Last night I had a bit of a tragedy. After I took my pictures of the popcorn garland the whole tree fell over! It was my fault. I had put all the ornaments on one side because I haven’t had a chance to make enough to cover the whole tree and, well, you know, I wanted it to look nice. CRASH! On to the floor it went. I picked it up, checked the damage. Two hand painted ceramic ornaments that I made with my friend Carolyn were broken. Not bad, but enough that they would have to be thrown away…. yeah right… or fixed… there we go! Continue reading →

I love garlands. I think they are one of my favorite Christmas decorations. And my favorite type is a popcorn garland! There are so many variations that you can make: Continue reading →

When I was growing up I loved putting ornaments on the tree and there were quite a few that really burned their way into my mind. One in particular was curly Q’s of wood shavings, glued together, and lots of sparkly glitter. Of course the glitter was globbed on not evenly in random spots. Love it! Anyway, so with that in my mind and past quilling experience I thought it would be nice to make some paper filligree ornaments. Quilling, at least the basics, is really easy. Perfect for a quick ornament for sure! Here is an easy way to make little leaves. You can use junkmail, scrapbook paper, any paper really, about card stock thickness works best. Continue reading →

For quite some time I’ve been curious to know, “what’s the best way to transfer designs from paper to fabric for embroidery?” And “what’s the easiest way to that doesn’t use iron on transfers?” These are pretty simple questions I’m sure, but as a novice embroidery, the answers have defied me. I’ve looked up a lot of techniques before, but never really tried that many of them to know for myself how they work.

Well, today that ends. I spent the whole morning looking up and transferring different designs to see how it worked out. Continue reading →

In the last How To post I said something about sewing on a button without a shank and how I would show you how at some point. Well, I decided that really, this would be just an extension of the last how to post and if you make some fabric buttons the diy way I showed you last time, you really need to know how to do this so you can use them well. So here we go! Continue reading →

I am so happy to report that I finished the lamp and I am also happy that I really like the way it looks! Here is how I redid the lamp shade: Continue reading →

For this month’s Craft Leftovers Monthly I included vintage fabric covered buttons in everyone’s package. And one thing I noticed while looking through them all is that they are pretty easy to make (without a kit) from just a washer, some Continue reading →

I first learned how to make these great little bobbins in my beginning weaving class at Northern Illinois University. They are great for weaving, especially tapestry weaving, but also when working brocade on the floor loom. The thing is, they are great for knitting and crochet and pretty much any color work. I use them instead of buying those plastic little Continue reading →

These boxes are great to add a little extra something special to any small gift. I like them for any kind of jewelty, stitch markers, and other small handmade goodies for friends. I love these boxes and have been making them for quite awhile. I figured it was about time to commit the templates for them to paper. I keep copying the cut outs I made for the original ones over and over again. This will make it nice and easy for me to make them and it will make a nice little project for you. It’s scary to say it’s getting close to that handmade Christmas time of year, but really, all us handmakers need to start making our supply list, checking it twice, and get going on our Christmas Crafting. These are just the boxes to hold our handmade treasures and keep them safe and sound.
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I love printing, just about any kind really. From the copy machine to silk screening to block prints and monoprints. I love it all. And one of my favorites, that’s the easiest, quickest, really fun and super easy to clean up is potato printing. You can print about on anything with them and they are cheap and the supply list is short unlike silk screening or even block printing really. Granted, you can’t get realllly detailed, but it’s great for greeting cards, pots of plants, even fabric really.
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