Creativity: Mitten Garland

I was perusing my usual blogs and came across a really fun tutorial for mitten garland. I had all the materials and got started right away. If you are interested in the tutorial go here. I decided to cut out mittens in all kinds of colors because mittens are all different colors. 

I traced my hand to make a template and then cut out the felt pieces. I added the Merry Christmas on top of the mittens with white felt letters.

Here I glue gunned the mittens to a string. 

I hung the mitten garland in the doorway of my living room. We are having a Christmas open house on Saturday December 22nd so it will be a nice festive decoration. 

Merry Christmas and 

Happy Crafting!

Family: My nephew Xavier

We had a little bundle of joy come into our family December the 4th. He was a wee bit early but all was well. His name is Xavier, here he is with his dad (my brother) Stephen.

Here I am with Xavier, the proudest aunt in the world(:

The precious Sankar VanDerHerberg family. My nephew Emanuel was so excited to see his new baby brother. 

Creativity: Bunny puppets

I made bunny puppets for my niece and nephews for Christmas. (Shhh don't tell them.) I got the pattern off of Purl Bee in Soho Newyork. If you want the pattern go here. I won't go through the steps of making them because it is all on the website but I will show you some pictures. 

Here is me having some fun with Ivy's puppet. They are so cute!

I hope you enjoyed looking at these bunnies as much as I did making them. 

Happy Crafting!

Christmas Give away

Dear faithful readers of my little blog,
I appreciate you reading my blog and responding from time to time. I have decided to do a give away just in time for Christmas. I am giving away one Japanese paper pendant in the color of your choice. Below are some examples.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post by Wednesday December 19th. Please include your email address so I can let you know if you have won. If you are in town I will try and get it to you before Christmas eve but if you are out of town it will probably arrive in the new year.

Merry Christmas!

Happy Crafting!

Creativity: Christmas cards

It's been quite a month, filled with sickness, busyness and not a lot of blogging. But now that my sickness is behind me and my online course is done I am going to get blogging once again. I was just at a craft show on Saturday at George St. United and a lovely lady named Shelly said that she was missing my blog. Thanks Shelly for the encouragement. 

My Christmas cards this year were a little labor intensive. It involved sewing felt and buttons onto card stock. I have always wanted to try and sew on card stock just to see if it would work. 

I also made my own gift wrap using a block print from India and some craft paper from the post office. I got the block print from a store in Jordan when my sister in laws and I had a weekend together. 

I hope all your Christmas preparations are coming together.

Happy Crafting!

Creativity: Felt baby shoes

I found a super cute tutorial on Purl Bee in Soho Newyork for felt baby shoes. I have two friends that have had babies in the last bit so I made booties for their babies. I used real wool felt and cotton embroidery thread. If you want to see a tutorial on them go here.

These are for Kaiya, Ruth and Daniels daughter.  

This is Ruth and Kaiya.

These are for Dylan, Alida and Jordan's baby boy

This is the Gagne family. Nigel (left), Alida, Jordan, Khol (right) and baby Dylan in the middle.

Family: My twin nieces dedication

On Sunday my nieces Caroline and Hannah were dedicated at Church on the Rock in Hamilton. My sister in laws and I were in Hamilton already for a girls weekend, it was great. Here are some pictures of them and my brother Mark and his wife Jenn.

\We had a great Dutch time of soup and buns after the dedication at Jenn's parents house.

 My dad and my niece

 My grandmother and my niece

]

 Hannah (I think) and I

 My nephew Emmanuel

My parents

We had a great time together and we are so excited that these precious girls are dedicated to the Lord. 

Creativity: Mixed Media class

I have been taking a mixed media class at the Art Gallery of Peterborough with one of my favorite artists, Anne Renouf. Her website is www.annerenouf.com . At the beginning of the class she gets us to do a warm up exercise. We have worked with oil pastels, chalk, etc. Then she teaches us a skill. Two weeks ago we learned how to image transfer and this last week we learned how to apply gold leaf.

I have an art show coming up in the new year with my best friend Alida. It is going to be on trees. She loves painting birches and I am really interested in using different mediums to create trees. So most of my art work for this class will be about trees.

Here is a pastel warm up.

Here is a box that I attached Japanese paper to in the shape of trees and then I made a pastel tree for the inside.

Instead of working with canvas I got a birch board. I image transferred a picture of a tree onto it. Then I painted it in a winter theme.

I have three weeks left of the class and I am looking forward to learning more skills. 

Favorite Friday Ideas

This weeks edition of Favorite Friday ideas is all about DIY (Do it Yourself) projects, aprons and baby shoes. I hope to accomplish some of these projects in the next little while. If you are interested in learning more about these ideas click on source under the picture.

Source 

Source 

Source

Source

I have been hankering (that's a word I picked up in Texas) to make one of these aprons. I am hoping to pick up some cool fabric when I go to Toronto in the next couple of weeks. 

I love these baby shoes and I have a lot of babies in my life. I think I even have all the supplies to make the simple felt ones. Then gosh darnit what's stopping me?

Source 

Source

Source

I love DIY or Do it Yourself projects. There are tons of blogs which offer tutorials on how to make things yourself. Here are just some of the ones I like.

Source

Source

I love this idea. You use plates and candle sticks. Brilliant! 

Source

Fabric lined envelopes. Great for all your material scraps.

Source 

That is this weeks edition of Favorite Friday Ideas. 

Happy Crafting!