Valentine's Cards for Classmates

This year I came up with a new idea for the annual Valentine's Day card exchanges for my girls' classmates. In years past we have bought Valentine's cards, but it always seems so impersonal. We've also made cards (with glue, doilies, colorful paper, etc), but my daughter is usually bored and/or frustrated by the third card and I end making all the cards. This year I had my 8-year-old draw out her designs with marker and artist crayons on 5.5" X 8" paper (a regular piece of paper, cut in half). For my 3-year-old, I drew hearts on the paper and had her color them. I scanned the artwork into the computer as JPEG files, cleaned up and added text (if needed) in Gimp and imported them into OpenOffice. I then resized them to fit 12 on a page (really easy, you just grab the "handles" and move to the correct size). I made them each approximately 2.5" X 3.5". I am printing them on card stock and cutting them apart with a box cutter. The girls will write names on the back. Handmade artwork without the "production line" frustration! (and of course, I had to get in on the act as well, I used stencils for the lettering on my "crossword" Valentine!)

Scrappy Little Nordic House Ornaments

As gifts for teachers. Based on this tutorial: Nordic House Ornaments by Orange Flower: Sketchbook - I used the templates for the roof, windows and doors. However, I wanted to make them look more whimsical (and, I was avoiding embroidery because time was an issue), so the final look is inspired by Tallgrass Prairie Studio's Little House Table Topper (a very loose interpretation!) I let the girls choose fabrics from my scraps (I pulled out reds, greens and whites to keep things simpler). Also, for my 3-year-old (who has 3 teachers) I gave her white backgrounds for her houses to prevent too much craziness!

Works in Progress - Charity

Right now most of my crafting revolves around some charity projects I have going. Above is a scarf I'm knitting for the Special Olympics. The principal at my daughter's school wants to donate a bunch from the school, so I thought I'd knit one (or two, if I'm lucky!).

Also working on cutting fleece for blankets for Project Linus. This is a Girl Scout project. Myself and one of the other leaders are cutting the fleece and the girls will do the tying.

Finally, I hope, hope, hope to be able to complete a few hats for the Mama To Mama Caps to Cap Haitien Project. I haven't started this yet, but will be looking for some colorful shirts from the thrift shop tomorrow. By all accounts, the hats sew up fast so I look forward to contributing a few (though there's not much time left...!)

Variations on a Leaf Craft

My 7-year-old was bored and demanded that someone suggest something fun to do (because, of course, most of my original suggestions involved chores). So I told her to go outside and gather some leaves. When she came in, I showed her and her 3-year-old sister how to do leaf rubbings with crayons on paper, as I had seen on this post on maya*made. (we skipped the watercolor part)

Well, little miss 3 didn't have much patience for this rubbing sort of craft, and soon settled on making something completely of her own imagination involving two of her very favorite activities in the whole entire world - gluing and cutting. She created quite the work of art, I believe. It had to be put in the window, too, just like big sister's leaf rubbings!

Quilt Month

It's Quilt Month at Mr. Monkeysuit. Coincidentally, I just started my very first quilt this month (although I've been planning to make one forever). I decided to start with a doll quilt so I can make all my mistakes on something small that I haven't committed too much emotional energy to. I actually plan to make three doll quilts, one for each of my daughters. Hopefully that will give me enough practice to start a real quilt (or, quilts - one for each of my daughter's beds!)

These first quilts will be made entirely from my "stash", and it's sort of a stretch calling my pile of fabric a "stash". I basically have fabric picked up from thrift stores and rummage sales - you know the bags of scraps for $1. Also, some vintage sheets and thrifted men's dress shirts. The quilt pictured below is made exclusively from men's shirts (the stripes) and vintage sheets (the florals). I have it pieced and basted into a "quilt sandwich" and I can't wait to finish it!

The book I'm using as my guide and teacher is: The Quilters Ultimate Visual Guide. I bought this book years ago when I first decided I wanted to start quilting. I noticed that it is listed in the Sew, Mama, Sew! Blog in their post Readers' Top 10 Favorite Quilting Books.

So far, I've loved every part of the process, even though I've made many mistakes. I'm glad I'm starting small with something that will be loved. It's so much more fun than making something "just for practice".