greetingarts

seven

The little one turned seven yesterday, and we celebrated at Farrell's.  I remember going there for my tenth birthday with my aunt and cousins, and there was a great big drum, sirens, and a whole lot of ice cream.  They closed down for a while, and recently re-opened.  There's always a line outside, regardless of the day of week and time of day.  We had to wait for about 20 minutes to get a table, which worried me at first, but it was totally worth it.  There was loud singing of unique birthday songs, amazing balloon sculptures fashioned into headwear, lively waiters and waitresses that certainly earned their tips, and huge smiles all around.

What's she holding up?  One of her birthday gifts, a pair of pillowcases.

Great fabric, I bought it online last year (sorry, can't remember where) and have been waiting and waiting to make these cases.  It was so gratifying that the moment she unwrapped them, she loved them.  And she doesn't care one bit that mommy didn't pay attention to the direction of the fabric when she cut it...(think about it, the words should read horizontally when you look at the pillow lying on the bed, not vertically like in the picture above)!

One pillowcase was immediately used for its intended purpose the moment we got home last night, and the other was a shawl/cape/sleeping bag and is currently housing her stuffed cat and being dragged around the house.  Totally warms my heart. 

Happy seven, my little one.

recorder cozy

Now that Rebecca's in 4th grade, she gets to play an instrument - the recorder.  Actually, the one she has used to be my sister's and mine, I think.  Rebecca loves that it was handed down and requested a holder for it, so I finally got around to making one this afternoon.

Because it's so darn easy to work with and provides a lot of padding (and because my stash is over a foot high), I chose to work with wool blend felt.  I don't think this is going to get washed very often, and hopefully it will stand up to a bit of abuse.

I cut my initial felt much wider than I knew it needed to be, using the recorder itself to measure for length.  I added some extra room at the top, about an inch, doubled the whole thing, and then left enough for a flap.  I cut out one big long piece, then used the machine to sew up one side of the pocket (stopping where the flap begins).  Again using the recorder to make sure it would fit, I measured over three inches and sewed up the other side.  I used Fiskars' scallop fabric shears to trim all the edges as a finishing touch.  I bought my shears years ago on clearance at Michael's, and now it looks like they don't make them any more... I'd better treat them even more preciously than I already do!

Two buttons and a length of twisted yarn makes an easy closure, and then I printed out a nice inital "R" I found with Google image search, cut it out of felt, and hand-stitched it towards the bottom.  In hindsight, it would have been *much* easier to sew the inital and buttons on before stitching up the sides, but - whatever.  That would have required me to think about it and I just kind of did this one by the seat of my pants.  It worked anyway.

It really didn't take very long at all.  And there is a *lot* of backstitching at the top of the pocket for reinforcement. 

There you have it, a recorder, all cozy and protected.

 

 

bats, ghosts and pumpkins oh my

This Halloween was all about bats, ghosts and pumpkins.

I made these little lovelies (for Jessica to pass out to all her classmates - the candy corn were for Rebecca's class) from Paper-and-String's free pattern.  Instead of using the brads for eyes and cheeks, I just used fabric paint that I've had for... forever.  They weren't all dried out and did the trick nicely.  Seriously, I've had the paint for at least 6 years or more. I don't remember buying any since Jessie was born, that's for sure.

I am the room parent for Jessica's first grade class, and for the Halloween party (oops, I mean Fall Festival) last Friday, we also decorated cookies (bought from the local grocery store - no homemade goodies in our school district) which coincidentally happened to be in the shape of ghosts, pumpkins and bats!  And then the special Fright Bites tortilla chips I served were in the shape of, yep, you guessed it, bats, pumpkins and ghosts.  So funny.  And totally unplanned, I swear.

Everything was a huge hit, although the yarn ball thing was funny because the kids just did *not* get the fact that they had to hold on to the yarn with one hand, while rolling the ball with the other.  They would just toss or roll the ball, which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole unraveling thing, you know?  Anyway, they got it eventually, sort of.  Maybe I should have used that one a year or two down the road...

 

crocheted notebook paper

Every year, on the first day of school, I send my girls with a little handmade token, something they can hold on to if they get nervous, to remind them that Mom loves them, misses them, and wishes them good luck.

Here's what I came up with this year, crocheted notebook paper to go with the pencils I gave them last year.  It's all made with just single crochet and some embroidery.  The trick is that there are two rectangles back to back, crocheted together to form a pocket that you can use to tuck a note inside.  I took two hearts that came from Build-a-Bear (my girls always ask for the ones that fall on the floor and the workers just let them have them), wrote little quick notes in ballpoint pen, and stuck them inside. 

Want the pattern?  You seriously don't really need one, but here it is, in all it's simplicity.

Crocheted Notebook Paper

Using white, worsted weight yarn (I used 100% cotton Sugar 'n Cream) and an F hook...
(Make 2)
Row 1:  Ch 9, sc in second ch from hook and in each ch across.  Ch 1, turn. (8 sc)
Row 2-10:  Sc in each sc across, ch 1, turn.  (8 sc)
Row 11: Sc in each sc across, fasten off.  (8 sc)

Using embroidery floss and a tapestry needle, turn your sheet of plain white copy paper into a piece of notebook/binder paper.  I separated my DMC floss and then used two strands of #817 (red) and #3847 (blue) for the lines.  I used mini scrapbooking brads for the eyes, but you can use French knots or puffy paint or beads.  I only embroidered one of my two pieces of paper, but it might have been nice to do both.

Join, wrong sides together, by attaching yarn at upper left corner with a sl st through both pieces.  Sc evenly down the left side, make 3 sc in the bottom left corner, sc evenly across the bottom, make 3 sc in the bottom right corner, and sc evenly up the right side, ending with a slip stitch to the top right.  It's not rocket science, you're just attaching the two pieces together and leaving the top open so you can put in your cute little note.

Hope it's not too confusing or too simple, and that you got a smile out of my design.  The girls did.

no spam for Easter

I got a great big heaping helping of spam last Friday.  This one was a doozy.  I'm so sorry if you got my "teary-eyed message from a hotel in London." I can assure you I wasn't there and I didn't get mugged.  If I had, I would not send emails to every. single. one. of my contacts asking for money to be wired to me.  Of course, I was irritated when I first heard about the spam, but I figured, oh well, that's okay, I'll just send an email to my contact list telling them sorry and to ignore the previous message.  But when I got home and accessed my account, I found that I had nothing there.  No saved emails that I was going to get back to later, no archived and categorized messages of things I'd been keeping for the past 15+ years, and no contacts.  Not a single solitary one.  Those effing spammers cleaned out my entire account.  I'm trying to get the contacts restored via Yahoo!, but so far no response.  Needless to say, I am through with Yahoo.  I've set up a new gmail account, you can send me an email by clicking on the link in the top left sidebar.  You can now contact me at greetingarts (at) gmail (dot) com.  And please do, that way I'll have your email addresses again.  I lost everything, even my own parents' email info!  Luckily I remember my sister's...

Anyway.  That was my whole Friday... and Saturday...

But on Sunday we had Easter fun. 

 
I made a few Easter Peeps pins, one was given to Rebecca's teacher on Friday, and some were for the kiddos.  I used the template found here, just reduced it way down so that it was a little less than 2" tall.

 
I attached a miniature one onto a hair tie, so Jessie could wear it as a bracelet.

 
I knit up some tiny baby bunnies (we call them mini dust bunnies) and put them in a few Easter eggs.  The rest had erasers or jellybeans.  We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house, invited a bunch of the relatives, had an egg hunt, dyed eggs (32!), decorated cookies, and ate a lot.  Like a lot a lot.  Very nice afternoon. 

Now it's back to dealing with the spam.

costume hint

Any ideas as to who Jessie's is for Halloween this year?  I made two of these hair clips for her last weekend, when we went to the Scarium of the Pacific...

mini kitty charm

Today is my daughter's third grade teacher's birthday, and she loves Hello Kitty.  So I quickly sewed up this little keychain charm for her last night.  I haven't done anything with felt in a while, that was fun!

found

So after crawling around on my hands and knees for hours, scrutinizing every dried kernel of rice and speck of lint on my carpet (trust me, you never want to look that closely), I finally found the tooth yards away from where I expected or thought it would be.

 
Another tooth pillow was made, almost exactly like her sister's, only a little bit bigger.  And with a purple flower, too.

 
Little pocket on the back for the tooth, and also a pink sequin that Jessie wanted to give the Tooth Fairy as a thank you (she's sweet like that).

 
The Tooth Fairy was three days late, but now everybody's happy.

bagalicious bag

A little while ago Helen asked me to test out a pattern for her, and I coincidentally needed a gift for a birthday party the girls were invited to that same weekend, so the timing was perfect.

The original pattern has a little embroidered medallion that goes in the center, but I didn't quite have enough time to do that, and I think it looks fine without the added embellishment.  It's fully reversible, and I used three different fabrics that came from my stash.  The party theme was very girly, all about make up and fancy dresses, and the birthday girl's favorite colors are yellow and pink.

 
Love the super sweet bow made by tying the handles together.  Which also makes the strap adjustible to any size.  The pattern is one of six that were specially designed for the Bagalicious Club, and you can see four of them here (Helen's is the latest one, so scroll down to the bottom and check out the embroidery).  See, it's those amazing Australians, yet again...!

last day gifts

The weeks leading up to the last day of school were absolutely crazy for me.  Knitting and crocheting deadlines, helping Rebecca's teacher take down the stuff on the walls and pack up books and everything to switch classrooms, inventory for the school library, community club meetings, another Book Fair, doing final Box Tops and Campbell's Labels mailings, and getting rewards out to the students and faculty.  I was there by 8 in the morning and left well after 3, sometimes later than most of the staff.  I'd resigned myself to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to make any gifts for anyone except Rebecca's amazing teacher, and though I felt a little bit bad about it, I knew it was the smart, sane thing to do.

I used the Note Taker pattern from Kathy, and made the small size with these great school-themed fabrics I've been collecting.  I left out the stabilizer and just reinforced with double layers of fusible interfacing (frankly, because that's all I had!), so now it's washable if necessary.  The girls drew their own cards, and I wrote a heartfelt note to a truly remarkable woman.

 
I finished all the sewing by Monday night (last day of school was Thursday) and when I went to the closet to pull out a notepad, dang!  Not one was to be found.  So I grudgingly went to Staples, armed with my Rewards Coupon, and went to get a 5" x 8" notepad. 

 
As I was trying to decide between yellow, white, unbleached, recycled, wide-, narrow- or college-ruled, I found these Mini Writing Tablets, in pink, green, yellow, and purple.  They came five to a pack, and were marked at 99 cents.  The wheels started turning, and suddenly I knew I could do something inexpensive, fast and easy for Rebecca's classmates, too.  And even better, when I got to the checkout counter, the packs of tablets rang up at 50 cents each!  And with my $9 rewards check, I didn't end up paying a dime for anything.  Whoo hoo!

 
I had a stack of black construction paper left over after taking down one of the teacher's bulletin boards, and I thought I could make covers for the pads so that they looked like faux chalkboards.  Of course, I first had to check with Rebecca to make sure the kids still knew what a chalkboard was, but she assured me she did.  She'd seen one in a movie before, she said.  Ha!  Anyway, I cut the paper down to size (3.5" x 5"), plus about an inch extra in length so I had enough to wrap around the top to the back of the pad.  I used double stick tape, easy peasy.  Then Rebecca drew on them with chalk, we printed "Happy Summer" labels with her name and email address on them and stuck them on the inside front cover, and that was that.  I didn't even have to stay up late!