Craft Face Lift

There is no shame in the fact that a lot of things in our daily lives need a little craft face lift. In fact my husband and I are thinking about moving into a lovely old Victorian apartment that will need a major craft face lift, if we do this blog may change a bit.
These days the word up-cycling is a over the place but really in my mothers day it was giving love to an otherwise ugly or old object.
And so in that spirit I gave a bit of a craft face lift to this lovely little box. Please excuse me for not remembering to take a picture of it's before but here it is after. I used odd paper I had around and plain white glue. My sister sent me some lovely scrapes years ago of paper from Japan. They were the scrapes from squaring handmade paper. I gave the whole thing a coat of clear water based varnish and here is the result!

Starting 2010 Off Right

Somehow I my new job, which I love, has boxed me in a bit. I was given a cubicle which I am learning to live with, partially by holding onto my old desk and ignoring the small desk attached to it and partially through putting good things up on the walls.
One of those good things is this lovely calendar made by storybymia on etsy. Every time I look at it I smile, so things can't be that bad. :)

Bluebell's New Home

Ms. Bluebell got a new home. I guess we don't drink that much milk because waiting for us to finish the next milk carton was going to take to long. Instead Bluebell is now snug as a bug in rug in her new juice box ipod case. Instead of sewing I used industrial glue and I solved my hatred of sewing elastic by adding a small piece of Velcro to the back. If you have ever tried to sew elastic, bless you- I hate it. All the properties that make elastic so good are what makes sewing it so bad. Bless the inventors of Velcro!

Baby Got a New I-pod for the Holidays

My super guy got me a brand new ipod for x-mass. I call her Bluebell, you know cause she is pretty and blue. She also hold 16 GB which means no more massive editing of albums. (For those of you who know my guy, I am pretty sure that I was given bluebell because he was tired of my music selection in the car)
Those clever folks at apple keep us crafters on our toes by always changing dimensions just enough so you have to rethink the whole case thing. I was planning on crocheting a new case but Bluebell is slightly rounded and has a wide screen which makes placing the cross ties hard. So it was time to get creative with a milk carton. This is just my first attempt, I have plans for bigger and better things. But for now it is two ply of milk carton sewn together with elastic to hold it in place. This won't last long because the position of the headphone jack makes it hard to keep it in place and have it the wheel accessible. But fear not more is to come. After all there is a three day weekend.

Baby Surprise II

I am one of those people who needs to do things twice to feel like I really understand how to do it. So meet baby suprise jacket #2. I admit I wiped it out right after finishing number 1 but I still haven't sewn it together. Why aren't there little sewing elves that come to my apartment in the middle of the night and sew in ends?
The first jacket taught me a lot about the shape and style and it reminded me that I really do hate sewing in ends! So I went more basic on the second one with two colors and I found these great buttons to go with it's woodland theme.
The goal, which I expect you all to hold me to this weekend is that I finish sewing in the end and get this puppy in the mail to baby Ezra. He is now 2 months old and this jacket has a limited time frame.

Holiday Goodness

I must explain, I took many, many, really just a ton of photo's of things I have been doing over the past month. But with a new job and the holidays things weren't really making it to posts. So Last night in a fit of organization I managed to download all my photo's and you will now be bombarded with posts. So enjoy them- and I promise to try to be better about downloading my camera more often.
This lovely bit of holiday cheer was my handmade gift of choice to friends and co-workers this year. It is lavender scented bath salts with a little lavender added in to make it purdy.

To make your own:
One cup salt (sea salt works well)
add 5-6 drops of essential oil and mix, add a few more drops if it seems like it needs it- but try not to go over board.
Put in some sort of yummy container.

A note about the container. I don't know about all of you but I am alway reading magizines where they claim that you can go out and get these containeers for no money at all at your local junk shop. And the city kitten that I am always wonders where these folks live that they have access to these junk shops. Well over October my guy and I went upstate to visit some friends that took us their favorite junk shop where I got a box load of these old canning jars for $10. It was a true score.

Winter tote

After finally getting my craft area cleaned up I was able to sit down and sew a bag I had cut out last summer. It has a lovely internal pocket and I feel like I have figured out the internal lining and pockets! I admit there was some grumbling about getting it sewn in the right direction and my trusty seam cutter came out.



New York is awful cold right now and this bag says summer to me. I can't wait to fill it with sun screen and trashy books and head to a warm summer day at the beach.