Catch up from February and March 2015

This year has been a busy one and a rough one. Personal issues, a really bad school year for my kindergartner, family life in general, and lots of extra curricular responsibilities have overwhelmed my ability to write and post anything significant. Perhaps the coming months will be different. I am going to make an effort to make them so.

As I have said in recent posts, Instagram, Facebook and a little bit of Twitter and Flickr have been where my sharing has happened.

So once again the next few posts will be summary posts of the last few months as far as my crafting goes.

Papercrafts:
I have thoroughly enjoyed having access to my rather large rubber stamp collection and have made a handful of cards for various occasions and people. Almost all of them are "cased" cards, meaning I copied a layout or color combo or both to create them.

I also made these for the ladies I visit teach for St. Patrick's Day



Sewing
This first one was a test bag for Schlosser Designs. You can find the pattern for purchase here: Chopsticks Tote (link no longer valid.)

I made this and then filled it with crochet hooks, yarn and instruction books for our Young Women's Camp fundraiser silent auction.

 

 I spent a day playing with my Hex n More ruler from Jaybird Quilts and this beautiful fabric I won a while back. I only got as far as cutting a few blocks worth.

 I also made some more Personal Progress book folders for the incoming 12-year-olds.

I worked on quilting the robot quilt, trying to get it finished up before the baby turned 2.  I quilted the pink and yellow using some of the decorative stitches on my Brother machine.

 

Some crafting catch up

I have done a little crafting lately, both sewing and paper crafting. Now that my home is more livable, I feel okay spending more time on my hobbies.

I have been using Instagram a lot to share project I have been working on. I forget to post things on Flickr these days.

December:

I wanted to make a gift for my fabulous Grandma for Christmas. I thought the Open Wide zipper bag from Noodlehead would be perfect since she travels a lot. She also likes southwest stuff and I had some fabric I bought a while back that was just right.



Then I could not find my toiletry bag when I was packing so I took a moment (ha!) and made one for myself, in a larger size. I love it!

While in Utah, I made a port pillow. My dad was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in November. He was getting chemo and radiation in December and had a port* in his chest. They can be very uncomfortable, especially when wearing a seat belt. My dad apparently frequently removed his seat belt when going to his appointments because of this. I found a couple of tutorials (here and here) for port pillows and made him one (as well as a couple more to donate to the chemo center). He used it while I was there and told me it helped.
These are made with charm squares and finish up about 4 1/2" x 4 1/2".



I also finished the baby quilt that our Young Women had tied for a baby in our ward. I had made the top a while ago. I donated it to the group along with binding. They tied it at church one Sunday during their lesson. Then I brought it to my mom's during Christmas break to trim and bind it.

 



 January:
More cord wraps. Some really big ones for extension cords and some regular ones for regular cords and a couple of short ones for my earbuds and charging cords.


February:
 Valentines!
I have been following a Stampin' Up! gal on YouTube, Wendy Cranford and she made a really cute little candy bar pocket for a valentine. I made one like hers which was not great, and then went my own way a bit with them color-wise.


Blue for my boys.

 
Pink for my girls, some teachers and the gals I Visit Teach.

 And throughout January and February I have been alternating quilting on the robot baby quilt and piecing this Trip Around the World quilt I started at a historical textiles class given by Leah Zieber at Fat Quarters Quilt Shop. I used fabrics from a fat quarter stack I had of Tidbits by Kari Ramsay for Henry Glass.  It was really hard to do the strips. I could not keep them straight, even using my walking foot and marking my machine with a tape guide and pinning the heck out of them and starching the heck out of them.
That said, I still like how it turned out. Very pretty.

 And that is my 3 month summary!
Have a great day!

 * Implantable ports or port-a-cath. A catheter connected to a port is surgically inserted (tunneled) under the skin of the chest, or sometimes the upper arm, by a surgeon or radiologist. You will receive either local anesthesia or be consciously sedated. Unlike the other two types of catheters, a port sits entirely underneath the skin. You may be able to see and/or feel a small bump in your chest or arm, but you won’t see the tip of the catheter outside the body. Before each “access” or needle insertion, the skin over the port may be numbed using a cream. When treatment is given, the skin is cleansed and a special needle is inserted through the skin into the rubber seal. This allows blood to be drawn or treatment to be given into the catheter that is connected to the port. (http://www.cancer.net/navigating-cancer-care/how-cancer-treated/chemotherapy/catheters-and-ports-cancer-treatment)

 

A little treasure

I was reminded by this post on Make and Takes of something I made for the kiddos last year as a St. Patrick's day surprise.

I don't know where the original idea came from, but these were fast and easy. These are not durable, though, definitely disposable. The paint will scratch off. I was going for fast and cute and used what I had on hand. If you want long lasting, go for the Make and Take version.

I used plastic baby food cups, as we had a million and one on hand with an 8 month old running the household. You could use fruit/applesauce cups. I just used some craft paint to make them black. Then I put a sticker on some green paper, used my darling Stampin' Up! punch to punch it out, stuck it on a craft stick, filled the cup with Rolos and there you have a pot of gold for your little ones. I really like the Rainbow in the Make and Take version, so I may make some more permanent ones this year and then keep using them. I might also try to make the topper on the stick removable so the kids can wear them to school to avoid all those pinches!

You can use your leftover Rolos to make Caramel Pretzel Squares.

Ingredients:
Square bite sized pretzels
Rolos candies (or Hershey's Kisses or Hugs or any other chocolatey good treat)
M&Ms, pecans,or any other small edible that tastes fabulous with caramel &/or chocolate


Preheat your oven to 350
On a baking sheet lined with parchment or a non-stick mat, lay out as many square bite sized pretzels as you want to make.
Top each pretzel with one Rolo candy. Bake for 4-5 minutes, until the chocolate just starts to melt. Take them out of the oven and quickly place one M&M firmly in the center of each Rolo. Cool to set, then enjoy!