Kindness Quilt Square #4 -- aka my favorite one.

It only takes ONE person, and ONE act of kindness, to inspire others and create change.

@jennifer_hogan

That quote illustrates a great way to live and one thing I have discovered in the 

creative blogging community, is that they are some of the most

generous and kind people around. 

My friend Vicki, over at the 2 Bags Full blog is one of those wonderful

people.  

So when I was invited to be a part of her KINDNESS QUILT PROJECT, I was thrilled and honored to participate. An immediate "YES' was my answer. 

4 squares - crochet and embellished.

Roughly 6 inches square. 

These will be gathered by Vicki, assembled, and gifted to a special person. 

What a wonderful way to share our love of creating with others. 

I immediately went to work. 

Details from Square #4

This looks NOTHING like my original idea for the 4th square. 

It's all Cindy Kirk's fault. She gifted me this gorgeous novelty yarn.

And it screamed Sea Water to me. 

So I made the foundation for this one to resemble the sea. 

And then I wanted a tidal pool with all kinds of treasures.

A base of some sand colored linen.

 I edged it with some rough thread bordering. 

I did the border in single crochet and left the loops and bobbles free to simulate the splash of waves on the sand. 

Sew on some clear bead "bubbles".

Then I ran across these seashell patterns 

Designed by Susan Whitlock. 

I made mine from bedspread cotton. 

I LOVE IT. 

I also crocheted a little spiral of seaweed. 

Gathered fun little bits and bobbles to embellish this.

Look there's a lace "sand dollar" 

And a crocheted bit of a "sea fan coral"

This project was so much fun. 

Having an idea.

Seeing the idea come to life as I worked on it. 

There's the full view of my "Mermaid's treasure, tidal pool"

Thank you Vicki for inviting me to be a part of this. 

I cannot wait to see the finished quilt. 

Kindness Quilt Square #3

It only takes ONE person, and ONE act of kindness, to inspire others and create change.

@jennifer_hogan

That quote illustrates a great way to live and one thing I have discovered in the 

creative blogging community, is that they are some of the most

generous and kind people around. 

My friend Vicki, over at the 2 Bags Full blog is one of those wonderful

people.  

So when I was invited to be a part of her KINDNESS QUILT PROJECT, I was thrilled and honored to participate. An immediate "YES' was my answer. 

4 squares - crochet and embellished.

Roughly 6 inches square. 

These will be gathered by Vicki, assembled, and gifted to a special person. 

What a wonderful way to share our love of creating with others. 

I immediately went to work. 

Details from Square #3

I made the base for this one from some wool blend, sock weight yarn using a C2C pattern. 

Then I went into the stash. 

I knew I wanted to make the roses from my friend Doni's, Tutorial . I've made a lot of these in different sizes since I first got the tutorial from her, so I consider this one tried and true. 

So I gathered some cobweb weight thread in assorted colors from the stash.

I wanted this to feel like dried rose bouquets that we save from those special events. 

I crocheted six roses and added vintage buttons for the centers. 

For the "leaves" I crocheted a lacy doiley center from some nice, silky thread. The sheen and color perfectly fit the idea I was trying for. 

Then a fussy cut from some vintage lace that my friend MaryAnn sent me. 

The final bit of detail is a FAVORITE button that I have been hanging on to for YEARS. 

Look again at those colors.

Does it give you the keepsake faded roses feel I was seeking?

I promise this is square - but it sure looks wonky in this picture.

I am really happy with how this turned out. 

It is so exciting when the idea in your head really works out. 

Kindness Quilt Square #2

It only takes ONE person, and ONE act of kindness, to inspire others and create change.

@jennifer_hogan

That quote illustrates a great way to live and one thing I have discovered in the 

creative blogging community, is that they are some of the most

generous and kind people around. 

My friend Vicki, over at the 2 Bags Full blog is one of those wonderful

people.  

So when I was invited to be a part of her KINDNESS QUILT PROJECT, I was thrilled and honored to participate. An immediate "YES' was my answer. 

4 squares - crochet and embellished.

Roughly 6 inches square. 

These will be gathered by Vicki, assembled, and gifted to a special person. 

What a wonderful way to share our love of creating with others. 

I immediately went to work. 

Details from Square #2

The base is crocheted from a soft, baby sweater yarn that I had leftover from a baby blanket.

(I've also used it in a Moogly Sweater that I made) 

It matched some sweet rose fabric scrap that I had. I actually think that this is the very last bit of this fabric. 

I took some beautiful coordinating Perle Cotton and crocheted an edging around the oval rose cutout from that fabric. Giving it a "frame" effect.

A tiny PEACE advertising token from an insurance company was attached along with a vintage button and a blossom from a silk hydrangea. 

I then beaded a tiny little butterfly (or moth) and attached that as well.

I mounted the framed rose a bit off center to allow the colorful striping to be seen . 

A fairly quick and simple square. 

My Kindness Quilt Square #1

It only takes ONE person, and ONE act of kindness, to inspire others and create change.

@jennifer_hogan

That quote illustrates a great way to live and one thing I have discovered in the 

creative blogging community, is that they are some of the most

generous and kind people around. 

My friend Vicki, over at the 2 Bags Full blog is one of those wonderful

people.  

So when I was invited to be a part of her KINDNESS QUILT PROJECT, I was thrilled and honored to participate. An immediate "YES' was my answer. 

4 squares - crochet and embellished.

Roughly 6 inches square. 

These will be gathered by Vicki, assembled, and gifted to a special person. 

What a wonderful way to share our love of creating with others. 

I immediately went to work. 

Here are the details of the very first square from me. 

A luscious, soft, pink cotton yarn. I crocheted in a single stitch basket weave pattern. 

(Looks like an Easter basket to me.) 

Once I had the base completed, I then set about embellishing.

I have made hundreds of these melty fabric flowers over the years, (here's a HOW TO link if you like) and I had these warm pink fabrics left over from making some for a wedding, so I made one for this block. 

( Trying to be stashsourceful, so I made all four blocks from assorted stash materials.) 

The flower kind of disappeared against my base, so I crocheted a circle for the "leaves"

I went to the scrap box for a bit of linen and added a bit of cross stitch to this. 

That little glass button was gleaned from my "favorites" jar. 

I then called this one complete. 

Although, Vicki may add more embellishment to it as she assembles the entire quilt. 

Again, I am so honored to have been asked about being a contributor to this project. 

I'll be back in a few days with the next block. 

Have a fabulous weekend. 

Life is crazy beautiful

Offbeat Bride Bouquet

full tutorial is at the design team blog

On wings of love.......

So I have lots of sweet littles in my life. 

Rebecca Peterson is one of them.

Several months back - little Missy announced to us that she was going to be a BIG SISTER. 

I stalked her mama's pinterest for ideas to make a gift for the new baby. 

(that post in a few days) 

While I was mulling that over, 

I started on a little giftie for Rebecca.

(BIG SISTER had to get a gift too) 

I sent her dad a text and it was determined that pink butterflies would be the ticket. 

I painted a 12x12 canvas green.

Then punched sixteen circles.

Some glue and patience later they are laid out on the canvas. 

Then I wanted dimensional butterflies and I had these great sequins in the right shape. 

I punched assorted paper ones too. 

I bent the sequins for dimension.

stacked them on the paper shapes

(see the beads) 

I strung the beads on light gauge wire. 

Wrapped to the back to secure.

Because I KNOW someone will ask, here's how I bent the sequins using the back side of my xacto knife blade. 

After making all the little butterflies, I moved them around and decided on the layout I liked.

If you are ever around me creating - there is that moment that I refer too as "look - it sings"

More glue - this time a clear drying tacky glue.

The finished artwork

I likes this one a LOT. 

The full front view. 

and ------ 

A sweetie little missy enjoying opening her present.

Faking it........

Oh come on ... we are all adults.

Last night found me crashing ---- slept thru three alarms this morning too. Work. Wedding. Life. Busy. Busy. Has kept me up late and rising early and it all caught up with me. 

Wedding DIY continues. 

There must be thousands of little details to think about. 

One thing for sure - this wedding will be personal - very personal.

We are using a vintage typewriter as a prop and to continue the theme, I wanted / needed some of these. 

Although they are not super expensive, when you are doing all the wedding on a seriously low budget, you have to watch every penny.

Besides -- I happened to have this paper in the hoarded pile of stuff. It's a little over scaled from the real thing, but it has the look I want. (this paper is discontinued but I found a link for some similar on ebay)

So -- under the influence of the beverages consumed during phase one of the matchmaking project. (see previous post if you are confused) ---- I put my thinking cap on.

Then I proceeded to dig in the hoarded piles of stuff I call my stash.

And I found these. Big silver buttons. (Thank you Crusty Old Guy for befriending the button man at the flea market)

Note - I did not have enough of one style to finish the word I am attempting to use, but I had two styles that looked ok together and I was able to alternate my letters,  thus solving that little problem.

I cut out the letters I needed -

Adhered them using some Alene's Paper Glaze. (another note - the paper glaze will react and oxidize to green some things so proceed with some caution when using this medium)

I also covered them completely with the Paper Glaze.

Went to bed and hoped for the best.

There were giggles and squeals of glee the next morning. My FAKED typewriter keys were great.

Some days you get rewarded for risky behavior.

I have also been involved in a huge CIRCLE OF LOVE part of this project.

I've cut 100's of circles of all kinds of blue fabric.

Then I lit candles - needing a touch of romantic lighting. (just joking)

I used the flame from the candle and

Applied heat ---- lots of heat. To the edges of those circles.

I made little stacks of those circles again and they look like this.......

I'll be doing lots more of this over the weekend --- and then adding button centers to them.

I sure hope you all have a fantastic weekend.

Love.

Scrap Savers Craft

This one is truly a scrap craft. My ever so lovely friend, MaryAnn, sends care packages quite frequently. She feeds my hoarding tendency quite well. In the last few days, I received a lovely package of outdated Norman Rockwell calendar pages. Included in this package was a note saying that "surely her creative friend (me) could come up with a clever way to use these pages."

Confession time here. Normally I would add these to the stash, but since the stash is - well - way out of control, I decided to go right ahead and do something asap with these. I was also suffering from the loss of my MOJO and it was returning. So what's a girl to do with old calendar pages.

Not old enough to be vintage, but way to good to toss. That's the kind of thing these were. the great thing about my decided approach is that it will work with - all kinds of papers. Magazine pages, paper sacks, childrens coloring book pages, recycled work papers and on and on.

Here's what I did. Grab a small envelope and an Xacto knife. Open the envelope carefully. (Reality here - google envelope pattern and print one - they are readily available) But I just opened one and then traced it to a piece of transparency. I marked the fold lines. This allowed me a clear window to line up for the main part of my image.

Trace the outline and cut it out.





I scored my fold lines using my paper cutter and the back of a plastic knife - high tech --- LOL.

Fold - fold - fold.


Glue tabs - Glue tabs - glue tabs.

There you go - a FREE pile of note card envelopes. I'll match these up with flat notes that I stamp and emboss. Or maybe use them as packages for tags or other swap goodies.

Any way - they didn't cost me anything - they did not simply go into the stash - and I am quite happy to have a usable item from something most people would have tossed.

It's all good.

Hey MaryAnn ---- does this count as a creative use of these babies?????

have a wonderful day.

UHU Review along with a tutorial

I received another UHU Sample to review. This month's sample included the glue stick and a cute little notebook, along with green paper and foamie shamrock shapes. Even a fun little lady bug.

Well - I opened it and had a brainstorm. I alter lots of notebooks, so the process was familiar to me. I wanted to try something new. I went to my stash and grabbed a foamie star shape. I was thinking about stamping and embossing the foamie.

IT WORKS - TRIAL AND ERROR - MELTED SEVERAL - BUT FINALLY FIGURED IT OUT - at least foamies are inexpensive.

Here is the process.


Stamp your shape and QUICKLY sprinkle with embossing powder. Meaning have everything ready to go. See mine above - stamped and sprinkled.


Hold your shape with something other than your fingers - bought lesson - melting plastic is worse than a glue gun. I used my needle nose pliers.


Here is the part where you thank me for all of my melted ones. Using your heat gun and keeping it moving - start the embossing process. As you see the powder start to melt, move the gun away and let the shape cool off. Go back and forth with the gun until all of the powder is melted.
Remember - "Patience is a virtue."

Here is my finished shamrock piece. NOTE - this is not very durable in applications where the foamie can flex. The powder wants to flake off if the shape is handled and flexed.

Another little trick I discovered - as the embossing occured the shape wanted to cup and curl toward the embossed side. When the embossing is complete, I turn the shape face down on a heat resistant surface and heat the back side - then press flat until it cools. This will help make it flat enough to glue down.

The remaining steps are for the purpose of assembling my UHU sample and reviewing the Glue Stick.

I received the full sized stick. I glued two layers of scrapbook paper to the front of my little journal. The bottom layer was an embossed paper and the edges required more glue than I intially used. Since I was using the large size of the stick, I found it a little tricky to go back and add glue to the edge. (The small UHU stick that I have in my tool box serves that purpose quite well.)

Notice that I punched holes in my top layer of paper.

The sample packet also included a strip of interesting paper. It was almost ribbon like - matte on one side and shiny on the other. I made a permanent book mark for my journal

I used UHU Twist and Glue to attach a lucky coin and shamrock to the tail of the book mark.

Flipped to the inside back cover and glued the shiny side of the paper ribbon to the inside of the journal. Fold the bookmark to hang across a page and peek out the bottom of the journal.

Add charms to the key ring attached to the spiral binding - a lucky rabbits foot and another coin. Then with a play on words based on the sample contents - I labeled my cover with the words "LADY LUCK"

My finished journal and the UHU Glues that I used.

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My product review of the free glue stick that was in my sample. I love UHU glue stick. Have for a long time - I really like the big size that was in my sample - it made quick work of covering the paper for the journal front. I did find that I needed more glue on the edges of the embossed paper, but that is a user detail not a reflection on the glue. I used the glue for the paper - the shiny ribbon and the foam shamrock attaching. It holds all of those items wonderfully. I also used the same glue for some fabric embellishing on a scrapbook page. Loved it for that too. I keep the smaller sized UHU sticks in my tool kit all the time.

Have a great weekend.