Needle felted Santa’s

This is the next batch of needle felted projects going to the Spirit of Christmas Bazaar. The Bazaar is on Saturday!!!! We are going to have a BUSY week getting everything ready!!! Again, I wish I had focused on needle felting right from the beginning rather than waste my time on other projects that didn’t really turn out well. I’m going to work on some of them next and cross my fingers that something can be made of them. You’ll see them next week if all goes well. These guys were inspired by some others that I saw somewhere online – mine are different…I needle felted everything but the beaded eyes…the other ones were mass-produced and used felt for the nose and mustache and hat rim. I hope people like them!!!!

Happy Crafting!!!

A bowl of snowmen…

It’s that time of year again…the Spirit of Christmas craft bazaar is in just a few weeks!!! I’ve been working on these little guys off and on…

I hope to get several more ready for the bazaar. I’m also working on a wood/painting craft that isn’t going very well. Darnit! I wish I had spent my time needle felting some things instead of painting. That is more of a can’t-fail craft. This week is going to be a very busy one – I have two sets of parent/teacher conferences, three different meetings, an all-day driving test for the middle kid, Halloween festivities and more. Ick. I don’t like feeling like I’m “behind the eight ball” before the week has even started…Friday is going to be a GOOD DAY lol! Have a good week yourselves!!!

Happy Crafting!

What am I working on??

Well, right now I am working on my Asus Transformer Tablet – a lot! I’m organizing my photos. This isn’t a job for the faint-hearted. I’ve already organized around 3,000 photos and there’s a lot more where they came from! I recently retrieved 4 years of photos from my external hard drive and I have to organize those. And now I’m scanning all the photos I had from the pre-digital era onto my computer. Oh my gosh! This is a labor of love! I’m doing it for my children and I’m doing it before it gets any more out of control. I used to scrapbook…and I loved it…but it got away from me and there is NO WAY I could scrapbook everything. NO. WAY. I’d have to have a house just for the scrapbooks! And with my luck it would burn down and all would be lost. This way I can store all this information on a dvd or external hard drive and it takes up very little space. And when my kids are ready I can give them a copy…and if they lose it I can burn them another one. No hard feelings. If they accidently spilled water on a scrapbook I’d be furious and sad. This just makes sense for us.

So, I thought I’d share some great apps I like to use -

Sony Million Moments app – I like this app because I can tag photos, which puts them into an “album” based on the tag. Each photo can have more than one tag. Downside-there are only 8 tags…So if you had 9 kids you’d be out of luck lol.

Album App HD – I like this app because you can create some pretty cool “albums” and add text. It’s still in the beta stage so it’s only going to get better and better. Downside-you can’t resize pictures in the app and you can only make 25 albums.

Jumble File Manager app – I like this app because I can easily organize my files that I have stored on my sd card. Copy, paste and delete. Downside – I’m lazy, I wish I could tap and drag the files instead of tap/copy, tap/paste, tap/delete. Oh well.

Touch ReTouch Free – You can remove unwanted things from pictures! Even a whole person!! Downside – you have to pay to upgrade to the version where you can then add things to the picture with a cloning tool. I will probably do this at some point.

Little Photo – Has lots of great effects…black and white…sepia…lomo…fun stuff!

Well, does your brain hurt yet? Mine does. There are so many wonderful tools out there to make a digital scrapbook that I’m going to invest the time into this project. While writing this post I’ve scanned about 25 pictures into my computer…only about 2,000 to go! Once they are in the computer I’ll save them to a sd card and organize and make scrapbooks on my tablet. Then I will save them again to the sd card and bring them back to my computer to burn a copy. One of those apps saves to a pdf format. I figure this will be the perfect ice-fishing craft. Extremely portable and no little pieces. If only I could keep it all straight in my brain!!!!

Happy Crafting!!!

Pretty little zipper pouches…

I’m not going to lie…it took me TWO DAYS to figure out how I wanted to make these…and in those two days my house blew up with fabric and string. These tiny little bags created a huge mess.

I wanted to sew a little pouch with a straight zipper on the top. I didn’t want to have rounded corners. How can something so silly occupy so much of my brain?

(I left this one blank so the ladies at church can pick out what they want stamped inside that little “frame” – I made these for the bazaar) Also, I still have to bead some little “zipper pulls”.

I became obsessed. But finally…FINALLY…I understood all the different tutorials I read online and when the light bulb turned on in my brain I wondered how it could have taken me so long! You don’t even want to know how long I pondered fabric choices…and then I decided to stamp on the fabric…and I have a lot of stamps (a lot of options)…

I always start with fabric that is inexpensive. This was VERY inexpensive…it was a table cloth I got at a garage sale for a quarter. The zippers were free from a friend…cost of supplies was almost zero. Cost in my time? Well, a lot. But I learned a lot – and I freed up a lot of space in my brain so I can move on to other projects!!!

Happy Crafting!!!

Almost finished wet felted slippers -

Here they are! I absolutely love them. I used about eight thin layers of wool to make these and they fit my feet beautifully! If you remember from the last post I used this method to make duct tape shoe lasts. They “fuzzed” up a bit and then settled down to a nice firm slipper. I still need to decorate them with some needle felting. I just can’t decide what design to try…I’m a person who always sits with my feet tucked up under me so I don’t want anything lumpy. I kinda figure I’ll just wait for the first stain on my slippers and go from there – lol! There is no hurry…I can wait years if I want to. I don’t know what kind of wool roving I used, wish I did, but I used about half a ball I got at the Wool Festival this year. I REALLY hope the same seller will be at the Wool Festival next year! I also tried to make some fingerless gloves with some of the wool I’ve cleaned myself…epic FAIL! I’ll take pictures and share them some other time.

In other news we purchased an Ice Castle fish house – the Lake Of The Woods edition. Like this one. Without going outside to check I think ours might be a little longer with more floor space. I can’t wait for ice-fishing this year!!!! We will be camping on the ice every chance we get! I’ll be bringing a bag of crafts to do each and every time, I see lots of embroidery in my future!!!! (Easy to pack and not too messy) I’m excited to get the fish house ready for us – I’ve started making quilts. Polyester quilts again – they are very warm and stain resistant. I’m using polyester that has to be at least 50 years old…and it looks brand new…kinda weird lol! Here is a picture of my living room right now -

There are piles of polyester EVERYWHERE!!!! I have to get busy and get a handle on this before it takes over the house…who am I kidding…it’s already taken over the house. I’m also busy getting some ornaments painted for the church bazaar and I tried some wire wrapping lately…with no success…and I’ve made some lotion with the beeswax I processed – oh yeah – I sewed and painted a pumpkin – I’ll show you next time. Phew! I also want to tan some deer hide this fall if my hubbie or sons get one. Anyone tried that before? I know it’s going to be gross but I’m going to try anyways. Can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!

I have to share a great idea I saw on Pinterest! Do you like hashbrowns? Do you LOVE hashbrowns like I do? Have you been disappointed when making hashbrowns at home? For me the answers are yes, yes and YES! (I always end up with “mashbrowns”). Well stop trying to make them on the range and make them in your waffle iron instead! Just mix the spuds with a tablespoon of melted or soft butter and let them go. Works like a charm and the hashbrowns are crispy and wonderful!!! I used my big George Foreman grill to make a bigger family-of-five portion and that worked too!

OK, gotta go sew some squares together…Happy Crafting!!!!

Wet felting slippers – step one

Don’t these look CRAZY! You should have seen me while making them – even crazier! I followed this tutorial by Sally Pointer and then made some slippers. However…I can only find ONE slipper right now so the pictures of them will have to wait. My house is that messy – it was quite a weekend. Saturday was slow and easy and Sunday was church, lunch, and then a marathon shopping expedition with my husband. We spend a couple hours at Home Depot trying to find different things we needed. And, I have to say the help we got there was EXCELLENT! We went to another, similar store and nobody helped us…we wandered around for three times longer than we should have…maybe that’s their point? Well, it doesn’t work for me – I’ll just keep going to Home Depot. smile.

Happy Crafting!

Steampunk Polymer Clay

Buckle your seatbelt and get a cup of coffee, this is going to be a long post! Let’s start with the crafty stuff.

I’ve been playing with polymer clay and having a blast!!! This entire pendant is polymer clay…except for the wire part that is used to hang it from a necklace.

 

I attach them to a necklace like this…this way I can have one necklace and many pendants…saves a snarly mess in my drawer lol!

Some I like more than others…I’m not terribly thrilled with this one. I can’t wait to see if they sell at the Spirit of Christmas Bazaar at our church. Might not be what the people around here are looking for…we will have to see!

Also my husband just got home from an elk-hunting-trip in Colorado. Lucky boy!!! (I was going to craft the whole time he was gone but ended up sick and didn’t do much at all – what a let down!) While he didn’t get an elk another hunter in their party did so we will be able to try it out. They divided the meat evenly … that’s a nice way to do it! We will be cooking some up tomorrow. Here is a view he had while sitting on the mountain waiting for the elusive elk…

Because of his job he doesn’t get to have a beard…but this is what he looked like when he got home! Full beard!!! Doesn’t he look like his brothers Mary!!!!

Here is the horse he rode from time to time out there. Another in the party brought two. They use them to get the elk back to camp once they process them a bit in the field. Otherwise it would have taken them all day…we (me and the kids) wish there was a picture of hubbie on the horse because we just can’t picture it. He is not a “horsey guy”.

Here is a picture of camp. That’s one of two wall tents they had out there along with our Rhino. Still love that Rhino. They used one tent for cooking and hanging out and the other for sleeping.

Here is another view from camp. So peaceful! He had no cell reception up there so we didn’t talk to each other for around NINE DAYS! That’s the first time that’s happened since I’ve been 17! It was strange, didn’t like it. I told him the “no girls allowed” rule is dumb. I’m coming with next time! lol. I think the next trip will be in five years or so…one of our boys will be 21 by then and the other 16. (weird to think about!!!) Next fall I have my sites on Montana. I want to take the kids there and camp through Yellowstone…I just can’t get that place out of my mind. We had such a good time when we went a couple years ago. It just made me awestruck…

I’ve also been busy with some household crap stuff. I finally put the end to a quest that began about two years ago with this stuff -

I’ve been asking around for something to remove caulk in hardware stores for a couple years. I’m not kidding you when I say the salespeople would look at me like I was crazy. I even had one laugh at me. Well, while in Home Depot I asked again and the THIRD person to help me in this store plucked this stuff right off the shelf and said “This is what you’re looking for” like it was no big deal. Over the years I’ve asked dozens of people…just had to find the right one.  My bathroom caulk had gone black, probably mold. And it wouldn’t come off. I scrubbed and scraped and it was stuck on for eternity…until I got this. I still had to use plenty of elbow grease as it isn’t magic, but IT CAME OFF!!! Oh happy day! My bathtub doesn’t look all cruddy anymore. It drove me nuts that I’d clean it and it would still look dirty. NO MORE – it looks CLEAN!!!

I also cleaned the carpets with my carpet cleaner. I use Melaluca laundry detergent he to clean them and nothing works better. You can’t buy it in the store, only from an at home person…like Avon. I get it from my mother-in-law. (thank you!!!) Full disclosure: I had a tiny Chihuahua who came to live with us untrained. She never did get the whole “pee outside thing” completely down pat.  grrrr. Well, this stuff gets the stain and stink out. And it doesn’t smell while drying. (Other cleaners would get the stain out but then the house would smell like pee while the carpet was wet and anytime it was humid) I just use around a tablespoon in my carpet cleaner. It even works on old stains.

I’ve also been baking again. I’ve made dinner rolls a couple times and cinnamon rolls a couple times and I’ll be processing a couple laundry baskets of apples today. That kinda takes care of any crafting time. By the end of the day I’m so tired I want to send the kids to bed by 7 so I can go myself.

Take care and Happy Crafting!!!!