The Crafty Princess Diaries

Tammy Powley’s Crafty Weblog

April 17, 2011
by Tammy
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A Quiet Sunday and Awesome Craft Links

We are enjoying a quiet Sunday doing a little crafting, surfing the net, and of course, getting in a few zzzz’s.

About Family Crafts
Sherri helps you to plan a creative outdoor adventure!

Aileen’s Musings
Aileen shows you how she combines, Vintage sheet music, scrap paper, paper napkins and more to create a colorful background on a canvas!

Beading Arts
The final chapter of Cyndi’s e-book is now available! “Fibers, Fabrics, and Beads” challenges you to integrate all the fiber arts that you already love with your bead embroidery!

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
This week at Craftside we are pleased to introduce my UK counterpart Natalie who will be sharing all sorts of crafty goodness from her side of the pond. There is also a free hedgehog plushie pattern and tutorial, a recycled buckle bracelet, tips on how to photograph a horse, and info on Simplicity’s Great Bandana Quilt Challenge.

Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Learn how to dye Easter eggs naturally. Not everything needs to come from a kit or a mix!

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
See how to make a stitched back up broken heart card.

The Crochet Dude
Drew met his match when crochet’s Boye Toy is interviewed by quilting’s Bad Boy!

April 14, 2011
by Tammy
4 Comments

Last Craft Meeting of the Semester

The craft club I sponsor at school had its last meeting today. It was a BYOC theme, as in bring your own craft. The idea was that since we are wrapping things up for the semester, members could just bring a project they are working on and get some crafting time in on it. We had members knitting and crocheting on various items. I also brought some of our jewelry making supplies, and we strung up some beaded jewelry. The two hours zipped by!

Since summers are very slow on campus, in fact they even close campus on Fridays, we won’t be meeting over the summer semesters. Hopefully, though, we’ll pick up where we left off when school starts back up in the fall. We have some big plans already such as participating in a campus craft fair and making more items to donate to the needy. I also learned a lot this year about running the group, so I’ve got some ideas about how to organize ourselves a little differently in the fall.

April 12, 2011
by Tammy
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Stitches South This Weekend!

If you live in the Atlanta, Georgia area, you are so, so, so lucky because Stitches South 2011 is going on from April 14th through the 17th. You can download a list of classes as well as find out the where and exactly when on Knitting Universe Stitches South web site. This is really an event for knitters, but it also includes things like felting and bead knitting.

April 10, 2011
by Tammy
1 Comment

Chaos and Crafting Links

Here is one of the little monster kitties I recently adopted keeping me busy. One of the many things she has taught me over the past week is that everything is a toy. This includes the roll of paper towels I left in her room last night that someone blew up into a million tiny pieces. The actual toy next to her that is supposed to entertain her automatically as it rotates around lasted about 5minutes. It is much more fun when I play with her. I mean, other than filling her water dish (also a toy), her food bowl, and cleaning her cat boxes, that is my purpose, right?

Hopefully, once we get all four cats together in the next week or so, I will have more crafting time, which is what I consider my form of play. Until then, here are my weekly craft links, enjoy.

About Family Crafts
Get a start on your Easter crafting by making homemade Easter baskets!

Aileen’s Musings
Aileen shows you how to make an easy Easter basket cake that’s cute as can be!

Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi re-vamps a plain leather briefcase.

Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a free crochet pattern for Easter Bunny ears for your Amineko (or little plushie), a link to a super cute felted egg tutorial, a 1,000 Paper Graphics Call for Entries, how to use words to create an image, and a fun knit glasses photo.

Crafty Princess Diaries
Tammy has 4 good reasons why her crafting and blogging and life in general have been interrupted lately.

Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Make these darling lamb place card holders for Easter or any special spring dinner. So cute!
Mixed Media Artist

Cyndi has a copy of the wonderful new book Steel Wire Jewelry that she is just dying to give away!

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
A fun and easy crochet Easter Egg pattern.

April 8, 2011
by Tammy
2 Comments

Blue Baby Afghan Progress

So it’s not lightening speed. Since getting my new menagerie and trying to get them used to a new house, give meds, go to vet, etc., etc., and of course, keep up with grading papers for my “real” job, crafting has taken a back seat around here lately. However, I have moved onto the next type of yarn, which is called Baby Denim Marl. It is basically blue and white variegated (though it looks just like a lighter color of blue in the photo).

Originally when I showed the start of this afghan, I had decided to just do 12 inches of blue, 12 of the marl, and another 12 inches of blue, but after I got started I decided to change that a little. I’m going to do 5 stripes, around 7 inches each, 18 rows, alternating first with blue and then with the marl. So the first and last stripes will be solid blue.

This means it will be very, very close to 36×36 inches and be a little more complicated (not much more though) than my original idea. More than likely I will also trim around it. We’ll see.

April 3, 2011
by Tammy
0 comments

Great Weekly Craft Links

The Crochet Dude
Drew unveils an opportunity to unleash your inner crochet designer!

About Family Crafts
Kits are a great way to buy craft supplies and to try new craft techniques. Sherri shares some advice and tips to help you choose craft kits.

Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
How to make a painted dotted line greeting card.

Aileen’s Musings
Aileen re shares a fun and easy tutorial showing you how to colorize Vintage and black and white images.

Mixed Media Artist
Cyndi finished up one of the little fabric books that she’s been working on!

Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi showcases some new products from a Canadian trade show.

Craftside- A behind-the-scenes peek at our crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a recycled plastic stamped heart necklace tutorial, how to use research to spark your creativity and draw three-quarter and frontal vintage style portraits along with a fun way to use plates as a font in signage.

Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Eileen made a necklace and earring set using shells gathered on vacation and shares the how-tos.

March 30, 2011
by Tammy
5 Comments

Bartering for Baby Afghan

A good friend of mine offered to pay me to make a baby afghan for him that he wants to give to a couple he knows who is having their first child. This is the first time anyone has asked me to make something and offer to pay for it. I thought about it for awhile, and honestly, I have no idea how long it takes me to make items that I crochet. I do it because I like to, and I’m not that great at it, so it is probably best if I don’t time myself and try to figure out how fast I am (or more than likely how slow).

I didn’t feel right about selling, but I didn’t want to turn him down either. It’s not like I haven’t made a jillion baby afghans for total strangers. Why not make one for a friend? Then I realized I could barter for it instead, and this would relieve some of the pressure.

Pictured is what I’ve started so far. I’m planning on making it about 36×36 inches in shell stitch. I’m using Bernat Baby Softee in blue and white/blue variegated. I plan to do about 12 inches of solid blue, then 12 inches of variegated, and then another 12 of solid. Then I’ll trim it in variegated. That’s the plan at least. We’ll see how it goes.

I haven’t done shell stitch in a while, so this is a nice way to reintroduce myself to it. I forgot how much texture it creates, and because of the softee yarn, it’s nice and squishy feeling to boot.

March 29, 2011
by Tammy
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Blocking Crochet Baby Hats


During spring break, I am washing and blocking all the baby items my craft club made for Healthy Start, and then I will deliver them when we get back from the break. Pictured are a dozen hats. I wash them in Dreft baby detergent, and then place them on a big beach towel on the floor of our guest room to dry. This the one pet-free zone in our house, so that means they can safely sit there until they are dry, which in Florida does take a little time.

I have purchased a few bed comforters over the last few months and have saved the clear plastic cases they came in so that I can use them to store all of the baby items and deliver them blocked, clean, and ready to use.

March 28, 2011
by Tammy
5 Comments

Skimpy Powley 2011-1994

Today seems like a fitting day for all of the rain we are getting. We said good-bye yesterday to our little gray-boy cat, Skimpy. In May, he would have turned 18, and we are very grateful to have him with us for 17+ years.

He was a personality plus, plus kind of little guy. Even though he never weighed more than 8lbs, he was always the alpha cat in our home, bossing everyone around including his humans who were more than happy to serve him. He had a sassy demeanor, but he could turn on the purs and charm you instantly.

When I found him as a stray, I seriously thought the vet would suggest he be put down. He was about 3 months old and weight 1.9lbs at the time. He looked literally like a little rat. In fact, he looked so awful that I couldn’t bring myself to take photos of him at the time, but he rallied and eventually turned into a gorgeous cat with silken fur and a lean body, often mistaken for a pure Russian Blue for those who didn’t know his alley cat pedigree.

It is oddly quiet in the house today and strange to sit here and type without him next me, reaching out and pulling my hand off the keyboard so that I would pet him. He was a great office assistant and reminded me often that life is not all about work and we should play once and awhile and then enjoy a good nap.