Gettin' Crafty

There's just something about the holidays that makes me super crafty. Maybe it's because the cold forces us to stay inside, or the ideas are flowing out the wazoo on the interwebs.  Whatever it is, I have all these great ideas floating around in my head.

Dolls, dolls, dolls
Since we decorated the house on Friday, Billa has been stealing the Christmas themed Beanie Babies and carrying them around everywhere, calling them her "babies."  I gave her one of my old purses so that she could carry them around.  I've noticed that she's started to develop an empathetic streak and is becoming obsessed with caring for things.  So we've decided that Billa will be getting a doll for Christmas.  I haven't liked a lot of the ones I've seen at stores, so I am going to make her one.  I'm so in love with these soft bodied dolls I saw on Etsy and I am planning on making one that is inspired by them and creating clothes to go along with it, and maybe even a little carrier so that Billa has something to carry her babies in!

Dolls made by The Windy Hill

I also saw these peg dolls and realized I had wooden pieces left over from a craft project that would be perfect to make some of our own.  And this cigar box dollhouse?  Too cute to boot!  Of course, I may end up saving these peg dolls for Billa's birthday, but they would also be really cute for ornaments or gifts for the other kids on my list.

iPad case
My company is giving all of it's employees an iPad for our Christmas gift this year and I am so stoked.  I've been iPad crazy now, trying to decide what apps I'm going to get, and looking at cases.  I love this owl case from Boutique ID, but if I recreate it, I'm going to make some adjustments/improvements to it so that it's a bit more functional for my needs.

Owl iPad case from Boutique ID

I might even use up some of my fabric stores to make some cute iPad sleeves for my coworkers too, since they'll all be in the same boat I will!


Gift presentation and Ornaments
Some of the people on our list will be receiving gift cards this year.  I don't have a problem with gift cards as gifts, but I really dislike it when there's no thought given to the presentation!  I saw these nutcracker ornament boxes from Crate and Barrel and thought it would be really cute to make some for holding gift cards.  I started a tradition with my friend Kellie's kids and my own daughter by giving the kids a special ornament each year as part of their gift.  That way when they go off on their own, they have a whole set to get them started!  These little boxes would be super cute for this year's ornament, especially customized with favorite colors.

Advent calendar
Last year, it was the middle of December when I was blogtrolling and discovered all sorts of cute ideas for advent calendars.  It being the middle of December, I couldn't exactly start one then, but I resolved to do it for the next year!  I bought some felt from the craft store over the holidays and I am ready to st out to make an advent calendar for this year.  My idea was originally that I was going to make little mittens and socks out of the felt and then hang them up on a line like this one from Martha Stewart, but I don't really have any place to hang them in our apartment now that everything is decorated. 

 
I may just make a panel that hangs on the fridge and each one of the little socks and mittens clips to it if I can't find someplace to hang them all up.  They'll all be little pouches so that I can stuff candy or other activities into them and hopefully it will grow with us if our family ever expands!

Hopefully my budget will allow for all of my craftiness.  I haven't been able to craft in some time and now that I have some free time after finishing NaNoWriMo, I am ready to get crackin' on my craftin'!

Happy crafting to you!
Kely

Room Redo: Part Deux

Billa's room redo has begun!

The last time I posted about redoing her room, I had started a list.  Well, it is with great relief and accomplishment that I can actually cross the first item off of it:

• Finish canvases and hang them
• Make new curtains (and hang them this time!)
• Make quilt and buy solid colored sheets to coordinate
• Get big girl bed and refinish/paint if needed
• Procure a couple of cute woodsy themed accents

Yes!  Here's a sneak peek at the finished canvases:

And here they are hanging up:

I'm one step there! Hurrah!

Here's what I am working on next:

Stay tuned!
Kelly

Bottle Cap Earrings

Since I got my ears pierced for the very first time this past May, I have wanted to buy almost every pair of earrings I come across!  I don't though, because I'm practical and realize a) I'd go broke if I did that, b) I have no jewelry box to put them all in, and c) I like to have versatile jewelry with fun, yet simple designs which are hard to find these days it seems.  So, my collection is rather tiny.  Since I'm rather picky about what I like to wear, I decided that like everything else I do, I'd just make earrings to MY specifications.  I was inspired a couple of months ago when I saw a waitress at the local Kerbey Lane wearing earrings made from bottle caps.  I set out to make my own and I'll show you how you can make some too!

You will need:
2 bottlecaps
2 earring hooks
2 jump rings
a hammer
a finishing nail
pliers
place to hammer holes in

1.  First up, flatten the bottle caps if you haven't already.  Do this gently and preferably with a rag or something else between the bottle cap and the hammer.  You can also use the pliers to pull the flanges of the bottle cap out and flatten them a bit.  I bought my bottle caps as part of a scrapbooking element from Hobby Lobby for less than $2 and they were already partially flattened.  You don't want to flatten these guys completely, just enough to get the flanges out.

2.  Use the finishing nail and hammer to poke a very small hole in the flanges.  This is where the jump ring will fit.  Be careful, because the bottle caps can slip quite a bit.  Also, you are hammering a nail, so don't do this on your nice dining room table!

3.  Once you hve a hole, use the pliers to open the jump ring.  Slide one end of the jump ring into the hole on the bottlecap, and slide the small ring portion of the earring hook on as well.

4.  Close the jump ring and voila!  Bottle cap earrings!

You can collect soda or beer bottle caps, or you can do plain ones and decoupage your own design on top.  I'm leaving mine plain for now, but maybe I'll add some red stars or something. Have fun with it!

Craftily yours,
Kelly

Out of the Frying Pan...

I love cookware.  And I love cookware that is resilient, tough, hardworking, and classic.  Like Revereware.  These copper bottomed pots and pans have been around for awhile and when I went off to college, my mom and dad sent me with some of their pieces.  Pieces they'd gotten when they were married.  Yes, classic Revereware was well made and it has lasted.  Until now.

Sadly, I ruined my Revereware skillet a while back after cooking bacon in it when it was WAY too hot.  As you can see, it's done ruint:

I tried everything to get the schmutz off, to no avail.  But try as I might, I just couldn't part with it.  Maybe I'll find SOMETHING that will take this junk off, I thought, and my baby will be good as new!  Nothing worked and so it sat in the back of the cupboard, unloved and unused.

Fast forward a few months later when Michael and I finally opened the box of non-stick cookware his Mom and her boyfriend Carl had given us for Christmas last year.  Suddenly I had three new skillets in addition to the 12" heavy duty copper bottomed  one we received as a wedding present.  And that was the moment when I knew I needed to get rid of the old Revereware.  Just as I finally mustered up the courage and tossed it in the box of trash and new cookware wrappings, my husband lamented over it's fate.  "Yes, honey," I said through gritted teeth.  "It IS a shame.  But I don't know what else to do with it."  He shrugged, picked up a new skillet and made a joke about what a clean slate we were starting with and the light bulb went off.  Wait a minute?  Clean slate!?  AHA!

So here's what I did with my old Revereware skillet:

I painted the inside with chalkboard paint and it became a menu board for the kitchen!  Now I'm happy and my beloved skillet has a new life.  Recycling at it's finest...

Chalkily yours,
Kelly

ATX Notebookery Project

I've been particularly crafty lately and I will be sharing with you soon some of the things I've been doing with what little free time I have. Something that I am looking forward to soon is the ATX Notebookery project.

A college buddy of mine, the ever talented Bern Klinke, participated in something similar on a global level this past year and decided to start one up here in Austin. The notebook is just now going into circulation and there are many of my fellow artist colleagues that will be contributing to this project and I can only imagine what it will look like upon it's completion! I plan on contributing some of my recipes and photos of said recipes to the book, and I know that many others will be contributing poems, artwork, short stories and other forms of creativity. Once the book is complete it will be donated to a local arts based charity in which it will be auctioned off to raise funds. If you are interested in participating in this project, please click on the logo above to read more about the project and contact Bern. You can also read here for a really cool writeup about the project from a similar organization here in Austin!

Until then!
Kelly

The Things We Do...

I took the day off on Friday to go with the kids at daycare to the pumpkin patch, but due to the rain from the previous two days, it was too wet to go and it got cancelled. Bummer. Another year that Mama can't go! I cheered myself up by doing some crafty shopping. I was trying to find a Wiggles toy that would work for a cake I am making for my friend Courtney's son Conner's 2nd birthday and ended up going to Hobby Lobby after Toys R Us turned out to be a bust (for my cake idea anyway, but Billa totally scored a new ball and puzzle!). I spent two hours there and ran into an old college buddy while shopping and came home with some fun crafty stuff, one of which were the materials for these cute magnets I made (the ones with the black background):


Billa has been obsessed with the magnets on the fridge lately and I was inspired at the craft store to get supplies to make some cute ones for her to use on the fridge. The traditional letters you can buy are usually cheap in price AND quality and I wanted something a bit more elegant. These fit the bill nicely, if I do say so myself. To make them, all you need are some foam pieces (or other sturdy magnet worthy subject matter) and self adhesive magnet strips. I spent a whole $2.46 on these and I have leftover magnet strips to make more!

Basically, all you do is cut the magnet strip to size, remove the magnet backing, attach to magnet worthy subject matter and voila! There you have it! Customized, way cute, and kid friendly magnets for the curious child in you. And in case you're wondering, that is a bib that my cousin Katy sent to us when Billa was very small. It's magnetized so it can stick to the fridge and one side is pocketed which serves well as a receptacle for all of these wonderful magnets. (And in case you wanted to know, the one with the praying child actually reads "Thank you God for the nice face, but the fat a$$ has got to go!" Heh. I love snarky messages paired with vintage pictures!).

Now on to more crafty ideas and fun things to do!

Cheers,
Kelly