Martha Stewart Encyclopedia of Sewing & Fabric Crafts

Friends. If you adore fabric — or anything related to fabric — I highly encourage you to pre-order your copy of Martha's new Encyclopedia of Sewing and Fabric Crafts. It covers everything I love about working with textiles. Dyeing, printing, stamping, embroidering, quilting, etc. With the gorgeous photography and clear instructions that are trademarks of anything Martha. 150 different projects are featured. That's right. One hundred and fifty. Like the companion volume, the Encyclopedia of Crafts, this volume is a heavyweight. It's the size of a major textbook.

I was lucky enough to receive an advance copy and I've been reading it like a novel. I think the first thing I want to try is a project featuring some ribbon embroidery. Wouldn't it be lovely to embellish a little hat and blanket for this new baby?

Are You Hosting an Oscar Party?

Can you believe the Academy Awards are this Sunday? Will you be watching? Do you have any favorite picks or guesses?

For those of you hosting parties, Kathleen of Twig & Thistle, is generously offering up darling (and free!) downloads to help you out. Invitations. Popcorn bags. Ballots. And how about that gorgeous candy tray? You can find everything she created for the party (plus lots more fantastic photos) here and here.

Done.

It's 9:00pm. We have officially finished up our valentines-for-classmates preparations. Things I'm thinking: 1) I have a lot of children. 2) Those children have a lot of classmates. It turns out Colorado has bigger class sizes than New York. It took me until Valentines Day to notice.


We used this clever idea on Kirtsy — via 24-7-365. I think they turned out great. We couldn't get Betty to stop looking at her fist. And Oscar refused to wear anything red. But we rolled with it.

To those who are up late making stuff: I salute you with my exacto knife.

I'm Wild For You Valentine

This is what we've been working on for 8-year-old Olive's valentines this year. I think they're turning out cute, no? My favorite is the hippo shouting "Hippo Valentine's Day!" But I need your opinion: do we prefer the wild animals featured in the little cellophane bags? Or do we like them attached directly to the card with craft thread? I can't decide.

UPDATE: Your wish is my command. Click here to download a 4-page pdf featuring both versions. (Nothing fancy. Not even crop marks. But hey, they're free.)




Also. I'm coming up short on a little valentine message for these animals: rhino, tiger, zebra, giraffe. So I'm going with a neutral "I'm wild about you Valentine" for those four. If you think of anything brilliant, I'd love to hear it.



Need some other last minute ideas? Here are some cute valentine ideas on Kirtsy this week:

-FREE labels and gifttags for your valentine mix cds.
-These vintage valentine images are free to print and use in your own projects.
-Really clever idea for classmate/friend valentines — and totally doable in an hour or so.
-Make this cake. It is the prettiest valentine cake in all the land.
-Inexpensive, but gorgeous table ideas for your valentine meal (at our house, we like to have a big Valentine Day Breakfast with little (token) gifts for the kids).
-Rosebud valentines made from crepe paper. Sweet!

Make Your Own Ukelele

A package arrived this week from Uncle Jared and Aunt Liz. Inside: a make your own ukulele kit. How great is that? We can't wait to put it together. On a related note, today on Colorado Public Radio, I heard all about how the ukulele is experiencing a big revival — there's even a UkeFest this weekend at Swallowhill. If we weren't headed to Copper Mountain for a super cool weekend, we would totally check out the festival.



More greatness — my favorite Kirtsy links from the last 7 days, (Kirtsy is a site where anyone can share cool links — I'm one of the co-founders):

-100 classic movies everyone should see. How many have you seen?

-Speaking of movies, did you see this movie trailer? It had me crying and I'm not even sure why. So cute!

-Valentine's decorations don't get easier — or cuter — than this. Make these with your kids.

-Also perfect timing for Valentine's Day, a whale blows a heart shaped bubble.

-Think your life stinks? Share your woes here or grimace at the tribulations of others, like: "Today, my car got a wheel lock because I had 5 tickets. Three of those tickets dated back to 2006. I got my car and license in 2008." (Is it awful that I find this site hilarious?)

-Need to get happy after checking out that last link? These photos will do the trick. I can't decide which one is my favorite.

-Time to get organized? Here are tips on how to create a Household Time Map.

-These gorgeous laptop covers have been making the design blog rounds all week. I think they're brilliant.

-"If they say you're too picky, that's because they settled." Agree? Disagree?

-Another house that makes me happy.

What about you Dear Readers? Are you ukulele fans? Have you ever been to a UkeFest? Posted anything awesome on Kirtsy lately?

Helvetica Cookie Cutters

If I had a wishlist, these Helvetica Cookie Cutters by Beverly Hsu would be the number one thing on it. Williams-Sonoma, are you reading? Please produce these so that I can buy them. Thanks in advance.

Via SwissMiss.

Nightlight

There's another gift that Maude made this Christmas that I didn't get a chance to share. It's a nightlight that she made for Oscar. She used modpodge, small squares of patterned scrapbooking paper and a nightlight form. The technique was similar to the sketchbook she made for Ralph. But the nightlight turned out sort of quilt-like.





Maude did a great job and Oscar LOVES his nightlight.

How about you, Dear Readers? Did your kids make gifts for each other this year? Any projects they were particularly proud of?

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Want more ideas? Here are some links to other sibling gifts we've made:
- Potato Print clothing
- Embellished gloves
- Jumpropes
- Ribbon flowers (as belts, clips and hairpins)
- Glitter Initials
- Decoupaged Sketchbook
- Tutu, decoupaged bucket for matchbox cars, after-school bags, tiedye tees
- Flower headbands
- Wool mittens from recycled sweaters, embellished dragon mittens, sculpey bracelets, bibs, snowglobes and romper stompers made from cans

- Bubble bath, circle loom scarf
- Ribbon barrettes, painted t-shirt
- Bean bags, heating pad, hand chalk (for gymnastics), iPod cover

Potato Print Clothing

Olive made potato print clothes for her siblings this year. We bought supplies on Friday and Saturday (clothing items and fabric paint) and on Sunday afternoon we carved our potatoes and got to printing.





We put pink and gold hearts on a little corduroy dress for Betty (these pics are before the gold hearts were added). They curve around the side of the dress.



We put red and silver smiley faces on a navy tee for Oscar.




We put brown and black skulls on the back of a grey t-shirt for Ralph.





We knew Maude really wanted a hoodie, and we found a lovely cable-knit, pullover, hooded sweater in grey that we thought she would love. But. We knew we wouldn't be able to print directly on it very well. So we printed on a washed piece of canvas instead (bird, stars and dots), then used big stitches to attach the canvas to the grey sweater. I think it's my favorite.

As long as we were printing, Olive wanted something for herself as well. So we put pink and purple hearts on a turquoise sweatshirt just for her. (For those who are curious, we bought all 5 items of clothing at Old Navy on Friday night and the total cost was about $30.)

Want more ideas? Here are some links to other sibling gifts we've made:
- Decoupaged nightlight
- Embellished gloves
- Jumpropes
- Ribbon flowers (as belts, clips and hairpins)
- Glitter Initials
- Decoupaged Sketchbook
- Tutu, decoupaged bucket for matchbox cars, after-school bags, tiedye tees
- Flower headbands
- Wool mittens from recycled sweaters, embellished dragon mittens, sculpey bracelets, bibs, snowglobes and romper stompers made from cans - Bubble bath, circle loom scarf
- Ribbon barrettes, painted t-shirt
- Bean bags, heating pad, hand chalk (for gymnastics), iPod cover

Embellished Gloves

This was Betty's first year making gifts and I really wasn't sure what she should make. But we were in the checkout line at JoAnn's on Saturday and saw these "one-size" gloves for $1 each. We bought 4 pairs and figured we would come up with something to do with them when we got home. This is what we did:





1) For Olive, we used a green pair and applied purple glitter with mod podge on the cuffs. I can't imagine the glitter will stay permanently affixed, but Betty really wanted to do something with glitter and I figured why not. At least they'll be cute coming out of the box.



2) For Maude, we used a grey pair and sewed on a small bow with a black button. 3-year-old Betty can't sew — but she could pull the needle when I pushed it through the button. And she thought that was delightful.



3) For Ralph, we used a black pair. We cut circles out of felt and hot glued them to the cuff. Betty could trace the circles using a stencil and a marker.



4) For Oscar, we used a navy pair and letter stencils and fabric paint to write his name across the gloves.

Since we already had all the supplies (except the gloves) in the craft cupboard, this was definitely our least expensive sibling gift project at $4. Whenever the kids ask Betty what she made, she answers, "Ssssshhh. I can't tell you it's gloves. It's a surprise."

Want more ideas? Here are some links to other sibling gifts we've made:
- Jumpropes
- Ribbon flowers (as belts, clips and hairpins)
- Glitter Initials
- Decoupaged Sketchbook
- Tutu, decoupaged bucket for matchbox cars, after-school bags, tiedye tees
- Flower headbands
- Wool mittens from recycled sweaters, embellished dragon mittens, sculpey bracelets, bibs, snowglobes and romper stompers made from cans

- Bubble bath, circle loom scarf
- Ribbon barrettes, painted t-shirt
- Bean bags, heating pad, hand chalk (for gymnastics), iPod cover

DIY Bath Salts

Oh! Girl con Queso made pretty bath salts for Christmas gifts this year. And she has lots of pictures and directions on her site. I'm filing this away for next year...

Tiny Gingerbread Houses

A fantastic day all around on the interwebs. Did you see NotMartha's tiny gingerbread houses? Seriously. How happy are these? (Click through for lots more photos.)

Pretty Holiday Packaging

Baking cookies for the neighbors this year? Check out this pretty packaging tutorial.

Jump Ropes

One item on my girls' Christmas list is 2 long jump ropes — long enough to try double-dutch, to jump in back doors and front doors (remember how awesome jump roping is?). So that's what Ralph made. One for Maude and one for Olive.

I had pretty much nothing to do with this. The project was handed off to Ben Blair with the following explanation: Ralph is thinking about making jump ropes for Maude and Olive. But I have no idea how to make the handles. Will you please work with Ralph and figure something out?

They pow-wowed and came up with the idea of bike handles. Which worked perfectly.

Nice work, Ralph! Nice work Ben Blair!

Want more ideas? Here are some links to other sibling gifts we've made:
- Ribbon flowers (as belts, clips and hairpins)
- Glitter Initials
- Decoupaged Sketchbook
- Tutu, decoupaged bucket for matchbox cars, after-school bags, tiedye tees
- Flower headbands
- Wool mittens from recycled sweaters, embellished dragon mittens, sculpey bracelets, bibs, snowglobes and romper stompers made from cans

- Bubble bath, circle loom scarf
- Ribbon barrettes, painted t-shirt
- Bean bags, heating pad, hand chalk (for gymnastics), iPod cover

Ribbon Flowers

Once the sketchbook and initials were finished, Maude got to work on her gifts for Olive and Betty. Originally, she was thinking legwarmers. But when I showed her the ribbon flower idea I posted last week, she changed her mind.



Maude made 3 flowers. One she attached to a ribbon to be worn as a belt.




One she attached to a bobby pin to be worn in hair.




One she attached to a large clip to be flexible — it can be worn on clothes or in hair or on a purse or backpack.

Some of the photos are really dark and it's hard to tell, but these all turned out gorgeous. We worked with 1-yard lengths of 2.5 inch and 1.25 inch ribbon. And the size of the flower changed dramatically depending on what kind of combination we used.



By the way, the quality of the ribbon makes a big difference. The cheaper stuff we used for our first experimental flower (not shown) was not as pretty. Not even close. The silk ribbon we bought by the yard at Michaels was much better.

More DIY sibling gift ideas here.

Glitter Initials

After the sketchbook, we worked on Oscar's gifts. This was the first year Oscar was really able to make presents for everybody and he was really into it. As a preschooler, he is fairly obsessed with alphabet letters, so we thought this was the perfect idea: Glitter Initials — to be put on a bedroom shelf as decoration. A little bit kitsch-ier than I prefer for sibling gifts, but an ideal project for a 4-year-old.

First, Oscar and I made a trip to the craft store to pick out wooden cutouts of each sibling's first initial. There were lots of different styles and sizes to choose from. Oscar had definite opinions.



Next we came home and Oscar interviewed each sibling about his/her favorite color. He drew a picture of the sibling and made a note about color preferences. Then it was time to glue and glitter.



Oscar painted on glue with foam brush, picked out the favorite color of glitter, and got to shaking. (Mom's job was to return unused glitter to its bottle.) The whole project took about 15 minutes and Oscar couldn't have been more pleased with himself.

Once they were dry we wrapped them up before the rest of the kids snuck into the work room.

More DIY sibling gift ideas here.