Random-Charm · crafting

The best handmade Christmas present

January 3, 2011 in crafting, pattern drafting, sewing, with/for/about kids | 2 comments

I have to say that the men in the house pulled off the best handmade presents this year. I helped a little but the ideas and much of the execution was theirs. The boy made his sister a monogrammed purse which she adores.

We traced and cut an oval from some stiff pink felt left over from another project. The boy used a fabric marker to draw a curly “S” in the middle of the oval and then arranged and sewed on felt flowers all around. I cut a very simple pattern out for a curvy purse with a large front flap, reminiscent of styles from the ’70s. I cut the pieces from some scrap leather I had. (I’m pretty sure it’s bi-cast or laminated but it looks surprisingly nice and I think it will hold up fine to loving use by a little girl.) The boy helped me machine sew the oval onto the front flap. He then used a fabric marker to stencil a sweet message on the inside to his sister. Later I hand-sewed the pieces of the purse together and attached the strap to rings at the sides. It looks great, the boy was quite proud of himself and his sister was over the moon! See the photos below for the play-by-play action.

Oo! Pretty!

SWAK!

Oh, man, she kissed me!

Tags: bags, embellishing, flowers, kids art, remnants, stencil

More projects with/for kids

December 28, 2010 in crafting, needle arts, pattern drafting, sewing, with/for/about kids | 1 comment

I admit that I shamelessly copied this oogly eyeball from a picture on the internet. Unfortunately I cannot find the original source now to give credit but I see it’s not as unique as I first thought. I did make my own pattern and chose my own colors and my version is likely smaller than the picture that I looked at but it’s pretty much identical. I rarely if ever do that. Mostly because I’m not good at copying when I want to and moreso because I always have my own ideas on what and how I want to do things. The boy had wanted to make some monster stuffies and knowing how popular those are I thought we’d look around on the internet for images that we liked and then combine our favorite features into our own monster stuffie pattern. Along the way we saw these fabric eye balls that were just perfect the way they were. So we made wool felt eyeballs. This was the first and unfortunately I didn’t get a picture of the second which the boy did most of the sewing on because he wrapped it up and gave it away about as fast we got it finished. Made with wool and rayon felt and a little embroidery, and filled with wool stuffing and poly pellets. I still want to make the monsters but these were more fun than I would have guessed. Sewing a sphere is never an easy proposition but felt makes it fairly painless.

Here’s the girl carrying a baby doll in a pouch style baby carrier that I made for her cousin. Don’t worry, I made the girl one too. Now I’ve made so many baby pouches I could practically cut one out without a pattern and that’s exactly what I did here. But the style that came to mind as particularly appropriate for a doll carrier, was inspired by a real pouch style baby carrier idea from my friend Jen. I traced the finished pouch so that I’d have the pattern for keeps. I may post the pattern here after I try it out on a few more kids and different sized baby dolls/stuffies. I’m also going to “stick a pin” here to remind myself to tell you a little trick I thought up regarding handmade presents.

Just last week my neighbor shared with me several bags of yarn she’d received from someone else. The girl had seized on a small ball of pink and white novelty yarn which I decided to turn into a sweater for her favorite doll. (Don’t ask about the “dress” she has on.) My first top-down raglan sweater, ha ha. Maybe I’ll feel better about starting on a person-sized sweater now. I accidentally left the little sweater out and the girl saw it. I thought the surprise was ruined because of course she asked who it was for. But I answered with the name of her doll. The girl replied very seriously that she would wrap it up so that said doll would not see it before Christmas!

Tags: kids art, knitting, remnants, toys

GrabberMouth the Game

December 21, 2010 in crafting, free patterns, with/for/about kids | 2 comments

Coming soon to a dinner table near you . . .

The boy has been studying geometric solids in school and brought home a tetrahedron pattern (like a pyramid with a triangle base). We glued it to cardstock and then glued it together. He colored one, two and three dots on three of the sides and a set of scary teeth on the last side.

Then he made up a game, Grabbermouth, to play with his pyramid shaped die. Simple and surprisingly fun! Each player rolls the die in turn hoping to be the first to add dots to equal six. If the “grabbermouth” lands face down you lose all your points. This was easier for the girl using tokens so she didn’t forget how many points she had. He then set to making a similar die with a cardstock cube.

The rules for Double Grabbermouth got a bit more complicated. I was impressed with his creative use of the shapes and his ability to create the rules to a new game that probably owed a bit of inspiration to the dreidel game but certainly has its own character.

Links are included to templates from Zoomschool so you can make your own geometric solid shapes from paper.

Tags: kids art, paper crafting

Seasonal Stitching: math and design

December 15, 2010 in crafting, sewing | 1 comment

I’ve had in mind to make some balsam sachets for a while. I saved the needles from last year’s wreath and they still smell wonderful. My first step was to haphazardly cut up a scrap of muslin, quickly sew two sides through the serger and then stuff with the fir needles and leisurely sew up the last side by hand. I tried sewing up the last side with a straight stitch on the machine but it was more trouble than it was worth. There are some instances where I can handstitch neater and faster than the machine can.

I’ve had lots of different ideas on how to decorate the outer covers for these but this one popped up at the last minute. I paired up these toasty squares of wool felt and pulled out some embroidery floss. I then looked at pictures of balsam branches, drew some and forced myself to simplify until I had a pleasingly spare design. I then traced the final pattern onto tissue paper, labeled each dot with a letter and wrote down letter pairs in order of sewing. I borrowed this method from the boy’s second grade math homework. It worked a treat and the girl was pleased as punch to be able to follow the letters much like a dot-to-dot puzzle. The hardest part for her was sticking the needle up through the back.

The snowflake ended up being more complicated so I decided to try working out the stitching pattern before writing it up. Halfway through the boy wanted to help and I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only was he able to accurately stick the needle up through the back side of the work, but he was also able to figure out a thread conserving stitching pattern with very little guidance. Both were suitably impressed when we gently tore away the tissue paper to reveal the design. I finished the sachets by blanket stitching round the squares, stuffing the balsam filled muslin bags in between before closing up the last side. You can see we have a few more to finish. I will let the kids decide who to gift these to. We used to have one in the back of our car and the warmth of the heater in the winter or the summer sun would give the car just a hint of balsam fir fragrance.

Tags: embellishing

Sometimes being a packrat is worth it

December 12, 2010 in crafting, with/for/about kids | 1 comment

Last week I pulled out the ingredients for melt and pour soap. My crafty double boiler, some clear soap base, various fragrance and essential oils, a stone shaped mold previously used for plaster, a silicone mini muffin tin and regular old food coloring. Soap molding isn’t something I do regularly but I’ve done it a few times and some of the ingredients overlap with other crafts such as candlemaking. The girl and I started on this project one morning and once the boy saw what was going on I ended up having to get more soap base, creamy white shea butter. The boy ended up making most of the different combinations but the girl enjoyed making the labels, which I cut from full sheet label paper I had on hand.

Purple glittered gentle rain, light blue clove, light brown clove with actual ground cloves mixed in, clear green peppermint, pink jasmine, clear orange bergamot, natural white cinnamon with cinnamon sprinkles, and maybe a few others that didn’t make it into the picture.

This project is so easy and fast that it is fun to do with kids and I think I have mostly done it with kids other than mine until this time. You can even use a glass mixing bowl in the microwave to melt the soapbase and any plastic container can be a mold. Clean up is a breeze of course!

Tags: color, kids art, soap

Bling, yes I did

December 12, 2010 in crafting, refashioning | 3 comments

I actually wrote this on Friday but didn’t upload the accompanying picture until today.

I’m not a bling kind of person. I don’t wear much jewelry, beads, sequins, etc. But the girl likes bling. Apparently it goes well with the passion for pink. So we were passing by the clearance section of the craft store and she spotted some pink name appliqués. Despite the appearance of a number of unusual names, hers was not one of them. Too bad, they were quite cute. Before I could stop myself, I pointed her toward the non-personalized iron on jeweled designs from Jolee’s Jewels. She picked one out with glee and happily carried it to the register. When we arrived home I pulled out an almost new black shirt that I thought would work well. She agreed heartily and we set to work. Although the directions were a little strange it was not hard to do. And the results are admittedly quite pretty.

I am a little concerned about the durability of the now hand-wash, drip dry tee shirt. In retrospect, I wish I had trudged down to the basement and pulled out the heat press. Later, I confirmed my suspicion with a quick internet search which revealed that the crystals can be heat pressed at 350°, quite a bit higher than the temperature of an average household iron. That’ll have to wait since she wore the shirt to school. Hopefully I can give it an extra pressing tonight.

Tags: embellishing, girl clothes

Quick, what time is it?

November 30, 2010 in crafting, food, free patterns, needle arts, repurposing | 1 comment

I haven’t been posting so much lately. I’m not really sure why. I thought I would have more time to myself with the girl in afternoon kindergarten. It doesn’t seem to have worked out that way. But I suppose I have been able to volunteer at both of the schools.

Various photos:

This is the second pair out of the same ball of self-striping yarn. Matching socks for the boy and his sister.

These are scraps of an old wool blend blanket that the boy and I dyed various colors. It was originally a light green and the boy had a great time seeing what would happen when we overdyed with various colors. It took the dye fairly well but unfortunately it did not felt well. That may change the intended use.

Swatch of eyelet lace border that I originally improvised for the strangling vine lace scarf. Someone on Ravelry saw my project photos and asked about the border. I had already gifted the scarf so I had to look at the photos to try and figure out what I had done. I hope I got it right. Although the pattern is quite simple, I have a hard time remembering to stop and write down what I am doing. Probably why I didn’t write it down in the first place. So my Ravelry notes for this are now out there and I really hope there aren’t any mistakes for the sake of anyone who may try to knit from them.

This one because you need a food photo don’t you? Recently I have made chili with pulled chicken instead of beef in it and I like it very much. I use poached chicken thighs and pull the meat apart with two forks. And I always put the diced green pepper in just before serving so they stay nicely crunchy.

Tags: knitting, remnants

A scherenschnitte pumpkin and an homage to Jack Skellington

October 30, 2010 in crafting | 3 comments

Rich and I have often used the traditional Halloween pumpkin carving activity as an opportunity to do a messy art project. As graphic designers, much of our work is often done on the computer, so it’s nice to have a reason to create something tangible (if fleeting) with our hands. We’ve carved bats and cats and spiders. We’ve hacked pumpkins in homage to Batman, Jiji of Kiki’s Delivery Service, and some other characters I can’t remember.

This year we were in the mood for a little Nightmare Before Christmas. Rich recreated the likeness of Jack, the Pumpkin King.

I chose to portray a tender moment between Jack and Sally in scherenschnitte. I carved the hill out of the pumpkin so the glow of the candle would illuminate the full moon. I then snipped the silhouettes out of black cardstock and mounted them to the pumpkin with thumbtacks. I’m pleased with the juxtaposition of the delicate paper cutting against the chunky carved pumpkin.

Tags: paper crafting

Miscellaneous sewing if you can call it that

August 26, 2010 in crafting, sewing, with/for/about kids | 2 comments

These projects barely qualify but since I haven’t done much else with a needle and thread lately you get to see them. Please excuse my lack of grammatically compete sentences. Strange mood tonight.

Water bottle holder. Yummy coffee/cocoa swirly fabric from Robert Kaufman. Self-lined with thermal-reflective fabric enclosed. Normally used to make potholders but should insulate cold as well as warm drinks. We’ll see how it performs.

Mario Galaxy luma stars. At the request of the boy and his copycat sister. Green, his current favorite color and dark pink, her perennial favorite color. Highlights and eyes sewn on by hand, outline sewn by machine on felt. The boy named his Starfy and the girl named hers Perla but subsequently calls hers Starfy as well. The inspiration is thanks to “Uncle” Chad who brought his Wii game with him when he came to visit. (The jury is still out on whether or not we should press charges.)

Tags: bags, toys

Beading . . .

May 7, 2010 in crafting | 1 comment

Most of the time when I work with polymer clay, I’m making something with or for or at the direction of my kids. Occasionally they let me make something I want to make. As we were using up some older clay I got the idea to swirl leftover bits of colors together to make some beads and buttons.

This squarish bead in black, jungle green and bright leaf green is one of my favorites. I drilled a hole through it after baking and strung it with a few glass and silver plated beads with the round part of a toggle clasp at the top. It would make a nice stitch marker for large knitting needles or perhaps a zipper pull for a sleek jacket. It could even work as a pendant I suppose.

Sometimes I make things I really like but I know I’m unlikely to use. This is one of those items. If this makes your heart sing, let me know and I’ll send it to you.

Tags: color, jewelry, polymer clay, remnants

Hemp and Leather Market Bag

March 29, 2010 in crafting, needle arts, sewing | 2 comments

I know I’ve been busy crafting but I’m not sure what! Origami dragons and paper ballet dancer puppets, little doll blankets and perler beads. And laundry. This is the time of the year where we have all our various types of boots and coats out because we never know from one day to the next what the weather will be like. It seems to increase the laundry as well.

Off the spinning wheel: two ounces of hemp fiber spun into about 100 yards of DKish yarn. Or twine. It’s hard to call something like this yarn. It was quite rough so I kept a dish of water to wet my fingers occasionally as I spun. It was certainly interesting but I don’t plan on spinning hemp again. Maybe a hemp/cotton blend.

Off the knitting needles: one handspun hemp mesh and leather market bag. I had hoped to knit the hemp into the Ilene market bag pattern but there wasn’t enough yardage. So I improvised by cutting a piece of thin leather for the base and the handles and knitting the mesh pattern for just the body of the bag. I used a tiny scrapbooking holepunch to make holes 1/4″ apart all the way around the edge of an oval traced off one of my casserole dishes. I then used a crochet hook to pull loops through each hole, did a single crochet and then deposited that loop onto circular needles. I then knit up all the yarn in the mesh stitch and cast off. I punched similar holes in the bottom edge of the leather handle piece and used some commercial hemp thread to hand sew on the bag. The mesh stitch stretches easily to accommodate quite a lot of things despite not looking all that big.

Tags: bags, fiber, knitting, spinning

This is a gribble . . .

March 5, 2010 in crafting, with/for/about kids | 2 comments

Actually this is the baby gribble but the details are much easier to see. They are round and fuzzy with long pointy ears and a long snout with which to suck up ants and other bugs. Adult gribbles are solid green and have little stubby legs. I wish I could remember the other details of the habits of the gribble, it was a comical story told to me by the girl with large gestures and lots of giggling.

Here is my interpretation in polymer clay (with direction from the girl of course). Maybe I should attempt it in Fun Fur instead.

The artist with an adult gribble—blue ant half way up the snout. Watch out!

Tags: animals, color, kids art, polymer clay

Cross Stitch anyone?

February 14, 2010 in crafting, give away, needle arts | 3 comments

I believe some of my readers like to do cross stitch. If so, speak up!

I received this lot of cross stitch books, a nice assortment of DMC floss, floss keeper cards and Aida fabric from a neighbor. I haven’t done cross stitch in a long time so I’d like to give this away to someone who will use it. I can’t think of anyone locally so I thought I’d post here. I can include an embroidery hoop for an interested beginner. The chart in the back is for a unicorn. I had to smile remembering how popular unicorns were with us girls when I was in junior high.

And if there is further interest, I have a few original charted designs that I can share by PDF.

There was also a strange package of wood pieces in the bag. If anyone knows what this is, a virtual brownie bottom ice cream sundae to you! xoxo

ETA: Thank you friends. These are spoken for and I will contact recipients for addresses.

Tags: books, cross stitch

Art by the kids

February 14, 2010 in crafting, with/for/about kids | 4 comments

This post is for you, ArTchrJan.

Okay, this is actually the back of the girl’s head while she is working on the project to follow. She asked for curly hair so I put her hair up in rag rolls, too cute huh? Anyway, here’s her beach scene collage cut with the “special” scissors. We have an assortment of scissors with different edges like waves, scallops, etc. That’s a person on the beach and a sea monster in the water.

Friday the boy brought one of our plain canvas bags to me and asked to paint it. The girl immediately wanted to paint too of course. As usual, I requested they make a sketch first. Otherwise the girl is apt to just scribble. Here are the results, including the feet of the artists; a Pokémon ball (or so I was told) and a tiger cat with red rat. And now we have a one-of-a-kind library bag! I think I’ll request they paint some others.

And this project is a little older, maybe a week or two ago. the girl and I made this juice can lid mosaic out of Sculpey. Actually she did most of it, rolling the clay through the pasta machine and cutting out the shapes with canapé cutters, I just helped fill in the blue background and worked the oven.

Tags: bags, kids art, painting, paper crafting, polymer clay

Bunnies in the veggies

January 27, 2010 in crafting, fiber arts | 3 comments

I guess I have bunnies on the brain lately. These needle felted rabbits range from 1.5 to 2 inches long. They are accompanied by an assortment of veggies we made from polymer clay. I was inspired by a picture of felted cats that Naomi posted a few months ago. My kids have been having quite a fun time with the bunnies, playing veggie market. If only that would somehow translate into them eating more real vegetables . . .

Tags: animals, felting, fiber, polymer clay

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