Another craft project

When I was looking for ideas for a nautical nursery for Little Dude, I found loads of ideas, including many I could do myself.  I even made hand painted closet dividers.

One of the items I found was this sailboat tissue box cover.  I think it was originally on the Land of Nod, but you can find it at this boutique now.  It is very cute.  It's also $44, which is a bit much.

So I decided to make my own and then promptly got sidetracked by other things.  Little Dude survived with a plain square tissue box in his room.  The idea lingered though, and on a whim one day, I picked up a plain wooden tissue box cover at the craft store (using a coupon, of course) and some unpainted wooden shapes.  Since  the nautical theme remains in Little Dude's room, I chose two sailboats and an anchor for three of the sides, and as a nod to his most favorite thing in the world, a wooden seahorse for the fourth side.  (Little Dude has the Fisher Price Soothe and Glow Seahorse.  His name is Keith and he goes everywhere with him.)

I let Little Dude choose the base paint color, a pretty blue called Calypso.  I gave everything a good sanding and a wipe down - I find you get a much nicer finish on even the inexpensive craft wood if you sand it.

I also use a pre-painting primer, which also helps create a smoother finish.  I learned my lesson about details with the closet dividers and decided to something much simpler for this project.  The tissue box cover got a few coats of the blue, and I painted the wooden shapes a simple plain  white.  Then I used Minwax Polycrylic in a satin finish to seal both the box and the wooden shapes.  I've used this on several wood projects and I really like it.  After it dried for a few days, I used a hot glue gun and some heavy books to attach the wooden shapes to the sides of the tissue box.

 It's a little different than the inspiration one, but I love the brighter blue (it adds a pop of color to Little Dude's room) and I think the simpler design will end up being more versatile.

A token of my affection

While I had my beading supplies out, I ran across a frog charm I had and knew that it was destined for a special home with my dear friend Dianne.  Dianne and I met through stitching several years back, and she is one of the sweetest, kindest and loveliest women I've ever met.  (and as the mom of a boy, albeit a much more grown up boy than mine, she's particularly sweet on Little Dude, and she spoils us both!)

Along her many stitching and paper craft interests, Dianne is a lover of gardening and flowers and spends as much time as she can tending to her own gardens and flower beds.  She has a pretty little pond in her garden, and when spring rolls around, so do her croaking buddies out by the water. I thought she might like one she could keep in the house with her, and chose some pretty green flowered beads and some tulip shaped pink ones for this fob.

Now I know we all like to keep the frogs AWAY from our stitching, but perhaps this harmless little fellow will convince the other frogs that Dianne has enough to keep her company, and they'll hop away from her stitching??

Springtime Exchange with Robin

A few months ago when I started blogging again, a fellow stitcher named Robin (no blog... yet!) started commenting on my posts.  Through a series of emails, we started developing a friendship, and when I mentioned the Fair & Square exchange, she asked me a few quesitons about it, then suggested we do our own private exchange.

I thought that was a great idea, and we decided on a spring theme, following the F&S guidelines for size and a signature square.  These are Robin's squares - Mini Spring by The Sunflower Seed.

Aren't they just lovely?  Robin's stitching is so pretty and delicate!  Allergies be damned, I do love spring flowers and tulips are among my favorites.  I think these squares are going to make a wonderful no-sew cube, perhaps with a pretty spring colored plaid ribbon around the edges, depending on what I can find.

Robin also hit up my wish list and very generously included these two appropriately spring-y charts and some gorgeous silk threads from Dinky Dyes and Vicki Clayton.  Bent Creek's Shamrock Row will mean a trip to the LNS for a special cut of fabric, but Allesandra Adelaide's Little Blue will most likely be bumping some other pieces in the queue because I'm pretty sure there's a suitable piece of fabric in my stash.

Thank you, Robin, for your beautiful squares and generous gifts, but mostly for your friendship.  I so enjoy our emails!
 
And now on to what I stitched for Robin.  When she mentioned "springtime", I immediately thought of this one from Les Grilles des Liselotte, Amitie Brodee.  

Not only did the chart fit the springtime theme, but it expressed a sentiment that was especially appropriate.  Amitie brodee is French for "friendship embroidered" and I thought it was fitting to honor this new friendship that came about through a mutual love of stitching.

The original chart is done in purple, but I had a multicolor version of it saved in my stitching ideas file (I can't track down the original).  Since Robin prefers brighter colors to pastels, I chose a more vibrant palette, using WDW in Begonia, Sunset, Crepe Myrtle and Sally's Sunshine plus Carrie's Creations Purple for the flowers, WDW Meadow for the green, and WDW Heatherleigh for the butterflies.

I added a little bling with some copper color beads for the flower stamens, and hematite beads for the butterflies.

As I was stitching the piece, I kept second guessing myself and very nearly abandoned it in favor of another pattern, but I kept on with it, and it turned out exactly like I wanted.


I also hauled out my beading supplies and made this scissor fob featuring a butterfly charm and glass millefiori and iridescent beads.  I hadn't done any beading in a while, so it was fun to dig through my bead stash and play around with different colors and shapes.
 

How Pinteresting... Part 3

One of the wedding pieces I blogged about used a printed velum paper overlay on a mat to bring in another aspect of the wedding theme. I used this same technique again to create a gift for my cousin's first anniversary.  Coincidentally, paper is both the traditional and modern gift for a first anniversary.

Their first dance was to a song called Then by Brad Paisley.  The photo is from their first dance, and the lyrics are around the outside.  Sorry for the flash, but it's hard to get a decent picture

The original idea came from a blog called Sparkle & Hay, but the post I pinned the picture from no longer exists, and I can't seem to find it anywhere.  (The blog seems to be out of commission)  I do remember that the project was hand lettered directly onto the mat.  I wasn't comfortable doing that, but if you want instructions, you can see how to do it here.  (And another tutorial for handwriting the lyrics)

I am far too much of a perfectionist AND I like to make things difficult, so I opted to do mine in Word.  I used the same font that my cousin used on her wedding invitations, Tiriani, but you can find hundreds of free handwriting fonts here.  I purchased the mat and frame first - the frame came from AC Moore and everything is inserted from the front.  There's just a thin border around the edge holding the glass in so I could use more of the mat (almost none of it is covered over by the edges of the frame).  This is an 8x10 frame.

Then I measured the exact dimensions and set up a document in Word.  It was a lot of adjusting, tweaking and playing around with sizing and spacing to get the song lyrics to fit and look evenly spaced.  Then I printed it on plain paper, lined it up against the mat, tweaked some more, printed again, and so on and so forth.  I needed to fill in a little space at the end, so I included not only the name of the song and the artist, but their names, their wedding date, and the town they were married in.

Once everything was perfect, I printed the final copy on velum paper and used an exacto knife and paper trimmer to cut it to shape, then adhered it with spray adhesive.  It was a bit tedious and time consuming, but the end result was TOTALLY worth it.

This method looks much easier! http://www.homevolution.co/2012/09/first-dance-frame.html

Or you could use a mat with two openings - one for your photo, one for a printed copy of your lyrics

You could also do the lyrics directly on a photo, then put it on a canvas, like this blogger did here.

And if all else fails, you can pay someone on Etsy to do it for you!

How Pinteresting... Part 2

So in addition to the button monograms I posted about the other day, and the button ornaments I did a few years ago, I have another Pinterest Project to share.

My cousin had a Pinterest Party in December, and asked guests to bring something they made from a recipe they pinned, and a craft project to work on.  I made these Cheesy Bacon Rotel Cups, which were a huge hit.  They are SUPER easy to make and insanely delicious.  Even the guests who said they hated mayonnaise gobbled them up.  I've made them a couple times and the Hormel real bacon in the bottle (near the salad dressings and toppings) works just as well as bacon I cooked myself and was far less messy.

The craft project I worked on was something I've had pinned for a while - floor wax and glitter ornaments.  My friend Michele made some the Christmas before last and said they held up beautifully in storage.  I have been noticing that the clear glass ornaments you can buy at the craft store are much thinner and more delicate than they used to be.  I was worried about them breaking, so I bought the acrylic ones instead.  I also picked up a multipack of ULTRA FINE glitter that had 16 different colors in separate packets (because I have a decision making disorder and can't possibly commit to one or even two colors).  Most every tutorial I read stressed the importance of the ultra fine glitter for the best coverage.  You can also buy a six-pack of the glitter at the Dollar Store, but I found the glitter from AC Moore was better quality and wasn't that much more expensive, especially with a coupon.  An entire packet of glitter was enough to cover the inside of the medium sized acrylic balls, and definitely enough to cover the inside of the medium sized "disc" ornaments.

Monogramed

I won't describe the whole process - I followed these instructions, and they're very good.  The ornaments are really pretty and sparkly all on their own, but they were a little boring.  I had two ideas for jazzing them up a little, a rhinestone monogram using stickers from the scrapbooking section (the stickers in that post are exactly the ones I used) and a snowman handprint ornament.

Since I had 16 different colors to work with, I used a whole packet per ornament and did ones for Little Dude, my niece and nephew, and a pair for my cousin in their wedding colors of pink and black (she got the pink one, he got the black).  This one is Little Dude's.  For the monogram ornaments, I went with the disc shaped ones instead of the round.

A word of caution while using the stickers - they can be a little tricky to get placed correctly and trying to move them around can cause the little rhinestones to pop off (the stickers are the tiny rhinestones set on a clear, letter shaped adhesive base).  A steady hand and a pair of tweezers can come in very handy, and you can press the rhinestones back into place.

Given  Little Dude's train obsession, we did a train ornament for him using stickers.  For this one, the train goes most of the the way around (it was a pack of individual stickers) the ornament with his name in the middle.

I don't have a photo of it, but on the back of the ornaments, I used flat silver stickers, also from the scrapbooking section, for the year.  A little trick I discovered for perfectly lined up stickers was to use the sticky strip on a post it note to line up the individual number stickers to form the year.  The tweezers will come in handy here as well.  Be sure to put them in reverse order, sticky side up.  Once your numbers are arranged and spaced to your liking, use the post it note to transfer them to the ornament, rubbing over the post it note to adhere the stickers to the ornament.  MUCH easier than trying to get the stickers lined up straight and evenly spaced on the ornament itself.  I used the same stickers for spelling out Little Dude's name as well, using the same post it note method.

I also did some other round ornaments with the glitter, and for these, I painted up Little Dude's hand with some white acrylic paint and had him put his handprint on the ornament.  We practiced a few times BEFORE I put the paint on his hand, and he did really well with this.  I walked him through the process very slowly for each ornament, and I was amazed that he cooperated.  Once the handprints dried (you can see the little cardboard rings I made up to hold the balls in place until the paint dried) I painted on hats, scarves, faces and buttons, as well as the year.  Little Dude chose the blue one for himself, my ILs got the red one, the gold one went to my husband's aunt & uncle, and the green went to my aunt & uncle.  (We handed them out at Thanksgiving so they were able to put them on their trees for Christmas).

How Pinteresting!

I'm an avid pinner, and while there's tons of projects I've pinned and will never do, I DO have something I've actually completed.  Two kinds of projects - one involving buttons and the other involving glitter and floor polish.  Let's do the button ones first, since I did them a while ago.

I have previously mentioned that we inherited a large bag of buttons from my husband's grandmother, some of which were turned into Christmas ornaments.  Another few buttons were incorporated into a piece my husband stitched and framed for his mom in memory of his grandmother.  I wanted to do something else with them as well, something that could be displayed year round.  I hit up Pinterest for some ideas and found many links to artwork made with buttons, including a cute button elephant, a button sheep, a star (one of my favorites, of course!), word art, a heart, and flower pictures like this one and this one.

Monogram for my niece

But what really piqued my interest were the monograms, and as soon as I saw them, I knew that's what I would be doing.   These were sewn onto fabric, but I decided to go with scrapbook paper and hot glue, which worked out fine.  I wanted to do a monogram for each of the great grandchildren - my niece and nephew, and Little Dude.

All of the buttons were sorted by color, The first thing I did was go through the hundreds of fonts I have on my computer and test out which ones I wanted to use for the different monograms.  Since I was using pink buttons for my niece, I wanted something swirly and feminine for her monogram.  I figured out what size frame I was going to use, and adjusted the font to fill the frame.  I chose a pink scrapbook paper for the background, then printed out the monogram.

Little Dude's Monogram

Originally, I had planned to do the monogram on velum paper and place it on top of the scrapbooking paper, but it ended up muting the background more than I wanted, so I made a very light outline on the scrapbook paper with pencil and laid out the buttons to fill it in.

It was a slightly tedious process and there was no good way to place the monogram under the scrapbook paper and avoid the pencil lines.  If you look VERY closely at the finished product, you can see a bit of the outline, but if you're not looking for it, it's not that noticeable.  Once all the buttons were in place, I started gluing them in (hence the tedious part).

Our Monogram

I made a monogram for my niece and nephew, and for Little Dude.  (I don't have a good photo of my nephew's, but his is done with pearlized white buttons on a wavy green background in an oak frame.)  I also made F monograms for our family name, one each for our house, my in-laws and my husband's brother's family.

Each one is a little different, and I tried to personalize it to the house it would be in.  For ours, I used blue and white to match our living and dining rooms, and front hall, where the piece now hangs.  It's also the same font we used for our wedding invitations. 



For my in-laws, I went with red since it's my MIL's favorite color, and the buttons came from her mother.    And for my BIL and SIL's, I used the gold buttons on an antique looking background.  All three are different and very pretty.  I apologize for the pictures - it's hard to get a decent picture with glass and I was taking these just before I wrapped them up for Christmas gifts.

 

For my in-laws

 

For my BIL and SIL

All of the frames were purchased from the craft store.  The ones for my niece and nephew were in rectangular frames.  I had those done first, and then a while later, I found the square frames that included the mat (I think the opening is 8x8 in a 10x10 frame, and I cut down a 12x12 sheet of scrapbook paper for each one.

The gifts were well received, and on the back of each of the frames, I put a sticker that says "In Loving Memory of Julia ____" and the dates of her birth and death.

If you are looking for other button art ideas, here's a few links.  I'm pretty sure the button trees will be happening here, and perhaps the salt shaker flowers.  (My friend Michele did some cute button flowers for Valentine's Day last year)

Links to Button Art Ideas:

http://craftandcreativity.com/blog/2013/01/12/buttontree/

• Crafts to make with Buttons and Sequins on Tipjunkie
• Button Pumpkins
• Button Bicycles
• Salt Shaker Button Bouquets
• Wired Button Tree Tutorial
• Another Button Tree
• Pearly Pin and Button Tree
• Vintage Button Lampshade
• Button Garland

What's been keeping me busy...

You mean besides Pinterest? Technically this does involve Pinterest since I found the ideas on there. This idea has been re-pinned hundreds of times, and it's one of the first craft projects from the site that I did - a Wedding Invitation Ornament:


The idea is to cut up a wedding invitation into strips and put them inside a clear glass ornament. As you twist and turn the ornament, you can see glimpses of the wording. As soon as I saw the idea, I knew I'd be making one for my cousin and her new husband.

Luckily, I helped the bride with the invitations, so I had the files on my computer and didn't have to cut up the actual invitation itself. I printed out a copy and set to work cutting up the strips but I wasn't all that thrilled with the results. The size of the font varies, which adds visual interest, but doesn't lend itself to being cut up into neat, equally sized strips and it was difficult to gauge spacing between some of the smaller lines. It was bothering me that there were skinny little strips and much thicker strips. After several attempts, I decided to re-format the invitation itself into equally sized strips, which looked MUCH better inside the ornament (and let's not discuss the fact that I bought two sizes of ball shaped round ornaments, and two sizes of flattened round ornaments because I am a nut job and none of them are actually glass because they don't seem to sell individual glass ornaments but I have come to terms with the fact they are acrylic, mmmmkay?)

Once I got the strips coiled and stashed inside the ornament (a chopstick and a pair of long tweezers came in handy for this), I finished off the ornament with a sheer white ribbon from the actual invitation (they were pocket invites tied with the ribbon) and two smaller black ribbons to tie on their initials. The original ornament had a seashell charm as a nod to the theme of the wedding, and I liked the idea of the charm, but there was no "theme" to the wedding. I did, however, honor the black and white color scheme. I love, love, love how it turned out and I think my cousin and her husband will love it as well.

But that's not the only ornament I've finished up. In addition to the stitchy ornaments, I've been working with some buttons I've inherited from my husband's grandmother. She passed away this past January, just after her 99th birthday. My MIL generously gave me a very large jar and several bags of buttons that Grandma had collected over the years. I've had a lifelong fascination with buttons, stemming from the hours I spent playing with my own grandmother's buttons (both my grandmother and my husband's grandmother were accomplished seamstresses and had massive collections of buttons, fabric and notions).

I had some ideas for button monograms, but I wanted to see what else I could do with them, especially with shank buttons that would not lend themselves to being glued onto paper and framed. This is what I came up with:

These are just a few of the ornaments I created from Grandma's collection. (There are at least a dozen more ornaments I finished since taking this photo, and I've tried several other techniques which I will share soon.) Of course, most of the buttons were not sorted, so I spent several hours with my two year old, "playing buttons" (which means I spent several more hours while he slept re-sorting all the ones he had jumbled together). Most of them are strung on pipe cleaners, which worked out very well to not only shape the ornaments, but the fuzzy stuff on them helps hold the buttons in place better. For those that kept spinning around on their shanks, a little hot glue on the back helped hold them in place. I raided my own stash for the ribbons and have gotten VERY good at tying neat little bows.

I should also mention that I don't really have a dedicated craft space in our house yet, so I tend to work a lot in our dining room. (We generally eat in the kitchen, so I don't have to worry about cleaning up my projects for every meal.) All of these ornaments were made sitting at a dining room table we inherited from Grandma, so I spent a lot of time thinking about her as I was making them. She was quite crafty and clever herself and loved to crochet and sew. I loved her dearly, and these ornaments are a wonderful reminder of her.

This is a closeup of one of the ornaments we're keeping for our tree. It's hanging next to one of the dozens of hand-crocheted snowflakes that adorn our tree, every single one of them made by Grandma. And this one below is another closeup:

20+ Crafting Apps for your Phone

One of the advantages to reading a ton of crafting blogs is finding articles like these.

20+ Phone Apps for the Crafty Folk

The apps range from family crafts to drawing to craft show finders to apps for helping with knitting and quilting. There's an app for keeping track of your fabric stash, as well as ones by CraftGawker, Etsy and Pinterest (which happens to be one of my very favorite websites).

And yes, I will be back shortly with some stitching. i finished up a wedding piece I need to frame, and am currently working on my Fair and Square exchange.

Yes, I am stitching....

Not as much as I would like to be, but I blame that on a wireless connection, a laptop, and a renewed obsession with cooking. My Facebook friends get regular links to recipes I've found, and I am currently wading through over 1000 posts in my food blog collection. (I might have a small problem with a recipe addiction...)

I do have a few pieces I am working on, and a small pile of things waiting to be framed by my husband. Two of them are wedding pieces, and I should have a post by the end of the week about a third wedding piece, the first one I've done "on commission" that was gifted to a bride and groom back in May. One of the two remaining wedding pieces is for someone near and dear to my heart - my beautiful cousin Kerri, who is getting married in August. I also have two birth pieces I need to get cracking on, and my ever present assortment of ornaments.

I am managing to keep up with some of the crafting blogs I read, and this is another FANTASTIC project that would totally work for some customized finishes for needlework. I know I've spent hours looking for buttons and embellishments, and this idea is absolutely genius.


Customized buttons made from Shrinky Dink plastic. Genius, I tells ya. Genius. Check out the tutorial on Scissors.Paper.Wok.

Fancy Schmancy Scissors

Check out these super cute scissors I spotted on Mod Podge Rocks! (one of my favorite crafting blogs). I don't know how well the idea would work out for embroidery / stitching scissors, but you could certainly gussy up a pair of regular fabric scissors.

(The original how-to is posted on Crap I've Made, another favorite crafting blog)

Non Stitchy Craft Project

It's entirely possible that I have too much time on my hands, and that perhaps I can get a little over the top. I've already admitted to being completely OCD when it comes to organization, so it shouldn't shock any of you that I decided to take on a project shortly before my son was born.

I read all the horror stories about moms finding unworn clothes - tags still on them!! hanging in the closet long after their child had outgrown them and was determined that wasn't going to happen in OUR house. But what to do? What to do? If there was only a simple solution that I could take way too far......

BABY CLOSET DIVIDERS!!

I could have taken the easy way out and purchased some, like these blue ones from Sugar Booger. Or ordered some custom made ones from this Etsy seller, Potatopatch. Viable options, sure. But it was just weeks before my son was born - the perfect time to take on a craft project, because really, as a first time mom with plenty of stuff to do already, it made perfect sense.

So I scoured the internet for tutorials, and found these super cute foam hangers here at Armelle and Spearmint Baby. However, they weren't really my style as I'm not much for the colorful, cartoon-y kid stuff (we'll see how well this goes over with my son in the future). And then I found THESE at Blissfully Domestic and I thought, "I can totally make them!" Naturally, I could not find the thicker wooden doorhangers, and ended up buying the thinner ones at Michael's, but they worked out fine.

My best advice for working with that thin, balsa like wood used for these hangers, and all kinds of boxes and other things in the "wood craft" aisles at the local craft store is "Sandpaper is your friend". A light sand on these pieces before painting goes a long way towards making a much nicer finished products, especially around the edges. I've even sanded the wooden embroidery hoops I've used for making ornaments, and the end result is a smoother, more refined wood nearly free of blemishes and ragged edges. I would also recommend a coat of primer (available with the acrylic paints) on these softer woods as they tend to suck up the paint pretty quickly.

Another thing I learned was to shell out a couple more pennies and buy the better acrylic paint. I used the Joann's brand acrylic paint because I liked the color names (Sailboat and Baby Blue), but will know better next time and will buy the Plaid or other name brand paint because it works much better. I had to use several coats of the Joann's paint to compensate for the streaky coverage.

Knowing that I had limited artistic talent and would not be able to freehand something I'd be happy with, I searched high and low for nautical themed scrapbook paper and stickers that would work with a decoupage technique. I looked everywhere, in every store, including discount outlets like The Christmas Tree Shop and Ollies.

Nothing.

I couldn't find a nautical / boat themed paper for a background, and every sticker was either cartoony or textured or raised or otherwise not at all what I was looking for, which is how the whole painting process came about. So I painted my six dividers - three in one color, three in the other - after sanding and priming of course. And then a genius idea struck - if I could not find stickers or decoupage things I liked, surely I could find CLIPART that would work. And it helps I am a font freak and have hundreds of them on my computer, so the lettering was no problem. Getting it onto the painted wooden hangers? Yeah, that was a problem, until another stroke of genius took hold. I designed the hangers on my computer because I'm good with layout and design (it's just the execution that gives me problems) and in no time, I had six lovely, nautical themed hangers designed on paper, just waiting to be transfered to the wooden ones.

I had originally intended to trace the design onto the hanger using a nail or something as a stylus, creating an impression in the soft wood that could be filled in with paint. Yeah, not so much. Back to the drawing board. Then I remembered pattern transfer paper that I had used in home ec class in high school, so back to the craft store we went. (Mind you, I was 8 months pregnant at the time) Transfer paper in hand, I gave it my best to transfer the designs to the hangers, and this time, it worked out. The filling in with paint, however, did not go as intended, but this is where my brilliant (and artistically talented) husband stepped in and saved the day.

Seeing as how he's much more patient than I am, I turned the project over to him, and he completed the painting, complete with shading and blending of various paint colors. Impressive! He also came up with the idea of some simple outlining that really made things look nice. So may I present....... Little Dude's Closet Dividers!!!

And yes, Little Dude's oh so clever Mommy has his hangers doing double duty. Once we get through the "infant" sized clothes, the reverse sides of the hangers are painted up with toddler sizes. All I need to do is flip them over. He'll be tired of them long before they outgrow their usefulness.

As a final step, which I did not photograph, I tied a wide, dark blue satin ribbon to the top of each hanger so it could be hung in the closet (we have closet organizers instead of the long wooden pole)

SBQ: Other Crafts

Are there other crafts that you have tried and abandoned? Why do you like stitching better? (Submitted by Kathryn)

I've always been interested in crafts and needlework from a very young age. My mother and grandmother sewed, so I was brought up around fabrics, threads, buttons, etc. I was also very involved in Girl Scouts, so there was always some kind of craft being done at meetings and camp. As a result, I got to try different things and experiement.

One of my favorite things is working with clay or modeling compound. I'm nowhere near artist level with it, but I still enjoy working with the material and shaping different things. I don't do it as much any more, but I could probably really get into making clay polymer things like beads. (I don't have the time, space or disposable income to invest though!)

I do a little scrapbooking but not in the traditional sense. I can't get into all the embelishments and fancy cutting, stickers, etc. I also don't understand doing elaborate layouts and putting one picture on a page. Rather, I use colorful 12x12 background papers and I cut and arrange photos in interesting arrangements on the page. I also use postcards, bookmarks, ticket stubs, etc. from our travels. It's more like a memory book than a scrapbook. I only work on these books occasionally - I have to work on our living room floor and it's a hassle to drag everything out.

I've tried knitting and crocheting and I don't know if I have the patience for either. My mother tried to teach me to knit, but she's not a good teacher and I quickly got frustrated with it. My grandmother in law crochets, and my husband can crochet a little (she taught him and his brother when they were very young to keep them quiet and occupied!) I have the desire to knit, and especially crochet, pretty things, but I don't know if I have the patience to learn it. Also, I am afraid I will like it too much and want to spend my resources on that!

Cleaning out my Crafting Bookmarks

I started cleaning out my crafting bookmarks and trying to get the more organized. As I was going through them, I came across a few goodies to share:

• Cute Bug Mittens to Knit


• Rebecca's Everyday Crafts


• Altered Altoid Tins

Freebie Cross Stitch Sites:

• Blackwork Embroidery Archives


• Dawn's Free Patterns


• DMC Club Free Charts - registration is required, but they have great stuff


• Dragon Dreams Sample Charts


• Dunmani Designs


• Free Patterns.com


• JOY Christmas Angels


• Shona's Place Mini Graphs

Other Good Cross Stitch Sites:

• CyberStitchers - some good free patterns and tons of galleries for inspiration


• Stitching the Night Away - Journaling your work - includes free printable pages
  

And a helpful hint of the day in dealing with UFOs. Everyone from knitters to stitchers to crocheters can use this method of dealing with all those projects you can never seem to finish. Chris Miller describes a good Rotation Method for keeping things moving. In fact, there are a number of excellent articles on the Shakespeare's Peddler site.

Once you're done with all the stitching, check out these sites for finishing techniques.

• Focus on Finishing - a group blog with lots of finishing ideas and pictures


• Needlepointers.com - plenty of finishing techniques to choose from


• Twisted Stitcher - tutorials on finishing techniques including flatfolds and pinkeeps