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I recently wrote about the megaton of felt I won and Sienna’s recent tea party obsession, which has incidentally died down. I’m sure she’ll be back to it but it’s fine for now since I’ve moved on from making faking felt food for her. I’ve joined a couple of felt related swaps on swap-bot and have become obsessed with looking for free patterns and tutorials for making things with them on the internet. Here is what I found but before I post them, here were the last couple of things I made for Sienna!

a frying pan from one of the patterns I bought from Gulf Coast Cottage on Etsy (I didn’t get around to the spatula yet!) and it actually fits this crochet fried egg I got from a tawashi swap (which I couldn’t find at the moment I was taking this photo.) The actual pan part is a bit heavy for the handle but oh well.

And the bagel I’ve spoken about

And here are the swaps (if you happen to be my partner, don’t peak! I just mailed these out today!)

This is for the fall felt fun swap. My partner likes birds and the color blue so I thought this was perfect. From Zakka life. I also included one of the fall ornaments posted below.

Buttons Brooch swap for my partner whose favorite color is purple. It came out a little lopsided but I still thought it was cute. The pattern is here. I totally forgot to use pinking shears to cut out the base heart but I love how the blanket stitch looks. I also included this brooch as an extra!

The pattern for this is here and she makes it as a hair clip.

Some misc. fall ornaments from a pattern set I bought from Prairie Point Junction. I probably could have done them on my own but at least I have a bunch of templates on hand. I bought Fall, Winter and Spring themes.

And my most prized piece only because I took the stuffie pattern (from flickr) and resized  it to my needs and it came out so cute!! For the Felt Brooch swap, my partner is a fan of Hello Kitty.

So freakin’ cute I might have to make one for myself. I almost didn’t want to mail it off so fast (I just made it last night!)so I could admire it some more. HA! It does look cute with my new HK wristlet I made the other day!

A big shout out to futuregirl, whose tutorials really helped me a lot and pointed me towards my now favorite knot! And you know what? I won a 2nd giveaway shortly after receiving my felt (I should have gone out to play the lottery!), a book called Fun Felt Crafts! I got the book earlier this week. It’s a cute book and I’m still looking through it. I was actually surprised that it was published this year as the book as a very vintage feel to it.

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For those that don’t know, I was quite an avid rubber stamper in the early 90’s while I was in college. I had a huge collection of stamps and pads and cardstock. I was always stamping cards or sending mail art making something with stamps. I even attended a few stamp conventions in CA and OH! I didn’t stamp as much once I started working and getting more involved with graphic design on the computer. Then eventually fell out of it and sold a huge part of my collection (not all of it!). I got back into it again once I was home and pregnant and looking for some mail to fill my days. And then of course, once Sienna came and was more active and demanding of my time (like in the last year), I didn’t stamp as much. Then I came across this Stampin’ Up meetup group in Bay Ridge run by Heather. Woohoo! My old ‘hood! I signed up and attended the first meetup on the 16th to do some cards. We did 3 designs and made 5 cards of each. It was fun to start stamping again and actually setting aside time to do it. Since the class was at 10:30, Yves was kind enough to take Sienna to the playground in the area. I thought I would have been down by noon but I was just getting started! I told Yves to take Sienna home and I would find my own way. Here is what I did that day!

A kid friendly card

A feminine card

And the masculine. This design was easy to alter and change up whereas the other 2 were pretty straight forward.

And look at this storage unit she has!!!! DROOL!

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I read a lot of blogs (thank goodness for google reader!) and of course, I read a lot of craft blogs. In doing so, I come across lots of contests and giveaways. I don’t really enter that much unless it is something I am really, really into (I feel if you enter a contest just to win something free, it just ruins your chances for that future contest in which you really want to win). Most of the time, I don’t end up winning but guess what?! Yes! I won!! As I mentioned, I recently got into felt and making stuffies and appliques (soon) and came across the felt-o-rama blog and of course added it to my google reader. I entered their contest and I was so surprised and happy to find out I won!! It was a stash of their eco-felt and it came today!! Wow!! It was a big box!!! (Thank you April of felt-o-rama!)
I was actually expecting the shorter, smaller box. Woohoo!! What a score! See all the yummy felt goodness inside? Did I say WOW?

And here are some of the fake food I’ve made so far for Sienna. Some cookies, a petit four (although I think it’s too big to be called that) and the cake with the whipped topping that I didn’t quite put on top (my first one). Yves was asking for some fruits and veggies for her and used a pear pattern in my Tasty Crochet book for that instead of using felt. It’s pretty huge in comparison! I also made a bagel half but Sienna was playing with it this morning and we left it in the car!

Ok, so I do have to practice some more before my pieces will look as nice as this artist’s! Amazing!

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Just this week Sienna has gotten into having tea parties (thanks to Yves, isn’t that funny?) Here are some recent photos from one the other morning.

As you can see, she is seriously lacking in some tea party food. The 2 cupcakes with the sprinkles on the right came from the tenants who gave Sienna their daughter’s old play house with oven, sink and washer. The cupcake with the strawberry on top was from a swap and the cake behind it I just made from a softies kit from Chronicle Books. I just got into felt and had ordered a bunch of felt last week. After this tea party phenomenon started, I ordered a bunch of felt food patterns off Etsy from Gulf Coast Cottage. I made a petit four for her last night and plan to make a bunch more things!

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Etsy labs has a free craft night every Monday night at their location in downtown Brooklyn. I don’t go as much as I want to go. They are moving to a new location in Dumbo so for the month of August their craft night was being held at the Museum of Art and Design on Thursdays. I’ve gone to 2 so far. Their first one was crochet jewelry. I made these crochet earrings I dubbed fat and skinny:

This was before I put the earring wires on. I also made a boutineare but I haven’t taken a photo of it. The place was mad crowded and I met a couple of very nice girls while there. I was really excited about going to the next week. It was T-shirt reconstruction and it was being held by Megan Nicolay of Generation-T fame! Woohoo! I have her book and am ashamed to say that I never got around to cutting up any shirts. I had every intention to but you know how it goes. She totally rocks! She was very friendly, funny and articulate and did the demo very well. If I was an uber craft geek, I would have had my photo taken with her! She has a 2nd book out (which I might have to get!) and she demo’d 2 shirts from that book. The first one I did.

Megan demo-ing

This design

Before (front)

After (back)

And I wore it the next day!

I probably won’t be going to the 3rd one. They haven’t announced what it was going to be plus I am already going out twice this week and I feel bad to leave Yves a 3rd night. Hopefully the last one will be good too.

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Here’s an update on the last few things I’ve sewn. I think this should make me up to date on most of my crafts!

This bag is from the Sew What! Bags book. After already made a smaller messenger bag type, I took some liberties with this one but not too many! I knew I wanted to make the strap wider and longer (I ended up making it too long and had to fold it onto itself to shorten it) and added an elastic strap to the bag to hold in magazines (which I ended up cutting off since it was useless!) Because of it’s size (it’s pretty big), it’s a little flimsy and I wish I knew that so I could have used a heavier interfacing for the base of the bag. I think if I can figure out how to add a zipper to the top, I should be ok with it.

Next up is a pencil/marker roll I made for Sienna. I wanted to have this for travel. There are lots of tutorials on the internet but I liked this one because it has a place for a pad. I messed up on the closure of it because the instructions aren’t as detailed as I like but I fixed it ok. I really like this Snoopy fabric.
I really liked the pattern so I made another one for a swap and added a cover to it so the markers wouldn’t fall out.

Then I saw this blog tutorial and thought it was a great idea because it holds a coloring book too. Even though she includes a ton of photos, I did get a little confused and wondered how a standard sized coloring book was going to fit in the slot (it didn’t!) I found a small pad to put in but was perturbed that I didn’t follow my instinct about it. I’m not crazy about the raw edges showing but live and learn!

I made this little pouch for a July birthday swap. My partner loves Mickey Mouse (as well as the color purple) and found this stencil online and printed it out on fabric paper and outlined it with fabric paint.

This pouch was for a Share Your Favorite Craft swap. I have lots of favorite crafts but figured since I’ve been making so many pouches lately, I’d make one for this swap. My partner likes her monogram so I did a reverse applique on this pouch. The first time I’ve done this and I think it’s cute! (She also likes purple!)

This one is also for a swap, Reversable Purse pattern from martha stewart’s site. My partner likes pink and orange.

(I realize now that I should have just reversed the bag to show the other fabric! My brain wasn’t functioning the day I took photos of this!)

And lastly! A project on the to do list! Sienna got this Old Navy dress as a hand me down from either Maia or Eli. I wanted to applique an S on there. I finally did it and used cupcake fabric that I got from a swap. First I did a zig zag stitch around the letter (not very well!) and then a straight stitch for all the missed spots (not that well either!) It’s hard sewing around so many curves!

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For Nico’s 3rd birthday:

Brobee from Yo Gabba Gabba and an N pillow where his name is supposed to glow in the dark.

For Elanor’s first birthday:

An E pillow and my first ever stuffie, the Wee Bunny from Wee Wonderfuls

For some swaps:

A pencil roll for a July birthday swap for a 10 year old.

Embrace your Geekness day as part of the Wacky July Holidays swap. My partner loves bowling so I carved this from my clip art book. She also loves to play cards so make her this pouch for Stay Out of the Sun day:

This was for another birthday swap for Cancers:

She is a Texan living in Chicago so I thought it would be fun to print out these shots I took in Chicago with my holga. I bought her the funky purple fabric and included a card. I also made her a Mexican skull wristlet that I forgot to photograph but she has it on her flickr page!

And these were made just because:

Yves humored me and let me crochet him an apple cozy as he brings apples to work every day.

I’ve been wanting to make this crochet bead bracelet for awhile and finally sat down to do it. Summer is here and in the hot weather, I can’t stand to wear necklaces so wanted to compensate by wearing bracelets. I got the pattern from futuregirl’s blog. Her wrists are smaller than mine as I followed her instructions to the T and it was too short for my wrists. Since I already strung on the beads, the last few rows had to go beadless as you can see from the last photo. I don’t mind.

I also made a pencil roll for Sienna using Snoopy fabric that I haven’t downloaded from my camera and a new messenger bag that I haven’t photographed yet so there is still more to come! I just love making things!

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Here’s an update on my latest crafty creations and swaps!

My first real complicated bag (for me anyway!) A messenger type bag from the New Handmade book. The biggest pain about this bag was just cutting out all the pieces. I just got to be patient and realize it cannot be done in a day!

I was going on a fabric buying binge for a little bit and then vowed not to buy any more fabric until I start to use some of my stash up. So I decided to make gifts for all of Sienna’s friend’s birthdays. Unfortunately for Phoenix, hers was next and I made her this P pillow. It didn’t quite turn out the way I had envisioned it but she seemed to have liked it and Geneva said she slept with it! I also made her a little tote bag to match. I don’t like to handstitch so I try to avoid it and see what happens? I went a little crazy on the inside of the P and then used no fray glue without realizing that it dries a little tacky! So I used glittery fabric glue to cover that up! (I discovered on reading a sewing blog that using the zipper foot to close up gaps is very helpful! Noted!)

This was for a handmade whatever you want swap. My partner is a fan of Lenore and since I have not heard of her, was very intrigued. She’s a fictional character created by Roman Dirge and inspired from a poem by Edgar Allan Poe. She is quite interesting and macabre! I haven’t watched all the videos yet.

This was for a Wacky and Unusual June Holidays swap. I procrastinated on this so sent it late but once I got into it, it was fun! My partner likes the Union Jack flag so made these photo magnets with photos from flickr for Flag Day. She likes gargoyles so I altered the gargoyle photo I took from Eastern State for Camera Day. She likes hot cocoa so sent her that for Name your poison day. And then I made her this reversable cotton cuff (from the New Handmade book) for Sewing Machine Day.

Close up of the photo and the cuff. I really liked how the photo turned out!

Wearing the cuff and showing the reverse side.

I put the photo magnets in this altered Sucrets tin.

Here’s a bird stamp I carved for yet another swap!

And a crochet mushroom for the same swap (the top opens but I failed to photograph that!)

And just so you know that not everything I try works out, here is a hat I attempted to make. I had to take measurements of my head and make a template. It was actually pretty easy to do. I know my error tho. Since I wanted to make it easier on myself, I had rounded out one of the measurements I made (and a very important one at that!) and found out that it really messes the whole thing up. I will try it again! Good thing I practiced on old sheets!

(I am smirking underneath the hat)

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 Recent crafts for swaps!

My very first sewn potholder from the book The New Handmade. Front and back.

My 2nd and 3rd attempts at a sewn potholder from the same book. I got bold and tried a cupcake applique and did the cherry using the freehand embroidery needle. I was a little confused with the handle but I improvised and just did it the way I thought it should be. Came out cute, I think! The blue one is the same on the back.

A crochet water bottle holder (my partner loved it!)

Reverse applique coasters for the Coaster swap.

A card I made at a Stampin Up meetup using watercolor crayons. I sent this to Geneva.

For the zippered pouch swap. My partner likes Asian themes.

I had fun doing the watercolor cards so made a couple more for a swap. This is one of them.

And this one isn’t for a swap but for Sienna!

She may not look it but she really liked the apron. I think she wanted to go into the kitchen and start helping daddy. The cheap one that came with the little baking set she got for Christmas ripped and I used that as a template. I had no idea she’d be so into ‘cooking’!

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Big surprise, I am still behind on my blog posts. In my quest to keep off the computer and not get sucked into it, my blog gets neglected. So I’m going to try to make this quick post about some recent swaps I’ve done. A fun one that I was excited about was March is Craft month swap. You make a different item each week and then send them off to your partner. Actually, I have not sent mine off yet as my partner seems to be having trouble with swap-bot and her address is incomplete. (I actually have her full address written down but want to wait to hear from her!) I started off making this super cute Noriko purse from Lazy Girl Designs. My first time doing something of this design and I’m so proud of myself for sewing on a curve well! I have sewn on a curve before, or rather, attempted to sew on a curve before and my results were not worth bragging about! So I guess I just need practice!
The inside was a glittery red fabric. Seems kinda plasticy but the label said 100% cotton.

My partner likes owls so I crocheted this owl ami from the Lion Brand site.

My partner also loves pink and purple so I wanted to make something with those colors and found this simple wallet pattern. I got a little confused with the instructions so I don’t even know if it’s correct. (I think the pockets are wrong!)

I had gotten these dangles by accident on an order and was told I could keep them (!) so since I’m not a gold person, I’m glad I could use them for swaps! My partner likes Winnie the pooh so made this pendant.

The second swap I’m writing about is the Colorific Tote swap. You make or buy a colorful tote and fill it with things with the colors red, orange, yellow, blue, purple, brown and black. Some stuff I bought but here are the things I made:

This is a market tote from bunny bum. I love how she set up this tute!

I carved her a stamp using the orange material from PZ Kut.

Her husband is a Marine and she said she is very patriotic so I thought it would be cute to crochet this USA magnet using camouflage yarn.

And here is everything all packaged together. I know she received the package earlier this week but she hasn’t rated me yet so I hope she likes it! I made her a set of coasters using leopard print fabric (a favorite of hers) and I forgot to take a photo of it so you can only see it in the upper left of this photo.

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