DIY Headbands using your Silhouette machine

Just finished making our "Shop with Santa" gifts. If you don't know what it is, it is an event coming up on Saturday, December 1st where kids can shop for homemade gifts (made by 4-H families) with assistance from a 4-H member and have them wrapped by an adult. Most gifts are priced around $1-2. This allows kids to pick out affordable presents for their family and have it be a surprise.

My daughter and I made these together. You can see the other (Name) headbands I created in the post Silhouette Heat Transfer Gifts Created for Tweens. There are some other fun ideas there too.

Homemade Holidays

I wanted to share some pictures of some other things that we made this holiday season. In the top picture you can see some hand-painted plaster ornaments that our family made. We like to make new ornaments every year.

Next is some blocks that say Merry Xmas on one side and then on the other side say Happy fall. I had never gotten around to sharing that craft project I will probably share it another time later on.

And there is some glycerin soaps that my daughter made to give as gifts that have different plants and essential oils in them.

 These are a couple of the yummy treats that we made early on. Sugar cookie cutouts and Rolo Bites.

I asked the kids what treats they for sure wanted me to make this year and my daughter said homemade peanut brittle (I had bought some from a store and she said it wasn't as good as mine.) And my son said peanut butter blossoms. The only time I make gingerbread men is the holidays and after my son brought home the book from school ( then looked on our shelves to find our copy of The Gingerbread Girl), I knew I needed to make some.

Collect Shells on the Beach for Free Pendants

Are you taking a summer trip that will bring you to the beach? Consider looking for some shells on the beach that have a hole on the top. You can easily turn these in to pendants (or earrings if you find similar sized ones). What a wonderful momento of your trip and the shells were free to pick up. Be sure to clean and sanitize your shells before using them. Or you can use them to make some thrifty gifts for others.

FREE Kids Build Workshop at Home Depot:Gingerbread Man Candy Dish

This might be a fun gift idea that your child can make or something they put up for a holiday decor. Whatever they use it for they are sure to have fun building this for free at Home Depot.

SIGN UP HERE!

Pottery Candle Charger

I loved this pottery candle charger I made for a friend for Christmas so much that I had to make one for myself (as soon as I was done making Christmas presents). Although, the one I made for myself (I will share it another time) I used these leaf mold to put on the edges. I had never used them before and wanted to test them out.

To make the charger, I slab rolled out my clay and cut out the pattern and shaped it on my mold (aka: a plastic plate). Then it was glaze time. I was thrilled with how the glaze covered. I am still a novice when it comes to pottery and putting stuff in to be glazed still makes me nervous because I don't know enough about how all the glazes at the Art Center work to make sure I get the best coverage. I do have some plates I made with a print embossed that did not turn out the best because one glaze didn't cover enough and a different glaze covered too much. It's all trial and error, but one of my goals this year is to start a pottery journal to start documenting my notes so I can feel more confident about glazing.

I also glammed up the candle, which was just a simple 3-wick Partylite candle, but I bought some skeleton leave on Amazon (after 2 failed attempts to make my own) and slightly melted the wax with a heat gun to press the leaves in to place so that I could tie some raffia around it.

Homemade Christmas Gifts

This holiday season our family has received so many awesome homemade gifts from friends and family and I wanted to share with you the hard work others have done. Maybe these ideas will help give you some ideas of your own for gifts that you want to make in the future.

This is my son with his Stegasaurus backpack and hat that my parents gave him.

This is my wooden door mat that my parents made for me.

This is my daughter with the quiver my parents made for her. Her arrows are all at home and weren't available for this picture, but she is anxious to use this with them when she goes to Archery practice.

Some yummy ice cream toppings that my parents made (well, probably just my mom.)

This is some homemade lavender-mint fabric softener that a friend made. I have already been using it so the cute tied on label is gone, plus 1/4 of the fabric softener is gone.

My MIL made me this present, which will go to the cabin with us. It is a table runner (folded in half in this picture), a button on towel, napkins, and potholders.

My parents made this wooden slide-in sofa side table for my husband. He actually has one they made him a couple years ago but we use it so often (usually the kids have confiscated it) that he really wanted to have a second one.

My MIL made this beautiful dress for my daughter and a matching one for her American Girl doll. 

My daughter made me this bracelet.

My son made these bird feeders for his grandparents.

What is missing from these pictures of homemade gifts we received are:

* Winter Survival Kit (we have already taken this apart to use, it had in it Kleenex, Airborne, Ricola cough drops, lip balm, hot cocoa, and tea) - from my parents

* Homemade Candies - caramels and peanut clusters made and given by a friend in book club

* Homemade Playdough with a cookie cutter- for my son from his preschool teacher

* Handpainted Snowman Jar filled with a tealight and candies made by my son while at preschool

* Elf/SantaCandy Jars filled with Hersey kisses and a little felt hat on top and black belt for the kids from my parents

* Hand painted picture of our cabin from one of my friends (this is still in process, I was just given a picture of the work in progress so I haven't actually received it)

Plus, I wouldn't want to forget about the gifts of time a couple of friends have given me. One friend treated me to a pedicure at a local spa and another friend took to to a dinner at a winery with thieving from the barrel. 

Gosh, I hope I didn't forget any homemade gifts. They are all wonderful and I really appreciate the time people have spent making those gifts and thinking of us. 

We also received lots of other wonderful gifts that we are extremely thankful to have received and feel very blessed to be gifted with. We are very fortunate.

KNIT Pottery Bowl

I was beyond thrilled with how this KNIT pottery bowl turned out. It was a present that I made a friend for Christmas (I sure hope she likes it as much as I do). Below I will share how I made it. I think the bowl "mold" size that I used was perfect for a yarn bowl and I am planning to make more of these to give as gifts and for myself. :) Many other yarn bowls I have seen are thrown on the wheel, but I have a preference for slab rolling and hand building for my pottery.

Here you can see what the wet bowl looks like on the mold right after I finished carving out KNIT. As you can see from the top picture, you will put a ball of yarn in the bowl and let the strand be pulled through one of the letters as you use the yarn for knitting.

Here it is hanging out on the wedging table, with the wine chiller (I will tell you about that one next week!) before I put it on my shelf at the Art Center to dry.

To make this piece, I traced out my patterns, which are the bottom of the mold (just some hard plastic cereal bowl that I got for free years ago) and the perimeter of the outside of the bowl. I made little marks on the bowl so that I knew where I had started and ended. I cut out my patterns and them placed them on to my slabbed clay and put it on from there, wrapping the semi-circle piece around first and joining the edges with scratching, slip, and molding. Then, placing the bottom on with the same technique.

What you can see in the second picture is that I made a coil that I attached to the bottom as a lip and base.

I have a few ideas of what I want future ones to look like, so I guess I better get back in the Art Center and start creating!

Try It Tuesday: Hand Print Pottery Ornament

This was actually last year's ornament that my kids made to give to grandparents and aunts and uncles. Each year they make a new ornament to give as part of their present to their grandparents and godparents and for our home as well. We are big on making homemade presents around here.

This year we have some other ornaments planned, and I have a scheduled blog post to share with you the one my son made this year. Although that post won't happen until December 18th, but you will still have time to use that idea if you like it. I will give you a hint, it is a hand print one again. He is still a preschooler so still has cute little hands. My daughter will be making a different ornament than her brother this year.

To make these ornaments, I did a drawing of each of the kids' hands and then I traced it out on to rolled out clay. I brought the kids back in to the studio with me when it was time to apply the glaze and I let them paint underglaze over them however they wanted and then we dipped them in clear glaze.

Their hands only stay little for so long. Who wouldn't want to keep a memento of this cute little hand and their handwriting on it as well. We just used permanent marker to have them write on their own names and the year,

Try It Tuesday: Basket Weave Loom Knit Hat

I was so excited with how this hat turned out. This is a gift that I made for my dad. The yarn I used was Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick in the color Barley (how appropriate for my farmer father - LOL!) The skein has 106 yds in it and I would guess I used about 3/4 of the skein. I made this on the yellow knifty knitter loom, but you can easily adapt it to other looms.

Brim: To make the bring I cast on 14 rows in an e-wrap stitch. Watch this video on how to e-wrap if you are new to loom knitting. After you have 14 rows, bring the loops from the first row back on the loom and cast over the 14th row over the top of the first row, this will knit the brim together and create a thick brim.

Body of the Hat: The pattern simple and you just repeat rows of 4 until you have the length you want. Leave space to just e-wrap 3-4 rows at the end. For me this meant I did the patterns of 4 rows, 5 times.

Pattern 1: Knit 4, Purl 4 (watch this short video if you need to know how to purl) keep with this pattern until you have gone all the way around the loom
Pattern 2: Purl 4, Knit 4
Continue repeating these patterns until you have achieved the desired length

I used stitch markers to mark every 4 pegs so that I didn't need to keep track of counting.

Also, the loom I used for this one was the yellow knifty knitter loom with 41 pegs. If you do the match you realize I have an extra peg, so my last section I made 5. You can't tell that section has an extra stitch.

Pinterest Looming

Just a few projects I have made on my looms that I found the patterns on Pinterest. All the pictures below are projects that I have made, but I did include a link to the inspiration page I found on pinterest.

Barbie Dress from Loom A Hat

Valentine Heart (made in to an ornament) on Squidoo

Snowflake Ornement from Loom Lore

Yarn and Twig Dandelions from luvinthemommyhood

Try It Tuesday: A Ninja Rudolph Puppet

My kids each make each other at least one homemade present for each other. This year they each made two. This Ninja Rudolph Puppet is one that my daughter made for my son. My daughter really wanted to make him a reindeer puppet but my son saw this Ninja puppet and asked if one of us would make him that. My daughter decided to compromise and make a Ninja Rudolph Puppet.

The downloadable pattern can be found HERE. You can also see hand puppets that I made of an angel, kitty cat, snow man, and gingerbread man. I also made a Clifford the Big Red Dog Puppet,  and a 5 Monster Glove Puppet.

Some paper puppets I have made include a Alligator Puppet out of recycled materials and a Paper Bag Shark Puppet.

Or maybe you want to make a Doorway Puppet Theater to showcase all your new creations.

Thrifty Thursday: Juice Lid Coasters Plus 8 Other Juice Lid Ideas

This is the gift that my daughter made for her daddy for Christmas. Lots of hot glue and twine and LOTS of Love (she was getting bored of the repetition and it was pretty much the thought that daddy was going to love her gift because she made it that helped her get it finished up.)

Want some other ideas of what to make with Juice Lids, check out these ideas:

• Chalkboard Gift Tags
• Memory Game
• Snowman Magnetic Activity
• Vertical Name Plaque
• Stick Plant Markers
• Metal Punch Plant Markers
• Magic Princess Wand
• Magnetic Dishwasher Sign

More Earring Gifts (my daughter's designs!!!)

My 7-year old daughter designed all of these earrings, the top two are for teachers and the bottom one is for a babysitter. They will all have been gifted at the time of this post. I let her have the pick of all my beads and sat with her while she designed them and was so impressed with how perceptive she was to her teachers taste. She really likes designed jewelry and here are 1 other posts if you want to check them out: Post 1 and Post 2.

Santa Wine Bottle

Another fun project using my Clover Wonder Knitter! Well, I just made the scarf with the pink attachment for it and stitched it to my desired length. The Santa hat I used the larger end of the spool loom and stitched on about 10 rows. I made the small pom poms by wrapping the yarn around two fingers. This was a pretty quick project that I thought made a cute little accessory on a gift of wine for a friend.

Fitness Friday: Custom Canvas Running / Gym Bags and a Project #FAIL

This is a project spilt in 2 parts - success & fail! I am still trying to salvage the failed ones but decided on another gift to make that friend. This top one is the successful one.

These were just iron-on items with canvas bags......it should have a quick and easy craft. But...........

Ugh! Do you see what happened!!! The paper stuck to the iron on transfer. This was supposed to be for myself and then I had one more I was going to gift. When I have time to try to fix it I will just give it as a bonus surprise "Thanks for Being My Friend" gift.

The iron-on transfers were made by 2 different companies (letters were one company, the words Live Love Run were from another company). The letters one worked just as the directions stated. The directions on the words were the same but it did this.

The problem was that the instructions on both said to allow to cool completely before peeling away. When I made the 3rd bag that was successful, I did the words differently. I peeled it away while it was still hot and peeled it ever so sssssssllllllllooooooowwwwwwllllllllyyyyyyyy!

Thrifty Thursday: Re-Purpose a Sweater into a Stuffie

 

This was so much cuter in my head than how it turned out. I still think my son will love it, but I decided to make him another "kitty" present (he really likes kitties!) partly because I don't think this is as cute as I hoped and partly because his present came from an old cashmere sweater that I don't wear because, ironically, the cats put snag holes in it and the everything else is leftover items from previous projects. I really spent no money on this project. It was all time. I made each of the kids 2 gifts and I had to purchase things to make both of my daughter's. So, I bought some supplies to make my son 1 more kitty gift (you'll get to see it, but probably not til after Christmas.)

I like these Monster Stuffies I made 2 years ago so much more! Other items I made from sweaters include:

• Mittens 

•  Dress 

•  Leg Warmers, Mittens, and Doll Acessories

Or maybe you are looking for other homemade stuffed toys besides this kitty or the Monster Stuffies, you could try these Loom Knit projects: Bunny or Owls

I'm not done using this sweater, so there will be 1-2 more posts with crafts from it!

Try It Tuesday: Sequins and Lace Cowl

Another loom knit gift. I used the yellow knifty knitter loom to make this and the yarn is Patons Sequins Lace Yarn, which is a weight of 2 and has the sequins already. By using this thin yarn, it gives it a lace look and the stitches look different with more emphasis put on the spaces and how the yarn is knit together.

I used a basic e-wrap stitch  to construct this cowl. You can read the linked post and see the video tutorial if you need more explanation on how to do that.

To cast off and finish the piece, I did a simple chain by picking up a loop and then a second and pulling the second loop through the first loop so that I was left with only the second loop on the crochet hook, and then pick up another loop and continue doing this until you have taken all the loops off the loom. Tie in your end.

This will create a tighter circle on one end and I think it looks good to put the cowl on with the tighter end first so that the end that is more loose drapes over the top.

You will want to keep creating rows until you have your desired length. I made mine about 16-17" long.

If you are looking for another idea to use this yarn with, I also made a headband with it using straw weaving, if you haven't tried that, it is pretty fun.

Green Bay Packers Loom Knit Hat

My son was willing to pose for this picture (below) for just a second because this isn't his hat. It's for a Packer fan in Wisconsin (remember, we live in Minnesota!) Since I grew up in WI and have lots of family still living there, the kids will say that the Packers are our 2nd team, the obvious first team is the Vikings.

Anyways, it is a standard loom knit hat (on the green loom) and is 9" the bottom of the brim to the last row I cast on before casting off.  I used Red Heart Super Saver green yarn (yup, still using up a skein, same skein as the Snake Scarf, but this hat finished it up!) and Loops and Thread Charisma yarn in Marigold.

I used a large Clover pom pom maker to make this pom pom on top. I doubled up the green yarn on the brim and when I got to the body of the hat I used one strand of green and one strand of the marigold.