The WhipUp Calendar is Here!

That's right, the 2012 Whip Up calendar is now available! Full of lovely, crafty photos as always and ready to hang in your creative space. I am very honored and excited that Kathreen has chosen one of my photos to be included in the calendar. Hooray!

If you have never been over to visit WhipUp , go now, you are in for a treat! That place is full of inspiration and happy!

The Whip Up Calendar is available as a downloadable file you can print for only $5!
You can get all the info HERE!

While I am on the subject, Kathreen also puts out an incredible kids magazine called Action Pack. I love this magazine, seriously! The latest issue "Sticks and Stones" just came out.

The mag is full of great projects and ideas for kids for only $5! You can buy issue 7 and back issues by going HERE!

Thank you Kathreen for putting out such amazing stuff!

Oh, and Happy Monday!

Feltycuffs: A Tutorial

Due to my recent aquatic adventures, my 'makers mojo' and I have not been getting on too well. Something about me being unbalanced (go ahead, make your jokes now) and the concentration and constant looking down of stitching, made me a bit queasy, dizzy and blurry. Now that I am finally coming 'round a bit, I felt the need to make something - anything. I thought that I should start off small and simple. Then fortuitously, I received an email from a friend asking me to recommend some sewing projects that might be suitable for 10 year old girls. I sent her some links and then later, she asked if I had any ideas that could be accomplished by 3 girls during a crafty sleepover with beginning sewing machine skills. I thought about it for a while, and finally resorted to Feltycuffs. Do you see what I did there? Instead of 'Fistycuffs' I said...yes, well.

Felt is awesome, it's a no fuss, no muss material that makes up some seriously cool projects. It also ticks all the right boxes for a kid craft. However, once I started playing around with the felt, I started to imagine all the cool grown up stuff I could make using the same ideas.

The first thing I came up with was a woven felt wrist cuff/bracelet. I will be showing you in a brief, step by step tutorial how to make your own. So, here we go!

Gather up some felt scraps.
You will need 2 pieces for the main cuff part. You can measure your wrist with a tape measure, making sure it is not too tight but, a comfortable length on your wrist. Once you have that measurement, add 2 - 2.5 inches (5.5 - 6.4 cm) for overlap. I cut my pieces 8.25 inches (21 cm) long by 2.5 inches (6.4 cm) wide. Then cut some skinny strips of felt slightly longer than your main pieces. I cut 4 strips.
Using a rotary cutter and mat make this quick work, you can also use scissors.

Now, working with the top piece of your main cuff (I used gray), use a craft knife* or small embroidery scissors, and a ruler to make 4 rows of small slits in the felt. To make this more even, you can place markings on the wrong side of the felt with a fabric marker. Make your slits just big enough for your skinny strips to fit through. I made my cuts every 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) along the length and in 4 rows across the width. I did not mark mine so they came out a bit wonky.

* If you are doing this project with kids, you will want to supervise use of the sharp craft knife.

Now start weaving in your skinny strips. It's up to you if you want to alternate the pattern. Try to be fairly gentle, as you don't want to stretch out the felt too much.

Once you have woven in all the strips, trim off any excess length.

I gave my finished piece a quick press with the iron before I continued.
Next, Match the edges of your 2 cuff pieces, wrong sides together.

Using a simple straight stitch on your machine, sew around the outer edge, using 1/8 inch (0.3 cm) seam allowance.

In one end of your cuff, make a slit with a craft knife or scissors just big enough for your chosen button.

On the opposite end, sew on your button. Wrap the cuff around your wrist to help find the proper placement of the button.

Ta Da! A super cool, super easy woven felt wrist cuff!

After I made this one, I couldn't stop. So, I made 2 Super Star cuffs for Pony Girl. I used the exact same technique for the cuffs but, without the woven element. I simply cut out 2 simple star shapes out of contrasting felt and appliqued them to the cuffs with a straight stitch.

Here is Pony Girl rockin' her cuffs!

(click the pic for 10 times the awesome!)
And I still couldn't stop!

What about a simple and elegant napkin ring? Does anyone use those anymore? I used to love looking at my mother's small collection of vintage napkin rings when I was a kid. I thought it would look so nice for a special dinner.

Wait, there's more!

What about place holders? These would be so pretty at a wedding, special party, or just because.


So yes, endless possibilities! I made one wrist cuff with a crochet flower sewn on that turned out lovely. It was too dark to photograph by that point. I keep thinking of other ways to use this very simple idea. How about you, can you think of some?

As always with my tutorials, please feel free to ask questions. And, if you make this project, or one inspired by this project, I would love it if you uploaded a photo to the "Lola By You" flickr group!

Have a super star day!

Oh, I almost forgot. Lola has a new Facebook page come check it out!

Swimming with sharks

It's a school holiday and a cold dreary day outside, what are we to do to keep us from going a bit bonkers indoors? We have decided on a whim to pack our scuba gear, head for tropical waters and go swimming with sharks! As you can see, Pony Girl - amongst her many talents - is also a fish whisperer. We will explore underwater caves (hall closet), we are gypsy deep-sea divers looking for shipwrecks in dangerous waters (PG's bedroom), and we will study sharks in their natural habitat (the bathtub).

Unless we are captured by The Dread Pirate Roberts, I will be back on Monday.



Have an adventurous weekend my friends!

Dumb Stuff

The other day I decided to create a homework station for Pony girl. I found a great wooden box in the basement and carefully gathered up supplies. I re-purposed jars and cans to hold the rainbow of crayons, markers, pencils and sundry necessities. I printed up worksheets, made special notebooks and generally had a really good time putting it all together.

I just kept thinking about when I was 5, and how receiving this bright happy box of stuff would have made me over-the-moon happy. Obviously my love of school/office supplies began early in life. I smiled and hummed as I placed everything in the box, glue, scissors, construction paper...

O.k. I know she's in Kindergarten and there isn't a lot of homework but, it's never too early to start good habits. Also, all her art supplies for the daily coloring and drawing sessions are in one place. And, it looks awfully pretty in all it's bright and cheerful color.

On my way to pick her up from school that day I was feeling quite excited. Driving home, I told her that because she had been doing so well in school, I was very proud of her and that I had a surprise for her at home. "What is it Mama?" she demanded to know. "You'll see," I said with a big grin on my face.

She raced in the door and looked around wildly. I had my big "TA DA!" moment and presented her with the box. She gazed at it a minute and said, "No really, where's my prize?" I assured her that this was it and talked about how awesome it was, pointing out all the features. She looked crestfallen and told me, "Mama, that's just Dumb Stuff!" The passion for supplies has apparently skipped a generation so I answered, "Actually, that is Smart Stuff!" She wasn't falling for it in the slightest. "Alright," I said, "let's make play-dough." To which, there was a much more enthusiastic response.

That night, after Pony Girl was sound asleep, I took the box over to the table. I sat down and lost myself in colors and paper. I snipped, traced, colored, glued and lettered in bliss. Oh, she'll come around, I thought...how can she resist?

Tales of Stitchery

I have found when telling tales it is best to begin at the beginning...and so, let me begin.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon, the dwellers of the little green cottage were busying themselves with chores and other activities of industry whilst draped in sweaters of questionable repair. Amidst the cacophony of wind and rain hurling against the windows, the lady of the house discovered herself ticking off the last item on her to-do list. "Well now..." she sighed and spied with her little eye a small hat box on the mantel. Inside the box was a rainbow of floss and a half finished piece of embroidery that whispered sweet enticements.

Seeing as the wee lass that lived in the cottage was occupied with a rainy day movie and a plate of toast and jam, the lady thought it would be the perfect moment to take up thread and needle. She soon found herself in quiet reverie, stitching onto crisp vintage linen. After a while the lady left her cozy spot on the sofa to attend to a domestic matter in another room.

Suddenly she noticed an eerie silence come over the cottage and felt her blood run cold. Someone or Something was in the house! The lady ran down the hall, heart pounding breath shallow turning the corner to see the empty chair of the wee lass. The child was nowhere in sight, what she did see stopped her heart in terror. Over at the sofa, grabbing hold of the nearly finished stitching was the awful, dangerous, devastating and quite messy, Jam Monster!

"Noooo!!" the lady cried and ran to defend her hearth and home from the terrible beast. The lady demanded of the monster, "What have you done, where is my daughter?" To which the monster roared, "I just wanted to sew something." Fortunately, the lady was quite good at thinking on her feet and banished the Jam Monster with a good dose of soap and water. The lost daughter emerged with a rather exaggerated lower lip pout and a dramatic apology for inviting the jammy handed monster in for tea. "It's alright," said the lady, "would you like to sew something too?"

The wind died down, the rain let up and a very pleasant hour was spent... two heads bent together over stitches. The lady teaching the wee lass how to hold hoop and needle, how to keep stitches going in the desired direction. When the lady asked the child, "Who is that you've stitched there?" The child looked up with pride and joy and said, "That's you Mama!"


After admiring her work, my daughter said to me, "I'm going to put it in your shop for someone to buy, it will cost 2 dollars."
Thinking that was quite a bargain and really not being able to imagine parting with such a masterpiece, I handed her 2 dollars and bought it as a present for myself. I am one happy customer!

I'm off now to keep a date with The Fraulein to stitch up some pretties for my own shop update this coming Friday. More details about that in my next post.

The End