Christmas Crafts Revealed! Part I

Hey Y'all~
I'm so excited to finally get to share some of this with you! So much sewing & embroidery these last couple of months, and all of it top secret... until now! Now that the gifts have been delivered, the holiday habaloo has calmed and the tree is dow... (well, let's be honest, the tree is still very much up. But Sean is on swing shift this week, so tomorrow, instead of chatting with you all, I'll be packing ornaments)... it's time for show & tell!

I vowed (to myself) to make all my Christmas gifts this year, and I actually did it! Is it possible to ruin your eyes in the course of a month? I don't know, but I can't find my glasses which hasn't ever been much of a bugger, but lately, whew... I need those puppies! I gotta find 'em.

Sew! On with the pictures I say! First up are some little goodies I stitched up (I love it when Paulette says it like that!) for some of the girls in my book club. These are magnetic bookmarks, my favorite kind. A simple solution to a dastardly problem for book lovers everywhere... the dreaded slipping bookmark! This bookmark folds over the top of a page to hold your place, and never slides out because there's a magnet on each side of the paper. These were fun and turned out better than I'd hoped.

First, I embroidered each of their monograms.

(Look at Butch back there lying on his bed. He looks positively thrilled about me spending the afternoon embroidering, doesn't he?)

Then I cut the monograms out and sewed them to the fabric that I used for the outside of the bookmarks. I wanted something bright & cheery since I used chocolate brown for the monogram background. I chose a lime green (the picture doesn't do it justice) with white, five-petal flowers. Cute! I wavered quite a bit on this, if you had seen me in JoAnn's you'd have thought I was debating the repercussions of nuclear war... sheesh.

Next I sprayed the backside of some sturdy, spare scrap booking paper with aerosol adhesive, carefully laid the fabric down over the sticky glue, sewed around the edges in a contrasting thread (hot pink), then finished the edges with pinking sheers, that way the fabric and the paper were the identical size. Voila, a dinglehopper! Oh, sorry... Little Mermaid flashback.

At first I thought these would be totally made from fabric, but it just wasn't feasible. The magnets I bought would have been too thick if actually sewn in, so I improvised with magnetic tape that I already had on hand, you know the kind that comes on a roll? Yeah, I'm guessing it had been in that roll for about 10 years, the curl was rather tight. After super gluing the magnets down, I had to squash them overnight with a big, fat stack of albums... no, not picture albums, records! Those things are heavy!! And to think... we had to go turn them over and set a needle down every 20ish minutes to listen to music, talk about buzz kill... and no jumping either or the needle would skip! Crap, I'm getting off track, just let me say Lordy, do I love my iPod. Constant shuffle, baby!

This was the first one I finished, my little experiment. I gave this one to my mom. She digs it. I didn't get any good pictures of the others up close... but here you can get a good idea of how these work. They are terrific I tell you. Make one up, you'll see. You could make these in a million different styles. I should have made one for myself...huff.

Next up in show & tell, some thingies for my newest sweet, sweet niecy-poo, Ava. Ava is my brothers daughter. She is 8 months old, and super cute! She surprised us when she was born 7 weeks early, only 3lbs. 2oz! She's still a wee little thing, but perfect in every way! She's just starting to wear 6 Month size clothes, darn she's cute... look!

Ava is starting to put everything she can reach into her mouth, so I wanted to make something soft and cute but durable. I had a trillion ideas, but settled on a plush Mary Englbreit book called A Merry Little Christmas. I know these are pretty common, but I'd never made one. I definitely see the appeal; fast, inexpensive and relatively easy. I think I'll be making her another one for her birthday. I bought the panel to make this book on eBay for $5 including shipping (score!). I chose this project because I knew she'd be gnawing on it, and I thought the sewing machine could make stronger, more secure stitches than me. If something were to come loose... oh, I shudder at the thought... On with the cuteness!

To make it special and just for her, I did a little bit of embroidery on the name plate on back.

 I also embellished a trio of onsies for her (more for her mom & dad actually). These were fast & fun! Much more like playing really, I enjoyed doing these and can't wait to do some more. I'm a little worried about how they'll hold up in the wash though. Some of the felts I've been finding are darn thin. I advised Sis to hand wash in cold with Woolite... I hated to do that, to give her garments that have to be washed special... I've seen how fast laundry piles up with a baby, I didn't want to add to her burden, but she said she didn't mind because they were so cute (*blush!*). Any advice on what I shoulda or could use in the future? Wool maybe?? I'm perplexed.

A cute lil cupcake!

(Sorry for the fuzzy picture. My camera is acting so weird lately, like the flash is malfunctioning... I might need to nab Sean's new one soon...)

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

Puddin' Pie (her daddy's favorite)

Had enough?? Muahahaaa... There's lots more where these came from! I have tons more to share, but I think I'll break it up into different blog-i-sodes :) I'll try to post again tomorrow. I've love to hear what you all think, and I honestly can't wait to see what you've been up to! The blogi-hood has been jam packed lately with everyone’screativity, I loves it!

Toodles!
Lisa