Friday Find: Gifts For Crafters

It's so easy to shop for myself, I wonder why others have trouble buying me gifts. This week's Friday Find is for the crafters in your life--get them something besides a Michael's gift certificate this year ;)

Also, I may be on hiatus for a couple of weeks here. My family (as in my WHOLE family) is coming to visit for two weeks over the Thanksgiving holiday. We will be busy, and I plan on doing lots of crafts with the kiddies, but I'm not sure how much of a chance I will have to take photos, upload and post to the blog while they are here. I may do some posting, but I'm not making any promises! Happy Thanksgiving to all!

On to the finds:

Holiday Owl Ornament Needle Felting Kit $12 from Fancy Tiger
This seller has a nice assortment of beginning needle felting kits. Really cute stuff!


Slice and Bake, Vintage Bakelite Buttons $19.80 from Green Ray Productions
These are vintage Bakelite buttons from the 1930s. I love vintage notions and could come up with half a million places to use these Bakelite buttons. These on their own would be a great stocking stuffer, or a pair an assortment of vintage buttons with old lace.


Heather Bailey Designer Felt $2.25 to $4.25 per 9"x12" sheet
Good felt is hard to find. The polyester stuff in craft stores tends to pill, and all of your hard work can go to crap pretty quickly. Heather Bailey recently came out with wool-blend and bamboo felts.


Custom / initial / handcarved rubber stamp $12 from lilimandrill
This is so simple and would make a beautiful, personal gift. Custom made in France (très chic, no?)




Vintage German Glass Glitter, Blue Tourmaline $2.99 from Bird Song Studio

Our glitter is imported from Germany and made with a real silver base which will allow the glitter to develop a lovely tarnished vintage patina over time.
Produced by Bavarian Glass Artisans and crafted in small batches by hand to create a superior grade glitter. A multi-stage process and multiple coats of pure silver give the glitter it's exceptional sparkle and shine.

This is real glitter, made from glass. Beautiful stuff, and this seller has a variety of colors to choose from. Note that this is made from glass--it's not for kids.

Faux-y Lady

This is my entry to the Singer/Craftsine.com Me, My Scarf and I Contest

The contest requires that you explain how your scarf reflects your personality. This is what I wrote:

How can something so elegant and sophisticated be so silly at the same time? In my Faux-y Lady scarf, I tried to capture that strange juxtaposition inherent in the vintage fur pelts that have always fascinated me. If this scarf is a reflection of my personality, I hope it comes off a little bit quirky and unconventional, but with a great sense of humor, and somehow still a teensy bit debonair.

Either that, or it comes off like I always have a vapid, glassy-eyed stare. But, hey, I'm still a fox!

A little cheesy, maybe?
Wish me luck on winning that serger. Ooooooooh, I want that serger!

Friday Find: DIY Holiday Gifts

I love making handmade gifts for Christmas. When you take the time to create something beautiful for a friend, lovingly wrapped up and tied with a perfect bow, and then she hands you a $25 Target Gift Certificate, stammering about how busy she's been over the holidays and listing off all of her various family members that were in town and the illnesses she endured, it really makes everyone walk away feeling like you are SUCH a thoughtful, generous friend and she's. . . well. . . she's "been busy."
If you want to get that glowing "better-than-you" feeling this holiday season, it's time to start thinking about making the perfect gift. This Friday Find features DIY kits and supplies available from some Etsy sellers to help get you started:



Sweet Donut Crochet Scarf PDF Pattern
$4.99 by Lilla Dolce
I don't know how to crochet! Why don't I know how to crochet?! This scarf is so cute and yummy, and looks like the perfect pattern for a beginner. Be sure to check out this seller's other patterns. She somehow manages to walk the line between silly and stylish. In particular, I love her Sunny Side Up Egg Scarf and the Salad Scarf would be ideal for a funny vegetarian friend.



DIY I Spy Toy Kit for Little Boys
$9.50 by Pattern Play
These little I Spy toys can quietly occupy a busy preschooler for minutes at a time! I recently purchased one of these kits from Pattern Play, and they are great quality kits with clear instructions. I haven't put mine together yet, but Huck loves to play with it just in the plastic bag! Also available is a Little Girl's Kit.



Square Glass Pendants with Gorgeous Chiyogami Papers (kit makes 6)
$14 makes 6 pendants by Annie Howe's Keepsakes
Here's a really affordable way to make personalized gifts. This kit makes six glass pendants (the seller makes her own glass), which you can back with beautiful the Chiyogami papers she provides, or get creative and use your own paper or images. I picture this with a photograph of a grandchild or a loved one who's far away (know any Army wives?) to make a sort of modern locket piece.



Wooden Dolls--Dress 'em up yourself
$15 by Goose Grease
These simple wooden dolls are ready to paint. Your choice of hair color, just convo the seller if your family has different haircolor and/or skin tones. I especially love these because they are gender-neutral toys--perfect if you know a little boy who loves dolls! Please note that they are on the small side and may not be suitable for kids under 3 years-old. Also worth noting that this seller has a custom wedding cake topper kit.



Make Your Own Leather Journal - Bookbinding Kit
$25 by MyHandboundBooks
And, finally, something for guys. A classic leather journal or sketchbook. Practical, classy, what more do you need?

Orange and Cloves

My father-in-law, who is an enthusiastic consumer of oranges, sent us home this weekend with a massive bag of oranges picked from their neighboring groves. They are juice oranges, so they burst apart and the sweet juice drips down your arms if you attempt to peel and eat them. You have to hover over the kitchen sink and make loud sucking noises as you shove your face into the half-peeled skin to try to catch the drips and keep the pulp from falling apart in your fingers. It's kind of a pain. Instead, I have been making freshly squeezed orange juice out of them for breakfast every morning. Yum!
Anyway, I remembered this easy fall craft that you can do with kids. It is nothing revolutionary, but shoving whole cloves into oranges smells soooooo goooooood. It's always fun to play with your food!

Friday Find: Non-Cookie Uses for a Cookie Cutter

I love cookie cutters! I have lots of them, but for some reason I never use them. I just collect them and they annoy Steve. The main reason is that I'm not a huge fan of sugar cookies, so when I get the baking bug, I don't crave them and therefore all of my beautiful cookie cutters are left unused. I recently bought some Thanksgiving themed cookie cutters, and once again I have no desire to make sugar cookies. But the little turkey shape is so cute, I have to do something! For this week's Friday Find, I set out to look for non-cookie uses for cookie cutters.


Jello Jigglers (For Cookie Cutters)
I may not be a fan of sugar cookies, but I sure do love me some Jell-o! They look like quivering little jewels ready to slide down into my belly. This would be a cute, easy project to do with kids. Imagine this in fall colors using leaf-shaped cutters--could be a very pretty and easy dessert to bring to a potluck!



How to Make Cookie Cutter Soap
This is a good video tutorial on how to make soap out using supplies you have on hand. It would be cute to make little seasonally appropriate soaps for the guest bathroom or to give as favors or gifts.


Savory Pumpkin Puffs
I made these recently for a party we went to for Halloween and they were very easy and yummy. Except I didn't have the right ingredients, so I cheated and used Trader Joe's Bruschetta topping and sprinkled them with cheese. Very quick to make, and the results look and taste like you slaved over it!



Silhouette Sandwiches
So cute! I 've always liked shaped sandwiches, but did not like the waste that came out of it. This way you don't have any scraps to throw away!


Gingerbread Candle Holders
A very pretty project just like this. I also imagine making little turkeys and using these as place settings for the Thanksgiving table that can be given to guests as a favor to take home.

Kissy Monster

My sister-in-law often chases my children around and slathers them in kisses as they scream and try to get away from her. So we made this Kissy Monster puppet for her recent birthday (Huck helped by choosing colors and deciding on the number and placement of eyeballs. Milo helped by trying to climb onto my chair and grab at scissors and pins while I sewed). This was my first go at sewing something stuffed, and I think I learned a few lessons. Like, don't stuff THEN sew. Not the best workmanship on this one if you examine the seams, but I blame some of that on my cheap-o sewing machine. It has problems adjusting to thicker fabric, even when I mess with the tension, so there was a lot of bunching thread and inappropriate language spewed forth during the making of this puppet. I keep entering various sewing contests to try to win a fancier machine, but so far no luck! Next up is the Me, My Scarf and I contest, which I think I have a pretty good shot at if my project comes out the way I think it will!

Friday Find: Handmade Preschool Supplies

Huck, my three year-old, is not in preschool. I fretted about it for awhile before I finally decided that he didn't really need it. He gets plenty of opportunities to socialize with other kids his age, and he is an independent soul who has no problem leaving his momma's side. My main reason for sending him would've been to give myself a break (which is a totally valid reason to send your kid to preschool) but it would have put a big strain on our finances for something I don't think is necessary for his educational or emotional development. So I made the decision to homeschool until kindergarten, when I will happily send him off to free school!
I have been digging through lots of books and websites to come up with fun, structured projects for us to do. This week's Friday Find features some cool handmade preschool supplies. If there's a preschooler in your life, even a non-homeschooled one, I think a lot of these would make great Christmas gifts (hint, hint).

Modelling Beeswax - Rainbow (120g total) $14.20 (shipping $6-$8) by Twinkle of my Eye

Modelling Beeswax! It warms in your hands as you play and the colors don't mix. It doesn't dry out or go bad the way clay can. This seller offers a beautiful range of colors.


Sandpaper Numbers 0-10 mounted on birch $13.20 (shipping $7.80) by Polliwog Learning Products

The numbers on these birch flash cards are made out of laser cut sandpaper. Both of my boys love touchy-feely books, and I imagine they wold enjoy tracing these bumpy numbers with their fingers. Each number has a starting point to help the child recognize where to begin tracing the number with their fingers. A great learning tool and beautiful enough to leave up on display.


small alphabet flash cards - printable pdf $8.00 (shipping $0, print-at-home) by A Little Hut

This item is actually a printable pdf file, so you could use the cute, simple line illustrations as flash cards, coloring pages, framed art, or whatever your creative little head can come up with. Cool thing about buying printable files is that if you lose one, or your toddler tries to eat one, you can always reprint it!


Montessori Transferring Counting Sorting Pouring Manipulative SEA ANIMALS Activity FREE GIFT $19.99 (shipping approx. $8-$15) by Fun Cards

This looks like hours of good times to me. I'm just going to go straight from the seller's description for this one:

Picking up small items and placing them into a small holder improves hand-eye coordination and prepares the hand for writing.
The beads can be counted as they are placed into the holders, they can also be sorted according to colors.
Using the dropper to fill the small cups with water (use food coloring for even more fun!) once again works on hand-eye coordination, as well as learning to clean up!
The beads can be strung into a necklace, a floor snake or anything else your child's imagination allows for!

Individual kits are also available for $9.99


Bears Picnic - Learning Color and Size $20 (shipping $5.75 - $12.35) by Play to Learn

It is hard to find board games for preschoolers. We play Memory and put together puzzles, but Huck is definitely interested in playing games with a distinct set of rules where you do fun things like roll dice. This beautiful little matching game teaches about color and size.

Scrap Buster Tutorial Contest Poll - Vote for Me!

Go vote for my Scrap Buster Tutorial on Sew, Mama, Sew right now!
It is "Making a Yo-Yo Necklace" in the FIRST poll box (Group 1). The easiest way to find it is to use your browser to Search or Find on Page (Ctrl + F) the words "Making a Yo-Yo Necklac" (they forgot the "e" on Necklace). Be sure to hit the "Vote" button for the FIRST poll box. Thanks!

GO VOTE!

The Great Pumpkin

I love having a good weekend! Sometimes we make plans that seem like they will be fun, but end up being kind of boring and crappy. This weekend we had lots of Halloween themed fun times. On Saturday, we went to our playgroup's Halloween party. On Sunday, we went to The Heritage Museum of Orange County for their annual pumpkin weighing contest.


Huck wanted to be a ghost this year. At first I thought that that would be too common, but when I thought about it, I don't think I've ever actually seen a kid in a white sheet-style ghost costume except in cartoons. It took some messing around to figure out a ghost costume with a removable head piece that still looked classic, and I'm not sure if it was fully successful, but it was definitely cute. Still, he only wore it for about five minutes. I've figured out that I will need to cut armholes in the bottom piece (and he can wear a long-sleeved white t-shirt) so that his arms feel free. The head piece also kept slipping, so I think I need to attach it to a headband so that the eye holes don't keep moving around and he can see.
Milo is Dracula mostly because I needed a costume that wouldn't cover his head. I made him a simple cape and ended up sewing it to his shirt so that it wouldn't strangle him. I used Huck's matador pants from last year, made a quick amulet from ribbon and painted wood and rhinestones, and it ended up being a pretty simple costume to put together. He also wasn't interested in the heavy black shoes, so he's a SoCal Dracula in sandals.
I need to dress them up again and do a little photo shoot, but we still have Halloween day do that.




The next day we went to the The Heritage Museum of Orange County's annual Great Pumpkin Weigh-Off. The whole event was really, really great. It was tucked away in an industrial part of town, and obviously not very many people knew about it. There were continuous western gunfights and audience participation-type shows being put on in the streets by by Boothill Productions. Very cute, and the kids loved it. They also featured a restored old fairground organ that was very loud and could be heard throughout the grounds. They also had cheap-o stuff for sale that people had donated and I picked up some awesome vintage children's books for 10 cents a piece. My plan is to figure out how to rebind them into blank journals, perhaps keeping a few of the original illustrations tucked away in the pages. Will it actually happen? Who knows! My brother-in-law has done a fair amount of book binding, so maybe I'll corner him this Christmas and shove beeswax and twine in his face and see if he can help me. I also picked up an old Chinese Checkers game for a quarter that I plan on hanging on the wall somewhere. Huck had his face painted for the first time (we've always painted his arm, not his face) which he thought was just fantastic. The grounds themselves were very pretty to walk around, and there is a real functioning blacksmith shop on site, nature walks, and someone even brought a horse and was giving kids free pony rides!
The main event was the pumpkin weigh-off. There were some serious pumpkins there! Most had to be picked up with a forklift to move them. This year's prize winning pumpkin was 903 lbs! It made me want to grow some kind of giant, mutant, prize-winning vegetable.

Friday Find: Tutorials To-Do!

I'm always on the look out for cute projects to do and my Bookmarks are full of tutorials and ideas that I come across and think, "Ahhhh. Yessss. Someday!" Then I promptly forget about said fantastic idea and re-discover it months later. Here are a few goodies that I've found. Maybe one of you will be better than me and actually make some of this great stuff!



"Kid Flick" Girl's Purse Tutorial from The Object Project

I need a little black evening purse. Just enough to hold a wallet, keys, cell phone and lipstick. So I searched and searched for a simple tutorial and I found this one that is so cute and easy! She uses a DVD sleeve as a pattern. Brilliant! I think this could easily be adapted to be a very sophisticated woman's purse. Maybe patent leather. . . I have to think about it! The tute looks simple enough that I could have a whole range of little purses like these. (Lots of other innovative tutorials on this blog, as well.)



Handprint Turkey Softie and Tutorial from Bella Dia

My nieces and nephews are visiting us over Thanksgiving, and I have been digging around for some cute crafts to make with them. I LOVE this handprint turkey softie! It's on the list! This is another great craft blog, by the way, so you should check out her other stuff. There are so many beautiful crafty blogs out there. . .




Hand rolled felt beads from Home Made Simple (via simplimama)

Simplimama left a comment on this blog awhile back with a link to this project. This is another arts & crafts project I plan on doing when my family comes to town. I finally ordered some wool roving (Merino Wooly Cupcakes from The Wool Peddler) so that we'll be ready for felting fun times when the kiddos get here.