Category Archives: Other Blogs

Roundup: Upcycled Pillowcase Tutorials

  By Simone | January 8, 2010 - 11:11 am | , , ,
6 Comments

Happy New Year! My parents just arrived for a two week stay, so there hasn’t been much crafting time, but for those of you looking for some projects, here is a roundup of ways to recycle pillowcases into something else.

Number 1: The Always Popular Pillowcase Tote Bag.


This tutorial is by Max and Ellie and features detailed instructions.

Number 2: Cafe Style Apron with Pockets

This tutorial was designed by Lee-Ann from Whoopsie Daisies and featured on Vintage Indie. It’s made from two pillowcases and has those always important pockets.

Number 3: Pillowcase Dress

I found this kid’s dress tutorial on Craftleftovers It was designed and written up by Australian blogger and author Alissa Devanny of Refashion.

Number 4: Pillowcase Pajama Bottoms

Brandy of Minivan Life put together this tutorial. I think the dress and the bottoms together would make for a cute, complete set of pajamas.

Oh, and don’t forget that you can always cut up those pillows and sheets to make fabric yarn.

Another Year, Another Calendar

  By Simone | December 30, 2009 - 6:35 am | ,
2 Comments

We recently had a family discussion whether to call the next year twenty-ten or two thousand ten. What is your preference? Whatever it is, here’s a quick roundup of a few calendar printouts and tutorials I found:

First, an oldie that is always amazing, the incredible Pocket Mod:

An 8.5 x11 sheet folds into a booklet chockfull of information including your personal calendar.

Next up is this cool pocket calendar by Sam and Cheryl of Creature Comforts

I love Jan Brett’s artwork, but never realized that she maintains a website filled with activities, games, and a 2010 Calendar that captures her whimsical work.

Here is a clever little calendar by Grafish Design

And finally, for those of us who have resolved to do a better job remembering birthdays, this is a tutorial by Becky as posted on Cut Out + Keep for a birthday calendar:

Countdown

  By Simone | November 6, 2009 - 1:20 pm | , ,
4 Comments

This year, our family will go the homemade advent calendar route instead of the toy-filled storebought version we usually get from Oma and Opa. Here are some designs I’m contemplating:

Last year’s Little Birdie Advent Calendar by Skip to my Lou:

The sleek and clean modernist calendar by Sarah Neuburger of The Small Object:

This extremely elegant calendar (scroll down to 12/17/08) by Miss Gioia:

Although the thought of sewing on 300 buttons is a bit daunting.

Then there is this tiny little chewing gum calendar by My Little Mochi:

And finally, Sibylle suggested this Quilted Calendar designed by Elizabeth for SewMamaSew:

What do you think? Do you have a favorite design you’d like to share?

Swedish Sushi

  By Simone | September 28, 2009 - 3:39 pm | ,
2 Comments

No, I’m not talking about lox, I mean fake sushi that incorporates Swedish Fish. I went to the annual curriculum meeting for the third grade and the teacher suggested cupcakes as an appropriate birthday snack, which got me thinking about snacks, which reminded me of something I saw on Craft some time ago. So here is a quick round up of sweet sushi impostors:

Marshmallow Sushi

This “recipe” is from wikihow. It’s main ingredient consists of marshmallows decorated with fruit rolls, swedish fish, licorice and jelly beans.

Pound Cake Sushi

This version created by Emily from Little Window Shoppe uses pound cake decorated with coconut flakes to simulate maki rolls. Yummy.

Puffed Rice Sushi

http://www.browniepointsblog.com/2006/04/01/april-fools-sushi/

I think Jocelyn a.k.a McAuliflower no doubt wins the price for the most beautiful fake sushi. She uses puffed rice as a base and goes to town with tender slices of dried fruit and homemade marshmallows.  Her work is almost too gorgeous to eat. You find detailed instructions on her blog Brownie Points.

I have a couple of months to practice for Miss E’s birthday extravaganza. I might consider the marshmallow sushi as a kid activity and then serve the Brownie Points version in the classroom.  Do you have any experience with fake sushi?

Sashiko Links

  By Simone | July 16, 2009 - 8:34 am | , ,
1 Comment

Yesterday I went on my annual pilgrimage to the shrine of Kinokuniya. In other words, I went to the Japanese bookstore and spent way too much time and money there. As I was leaving, this book, which I didn’t purchase (yet) caught my eye:

This sparked my curiosity and I started googling. Sashiko was used in rural Japan as a winter craft to reinforce and mend clothing or repurpose clothing that was beyond repair. I love its simplicity. It just consists of carefully placed running stitches. If you want to investigate this further, here are some helpful links.

The purl bee Tutorial

The purl bee has a detailed step-by-step tutorial on the particular Sashiko needle, thread, and how to form these stitches. Their explanation on how to move around a corner with a quilter’s knot is especially helpful.

The Handmaiden Tutorial

Sharon of The Handmaiden has an equally excellent tutorial. She also explains how to set up a hank of Sashiko thread to protect it from unraveling and allow you to easily pull out threads as you go. In a separate tutorial she explains how to stencil a Sashiko pattern onto fabric.

Sashiko Templates

For Sashiko templates visit Designs In stitches.

Alternative Uses

Susan of Unikatissima, stitched a design derived from an imprint on toilet paper on greeting cards in the Sashiko style. It’s definitely worth taking a peek. She also has a very cool maze generator you must check out.

And what did I leave the store with?

These beauties

and The Art of Howl’s Castle, and The Ugly Doll Guide, and The Manga Cookbook, and two batches of flashcards to practice multiplication with the soon to be third grader. It’s a good thing I only go there once a year (well, maybe twice :-) ).

Mother’s Day Flowers

  By Simone | April 22, 2009 - 10:25 am | ,
2 Comments
Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis and Anna Jarvis
Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis and Anna Jarvis

The other day, I researched Mother’s Day and learned that it wasn’t a holiday created by a card company, but a day envisioned by Anna Jarvis for each family to honor their mother. In honor of her mother Ann Maria Reeves Jarvis, a social activist, Anna Jarvis lobbied for years to make Mother’s Day a recognized holiday. As part of this campaign and in memory of her mother, she distributed white carnations in front of her mother’s church in 1907. In 1914, Congress declared the second Sunday of May Mother’s Day. It was never Anna’s intention for this day to become such a commercial event. In fact, she declared

“A printed card means nothing except that you are too lazy to write to the woman who has done more for you than anyone in the world. And candy! You take a box to Mother—and then eat most of it yourself. A pretty sentiment!”

However, I think she would have approved of these flowers as Mother’s Days gifts:

Fabric Flower Tutorial by Blair of Wise Craft:

Beaded Rose Tutorial by Beaded Flowers:

Or, for some international flair, how about these Kanzashi Flowers by Mookychick:

Assorted

  By Simone | April 16, 2009 - 8:43 am | , ,
3 Comments

It is Spring break and I’ve been working on a few assorted projects while keeping Missy entertained.

Fused Bead Tutorial

This is one of my more popular Flickr pictures. You can find my fused bead tutorial on The NewNew Blog.

Communion Outfit

My daughter’s first communion is next week and I think we’ve finally pulled the outfit together.

The skirt is made using Goingsewcrazy‘s Twirly Skirt pattern and cost a whopping $15 and 2 hours.

Commissioned Bag

A friend of the mother of a friend in Japan commissioned this bag.

Welcome to the Commonwealth

  By Simone | April 14, 2009 - 11:31 am | ,
1 Comment

Here’s a roundup of crafty blogs from the Commonwealth of Australia. I apologize in advance for the many authors I have left out. If you feel someone in particular must be added to the list, please list the link in the comments.

New South Wales

Fern of Not Nigella blogs about her crafty life. She also writes for CraftBlog and her site sports a host of tutorials. Check out her story about the caterpillar she made for her son.

Queensland

Tsk Tsk is a lovely blog from Queensland authored by Tiel, an illustrator and designer. She works mostly with paper and canvas, but also makes some interesting soft toys. She is also a co-author of Meet Me at Mike’s the book.

South Australia

Scarecrow and Doc are prolific gardeners from South Australia. Scarecrow chronicles how she coaxes beautiful edibles out of the ground while working with? around? the South Australian climate. Doc posts his frugal and practical projects that support his wife in her endeavor.

Tasmania

The Teacosy Revolution is about, well, tea cozies. Tara Badcock’s brainchild is all about fabric, textiles, stitching . . .  it just needs to be experienced.

Victoria

Jodie is the force behind Ric-Rac. She sews. A lot. Currently she is featuring a really interesting series about her creative process in designing Milton, the sewing machine man.

Western Australia

Sew Delish loves anything girly and beautiful. Her latest project features a cute chihuahua in a no-sew dog sweater. Perfect for the Australian fall.

Northern Territory

Tash is currently based in Darwin and writes For Arts Sake, a blog focused on scrapbooking and her day-to-day musings. She is on the design team of the Little Scrapbook Shop and shares her layouts with her readers.

Australian Capital Territory

Consumption Rebellion is a really interesting blog by Eileen. In 2006 she decided not to buy anything new for a year. The year is up, but she continues to share her thoughts about simple living.

As for the remaining territories, does anyone know of other blogs that stem from there?

Paint Chip Projects

  By Simone | January 23, 2009 - 12:17 pm | ,
4 Comments

The other day I stole into Home Depot to sneak out with a handful of paint chips. I was sure that security would stop me, but I was able to walk out with no questions asked. After winning a little notebook in Deb’s giveaway, I wanted to make a similar one from a paintchip like the one I saw on WhiMSy Love’s blog. Then Etsy started its Share Your Love initiative asking for Valentine’s cards to distribute among the recipients of Citymeals-on-Wheels. Since I had just stumbled across a paint chip card tutorial on Go Make Something, I decided to make some paint chip Valentine’s cards. That left me with one sample card. In researching this post, I found this paint chip business card tutorial by Aaron Tang.

Notebook

For the mini notebook I used a 3″ by 7″ paint chip and folded the bottom edge over by 3/4.” 2.5″ from the top I made another fold and then added a final fold at 2.75″ from the top to form a 1/4 inch spine. To fill the note book I cut up some scrap paper into roughly 2.75″ by 3″ pieces. Because I tried to fill the booklet with too many pieces of paper, I couldn’t use a stapler. Instead I attached the paper by sewing it to the bottome of the notebook edge. The seam was a little unsightly and I ended up covering it with a button.

Business Card Holder

The business card holder tutorial was very clear and came with a great template for 3.5″ by 2″ business cards. I just had to adjust the image slightly to fit my 5″ by 6″ paint chip. To do this, I copied the image of the template into Photoshop and adjusted the size to 476 pixels by 559 pixels.

Valentine’s Cards

Valentine’s cards are obviously very straightforward. Take a paint chip and knock yourself out. I glued origami paper to the back of the card with rubber cement in order to cover up the print on the back. If you want to participate in the Etsy card drive, you can find the instructions here. They have a goal of delivering 18,000 cards on Valentine’s Day. The deadline to submit a card is February 2nd.

Stumbled Upon

  By Simone | November 24, 2008 - 3:03 pm |
3 Comments

Lately I’ve been trying out StumbleUpon, a very temperamental little Web tool I might add that only likes some browsers sometimes. It has taken me to some interesting crafting sites such as:

Craft Chi where Amy shares her Rolling Pin Print tutorial. This is perfect for the upcoming gift wrapping season:

The Long Thread where Ellen explains how you can make these very cool thrifted holiday trees from recycled sweaters.

I love these bookmarks that Jaymi designed for D*I*Y Planner. I think I may make them for the members of my analog bookclub.

This is another cool little gift especially for those of us who like to change their art around a lot. Monica of Craftynest had the ingenious idea of turning these pants hangers into picture frames. Next time my daughter’s art teacher decides to clean up her space I’ll be ready!

Since I like clever upcycling ideas, this one by Autumn of Crafting a Green World caught my eye. She recycled brown paper bags into seed packets that she uses as business cards. I’m sure this idea can be further expounded into tea bag holders, envelopes, . . .

By the way, if you haven’t entered the giveaway yet, do so before Wednesday. So far there are 12 entries. Still pretty good odds to acquire the earrings.