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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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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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Time for some Halloween fun! First and foremost, I want to note that I indeed finish the skeleton stuffie I started at Etsy Labs earlier this month!

I opted to do the face features with fabric paint instead of black felt. I like him!
These are the handmade items I made for the Harajuku Girls Group Halloween Swap on swap-bot. I included other Halloween related items but didn’t take photos of those. The black cat and pumpkin keychain are made of felt and I got the pattern from a Japanese craft book I recently purchases. The black and orange towels were blank from Kohl’s and I embroidered matching cute skulls, an image I got from a Stampin’ Up catalog! I used Saral transfer paper for this, which worked out really well although I initially bought it to transfer images onto felt, which does not work so well!

Then last week Geneva and Phoenix came over to help carve the pumpkin we got from Lawrence Farms. I never carved a pumpkin before! Geneva was kind enough to do the initial cutting and gutting. She let me and Sienna carve out the face. We even roasted the seeds, also something I’ve never done before!

The Jack O’Lantern barely lasted a week (we kept it indoors). I read that if you put cinnamon powder inside and the cut rim, it would last longer. I don’t know if this is true but it gave the pumpkin a dark and dull look. It started rotting about 5 days after. I was going to put it outside on the patio but wanted to wait until closer to Halloween. Oh well. At least I know how to do it for next year!

I am also proud of myself for making part of Sienna’s Halloween costume and the accompanying piece for Yves to wear.  You’ll understand what I mean when you see it. I’ll post it after Halloween so I don’t ruin the surprise.

Yesterday I made chocolate covered peeps and chocolate covered pretzel rods with sprinkles. I’m not really a peeps person but I saw this idea at Jacques Torres being sold for $1.25! (I thought I saw it for $1.25 but then saw on someone’s blog that it was $2.25) So since someone sent me peeps in a swap, I wanted to try it out. Of course the ones from Jacques Torres probably tastes better because of the quality of chocolate (it better for that price!). I still haven’t tried it yet.  I’ll probably give it away at the Halloween festival tomorrow.

The ones at JT had eyes on them. I was going to put them on but realized I had the gel frosting so it would probably get all gooey in the bag.

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Continuing on with another swaps and crafts post before I get too far behind! Here are two swaps I received. This one is for the felt brooch swap, a crab because I’m a Cancer. So cute!

And this one is a needlecase for the Fall Felt Swap. I love it! I love what she used for the owl’s eyes!

Here are a couple I made for the 13 days of Halloween swap. This one I crocheted a skull applique and glued it onto this little wall hanging I sewed with skull fabric. I had trouble with the grommets and Yves came to the rescue. I didn’t have anywhere to hang it so just laid it on my table to photograph.
This one I embroidered a freebie design I got from Craftblog of a Frankenstein Bunny and Skeleton Bunny and made into stuffies (I used another of Sienna’s old receiving blankets!). You can’t tell from the photo but the bones in the skeleton were used with glow in the dark thread.

The back was made with purple glittery fabric I got from another swap!

I really enjoyed embroidering and made another stuffie (again on one of Sienna’s old receiving blankets! Way to use them up!) This candy apple is a pattern from Wild Olive. This swap was for the Halloween Fake Food Swap.

For the same swap I made this jack o’lantern and used glow in the dark fabric paint for the eyes. I got this pattern from PlanetJune!

And this is not for a swap but a belated birthday present for my good friend Geneva, momma to Phoenix. I took this photo of them back in April at the Easter Egg hunt and I know Geneva loves this photo. I printed it out on fabric, appliqued it to another one of Sienna’s old receiving blankets and embroidered a heart. I made it into a pillow with some fabric that I got from Brenda.

And tooting my own horn here, I hand stitched the pillow closed! I only just started doing this as I found some really great detailed instructions on the internet (sorry I don’t remember the link!) I still need more practice but considering I hated handstitching, I think I’ve come a long way!

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A couple of weeks ago was the September mixer. Since I really enjoyed Common Ground at the August mixer, I decided to go back there but this time for Wednesday night trivia! I was able to rally Peter to meet me for dinner beforehand (he doesn’t normally come to the mixers).

The plantains

The cheesy balls

The Arepas

Close up of our favorite

Pete getting ready to chomp!

We went to Caracas Arepa Bar in the East Village. YUM YUM YUM! We got 2 appetizers and a sort of sampler arepa plate to share. We got yoyos (fried sweet plantain balls stuffed with white cheese) and Tostones Mochimeros (Fried Green Plantains topped with Mojito Mayo, a squeeze of lemon and white cheese) for the apps. And we opted for the La Popular combination platter: La de Pabellón (shredded beef, black beans, white salty cheese and sweet plantains), La Reina Pepiada (chunky chicken and avocado mix salad) and La Mulata (grilled white cheese with jalapeños, sautéed red peppers, fried sweet plantains and black beans). The La Mulata was both of our favorite and it was fun to see Pete shout out a Whoo! when he got to the jalapeños. The Reina Pepiada was our 2nd favorite and the de Pabellón was our least favorite (a bit too sweet). We were too stuffed to get any of their desserts and tried to think of somewhere for some ice cream when we ran into Alison and Josh going to the mixer. We decided to just start drinking and head to the bar.

Josh, Nuno and Ali thinking up answers

Pete stayed for a drink and left before trivia. Guess what? We won trivia night!! Wooohooo!! Now, I can’t take any credit whatsoever for the win. I might have known about 5 answers to the 60 questions asked. Unfortunately our team was named Monkey Karate Ninjas (I think Josh picked this one and I was already feeling the beer and did not argue! HA!) and there were some really entertaining team names. I think most credit goes to Jonathan. We won a $50 gift certificate to Common Ground and will probably use it for the November mixer. The mix I made I had Sienna in mind as I called it We Can Count! Below is the tracklist.

Starts With One    Shiny Toy Guns
Two Times    The Blakes
3 Strange Days    School of Fish
Four-Eyed Girl    Rhett Miller
The First Five Times    Stars
Six Barrel Shotgun    Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Seven Nation Army    The White Stripes
Crazy Eights    Tapes N Tapes
Step On My Old Size Nines    Stereophonics
10    M.I.A.
The 11th Hour    Rancid
Twelve    Jurassic 5
Thirteen    Big Star
Fourteen    ¡Forward, Russia!
15 Steps    Radiohead
Sixteen, Maybe Less    Calexico / Iron & Wine
Seventeen Dirty Magazines    Modern Skirts
18 and Life    Skid Row
19    Paul Hardcastle
Twenty On My Way    Arthur Lee & Love

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I don’t usually post the swaps I received as much as I do the swaps I send out. Once in awhile I get motivated to post a swap received when it blows my mind but I should try to post them more often. My partner for the Harajuku Girls Group Sweets swap really spoiled me! I mean, she really went out of her way and sent me a box load of sweets. The postage alone was over $10!!

She even decorated a wooden box and put more candy in there! And she sent me Chocolate Banana pocky!! I never saw that flavor before! My dentist is going to love me. 😉

This was a leaf brooch I made for the Felt Brooch swap. My partner liked leaves and something for Autumn. I also made a G in the lower right for her since her name begins with G. I really like it!
Here is a softie I made for Sylvie’s first birthday. The pattern is from The long thread and she calls it Lucy Goosey. I used part of an old receiving blanket of Sienna’s (I have a bunch of those!)

Here is a ladybug I crocheted for a swap. It’s been so long that I forgot what the swap was for! The pattern is from Lion Brand’s website. I glued black dots on her instead of crocheting black dots and used fabric paint for the eyes. The eyes are a bit funky but oh well.

I have a few more crafts and swaps to show. I hope to post that sooner rather than later!

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