Month: December 2012

It does seem strange and almost wrong somehow to carry on with silly craft blogging when we are all so sad about Newtown, Conn. But maybe like me, you’d like a break from crying at your desk, in your car, etc. etc.? I’m sure it will wear off, but in addition to extra appreciation for my family these last few days, I’ve found myself oddly overwhelmed with gratitude for the kindness of strangers, however small. Maybe this whole thing just has made me feel fragile… but I swear, I wanted to HUG the nice lady at Home Depot who helped me find a lightbulb on Saturday. Or the store clerk at CVS who helpfully found a rubber band to wrap around the posterboard I was buying last night.

Anyway, I still have lots of Christmas crafting to wrap up, including a never-ending knitting project that may or may not end up under the tree still on the needles. Good thing our winters are long here.

But, I did finish up this batch of Snap Trap wallets, most of which went to my cousin’s four daughters when we saw them at a Christmas party a few weekends ago. I’ve wanted to try this pattern at Just Another Hang Up for a while, and it turned out to be a great one! I made some minor adjustments because the measuring tape I was using for the “snap” part was more narrow than the one used in the tutorial. (The yellow wallet on top was the first one I made, so I ended up tweaking it to fix it, which is why it is a bit smaller than the rest).

Who doesn’t think of David Cassidy at Christmastime? What? Just me?

Let me explain: When I was growing up, my family had a handful of Christmas records that were in heavy rotation on our old turntable. The group included a 1972 Partridge Family album featuring then-teen-heartthrob David Cassidy. So, as I recently wrote in my latest AP craft story, I will always associate Christmas with him.

A few years ago, my father-in-law helped me transfer that record and a few others to CDs, which now have been transferred to my computer and iPod. It’s great … I actually LIKE the scratchy record sound at the beginning of each album and in between songs. It takes me right back to my childhood. But for years, I’ve also wanted to do something with the album artwork on the old records, and last week, I finally got around to it.

I turned the record albums into coasters (detailed instructions are in my article) by photographing the covers (they were too big to fit in my scanner), reducing the images and printing them on photo paper. I then stuck them on inexpensive (15 cents each) tiles).

Now, I know there are many, many online tutorials that use Mod Podge to glue images to tiles and seal them. But I also read a lot of comments from people who said the Mod Podge doesn’t hold up well to moisture or heat. And frankly, I find it messy and difficult to use without getting wrinkles/air bubbles or obvious brush strokes. So I used a strong adhesive to glue my images to the tile, and several coats of Rustoleum Crystal Clear Enamel to seal them. I haven’t tried putting a hot mug on them yet, but I will in the next few days and will report back.

Update: I used one of the coasters with my morning coffee, it held up great! The finish doesn’t look damaged at all, and the mug did not stick to the coaster.

While I was feeling nostalgic, I also finished another project that has been in the back of my head for years: doing something with my old Christmas books, specifically my a Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman Little Golden Books. I love the old fashioned illustrations and wanted to display them, so I scanned the covers and a few inside pages, printed the images and glued them to cheap 8X10 canvases. (Instructions also in the article linked above). I love how they came out. They look great in my living room, which has been a challenge to decorate given the blue/gray color scheme.

I got my mom a Nook last year as a combined birthday/Christmas gift. And while I’m not sure how much she actually uses it, I’ve tried to encourage her by getting her Barnes and Nobles gift cards or ebooks as gifts. But those can be kind of boring to open, so for her birthday a few weeks ago, I decided to make her a hot water bottle cozy to go with the ebooks, as in “curl up with a good book on a cold winter night.” I printed pictures of the books I was giving her and packaged them with the cover like this:

My first plan was to knit the water bottle cover, but I didn’t have time. Then I remembered I have a few felted wool sweaters, so I used one of those instead. My sweater was probably a bit too thick … it was a little hard to sew. But overall, it was a cute, fast project.

I followed the instructions at The Flying Quiche, except I added an opening at the back to make it easier to get the cover on and off.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by for my giveaway, and for all the great teacher gift suggestions! I need to come up with something pretty soon… my son’s last day of school is Dec. 19 … I think it is a bit ridiculous that he is off for five days BEFORE Christmas! Anyway… the random.org random number generator picked number 26, so the winner is Maureen, who said:

“I would be so excited to win these as I do live in a cold climate (NY) and I also suffer from Raynoud’s Syndrome so I really have a problem with cold on my hands and feet especially. Thanks so much for offering this wonderful giveaway, it is generous of you to participate and give us a chance to win.Have a wonderful Christmas”

Maureen, I’ll e-mail you to get your address!

In other news, I’ve had an extremely productive week off from work. Like last year, I had to use up some vacation/personal days before the end of the year. I’ve been busy sewing, knitting, baking, painting, cutting, glueing … and a bit of shopping 🙂 I still have a few more projects to do, but I’m hoping to get most of them done this week.

One of my projects was a set of cute Christmas pillowcases for my co-worker’s daughters, who are 5 and 7. This is a great gift particularly if you will see the recipient before Christmas (I don’t think it would seem too special to get a Christmas-y pillowcase on Christmas day or later…) In this case, it’s perfect because our work party is tonight. I’ve had the red fabric for years, and the white is leftover from the curtains I made for our cabin. I used the tutorial I wrote a few years ago for AP (you can find a link on my tutorial page), with one tiny change. (I made the contrasting trim a bit narrower). And I added their names using iron-on flocked vinyl cut with my Silhouette machine.

Welcome and Happy Holly-days! For the wonderful Giveaway Day at Sew, Mama, Sew!, I am offering a set of “his and hers” neck and pocket warmers! The neck warmers/gaiters are made of a double layer of fleece. They both are reversible to a neutral gray, and they’re a great alternative to scarves. Very warm, and no worry about getting tangled. The pocket warmers have removable fleece covers, which should be taken off before popping the pocket warmers into the microwave (30 seconds or so is plenty). Now, I realize some of you may live in warmer climates where such things are unnecessary, but perhaps you have far-flung friends and relatives who could use these? I will wrap them up in coordinating ribbon for easy gift-giving.

Just leave a comment below. Anything will do. But if you feel chatty, I’d love to hear any ideas you have for a teacher’s gift for a male teacher. The purse/wristlets I made for last year’s teacher is not going to cut it this year!

And if you don’t win, you can check my tutorials on how to make your own!  The pocket warmer tutorial is HERE. You can find the neck gaiter tutorial by clicking on the “tutorial” link at the top of the page and then scrolling down.

For those who are new to my blog, I hope you’ll come back and look around! As a bit of background, I’m a reporter for The Associated Press by day, crafter by night. Sometimes the two intersect and I get to write sewing and craft columns for AP, but my main job is covering politics and other topics in New Hampshire. My husband is the national food editor for AP, and we have an 8-year-old son who enjoys sewing as long as it involves jamming his foot down on the sewing machine pedal as hard as he can 🙂

I will close comments at 10 p.m. EST Friday, and will announce the winner Saturday. I will ship internationally.

Please check out all the other great giveaways by clicking the image below: