making it our own

I love craft books but I rarely if ever make anything exactly as a tutorial shows. I think that's the case for most everyone, right?

Interestingly I have several sewing books that I rarely use but love skimming through. I finally got from looking to making with the prodding of my little C (she's pretty persistent!). So instead of getting to work on my 3D rosette idea I spent the weekend finishing a doll that I had started months ago.

The idea started with Margot a topsy-turvy doll from the awesome Wee Wonderfuls by Hillary Lang. We made the opposite end of the doll in the yellow dress that's on the cover. But instead of making her with two heads (at the request of the now owner) I used the bottom part of the body of another doll in the book. Instead of stitching the dress on her she has a removable dress (more sewing gymnastics for me), a shorter skirt and thankfully no collar. As you can see I had no purple thread handy (we used fabric that we had on hand) and C said she didn't care as long as it "looked pretty" and pink thread fit the bill. I got in a little crochet (finally) with the shoes.

So now I have a happy camper (who made a new dress today—her first semi-solo sewing project) and no rosette. Totally worth it!

When was the last time that you made anything by following a tutorial word for word? I love seeing how crafters take my ideas and just fly with them by adding their own flavor and edits/changes. That's what creativity is all about. Then again, the flip side is that sometimes following instructions is more relaxing than coming up with new ideas. I lean towards the editing part. How about you?

moment

Ribbon + balsa wood = twirling fun. It was her idea.

lined holiday gift cards or tags for kids

Oh my! I never thought I'd pull a disappearing act for this long. I've been trying to get a proposal out the door, but nothing is worse than changing your mind about something at the last minute. I'm almost done and hopefully the effort will be worth it in the end.



In the meantime, upon several requests, I decided to once again pull out the holiday lined printables for kids. Because of my limited time, I've 'recycled' some of my own images (hope you don't mind). I'm offering two versions—one is just like the ones I've posted previously and the other is in black and white.



The black and white version has illustrations in outlines so that your little ones can color (while giving you an itty bitty slice of time to wrap gifts? read?—maybe?—or is that coming from a mom + wishful thinking?). I hope you like them and that the kids have fun working on them.

Downloads here:
- black and white
- color

Can you believe there are only 12 days until Christmas? I can't.

framed origami

Here are the final results of the class auction project that the fifth graders made. I bought Ikea box frames (30" square) and we used solid colored origami paper. I thought the patterned paper would look too busy for this.

I went to school one day last week and taught the kids how to make a simple origami box (so fun!). One class worked on the boxes for the blue piece and the other class worked on the green ones. It's quite interesting to see the differences in manual dexterity. Nevertheless, they all did great.

Putting it together at home
Clothes pins are great friends! Tacky glue comes in a close second place.



It is a Catholic school after all
We selected one bible verse for the green piece and one for the blue one. Each child copied the bible verse inside their origami box before folding it (you can't see it - more of a symbolic thing). I added the verse, at the bottom, as the 'title' of each piece.



Done!
Here are the two final versions. The cross in the middle of each one turned out just as I imagined. I forgot to take a decent shot of the final framed pieces, so I had to settle with a few iPhone photos like the one on the right. I took them this morning where the auction will take place this weekend.



Tossed my hat in the ring
I also donated some time to give a Cricut Expressions class as an auction item. We'll see how it goes. I use it primarily with SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot), but I get so many questions about the machine itself, that I thought a class could be useful and raise some funds for the school. We'll see how it goes!

• • •

No Friday Tidbits. Sorry!—blame the crazy week and the depletion of brain cells at the moment.

I feel so sleep deprived that I could literally go to bed now (sun still shining brightly) and and not wake up until tomorrow morning. Dinner? A neighborhood restaurant will be the provider tonight, thank you very much. Yawn!

Have a great and restful weekend!

• • •

Houston friends!
Just found out that I'll be on Going Green with Yolanda Green this weekend. Ck it out Saturday at noon or Sunday at 10am on Ch. 39

halloween cards for kids

Friday Tidbit
I typically share links to other people's work on FT. Today I decided to post a small freebie that you can share with friends that have festivities and birthdays this month (for personal use only - pretty please!).

I haven't made these cards in a while so the start of October gave me the perfect excuse to make them. I couldn't decide what color to use for the witch's feet so I left both cards. I like the idea of little hands learning how to write their own messages so that's why I also kept the lines.

Download the sheet here.

• • •

It's been a long week and I have so much to share. It just isn't the right time yet. I've been feeling really conflicted about how to balance the work that I'm doing with not disappearing from the internet altogether (at least for a while). It's a constant tug of war. I want to be around but a part of me just wants to unplug. I think that's why my posts have been only project driven—not much about me, about us. So excuse me as I muddle through. I think what I really need is to just get up and walk away as far as I can get from my computer, grab my cup of coffee and put my new bookmark to good use. Thank goodness for weekends!

Have a good one!

lazy weekend + good lesson

You know those weekends when not much gets done but it doesn't matter because that is just what was needed? That's how our weekend went—slow but perfect. It was however, not as enjoyable because our allergies were kicking in to high gear.

Sunday afternoon was all about football and paper crafting. While the boys watched the game, my little C and I unraveled a paper storm in the studio. I hadn't really used my Cricut Expression in a long time but I simply couldn't resist the paper dolls cartridge that was on sale at the craft store (more about that below). I knew that my mini-me would love it and I was right. She dove right in and was cutting left and right. We haven't had girly-crafty fun like that in a while—it was perfect.

She picked out all the colors, outfits and scenery, set up the pieces and asked me to take pictures of the final set up. She really doesn't have any idea of what scrapbooking is all about so she was playing with them in the more traditional paper doll kind of way and having them "walk" around.



By mid afternoon, half of the house was loud with the TV and the boys yelling at the players on the screen—and yelling at me to come over and watch some replay or another. The other half got really quiet. Little C had taken everything we had worked on to her room and I hadn't heard a peep for a while. I went in to check up on her and this is what I saw—and all I could make our were little whispers. I wish I knew what she was saying.



I'll end this with a confession.

I have a hard time working with machines like the Cricut because I feel like I should be able to come up with all these cut outs on my own. I've been wanting to make my little C some paper dolls for a very, very long time. But I just never got around to working on them. When I saw that cartridge I knew the time had come. I had to just give up and buy it.

It's been a painfully slow process, but I've come to realize that I don't need to be reinventing the wheel all the time. Sometimes it IS ok to give up on the desire to make everything myself, use what's available and just jump into the fun part of making something together.

In this case it was totally worth it!

thank you

For those of you that still have kids in school, I put together a freebie PDF of lined thank you cards (or gift tags) that your little ones can include with teachers' gifts. I tried posting this a couple of weeks ago but that obviously didn't happen. Some of you can still get some use out of it, I hope.



To all of you that are teachers a huge thank you! I don't know how you do it. I'm always amazed with everything you accomplish in a few months and you truly deserve all the gratitude and appreciation in the world.



The summer has barely started and I already feel much more at ease. The daily driving to and from school, homework and lunchboxes has been replaced with a much slower pace affecting everything—this blog too. I'll be checking in now and then but for now things will slow down quite a bit around here. You get it right? :)

A bit of errands and a promise to take the kids to the pool await.
Have a great day!

Download printable here.

numbers flash cards

I finally got around to working on this project that has been on my mind for a while and has been a request from some customers. This is a set of printable (animal themed) numbers flash cards that match my alphabet flash cards.

They are available in my shop now in: English, Spanish, German, French (feel free to contact me for any other languages).

Thank you so, so much to those of you that added a comment to my previous post. My little C enjoyed every single one of your words. They also sparked interesting conversations between us. This Mom is very appreciative of your kindness.

simple prints, loads of fun

I've printed using linoleum blocks but never potatoes. It's such a simple technique and yet I had never tried it. My chance came around because Rae Grant's lovely book, Crafting Fun: 101 Things to Make and Do with Kids, inspired us to give it a try.



We cut out some random shapes and the kids jumped right in with the printing. Little C had a hard time holding the potatoes because they kept slipping out of her hand. So, I stuck a pair of toothpicks in each one to make it easier for her.

Things got a bit messy (part of the fun!), but I could tell the kids were enjoying themselves. They said something about using their prints to decorate cards for their grandparents—not a bad idea at all. So, I think that will be our next step. For now, we can't eat at our kitchen table, because all our artwork is drying on it.



We also printed simple designs on a set of white napkins and matching tablecloth. As soon as I finish the endless amount of ironing I'll have to do, in order to set the ink, I'll show you how everything turned out.

Tomorrow we're going to tackle a recipe in Rae's Cooking Fun: 121 Simple Recipes to Make with Kids book. Predictably the kids want to try something from the dessert chapter.



What I really like about Rae's books is the fact that all the projects and recipes are very simple and easy to follow. There are no big set ups or complicated materials/ingredients to buy. In addition, most of the pages contain vintage illustrations of the 20's and 30's, which add so much to their charm. We will definitely be putting these books to good use.



By the way, our wrapping paper is still hanging on the wall. I'm so tempted of adding a simple rod at the top and bottom to keep it there as artwork. We'll see.

• • •

Thank you so much for your kind message and emails regarding my book. I'm so touched by all your support. If you're interested in purchasing a book directly from me, please stay tuned for details.

homemade wrapping paper

So the summer has officially started in this household. The kids finished school last week and today we tackled our first small project for the summer. We decorated butcher paper that I had on hand and turned it into wrapping paper. It was an extremely easy project and it didn't take that long to do at all.



I spread the roll over our kitchen island, letting it hang down the sides. It was a great surface for all of us to work on, because we weren't in each others way and we could walk around the table as needed. My little C just needed a small chair to be at a comfortable height.

I love how crayons strokes look. They seem so sincere and authentic, if that makes sense.



My original plan was to use only orange and/or yellow, but the kids wanted to add more colors. They wanted to use green right off the bat but I explained a little about thinking out of the box, so we started with yellow. Once we got going, I had them take turns deciding what color we should work with. I drew, they colored and we love the results, although my favorite (as I predicted) are the orange/yellow leaves. How about the look for wallpaper?

• • •

Thank you so much for sharing all your accomplishments in my giveaway post. I'm amazed by all that you have done. I was struck by the thought that too often we admire what others have done and don't realize that we need to acknowledge our own hard work too. So hats off to all of us!

The winner of the framed flower is: Jeff
The winners of the printables are: Stitchinscience, Heather and Busy Vee.
Congratulations to all the winners. Please contact me at info at alittlehut dot com so I can send you your goodies.

alphabet quilt

So here's a little quilt idea using my alphabet flash cards artwork. I can't say it was my idea. It was Heather who suggested I do something like this. I don't think this is what she imagined but this is what turned out (so far). The idea is to offer this as a quick way to make a type of 'cheater' quilt. I will sell the front and back, fully designed and printed. The customer will add the batting and do the quilting. For customization, I can replace the year with the baby's name.

I love this idea because I've never made anything remotely resembling a quilt and there may be others out there that would appreciate something like this too. I hope this doesn't offend the sensibilities of those of you that have. It would definitely be a quick job for anyone with sewing experience. The only problem is that I don't know how cost effective this is. I'm still trying to figure that out and see if there is any interest.



For now I'm going to make this for my little C but in dolly size. I'll probably have to change the color to something more girly. She's all about pinks and purples. I know it looks rather simple but in my mind the quilting is another design element and the texture of the stitches will add to the whole look. Right now this image just looks very flat.

I'm going to keep the gray and use a rich/subtle raspberry color to replace the blue for little C's quilt. One of the patterns (still working on them) will be for the fabric on the back and the ABC rectangle on the right will be the front of a small pillow sham. The dotted lines show where I'll quilt it. Click on the image to see it slightly larger.

• • •

Thank you so much for all your comments to yesterday's post! You are all so generous and I feel so encouraged by your words. I'm really touched. As every comment came in, I couldn't help but smile every single time.

Have a wonderful weekend!

all that shines

Here is the result of a random request from little C. She asked me for a crown for her small stuffed penguin. Hmm. Ok. Five minutes later, plus 15min for drying, these were the results. I used a scrap strip of paper that wasn't more than a couple of inches wide and about the length of a letter-sized page. I eyeballed it and cut the curves freehand, sprayed the paper with adhesive spray and sprinkled a handful of glitter on it and used one staple to seal the ends together. If I could please my daughter as easily with all of her requests I'd be in heaven.



For the record I'm not really a glitter type person (gasp say all glitter lovers everywhere) and yet this is the second glittered crown I make. The first was much bigger. I made if for my D's Wise Man's school costume in December. Instead of paper I used cardstock and it held up perfectly. That's why I am the owner of a bottle of Martha Stewart glitter and that's why little C knew exactly what she wanted.

In the interest of full disclosure - The day I bought the gold glitter I couldn't stop my hand from grabbing the clear glitter. I used a bit on our Christmas cards. So, ok you got me. Maybe glitter does have a purpose in my life.



Small shop update :: I've received several emails from customers interested in a smaller format of my alphabet flash cards. I finally got a chance to resize all my artwork so they are now available in the shop. Each flash card is now 1/4 of a letter-sized page and very handy for little hands.

• • •

Check out the site of one my husband's cousins. We just found out he rents out 'fincas' (ranch style vacation homes) in different areas in Colombia. If we go next year the hardest thing will be to pick the city to visit.

For those of you that have never been or seen anything related to Colombia, aside from all the bad stuff we all know about, please take a few seconds to view the video on the home page. It really is a beautiful country with warm and hard working people.

bunny stationery set

I wanted to put together a set of Easter stationery for the kids. I talked about my ideas with D and little C and the bunny won.



The lined flat cards come in four colorways and the note card is blank on the inside. Matching gift tags and the bunny box complete the set.



And with that my work day is over. The end of the day (aka - working at home alone while the kids are in school) always comes so amazingly fast. Too fast!

c is for 'coming soon'