Sewing for love

Lips pillows to sewing

Holiday decor

Felt heart

Making pompom toys

Pompom accessories
 

Fabric Corsage tutorial

People seem to like my fabric corsages so here is another one of them. This project is ideal if you have loads of little scraps or Chindis of fabrics and some time in your hands.It might not be as grand as required for prom but it would definitely make a quick and quirky gift for your girls.
Materials Required
- Fabric scraps ( I have used 4 different fabrics in blue and green)
- A center bead or pearl
- 2 silver end beads and 2 daisy or triangular spacers
- Satin ribbon - two 6" pieces
- Scissors, matching thread and needle

Fragrant and Lovely Pomanders: The Perfect Winter Centerpiece (For Tu B'Shevat)

These gorgeous pomanders are an amazing winter project! They'll fill your home with the most delicious aroma of orange-scented cloves and you can make them without a huge investment of time. Sit down with the kids, or a friend, and make some together, that's what I did! Even my 4.5 year old had great success with this project, with Mom only filling in a few holes at the end.
As far as displaying your works of art, well traditionally pomanders were hung, which you can certainly choose to do, or why not display them individually atop candlesticks and placed in footed goblets. Or how about making a whole bunch and filling a cupcake stand for a special occasion. Wow!
You'll Need:

• oranges(or any citrus fruit except tangerines and mandarine oranges, their skin is too thin)
• whole cloves (make sure you have enough, at least 2 grocery store spice containers full, you don't want to run out mid project!)
• star anise for a beautiful accent (optional, probably only available in a specialty  spice shop)
• ribbon— either gorgeous metallic for an elegant look, or colorful for a more festive look
• tape — either electric tape or masking tape, in a few widths, or cut tape to desired width

Paper Party Decorations : Perfect For The Succah!

Aren't these cute? I sat down at my dining room table with a bunch of colored circles, and this is one of the festive ideas I came up with. If your Succah generally leans on the elegant side (like mine, actually) , so these decorations would look great in neutral contrasting colors too! Imagine creme and gold? Pastel blue and creme?
This week will be packed with lots of fun ideas using mostly paper and glue. So don't panic there's still plenty of time to make wonderful things for your Succah, just make sure to have the necessary supplies on hand! The main thing is to get going now. I'll be starting with the slightly more complicated ideas at the beginning of the week, with several posts each day, and ending with simpler and quicker ideas at the end, when you may be starting to feel the pinch. Take my advice, decorate first and cook later, or don't take my advice. But somehow the cooking always gets done whereas the decorations might not? A beautiful handcrafted Succah is a very important part of our enjoyment of the seven day holiday, so I hope to follow my own advice so as not to stay up the night before hanging decorations!

Pom-Pom Tutorial

This is a tutorial for making pom-poms using your
fingers. This one is a small, two-finger pom-pom
(about 1" in diameter) but you can make bigger ones
by using more fingers. As far as yarn choice, thinner
and softer yarn will make a more pleasing pom-pom.

easy frost

so here comes my second blog post of the day (yes yes, I posted twice today, don't ask why). Today's activity in our calendar was making frosted looking tea light holders. Sounds difficult but it could be easier. What you need is : glass containers (we used glass jars that were previously yoghurt pots), one egg white, and white caster sugar. (I had to borrow some from my mom as we only use organic blonde sugar in this house).

Diy: nature wreaths

This is my favorite kind of crafting: mixing natural materials with recycled ones. We have tons of pine trees of all different varieties. Cones are bountiful, but you have to get them early on in the season or the squirrels will gnaw them to bits. Weeks ago I gathered bunches along with some dried pods. I had free and easy wreaths on my mind. We finally got to them last week and I'd love to share how they're made because who doesn't like a simple (and did I mention free?) project that looks lovely, too.

Spiders

My friend Liz's little boy turned 2 on Halloween! I mentioned the spider I made for his spidery themed birthday party and here is is! I'm so smitten with this little guy! He was kind of inspired by Ann Wood's wire-legged spiders, which are so fantastic!

 

Sweet Shoppe Ornament Set

I'm excited to announce one of my newest designs from my Make New . Each pattern comes with complete instructions to make 3 different sweet treats that can be made from repurposed felted wool sweaters, craft felt, or a combination of both.

Make This: Child's Sewing Kit Tutorial (with pincushion & needle book)

Hey everyone. I'm back. I didn't forget and look the wrong way when crossing the street in London and find myself smooshed beneath the wheels of some impossibly tiny European car. Nor did I find myself among the ranks of bloggers who start a blog and have a good thing going only to suddenly disappear forever, as if abducted in the night by some paramilitary group or something. Really, all that happened was that this damn tutorial was a bit more complicated than expected and I meant to work on it on the plane but then I forgot the sheet that had my measurements for the pattern on it so I couldn't work on it then and instead I have been putting it together this past weekend in fits and starts between birthday parties and cookouts and work on the garden and just watching Beeper splash maniacally around in his new kiddie pool while I eat fruit popsicles. But, it is done. Hallelujah.

One paper zine

Creating your very own zine  from one sheet of paper...

Make This: Monster Slime (and about Beeper's Birthday)

So, no reptiles this year for Beeper's birthday--just monsters.  Which I could totally deal with because I love monsters and always have since I was a little girl (insight into my geeky 12-year-old self: I created a wall-sized monster mural as my 6th grade project).  And I daresay monsters have really found their place in pop culture, between UglyDolls and Percy Jackson and the movie Monsters, so inspiration is not so hard to find if you just do a bit of searching.  Here's what we came up with...

Mini zine

ah, not mine !! but my boys' !! For today's activity was creating a mini zine.

now our home is really ready for the holidays, I have received today handmade eco friendly ornaments made by my friend Lisa.

I hope your middle of the week was not too tough, or even better if possible, a good one.

thank you so much for stopping by

Spirals and whimsy

Newspaper is one of my favorite materials to create with. It's readily available for free (check out any cafe at closing time), it's versatile, and its typography give everything an instant graphic sensibility. Knowing of this fondness, my husband brought home the above trivet a couple of months ago. Artisans from the Women's Multipurpose Coop in the Philippines made this amazing hot plate out of coils of newspaper. It has not moved from the center of our dining room table. I love it and find myself staring at the spirals as we eat, talk, and create. You can buy your own here: Ten Thousand Villages. Last night, as we were clearing the table, I found that I could not look at the spirals for another minute without trying it myself. I grabbed a sheet of newspaper and started rolling it to create a coil.