dog and the Gingerbread house are from the The Softies kit. I made them into ornaments.

I really have a thing for these retro ornaments!

The pattern for this house is from Nini Makes blog

I thought the smiley face came out really cute. I was a little disappointed in the ball ornament.

This one is for the Spooky Christmas swap. This pattern is from Sublime Stitching (2 that I made into 1)

Embroidery tags. The top 2 are from Wild Olive, the bottom right Sublime Stitching and bottom left from the Stampin’ Up catalog.

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I’ve mentioned this numerous times before or at least something similiar, if I didn’t do crafts, I’d probably drive myself crazy. You know the saying idle hands is the devil’s work? Did I get that right? That goes along with an idle brain too. Not that crafting is rocket science but if my mind wasn’t thinking about crafts or making something, it would be focusing too much on analyzing all my daughter’s moves or any other such nonsense. People always marvel about all the things I make and I say, well I MUST! It’s my sanity! With that, here are some of the latest things I’ve done!

There’s a meetup group I belong to where Heather sells Stampin Up products. I haven’t really been much into stamping lately but I stay in the group because I like that the meetings are in Bay Ridge. She had a recent class at the Storefront making jewelry and I was super excited about that! The projects were making a bracelet using Build A Brads and a pendant using game pieces. Another project was making a pin stamping and painting on thin wood.

Here are some of the custom brads I made. You can then attach this to a bracelet. I haven’t commited to that yet.

Here’s the butterfly pin (wood) and the game piece pendant (the game piece is on the bottom right, I didn’t put my stamped piece in yet)

And of course, lots of swap projects too! I mentioned that I was in a lot of Christmas ornament swaps. They are fun as I get to try making lots of different ornaments and get some fun ones in return!

This partridge pattern is from Retro Mama.

This mouse is from Pimp Stitch.

I got this penguin template from the Crafts & Things magazine archives. It was actually intended for a card.

This house is from Orange Flower Patterns.

Snowman courtesy of Lion Brand Yarns

And other swaps besides ornaments:

Owl swap in the Felt and Stuff group. Pattern from Wee folk art. It’s actually a doorstop but I opted not to put any pellets in it. My partner was in the UK after all.

Crochet Christmas Light potholder. For the I Made This swap! LOL! (I downloaded this pattern last year and can’t find the link. If you want the pattern, please let me know.)

For an embroidery swap. My partner loves Doxie’s so I googled it and found this image to embroider.

This is the 2nd time I’ve made this recipe cozy. This time I used the recipe cards she created for this and included my favorite banana bread recipe. This was for the I Made This swap (same partner as the potholder above)

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I don’t have to tell you how much I enjoy crafting and making things. Truth be known, tho, left to my own devices I probably wouldn’t get much done! I can procrastinate and get lazy and then I would feel bad and really be down on myself and really never get anything done! It could be a vicious cycle. That’s why I’m so glad for swap-bot! Although I sometimes do wait for the last minute with some swaps, I try not to. Here are some recent swaps I’ve sent.

For the Halloween Felt Fun swap that I forgot to post before:

For the Wearable Kawaii Cute:

A Bear Brooch from this Felties book (which I adore!)

A Hello Kitty glass pendant

For the Crafting Queens group Profile Surprise (send 1 thing they like and 1 thing they craft) so I sent my partner 2 fat quarters and made 3 awareness pins from felt (breast cancer, kidney cancer and asthma).

I’ve joined a bunch of Holiday Ornament swaps and 2 of them were due in October. It was a little hard to get into the Christmas spirit before Halloween!

The gingerbread pattern is from Elsie Marley and the Santa is from a Japanese craft book I recently got.

The above 2 ornaments were for the same partner. The cow I kinda made myself from an image on the internet and the angel is from a Craft n Things archived issue. My partner likes cows and angels!

The following is for the Wacky Holidays November swap (you pick 4 holidays and send stuff for them)

Party with your Bear day (Nov 16) I crocheted the bear and put a party hat and included invites and confetti.

Recipe cozy for Cook Something Bold day November 8 (with some 2 “bold” recipes and blank recipe cards). It was a bit big for the standard recipe cards and I knew that but decided to follow the pattern anyway. I should have made it smaller or at least use the recipe cards designed for this.
I made a felt magnet for Deviled Egg day (Nov 2)
The last holiday I picked was Absurdity Day (Nov 20) and sent a silly fortune fish (the kind you put in your palm to “read” your fortune)

This last craft I’m posting was actually for a Winner Take All tag on one of the forums. The winner drinks tea so I made this tea bag cozy for her. I think it came out so cute I might have to make one for myself!

I can’t find the actual pattern I used but here is a similar one. I found the pattern! It’s here.

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