Pretty Snowflakes with no Scissors or Scraps If you are bored on a snow day, here’s an activity that can keep you (and/or the kiddos) busy for hours — go to the Make-A-Flake web site and design your own snowflakes. You can save the results as JPEG files, in case you want to use them […]

Enclose a Gift Card in a Snow Globe! This year, I gave someone a gift card that had a snow globe design. I decided it would be a neat trick to present the card actually enclosed in a faux snow globe! I started with one of those globe-shaped Coke bottles that appear around the holidays. […]

Cozy Winter Wreath Featuring Wool Roses Doesn’t it always seem a little barren in the house, when the Christmas decorations come down? Here is a special wintertime wreath, meant to be hung when the Christmas décor is packed away. I have seen a lot of these wreaths on the Internet lately, so I’m not sure […]

Cupcake Ornament Made from Recycled Sweaters We had an ornament exchange this year at work, and I wanted my contribution to be handmade. I found directions at the Better Homes and Gardens web site, telling how to make a cute cupcake ornament from recycled wool sweaters. Although I did not follow the directions exactly (I […]

Facebook Twitter and You Tube Throw Pillows These are great gifts for a young person who is a fan of Facebook, Twitter, and/or YouTube. My pillows are made out of flannel (except for the lettering on the You Tube pillow, which is felt.) However, they could also easily be made from fleece or felt. I put a flap on […]

Quilted hoop clock with book title buttons This quilted clock was a gift for someone who loves children’s literature. I followed a great tutorial over at a.squared.w. The only changes I made were: Lining up the hours on the seams instead of the centers of the sections. Using foam core rather than wood for the back. […]

Dishy! Just a quick post to show you the casserole carrier I made. First saw this on the Chica and Jo web site. (Love that web site!) Then dutifully trotted over to 2 Little Hooligans for the tutorial. The only modification I made, was making a round velcro emblem to replace the spoon holder. Yummy!

Upcycled fashion Let me just say, I have a “thing” for boxes. If a box is pretty… or particularly sturdy… or interestingly-shaped… I have a hard time throwing it away, even if it’s going into the recycling bin. It may be genetic, because when I was a girl there were certain boxes — for example, one marked “Tom and Jerry […]

Chim Chim on the Cheap (and Quick) When I was a kid, we would have called this a “stuffed animal”. But now, there are so many new words that people use to describe plush toys… I’m not quite certain what to call it. Plushie? Stuffie? Softie? I tried to search online for the distinctions between these, […]

A Plethora of New Patches As you may know, I have been swapping patches  for a while now…  I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of techniques, which has made it a lot of fun! The main image for this patch is a scanned picture from a wonderful Alice in Wonderland coloring book available from Dover Publications. (For […]

Did somebody say HOOK? Recently, I did a craft swap with someone who adores crocheting… and also adores Ariel and other Disney gals. I used this great tutorial to make her a crochet hook wallet, since her Pinterest suggested she might want one. To make it special for her, I added appliques of a couple of […]

Folded edges form multicolor stripes When I was young, I would occasionally help my mom or my sister fold and put away the bath towels. (In case my sister reads this, I should probably admit that it wasn’t very often!) Anyway, I remember my mom (or maybe it was my sister…) being very particular about how […]

Moore Teesha-style! So I am totally addicted to swapping these little Teesha-Moore-style patches. If you haven’t seen some of my prior posts, you can learn more about the technique by clicking this link. Here are a few more examples: As I do more of these, I am starting to experiment with different techniques, for example […]

Ballerina warrior princess! In a recent craft-swap email, my swap partner referred to herself as a “ballerina warrior princess”! I don’t know exactly what it means, but the turn of phrase lodged in my imagination, and I had to create something for her, using that as a theme. This is a vintage photo that I printed […]

Smiles you can count on! I made these Sesame Street cupcakes several years ago for a birthday party. They were such a hit, that I thought I’d post them here. I don’t have a tutorial, but here are some tips: Many of the mouths are Oreo cookies, cut in half. The large eyes are marshmallows, […]

Cute as a button! Just a quick post to show you some  button cookies I made recently, using directions and templates I found over at E.A.T. (Emily and Amy’s Treats). Their version is way cuter — the buttons are bright and colorful. I did make a few changes in my version. For one thing, I covered […]

Teesha Moore Patch Swaps Today’s blog entry was supposed to be just a quick post to share a few Teesha Moore-style patches I’d made recently for a craft swap. But then I got to thinking about patchwork quilting in general, and then about quilting bees. And I began wondering whether these patch swaps are like […]

Cuppa pins! I participated in a “Fabric Lover’s” swap recently, where the participants were challenged to create a variety of items related to fabric crafts. There were seven themes; one of them was TINY, meaning items were supposed to be two inches or smaller. My swap partner had expressed a great fondness for tea, so I came up with […]