Happy New Year! Welcome to 2012!!!!

Here's a clip from a movie that I think says everything you need to say.
Don't wait until you think you are about to die to live. Happy New Year. Make this the best year of your life!

More on my handmade Christmas ornaments!

I finished making 12 of the lovely crepe paper ornaments.  I used three colors, red, green and white.  I really like the way they turned out, but I tried to add glitter to the red ornaments and I don't much care for it.  I think I will have to remake  four new red ones and just leave them plain.

I started making new Santas from paperclay.  The ones I made a couple of years ago are flat.  These will be more dimensional.  I just started them the other day and am anxiously awaiting their drying.  Once they are totally dry, I will begin to paint them and add the ribbon legs with beads for his boots.  I can't wait to see them finished.

I loved the first batch of flat Santas, I will love this batch of 3-D Santas, too.

I'll post pictures as I work on them so you can see what I am doing.  So far, the only thing you need to make these is paperclay, paper clips, a wire cutting tool, a tool for making holes in the bottom to attach the legs, and some paint.  I intend to use dimensional paint to make the beard and mustache, as well as to decorate Santa's hat.  You will also need som thin ribbon for his legs. 

Here he is so far:

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• Beautiful Handmade Christmas Ornaments (craftjournal.wordpress.com)
• A Peek at the Tree Filled With Handmade Decorations (renakaylor.wordpress.com)
• Greeting Card Ornament (folkhaven.wordpress.com)
• Undead Holiday Decor - The Zombie Christmas Ornaments Make for a Very Scary Christmas (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)

Patriotic Pinwheel Wreath--a tutorial

Here's a fun and easy craft to try with your kids for the upcoming 4th of July holiday.  I found this tutorial on AllFreeHolidayCrafts.  Be sure to click on the link to get to a site for printable pinwheel papers!

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Patriotic Pinwheel Wreath

With little time and energy remaining, we still wanted to celebrate this 4th of July weekend somehow. So my wheels were turning and I came up with this simple craft to decorate our door. Here are the 6 supplies we used:

- 1 paper plate, center cut out, 1-inch rim remaining
- hole punch
- scissors
- 8 brass fasteners
- white printer paper
- red construction paper

We made 4 squares from one piece of red construction paper. I found a printable pinwheel template at the Family Fun website, and made pinwheels. We punched holes in each pinwheel, pushed brass fasteners through, and then attached them through 8 evenly-spaced holes I had punched around the plate. Voila--a patriotic pinwheel wreath!

This idea was featured at Tip Junkie in May of  2010 and is also linked to:

Posted by Aiming4Simple at 2:29 PM

Related articles

• Pinwheel Banner (organizeyourstuffnow.com)
• Here's a quick craft for a fun 4th of July! (artisticdivasworld.com)

I finished the Easter Swag

Well, I finished, but I have to say I am less than impressed.  I think I just got tired of it and stopped.  Anyway, below is a picture.  I'm taking it to my unit tomorrow and putting it up so at least there will be some evidence that Easter is this weekend for my patients.

If I make this again, I will make the figures larger and probably stuff them lightly with fiberfill before attaching them to the ribbon.  I wish I had more time, I would have loved to decorate the Easter eggs and put blanket stitching around the figures to "pop" them out.

Live and learn.  On to the next project.  Mother's Day is coming.  I don't think I will make anything for this holiday.  But, maybe some paper flowers in a vase set around the unit would be nice.

Anyway, here is the picture of the completed swag:

Still working on Easter decorations

Although I am still working feverishly on my own Easter Swags for the windows in my nurses' station at work, I don't have any new pictures because I split the cutting out of my figures with my friend, Bethany.  She is going to help me because I need so many figures to make a swag for each window.

Because I don't have anything new on my swag, I thought I would post this tutorial from Dana-made-it.com.  She has many wonderful tutorials on her site, so please visit and let her know that I sent you.

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7.01.2008

TUTORIAL: PEEPS Bunny Bunting and Door Hangers

Ready for Easter?
If you've got a Sunday morning brunch up your sleeve.....
Don't forget the PEEPS!
Nothing says Easter like a bunch of colorful bunnies.
And since buntings are festive any time of the year, I took a spin on the traditional flag look and mimicked a childhood favorite in our family.....Marshmallow Peeps.
Pick your favorite Peeps color (or make up your own!) and find a similar FELT color at your local craft store. Then, keep it super simple with Bunny Door Hangers:
or really give-in to your sweet tooth.....
And let's get bunting!

Skill Level: Any
Needed:
* 1/2 yard or less of felt (doesn't need to be anything fancy)
* brown fabric paint
* pencil (or other round object)
* ribbon/fabric for bunting
* sewing machine

First, cut out your pattern. I've created one here for you. If you don't have a printer, just put a piece of paper up to your computer screen and trace the image right on top!
or.....

You can copy the Bunny Bunting Pattern TWO ways:
1. Click on the image below to enlarge. Then "save as" to you computer. Open it in a Word doc and insert the picture so you can adjust the size for your needs.

2. Grab the PDF pic by clicking HERE.

Okay, with your bunny pattern printed and cut out (I usually print on paper and then trace/cut an additional pattern out of cardstock or from a file folder. MUCH easier to trace around a stiffer bunny over and over again).

Fold your felt in half (because each bunny is a double-layer). You can make them single layered if you want the cheap/easy way. But it's less polished looking and a bit see-through. So I recommend double-layers.
Then trace and cut out as many bunnies as you'd like. The pink bunting has 18 bunnies. The small yellow bunting has 9:
Time to decorate their faces. You'll only be decorating the front bunnies (the back bunnies are left plain). You'll need a pencil eraser or something round. And brown fabric paint. I prefer Tulip brand, Matte, Chocolate. Its cheap, $1.50 at most craft stores.
Dip your pencil eraser in the paint, and dab it right onto each bunny. The beauty of Peeps is that they're far from perfect. If you look at a box, each face is slightly different. So don't worry about being precise or even symmetrical! If you want them to look like the real Peeps, space their eyes very far apart. It will feel strange. But their eyes are far apart and their nose if very high-up, close to the eyes. Look at the photos above of the real peeps for reference.

Make sure you place a piece of paper under your bunny because paint may seep through to the back.
Starting to see a resemblance......?
Let your bunnies dry for a hour or longer. If you're antsy, you can speed up the process by drying them with a blow dryer, but be careful that they don't fly all over the place!

While you're waiting for the faces to dry, prep your bunting ribbon. You can use fabric, ribbon, rope, colorful twine (THIS stuff is totally cute). My favorite method for making "ribbon" is to cut strips of fabric (I used double-layered white muslin in this case), sew the strips together to make a very long strip, and then I serge the edges. Perfect for wrapping gifts and in this case, for making a bunting. Each finished "ribbon" is about 100 inches long but that was much longer than needed.
Time to sew on your bunnies.
If you want the quick and easy way, grab a bunny back and a bunny front and sew that double-layered bunny to your ribbon and keep on going till you're bunnied out.

But if you want the slightly longer method that I did (it only took a bit longer)...
I sewed each bunny back on to the ribbon while the faces were drying. Just lay one down and sew across the ears:
Then grab the next bunny back and repeat:
Sewing the backs on first makes the bunting a bit stronger, the bunnies are likely to be straighter, and it's more polished looking. After sewing the back bunnies on by their ears, you sew the front bunnies on top, sewing an outline around each one.

(Okay, okay...so I was just bored and couldn't wait to get started while those blasted faces were drying! Either method you use, your bunnies will look great.)
Here's where I laid the front bunnies on top of the back bunnies and sewed all the way around each one. Repeat this step till all your bunnies are on!
and, you're done!
Enjoy your party!

Try your buntings in vibrant colors also. Makes me want to throw confetti and eat cupcakes:
Or make Bunny Door Hangers! Perfect gift for a teacher or friend:
Just add a metal Eyelet to the ear and a cute homemade ribbon (if you're not sure how to do Eyelets, they are super easy. Check out the Split Pea Shamrocks Tutorial for all the info):
And hang them up!
Happy Easter!

Progress so far!

I am actively working on this Easter swag.  I measured the windows at work and I will be making these things forever if I make enough to swag each window.  Oh, well.  It will look pretty when I am done.

Here's pics of my current activity on this project:

Notice that I still have not gotten to the Easter Eggs themselves.  I really like the way these are going to turn out.  I think each window will have 2 baby chicks, 2 rabbits, and an Easter Egg.  So, I need to be cutting more out if I plan to cover 20 windows!!!

I've started working on my Easter swag

Since I need to get started on my Easter swag because time is short and I need quite a length of final swag, I decided to get right on it.

Here are some of the sketches I made for the individual figures of the swag.  As I said before, I want to have bunnies, chicks, and easter eggs all sewn together in pastel colors. 

With that in mind, I went to JoAnn's and brought back some pastel and bright felt squares to use to make my figures. 

I