February 8, 2011
by Tammy
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Here are some of the Valentine cards my craft club made. So far, we’ve done pretty well with sales. In fact, I think the whole card making thing is going to be a permanent fundraiser idea for us. They heart pins and slides have been so-so sellers, so we may not repeat those. Plus, members seems to really like making the cards. I think the crocheted hearts were a little more work than some of them had anticipated. Well, one more week, and we’ll see what the total will be at the end.
February 6, 2011
by Tammy
1 Comment
About Family Crafts
Check out what item is chosen for this week’s spotlight craft and play along.
Aileen’s Musings
Aileen is participating in One World One Heart again and offers you a chance to win a door prize if you leave a comment.
Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a knit gingham pattern, tutorials on how to paint a reverse image on Mylar and shade an object and info on Traci Bunkers’ 30 days of carving stamps.
Cross Stitch at About.com
Looking for charts for holiday and special days for February? Connie has just what you need in her February Stitching Ideas with charts for Valentine’s, Candlemas, Chinese New Year, Hari-Kuyou and more.
Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Here’s a peek behind the scenes as The Artful Crafter debuts on Creative Mojo with Mark Lipinski.
Mixed Media Artist
See what you can make with some super-easy reverse applique quilt squares!
Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi showcases the fabulous paper dress from DCWV at CHA.
February 1, 2011
by Tammy
2 Comments
At our most recent craft club meeting, we gave the yarn and hooks a rest and concentrated on paper-arts, as in making fabulous looking Valentine’s Day cards. We stamp, glued, punched, cut, tore, and had a great time. We ended up making about 50 cards, all of which we will sell on campus as a way to earn some money for more crafting supplies.
The mission of the club is to teach members various crafting skills and then use these skills to make items to donate to charity. Though this is a noble goal, we need to create sustainability so we can pay for all this stuff we plan to make. Fundraisers like this might be part of the solution, and I’m pretty confident that we will be able to sell the cards fairly easily. We are charging $2.00 each, and considering that the average card in a store costs at least that much and is not hand-made, we are offering a pretty good deal.
January 30, 2011
by Tammy
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Cross Stitch at About.com
Pick up a free romantic design to stitch for Valentine’s Day or a wedding or anniversary.
Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Eileen has some tips – learned from painful personal experience – about how to take care of your muse.
Mixed Media Artist
Have you tried reverse applique? It’s a lot easier than you might think!
About Family Crafts
If you are looking for an almost instant Valentine’s Day craft or activity, check out these free Valentine’s Day printable pages.
Aileen’s Musings
Looking for some freebie Vintage images, Aileen has some ready for you to download and use in your art projects.
Carmi’s Art/Life World
Free card making samples in a UK publication inspire this new 3D card featuring Popcorn the Bear.
Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a free CD envelope template with spinner windows, Valentine heart made with skulls graphic downloads, a sneak peek into the new book Drawn In, formulas for designing your own bead patterns, and the author Make and Take schedule for the CHA winter 2011 trade show.
January 29, 2011
by Tammy
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I have not had time to do any amigurumi lately. When I crochet these days, the project is usually for a charity or a gift, and I don’t know many people to gift amigurumi to. However, I’m still in love with this technique.
I was surfing around on the Ravelry forums today and found a link to some wonderful crochet and amigurumi videos over at Fresh Stitches. She covers everything from how to attach the yarn to a crochet hook to how to stitch the parts of an amigurumi together. These are great resources for crochet newbies or anyone who has wanted to try amigurumi but wasn’t sure about how to handle some of the details.
January 27, 2011
by Tammy
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My V-stitch afghan is finished! It ended up being 28 x 29 inches. The pattern has the size at 28×30, so I probably messed up on the gauge some where. I’m not a swatcher, especially when it comes to something that doesn’t have to fit anyone perfectly. If I make more of these, though, I will try to make it more closer to 30×30. The original pattern called for cotton-ease and a K hook, and I used a K hook and Vanna’s Choice Baby. Both yarns are 4-ply.
This is definitely a good beginning level project because you basically just need to chain, single crochet, and double crochet. The picot stitch around the afghan also looks really nice. This took less than 2 skeins (3.50 oz or 170 yards), and since I got them on sale for $2.50 each, the cost works out to be less than $5. I’m putting this away to give to Healthy Start in a few months.
January 24, 2011
by Tammy
5 Comments
Some of the items we hope to make and sell for our craft club’s fun raiser are heart pins and clips. I found a great pattern for crocheted hearts at Planet M Files, received the okay from the designer to use her pattern and sell the finished hearts, and have been making them like crazy lately. My original ideas was that members could bring glue guns to one of our meetings and glue on the pin backs and clips.
Luckily, it occurred to me that I should double check how glue gun glue worked with yarn because, well, it doesn’t! The glue just does not stick! Crap-o-la! As I said, I was lucky only because I thought to test this out before I had members show up with their guns ready.
Glue test number two included tacky glue, an old favorite of mine. It does work, but you have to wait awhile for the glue to totally dry. I was hoping with the glue guns we would have instant stickiness.
Glue test number three was with super glue, which I invariably always get all over myself for some reason. Super glue was also successful, but again, it’s not an instant stick. Either way, with tacky or super glue, we will have to allow the glue to totally set before we can start selling our pins.
I’m now gluing some pins on my own so we at least have some to get started when our fund raiser kicks off in a few days. Then by the time we sell this fist batch, the next should be dry and ready to go.
January 23, 2011
by Tammy
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Stefanie Girard’s Sweater Surgery
See how to make a flattened coil and recycled sweater bound journal inspired by the book Creative Bloom.
About Family Crafts
The current make-it-over craft challenge is all about making Valentine card and treat holders. Do you have a favorite to share?
Mixed Media Artist
Give your photos a delightful old-fashioned look, while still keeping the color!
Aileen’s Musings
Aileen has a new product announcement and giveaway!
Margot Potter The Impatient Crafter
Learn how to make custom handcrafted ear wires in this week’s video on demand for JTV’s Jewel School!
Carmi’s Art/Life World
Carmi uses some free digital files to create new cards.
Eileen – The Artful Crafter
Have you ever crafted by camplight? Come on a crafting adventure with Eileen.
Craftside-A behind-the-scenes peek at a crafty world
This week at Craftside there is a tutorial on how to make recycled tape measure bracelets, using portmanteaus in your designs, vampire legends from a bunch of countries, Squam registration info and how to draw cute and crafty ladies such as you might be.
Cross Stitch at About.com
The road to success is not an easy path, but the journey is certainly worth it. Stitch the free Road to Success Sampler as a colorful reminder.
January 22, 2011
by Tammy
0 comments
A new semester meant a new meeting, and I was relieved to see some old faces as well as some new ones at our first meeting of the semester. We meet for two hours, and members were able to come and go during that time, but at one point, I counted 15 people in the room. About half were new, so the other half was busy showing them how to crochet.
Right now, we have a total of about 14 squares, so considering we need 9 squares to make one baby afghan, we are looking pretty good. Next step is to start organizing them and connecting the squares together.
Some of the students from last semester are eager now to try something other than a square, so we may be approaching baby hats soon. I’m curious to see how they react to working in the round.
Our next meeting will be a little less crochet, however, so it may be awhile before we tackle the hats. We plan to have a Valentine’s fund raiser and sell hand-made cards and heart pins. I’m hoping this will bring back some previous members how may have gotten a little overwhelmed with crochet. Card making will be a nice instant gratification activity for a change.
January 19, 2011
by Tammy
1 Comment
I sold a few things in my Etsy shop recently (yeah!), so I thought that plus the fact that Valentine’s is on the way required that I do a little shopping myself. I have had the pictured Earthenwood Studios heart pendant for some time, and I thought since my mom now makes jewelry, she might like one too. So I got her one in jet and white (versus pewter and white, which is what I have). I thought that would make a neat little Valentine’s gift for her.
Then I headed over to Earthenwood’s Etsy shop and got a cute little pendant from her Afternoon Tea collection. Now I’m wondering, though, how I missed her new crackled heart pendants. Those look pretty cool too!