Feature Friday: Handmade Holidays Rock!

When thinking about our feature for Black Friday, I thought immediately of two of my favorite Etsy sellers. Okay, I'll admit, both are dear friends, and while they're not paying me to feature them, if they want to send me a treat, I won't try to stop them. Because I love what they do.

Why are these my go-to girls? They are both terrific artists, both want the recipient to be overwhelmed by the loveliness of their purchase and both take time to make things just the way you want them. And I love the idea of more handmade lovelies for the holidays. I mean, I do my share of retail consumption, but I'm working on improving the handmade/mass-produced purchase ratio. And these women both make rock(in') jewelry.

First, Kelly Vivar Fine Jewelry.  I have a beautiful pair of earrings and a custom-made necklace with birthstones for each of the members of my family. My daughter loves to snuggle up to me and point to each stone and ask me to tell her again which one is her, which is Daddy, and which is me. And she knows that little sister isn't on there yet and that she will be soon, as soon as I can surrender the necklace long enough to have her added.  Really, what's not to love about all of the sweetness in this?

Or this?

And if you really want to rock around the Christmas Tree, you need to check out Strange Little Girl's shop. There's so much variety. So much beauty. Like this:

Or this, for the goddess in your life:

And a disclaimer: I haven't highlighted my very favorite pieces. They're on my Dear Santa list, and if you get them first, that means I might not get them.... and this decision not to share, admittedly, has me between a rock and a hard place. But I can roll with that.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are off on a joint family vacation to Vienna & Budapest (since they don't celebrate Thanksgiving where we live) but couldn't leave you without our lists of...

Crafty Things We're Thankful For:

Adrianna
1.  This rotary cutting guide.  I tried to think of my #1 favorite sewing tool (besides the machine, duh), and although this is kinda boring, I think I've used it for 99.9% of my sewing projects.

2.  The ability to sew a gather by upping the tension and lengthening the stitches.  There's nothing I hate more than "distributing gathers evenly".  (not possible, in my opinion)

3.  Susan's serger

4.  Anna Maria Horner and the bolts of dobby dot I am about to own and hoard

5.  My husband, for letting me stick my crafting room where the dining room should've been, for installing an overhead light without me asking because he noticed my craft area was dark, for not raising a single eyebrow on those weeks when I get a package of fabric in the mail every single day, and for gushing over my finished projects in a way that is both sincere and appropriately over-the-top.  (um, and manly.  I don't know if he'd appreciate me saying "gushing".)

Susan  
1.  Artbin Super Satchel boxes. I love the thread one and the general-purpose one. Organization makes me happy.

2.  Crafty blogs and Etsy. What a wealth of inspiration and wonderfulness.. I love being part of producing a blog and I love reading what others are doing. I feel like some creative sanity has returned to my life, and my role as a wife and a mother seems to fit a little more comfortably after fitting some of the ideas I've learned from others into our family routines and creative tasks. And thankful that Adrianna dragged me down this road, kicking and screaming a bit. Or at the very least, rolling my eyes.

3.  A dress form. I couldn't have done this without it, and am excited about doing more garment work after the holidays.

4.  A serger. I didn't get a fancy, expensive one. Just a basic one. And wow, am I amazed at what it can do. It was scary to try, but inspiring to think of what's next.

5.  Both a husband that is supportive of my creative efforts (without complaint when dinner isn't as exciting as it could be or... um... is preceded by a paper menu and a phone call) and two silly girls who brought the color pink into my life in a major, major way. My favorite color used to be red... and then I had a baby girl. And now I really know what I was missing, and I thank God for it.

Happy Thanksgiving, one and all!

Make Your Own Stripe-y Wrapping Paper: A Tutorial

So Adrianna calls me last night and suggests I scan fabric to make wrapping paper. And when I say suggest, I mean she said "here's your next task." Here is an example of my inability to refuse a creative task. This is not the first time it's gotten me in trouble. And by in trouble, I mean up at 5 am with this thought in my head. Which isn't trouble all by itself, but I'm expecting trouble when I'm ready to go to bed for the night at 4 PM since I was up three times in the middle of the night with a wee one who needs to sleeeeep more.

But back to the point. I do love the idea of making my own wrapping paper from my favorite little fabric blend-o-rama. So, here's how I made my stripey wrapping paper.

Cut strips. You don't need many or much, because the average scanner will only accommodate something slightly larger than a letter-sized sheet.

4 white: 1.5" x 9"

5 patterned: 1.5" x 9"

Stitch them together. (Or overlap them with exposed edges in sort of a cascade and lay them on your scanner just like that! Ooh! That's what I'm doing next!) No biggie if it's a tad wonky.

Iron them flat, pressing from the wrong side first so that the white sections are flat, like so. You don't want the patterned pieces folding behind the white because it'll make dark sections when you scan or photograph it.

Scan your stitched piece. If you don't have a scanner, you can place this on the floor and stand above it, doing your best to hold your camera evenly parallel to it. Then you can crop your toes out of the photo if needed.

Print, print, print.

If you like, you can:

• Stitch the printed pages together to make a larger piece of wrapping paper.
• Glue or tape the pages along folded edges.
• Reduce your image to make coordinating gift tags. I used my photo editing software and directed it to print ten 2"x3" images on one sheet.

Or, you're welcome to try these: (be sure to zoom to get the full-size image)

Get to wrappin'.

Free Skinny Jeans!

I hate skinny jeans.  I refuse to buy them.  I bought a ticket for the boot-cut bandwagon on it's maiden voyage and I'm never getting off.

But I love boots.  I love stomping around in them, I love the sense of empowerment they endow, and I love the contrast when you wear them with soft floral dresses and skirts.

But sometimes it gets cold and we have to wear our boots with jeans.  And, unfortunately, those jeans need to be skinny.  So, today I decided to turn some of my "extra" boot-cuts into FREE skinny jeans.

If you want free skinny jeans too, just take some old jeans that fit well around the waist, put them on inside-out, and pin up the outside leg where you want the new seam to go.  Then sew them up with a bigger needle (I used 90/14) and you're done!

The leg on the right is the original.  Looking at this picture, it doesn't actually look that bad, but trust me, it was so bunchy and after 3 minutes of wear, it would start coming out of the top of the boot.  Not pretty.

The leg on the left is the "after".  Much better.

Bonus: instant 5-lb weight loss!

I also altered this shirt:

I just took in the side seams from waist to wrist, much like this technique, and added a few rows of shirring in the back.  I've never altered a shirt before, I usually just throw them in the refashion pile.  But I think this one turned out great and I'm glad I salvaged it.

Here's the "after" of the whole outfit:

Do you have clothes that frustrate you because they don't fit quite right?  I encourage you to give alterations a shot.  Worst case, you ruin something you couldn't wear anyway, but more likely, you'll end up with a new addition to your wardrobe!  Always a plus.

Feature Friday: katie did

Hi there Crafterhours readers,

Susan and I are taking turns with Feature Fridays, so today you get me.  I want to tell you about someone who needs no telling, but I'm gonna do it anyway: katie did.

Probably my favorite thing about her is the way she carries her simple aesthetic throughout her blog.  Her front page is empty, no lists, no ads, no nothing.  It's pretty refreshing, and it really highlights her writing and gorgeous photos.  And that beautiful simplicity is carried through into her creations.  After looking at the things she's made, you'll want to revisit your stack of solid fabrics (or, um, buy some for the first time).

Just take a look at these gorgeous dresses.  Do they look familiar?

If so, it's because she based them on the book "Caps for Sale".  What a cool way to interpret a book into fabric - subtly, yet the colors are so very reminiscent of all the illustrations.  Given this task, I probably would've done something dorky like applique'd a cap or monkey on a dress.  That's why I'm featuring her and not me :)

These Easter dresses are so classy and modern.  I love how they are age-appropriate, and yet don't scream "toddler clothing".  I think these would be fantastic flower girl dresses also, if you're planning a wedding.

This initial dress makes me want to buy a bolt of muslin.  Maybe my girls would get bored of wearing beige, but just look how simply gorgeous this is.  They're 3 and 1, I can still force them to wear what I pick out, right?

Also, check out her signature style in quilt form (SO trying this in the new year), and these reversible dresses (also on my growing to-do list).

Did I mention that she does all this and has 3 kids AND lives in an apartment in Brooklyn?  Not that it's a bad place to live, on the contrary, I've been there a few times (Hi Mandi!  Happy Birthday!) and I really like it.  But I always leave feeling like it would be a hard place to have a family.  If her life and home are anything like her blog and sewing creations though, I'm guessing they are filled with peace and calm, everything simple and organized.  As much as 3 kids can allow, anyway.

Thanks for doing what you do, katie did!

Crafty Friend Etiquette

So, hypothetically, let's say you're at a crafty friend's house watching said crafty friends' kids so that crafty friend could go see Twilight on opening night.

Is crafty friend's scrap bin up for grabs?

Please help me decide. And also provide appropriate suggestions for an apology should I make the decision crafty friend might not agree with.

Activity Advent Calendar: You-Print-It, Part 2

Here's our version of the activity advent calendar:

After printing the two calendar pages, fill in the activities.

Perforate the "doors". I used my sewing machine without thread, at a stitch length of 1.6. The back looks like a bunch of "I"s.

Line up the two sheets, holding it up to light to match the squares, and attach. I stitched the top and bottom.

I stitched bias tape, about a 36" piece, onto the sides leaving a hanging loop at the top.

And I could not stop myself from opening the first little door. Which is so cheating. And reminds me of opening the doors on my chocolate advent calendar as a kid and hoping my Mom didn't notice.

Activity Advent Calendar: You-Print-It

I have a really adorable, fun, amazing, ridiculous, energetic, you-get-the-point 3-year-old, K. This is the first year she's really able to get an idea of what the holidays are all about. And while I love the fun of candies and little gifts in advent calendars, I feel like she's a little over-candied and -gifted already, and there are so many holiday traditions I'd like to be sure are included in our Christmas prep. And we can always use something new and exciting to fill our days. Aaand I hate to get to the middle of January and think how did we not do *that* before Christmas?

As I was working on our "activity advent calendar", I thought there may be others out there who would also like to try this. It can be customized to the skills, likes and dislikes of your kids/families, or even for a significant other you want to share some love with.

Here are the directions: (be sure to click on these and zoom to print them full-size)

And the top layer tree:

And the bottom layer that you'll enter your activities in before attaching the perforated top layer:

Oooohkay. I'll admit that there may be a candy or toy calendar that could overwhelm me with cuteness and nostalgia and find its way into our hands. But the activities are something I'm really, really looking forward to. Hope you enjoy, and share your activity ideas/feedback. And as soon as I'm finished filling ours in and decorating it I'll post some photos.

Family Applique Shirts: A Tutorial

When a family you love expands by one, and the new family member is a baby girl preceded by two girls, it's quite possible that said loved family doesn't need a whole lot.

I suggest laying the question before the Mama. What do you need?

After discussion, we decided on some family matchy-matchy. Well, I think Mama was just thinking of the girls, but I decided to include Mom and Dad as well. Sort of.

Each shirt has a reverse applique surrounded by a border of plain ole' applique normalness and a bit of stitching and accent embroidery on top.

You'll need:
shirts for each member of the family (can be all the same, for this I chose coordinating colors)
coordinating fabric (I used three prints, scrap sizes)
fusible interfacing
an air- or water-soluble marker
embroidery thread
your regular sewing gear

Start with your fresh pile of knit blank canvas.

On the right side of your fabric, draw the shapes for your reverse applique with your air- or water-soluble marker.

Using one of your coordinating fabrics, trim a scrap that will fit behind the shape(s) you've drawn with a little room around the edges. Pin it into place behind your shape. And stitch the shape.

Carefully trim out the inside of the shape, being careful not to clip any of your stitches. Knit won't fray, so the amount of room you leave inside the stitches is an aesthetic choice.

Now place a piece of coordinating fabric face-down. Place the "negative shape" you just cut out on top of it, also face down. Iron a piece of fusible interfacing on top of this. A little sammich you have now. Yummy.

Again with careful snips, cut through the sandwich around the shape, leaving a consistent border. Well, you could make it artfully inconsistent as well. Up to you.

Then trim out the original negative shape with a bit of a border inside. Like so: (ignore kid scribble)

Remove backing from the outer shape. Place around the reverse applique area and iron. Stitch the inside and outside edge down.

Now embroider a little ornament top and string coming down from the neckline. Or whatever bit of embroidery makes sense for your design, if you're not going the Christmas ornament route.

And the Dad shirt that started out plain, unadorned red? Sigh. Here it is:

Nothing. Nada. My little brain could conceive of absolutely nothing to make it coordinate, other than the original red color that works with the fabrics. But I think *he* will be happy with that.

And when you've wrapped up this project, you have a jump start on another one, with these little guys that are already interfaced and ready to be appliqued:

These fabrics are from Michael Miller's "Funky Christmas". Maybe some funky holiday photos coming my way?