Easter Eggs

  Sew, the other day I had craft night and two of my friends were working on some pretty cool projects.  One was talking about a pattern she had found to make fabric eggs with a pocket (an environmentally friendlier idea then plastic eggs) and another was using felt to make a Dalek (Doctor Who reference).  I decided to combine the two ideas.  First, use a piece of paper and cut out the shape of an egg.  Next put two pieces of felt together with the pattern and cut.

Using strips of felt (I used leftoevers from all the eggs I cut out) sew them on one side with the strips going over the edges.  Then flip it over and trim off the excess.

Next, piece the two felt pieces together.  Start on the bottom interior.  Make sure your thread (I used cross stitch thread.....not sure what it's called.) is knotted.  Now pull it through to the backside.  When you make the next stitch place it through the top piece of your egg.  You'll notice that if you pull it straight through you get a regular stitch.  What you want to do is place your needle through that loop of thread from your last stitch.  I know that's confusing, but what you want is that line of thread on the top.  Give it a try a couple of times, you'll get it.  :)

 Finally, sew all the around leaving the bottom open, sew that you have an opening to put Easter goodies into!  After this project I am all excited about felt.  These were fun and super easy to make.

*  Thanks to Kim, I know the stitch I was trying to describe is called a blanket stitch.  Here's a link to help out.  http://sewing.about.com/od/beginner1/ss/blanketstitch.htm

Mod Podge!

So the other night I cleaned out my cabinets and ended up with two large oat containers.  I'm not really big on throwing stuff away so I decided to Mod Podge them.  It's super easy.  First find some paper you like.  Cut it to the size of the container you are going to cover.  (I actually ended up using two sheets.)  Then paint the paper on the backside with the Mod Podge and adhere it to your container.  It's best to use a thicker paper, however you can use thinner paper.  Just make sure you thoroughly saturate the paper otherwise you will get some bubbling.

Once it's dry add any kind of paper embellishments you want. 

Now coat the entire container with the Mod Podge in order to protect it.  Finally add some ribbon around the container and maybe a pretty button or two. 

 

Tada!!  Now you have a pretty container to store whatever you want.

Note to self

Lesson learned.  Don't use Picasa if you want to coordinate music with your pictures.  Very frustrating.  Grrr....

So many pictures!

Okay, so I love to scrapbook.  But I haven't in a looooooong time.  I have so many pictures and have become so overwhelmed with what to do.  I've toyed around with making a book on snapfish or walmart or one of those sites, but I have over 400 photos just for 2009.  The book would cost about $250 to print out and that's just one copy.  I don't know about you, but I don't have $250 laying around.   And what about all the little videos I've taken with the camera?  Just 30 second blips of life in our house.  I was beginning to dread looking at any of my pictures.  Figuring out what to do with them was just one more thing on my to do list, and it felt more like a chore then a fun craft/project.

Then today it dawned on me.  Why can't I make a video?  I could make a simple video using as many pictures I want, and add in the short clips of video we took too.  I'm so excited to be working on this project now!  I've even gotten started already.  I've broken it down into months, so I won't get too overwhelmed working on it.  I'm using Picasa, although I'm sure there are better programs out there, Picasa is free.  I like free.  And it's fairly easy.  I really like easy.

So, if you have a ton of pictures and you are dreading printing them out, shoving them into albums, or making a scrapbook, why not make a video? 

Jumping on the Blog Bandwagon

Slowly but surely this blog is coming together, which is how I pretty much move on everything nowadays.  Most of you who read this will know that I took a bad fall down the stairs resulting in my current medical problem.  And I say current because anyone who knows me, knows me for the klutz that I am. 

I'm also a mighty crafty person, but to be honest, incredibly flaky with sticking with one craft.  Let's say I find a necklace that I like on Etsy.  Typically I think "Oh, I can do that."  I research how to make one, buy the supplies and then obsessively make a ton.  Truth be told, learning something new is actually what I love the most, although creating is a close second.  Then I get bored.  And move on to the next project.  Thank goodness I am married to Mark, who has a never ending supply of patience when it comes to me. 

Okay, so that in itself is not a very good reason to create a blog, however, I like to share how I've done something.  I have an ingrained urge to teach.  So, you, my friends and family, are stuck with learning how to make stuff.  Or at least reading about it. 

That is, until I get bored again.   ;)