Scout Tuesday…

Last night our Brownies worked on the Art to Wear Try-It. We didn’t do the same t-shirt project as the Daisies did a few weeks ago and it didn’t turn out as well. I printed a design and inserted in each shirt. Then the girls traced that design with puffy paints. It was hard for them to figure out how hard to squeeze. So we had some mishaps and the paint didn’t dry well. Oh, well.

The other project we did last night was a mask. I found a really cute mask made from handprints. We made tracing their hands our opening activity. They cut them out and then we moved to the t-shirts.

Once those were done, we moved back to the hands. I cut out eyeholes and stapled them together to make a mask. The girls folded some paper to make handles. They were adorable. Plus, they made use of my paper scrapbooking supplies, which I’m thrilled to not have just sitting around now that I prefer digiscrapping.

Creative Friday…

Since it hasn’t even been a week, I’m happy to report that I’m keeping up with my New Year’s resolution to post something creative on Fridays in January (and maybe some other months). I didn’t have a specific project planned for today. I have some on my mind, but they require some commitment to a color that I’m not ready to make right now.

I’ve had a crush on fabric buntings for a while now. I can see that they’re pretty simple to make and yet I’ve never taken the time to make one. Until today (yesterday) that is. And it took me under an hour from start to finish – including ironing my triangles and hearts.

(Excuse the leftover Christmas candy and egg cartons waiting for next week’s Girl Scout project)

I wanted something for Valentine’s Day and something that wasn’t expensive. Well, this was made entirely from my quilting (ha!) stash, so it was free. Yay for free!

I didn’t have any ribbon, so I just took a long piece of fabric and folded it flat. It works. I picked five triangles because that’s how wide my fireplace is. I sewed the triangles to the folded (and ironed – because I’ve freehanded enough to know that I must iron) black strip. Then I hung it up and realized it really needed a little something else. So I cut out some hearts and sloppily (with intention of being sloppy, though, so it’s okay) sewed them on.

It’s Valentine-y, it was free and I loved making it. My mind is already dreaming up all the uses for buntings.

There about a zillion tutorials for these online already, so I don’t plan to do a tutorial, but as I do plan to do more buntings, I can. Say the word, peeps, and I’ll document my process next time.

Scout Tuesday

I’m all over Scouting this year. I’m my 5 year old DD’s Daisy leader, my 7 year old DD’s co-leader/cookie mom and my 9 year old son’s assistant (to DH) den leader and pack treasurer. Since I spend every Monday and Tuesday coming up with projects for some type of scout or another, I thought I’d share one of my projects each week. Coincidentally, our meetings are also every Monday and Tuesday (the girls alternate Mondays, the boy is every week). I don’t think I could do it if I couldn’t procrastinate.

This week is our service unit’s cookie kickoff – which means it’s Cookie Time! Girls from all over our county will be at a party to start the cookie selling season. I thought it would be nice for my Daisies to have a troop shirt to wear to the party. The Brownies might actually do a version of this shirt later.

This project can easily be transformed for any use. My 7 year old's preschool did a similar project for Earth Day - they took white shirts and drew circles to represent the Earth in the middle and gave the kids blue and green paint.

Preparation:

I bought a pack of t-shirts in a size I thought would fit all my girls (all three of them). It actually is probably a little small for one of them, but as her mom pointed out, the next size up would be enormous. I picked out plain, old acrylic paints from my craft stash in each of the colors of the Daisy petals. I had to buy a few to fill in, but I had most of them from a project my older DD’s troop did as Daisies.

I also grabbed some old t-shirts for smocks to keep their clothes clean. I used a combo of paper plates and old plastic lids for paint palettes.

Step one: The Design

I printed out the Daisy petals from ScoutingWeb (scroll down a bit). Then I cut out the petals (I figured out that if you only cut out half, you could flip it to do the rest – saved my hands from cutting so many tiny petals – yay for the lazy way!). If my printer wouldn’t freaking jam every time I try to print on cardstock, I would have done this on nice heavy paper.

Then I went into Word and played around with WordArt to get a curve and found a font that was nice and thick, but still fun. I cut out the letters the first time and destroyed the outside. You can certainly trace around each letter, but then you have line them up and I’m lazy. So I reprinted and cut out the insides and made sure the surrounding paper stayed intact. It was much easier to trace the inside of the paper.

Step Two: Preparing the Shirts

I took a sheet of cardstock and put it inside each shirt, so my Sharpie wouldn’t bleed through. I left it there when I was done tracing so it would be ready for the girls to paint later.

Step Three: The Meeting

At our meeting I set up drop cloth on the tables we use. We have a very nice church that allows us to meet, so I don’t want to mess up their space. I put out one color for the first girl, she filled in the right petal (actually some were wrong, but that’s because I got my book out to check if I had all the colors I needed and left it on my table – I’m good like that) and passed her paint on to the next girl. We continued until they were all painted in. Then I let them fill in our troop number with whatever colors they wanted.

This is my DD’s. I think it’s adorable. The messy petals and letters give it a charm that can only be achieved by little fingers.

Final Cost:

I only have three girls, but this is still an inexpensive project – or at any rate, much less than having troop shirts printed somewhere.

I bought:

• A pack of 5 undershirts - $6.67.
• Four packs of 4 sponge brushes - $4.00
• Dropcloth - $3.50
• Paints - $3.00 (I had the rest on hand or mixed them at the meeting – this could cost more if you don’t own any paints)

So for under $20, we had troop t-shirts. And the cost wouldn’t have gone up if we’d had two more girls. So $4/girl. A little more than I like to spend on a regular meeting, but for troop t-shirts, a fair price.

Do I really need another hobby?

Well, duh. Of course I do. Except this one isn't quite the same. I'm working on digital scrapbooking. I think it's something that I will genuinely love once I get the hang of it. I love paper scrapbooking, except for the mess of it and having to get out all my supplies and...okay, fine. I just love paper. And photography. So it seemed like the thing to do. But I can do it all on the computer, which is another of my loves (especially now that I installed new RAM and can actually run the program I wanted to use to digital scrapbook all along.)

So I might be getting rid of most of my paper supplies. And it doesn't freak me out like it used to. I haven't actually scrapped with paper in over a year. Seriously. The idea of giving up some of my favorite papers (that I loved too much to actually cut up anyway) makes me sad, but I'm thinking of framing them and hanging them as artwork. That way I get to love them AND not cut them up.

In other hobbies, sewing's in, knitting's out. I mean, not permanently. Just for Christmas. I'm still working on the rag quilts. Almost done. Except for the endless snipping to make the rag part. That's sort of tedious. I miss knitting, though, so I think it will be back in after Christmas.

I think I'm on the bandwagon...

Several bandwagons, actually. I just read Twilight this week. I'd resisted for a long time, but all of my friends with whom I have a lot in common have loved it, so I thought maybe I should give it a shot. And I did. And it was...pretty good, actually, although I already have my fantasy vampire (Angel fan here), so I don't think I can muster up quite the fangirl lust that some others might have.

And I'm making rag quilt after rag quilt. I decided that every kid on my Christmas list is getting a little lap-sized one for tv watching or car rides. I cleaned up at Joann's Black Friday sale (my first and probably last time shopping on the day after Thanksgiving). I'm done four - only six to go. They're super quick and if my own four kids (poor crafters' kids - do they ever get any crafts?) have to wait, no big deal. So that's only two in the next 15 days. Holy crap. Christmas is FIFTEEN days away.

I refuse to panic. So I don't have many gifts yet. I get it done every year somehow, right? Inhale. Exhale.

I'm off to become the cookie mom tonight. Yay! Actually I"m really excited about it, but who knows if I actually should be. It might be something I come to regret. I hope not.

coming out of a fog...

The past few days have illustrated something to me - I was completely without inspiration pretty much the entire time I was pregnant. I just didn't enjoy my normal creative outlets - knitting, sewing, writing, photography, etc. I think I read maybe five books the whole time I was pregnant. I read an entire pretty thick novel over the past two days. Rhett Butler's People - very good, especially if you've read Gone With The Wind, not just seen the movie.

My point, I guess, is that it's back! My inspiration, my urge to be creative is back. I thought it was just gone forever. I sewed a baby sling. I took pictures this weekend - tons of them. And I really love some of them. I think I might knit something now. Maybe a cute hat for V.V. that I can take a picture of her in. I'm just way too excited about this.

Been crazy crafting...

I got my sewing machine out a few months ago and ever since I've been experimenting with purses, camera straps, headbands - all sorts of stuff. I'm not sure what I'll work on next. I made some really cute purses for my nephew, who is 2 and loves to borrow my girls' purses. We're calling them boy bags so as not to offend my brother, whose son shall not carry a purse.

I finished knitting my new nephew (he's almost three weeks old!) his blanket, but I lost my yarn needles (AGAIN!), so I'm stuck until I either find them or admit that I just need to buy them by the dozen and go to the craft store for more. And once I do that, I need to figure out if I can still crochet, since it needs a crocheted border. Probably should have thought of that before I knit it, huh?

My goal for today is to pretty up my blog, since I had to lose my very cute template to add my etsy stuff. Don't know why. I'm pretty savvy about computers, but the blogger thing totally confuses me, although if I really cared, I could probably figure it out. I love computers. Like, seriously love. My dad's computer got a virus and I was so excited to go over there and figure it out. Tom laughed at me when I told him how much I loved getting rid of a virus (Trojan in this case). Yeah, I'm a dork.

Zen of Crafting, following directions and gender

Last night I was working on a purse that I want to give my sister for her birthday when I noticed that I had messed up something that couldn't be hidden. So I moved on to another part that I could work on before fixing that mistake. And messed it up. At that, I put the fabric down, turned off my sewing machine and had an ice cream sandwich. "This purse doesn't want me to work on it right now." How very Zen of you, Tom tells me. Is it? I hadn't realized, but I do it with all my craft projects. If things start to go wrong, something about the project is telling me to take a break. Most likely, my brain is processing the abstract and turning it into instructions on what I need to do to fix whatever I messed up earlier. It's funny - if I can't figure something out, I know that I just need to put it down, do something else and come back to it later. Meanwhile, I've been sort of thinking about it, but not consciously and it all comes out a bit easier. Not always, but usually.

I'm not typically a picture learner. I need to read the words on how to do something. Sometimes, for the very complicated, a picture helps, but I still require words to make me understand. Tom is the opposite, as is our son. We were watching him put a Lego model together and he just looked at the pictures and picked up the right parts. In no time, he'd made the model exactly as it looked on the box. Tom thinks the same way and suggests that it's learned from putting Lego together. I claim that Lego directions are made that way because the people who like to put them together think in pictures.

This is why me and Ikea don't always get along. Their oh-so-detailed images of gender-free figures picking up board A just don't click in my head. So in that case, I have to do it along with the picture and - get this - actually follow directions. So not me. In this, Tom and I are the opposites of our gender stereotypes. I don't even read the directions, or if I do, it's more as a general guideline or to get me started. Tom? He reads every direction before he starts and then rereads them as he goes along. Now, I admit this his way is probably better. He gets all the tools he needs out ahead of time where I have to stop and go find a flat-head screwdriver instead of a Phillips-head. And he has a perfect finished product, where mine has probably been fudged once or twice. But that whole organized, read the directions thing? Let's face it. Boring.

My first craft show...

Let's just say the fact that I forgot to take pictures of the purses I made beforehand turned out not to be a problem. I still have them all. But it's okay. It was free and there was free food. No big loss. And I had a nice afternoon out without the kids for a change. I'm not complaining.

So on Tuesday I finished knitting and felting my fifth or sixth purse. I realized that there was no way I would get anything done in time to sell on Sunday. So I looked into sewing purses. I went downstairs to my fabric stash, pulled out some cute fabrics and started sewing. I only put out about $15 in interfacing, so I didn't even have many expenses.

Will I do another craft show? Probably not anytime soon, but eventually. After I've had some time to knit some more and get better at sewing purses. And only with someone fun (like my sister, who I was with today).

The Anti-Craft Craftster

I do a lot of hobbies that would be considered by some to be - and there's just no other word for it - crafty. That word makes me cringe. I'm NOT crafty. I just like to knit. And crochet. And sew. And make stuff. That does not make me...crafty. Ugh. I think it's because of years spent with my mother attending craft shows have burned into my mind that crafts=country. And I'm SOOOO not country. I'm retro, I'm modern, I'm classic, but I am NOT country. Which is why I don't do much knitting (etc.) for the house. It almost always reads as country. Even a crocheted afghan has to work hard not to be hokey and country. The only stuff I would (ugh) craft for the house would be retro kitschy - you know, aware that it's hokey.

I suppose I should say that I mean no offense to fans of the country look. It's just not for me. At all. I doubt my retro-vintage-modern eclectic look would suit you either. Different strokes and all that. That's fine. So why do I still have to stop myself from screaming "I'm NOT crafty!" whenever I hear someone tell me I am? Too many years spent at those craft shows, I guess. I recently went to one with my mother-in-law and nothing has changed in all the years since my mom stopped selling at them.

I hereby resolve to work on my preconceived notions of crafty. I will endeavor to find the good in being a craftster. So help me, DIY Network.