W is for William

Last night I was inspired to make something for my nephew William. That's William and I above.

I have seen people make letters with buttons on www.pinterest.com. Now if my brother Michael reads this he will make fun of me for talking about Pinterest. I make fun of him about Twitter, so I guess we are even. Below is the finished product, keep reading and I will show you how to make one of your own.

 You will need the following:
- piece of white card stock
- lots of buttons in a variety of colors
- a pencil
- a ruler
- white glue

Then you will need to make the outline of the letter that you are making. I did the letter W but you can do this with any letter. You will have to free hand it with the help of a ruler, unless you have a stencil.

Then you start placing buttons on the letter, gluing them down with white glue. Be creative and use all different sizes and colors. I used green, blue, yellow, red and black buttons. I even put in some Japanese paper under glass.

February Kids craft pictures

A couple of posts ago I showed you a kids craft that I was going to do with kids at my church on February 3rd. It was a PA day for the kids and a couple of young ladies from my church (Living Hope CRC) decided to make it into a fundraiser for their mission trip to Nicaragua. I decided to jump on board and provide the craft. Here are some pictures of the crafts that the kids made.

Here are the final craft projects.

Here are the works in progress

 Thanks Living Hope Kids for doing such a great job!

Valentine's day craft tutorial

I thought I would put together a Valentine's craft. This can be done with kids (with a lot of help from an adult) or if you just want to do one for yourself. I got the idea from www.sugarbeecrafts.com. They have a tutorial on their website but I redid it and used some different materials. Below is the finished product. 

Materials needed

- felt in Valentines colors, you can do different colors than what I have. I choose red and purple because that is what I had. I got the felt from a dollar store in Peterborough called Dollar Giant.  

- A good pair of scissors

- fabric glue ( I used "OK to wash" by Aleene's, I got it from Michaels.)

- A needle

- Thread that matches the felt, I used purple

- a button which matches.

- a pin or hair band to attach it to

Start by cutting the top color into a heart, you will need five of them. You can cut one out and use it as a template for the other ones. Then put the heart on the bottom colored felt and cut it out just a bit bigger. 

Then you need to glue them together. I used a fabric glue called "Ok to wash" by Aleens. I found it at Michaels. 

Now comes the fun part if you like hand sewing or the not so fun part if you don't like hand sewing. If you have a glue gun and want to glue them together I suggest you go to www.sugarbeecrafts.com and look at their tutorial. Otherwise stick with me and we will put this together. 

Now pick up one of the hearts that are glued together and pinch the ends of it to create a petal. Take your thread and sew the end shut. 

Sew all five hearts like this individually. Then cut off the tip of the heart. Then we start sewing them together. Sew the first to the second and the second to the third and so forth. The last heart is the trickiest, you have to sew it to the fourth and first petal.

Now comes the fun part picking a button. I choose a nice red button to go with the red felt that I had. The button is all about individual taste. 

Now you need to decide what you want to attach this to. I decided to make mine a brooch because I am having Valentine's dinner with some friends and I want to wear it with my red sweater. But you may choose to glue it to a headband or attach it to a hat. That my friend is all up to you.

Confessions of a scarf ripper upper

I have a confession to make... I have been ripping apart scarves to make my fabric rosettes. I actually ripped up one made in Italy. But did it ever make a nice rosettes. It was a pink, purple and burgundy stripped scarf and it made about 15 rosettes which I attached onto hair clips.

 I also made up yellow ones from a square yellow scarf. My sister in law Jenn is putting magnets on the back of them, which is an idea I might use in the future.

Awaiting felt from Felt on the Fly

   I just ordered felt from Felt on the Fly in all the Spring 2012 colors. I am getting ready for my craft show in May. I know some of the projects I am going to use them for, such as hair accessories and accents on pillows. But I have so many pictures on Pinterest of felt flowers that it hard to choose. I will show you some of them. These are pictures of other peoples creations, so I can't take the credit. If you really like one of them leave me a comment and I will try to make it and send you a picture.

New places to sell jewelry

               I have been pounding the pavement trying to find new places to sell my Japanese Chiyogami Pendants. I went to Port Hope to the Northumberland Gallery and I got the email address of the manager. I emailed pictures to the manager of the gallery (who is currently on vacation in Florida) and she responded with interest.
                I also went on a limb and asked The Paper Place in Toronto on Queen St, to see if they would be willing to sell my pendants and they said they might be interested. Check out the Paper Places website at www.thepaperplace.ca. Be warned though you will get addicted to the paper. Sometimes I think I make jewelry just so that I can buy more Japanese Chiyogami paper.

            Jacqueline, a good friend of mine, took some pendants to Kelowna, BC with her to show them to some jewelry stores. She is also going to be looking in Vancouver for places to sell at. Fingers crossed that all these potential places will come through. Let me know if you think of any more places to sell the pendants.