Archive for the ‘Crafty’ Category

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Popper Piñata

Monday, January 16th, 2012

Tonight I opened the wrong photo catalog, 2010, but there was tons of stuff in there I never got around to blogging about, like the nifty piñata that Jesse and I made for Penelope’s 1st (and Yash’s 2nd) birthday.

You don’t hit it, but it is full of good stuff. It’s related to those string pulling piñatas that don’t work very well, the hole at the bottom is never big enough, so after the kids pull the string and the bottom pops open, a few sad pieces of candy fall out and a grownup has to shake shake shake to get the rest out. SAD!

Not here, we engineered the whole bottom to hinge open. And it had to be enormous and make lots of noise and mayhem. So we used a dozen and half party poppers (so everyone would get one) to hold the bottom shut. This is the bottom, you can imagine how when the strings are pulled they detach from the party poppers and unlatch the bottom. Gives a satisfying smell of gun powder too! We should have put the poppers on the side rather than the bottom though, so the confetti would have shot outwards rather than down, but we weren’t sure it would hold the bottom shut as well.

And of course we had to paint it. The theme of the party was ‘balls’, so we painted the box with circles and filled it with balls. Penelope is only 1 year here!!

And the release video (the audio is kind of sad):

The only snag was we fully set it up too early, and the strings all got tangled up, so we had to sort them out before we could have our piñata. We should have unrolled them as we were handing them out. Lessons for next time, (and more gun powder!) of course next time turned out to be a candy catapult. Learned some lessons on that one too!

What is the coolest piñata or candy-dispersal-device you have made or seen?

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Wire and Button Bracelet

Sunday, January 1st, 2012

Squee with me at my adorable 2yo hand model! Okay, now notice what she is wearing, a fashionable button bracelet, made with sturdy wire that holds its own shape. We ordered some sculpture wire from Dick Blick, The primary difference between that and the rolls of 22 gauge electrical/breadboarding wire we have around here seems to be in the profusion of colors and extra price, but the girls are having a great time twisting it up into various tangles, and so am I. Combined with our burgeoning collection of buttons, also recently fortified from Dick Blick, these bracelets were practically inevitable.

They are an easy gift for moms to make, but honestly you have to pull the wires quite hard to get them to double back through the buttons, and even harder if you are stacking buttons where the holes don’t quite line up, so I’m not going to recommend this as a project for a mob of 5yos, although that was my original aim. If I was going to do it with Rebecca I would probably give her a pair of pliers so that she would have something sturdy to pull with, and plenty of encouragement. One of my mom friends wants to make a passel of these as birthday favors, and I think that’s a great idea.

To start collect some buttons and enough plastic coated wire to go around your wrist about four times. You could probably also manage this with two pipe cleaners if you could manage to connect them securely.

Fold your wire in half and thread the first button on, leaving an empty loop at the end large enough to slip your last button through.

Thread on the rest of the buttons, one by one or two by two, going up through the backs, positioning them relative to the last button, and then threading the wire down through the fronts. (Once you have the button fully threaded on they do not slide along the wire, so do your repositioning while they are half threaded on.)

Here you can see the threading from the back, parallel wires, nothing fancy.

Once your last button is on flip the bracelet to the back, and twist the ends back around the last button. I may, perhaps, have gone overboard with the number of knots and tail tucking. But I hate for those chubby wrists to get poked!

What’s the most fabulous thing you’ve made or want to make out of buttons?

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Crochet Cupcakes

Thursday, December 29th, 2011

This turned out to be a me-too project, in that I made one for a friends little girl who was turning two, and then both my girls said “me too! me too!”. So I made two more. They didn’t take very long.

The silhouette could use a little bit of work, I don’t like how it doesn’t mound roundly at the top, which has to do with how tightly I stuffed it to be sure that the candle would stick up, but I do like how the frosting sticks out over the edge of the cupcake base, which is partly the obvious increase and then decrease, but also that on the inside of the cupcake I stitched the bottom of the increase row loosely to the top of the decrease row to keep it from stretching too far up and loosing its shape. But, maybe I was being to smart for my own good with the internal stitching, and the shape would have been better without it? It would have kept that dip out of the frosting silhouette…

Also, I put cardboard in the bottom to keep it flat, but I should have added a weight also, because they are still tippy. Next time. But isn’t the flame cute? It would make a nice sparkler I think.

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One Yard Wonders Fabric-By-Fabric (Rambling & Giveaway) *CLOSED*

Tuesday, December 27th, 2011

Is out! I am (not) famous! And I have three projects in it this time! Especially lucky since I was so busy before the submission deadline that I only submitted one rather easy (but cute! really!) project which they didn’t take, but I also included some other ideas I had, and they gave me an extended deadline to work on them. (More time, a blessing and a curse!) I’ve hinted at them over the last year and a half, and now you get to see them!


Do you remember these felt doll house chairs? (Complete with tutorial) And the pondering about whether they would scale up?

Wait, I’ve blogged about that before! But now you can see the final project. I must be going senile! I bet you forgot too. Whew, safe!

Since this is from a year and a half ago Rebecca is 4 there. I was watching a video linked on Spincushion, and Rebecca Yaker says she thinks it would be good up to 2 or so, (and she called it a ‘wow’ project, so heady!) but I think she’s underestimating children’s desire to fit into little things. So while I probably wouldn’t make it for a 4 year old, my 4 year old would disagree. And my 5yo too probably. I should have asked her what her favorite project in the book was. The hedgehog book ends? No, that’s probably me. I’m betting on the Domo-kun backpack.

Rebecca & Trish (the authors, not my daughter) expressed amazement that this chair could fit into one yard when I suggested it. Here is the logic puzzle that I played with over and over to figure out how deep and wide and tall I could make the chair, and still fit it into one yard of home dec fabric (so 36″ x 56″) and keep all the main elements with the fabric print facing a desirable direction… it was both fun and headachy! I think I’ll do another post too on how amazing it is that they took all my sketchy illustrations and turned it into such a pretty book! That was what amazed me most with the first One-Yard Wonders book, the gulf between my input and their output, as a novice contributor last time I was bewildered that they were going to make a book out of what 101 people like me sent them! But it came back so pretty!

On to my second, in no particular order, project, the book holder. This is definitely the most practical, and I’ve had to make one for a friend already.

This is the prototype, slightly saggy, as it is before I increased the pocket dowel diameter. Although any version will sag with enough weight. Not the most glamorous or novel project, but totally the most useful. I love having this on our wall, it is a great place to keep track of all of Rebecca’s library books, and when I am going through her book shelf I will pull books we haven’t read in a while and put them up there to tempt us. The design lets you see almost the entire cover of the book, which I really like. (And you get more book area for less fabric, hahaha, gotta fit it in one yard, and I wanted it BIG.) Also I love looking at this fabric! I got it when we were visiting Tokyo so it always makes me happy. Rebecca and Trish wanted me to send them this original, but some of the screen printing came off when I pre-washed it (for all I know I bought it from a bin ‘clearly’ marked (in Japanese) “Flawed Fabric, discount!”)


So I made them another one with this Ecco print. I like it too! (It is a little bunched at the top because I hung it on the same nails as my original which is a little bit narrower.)

Third and most, um, ‘unique’ project:

You’ve probably seen the folded cloth flowers on traditional Kanzashi (Japanese hair sticks), well, I was thinking about my fabric origami project (Origami Organizer) that they had liked last year, and I had a clock movement that I was going to use to fix an antique dysfunctional clock, and well, I don’t think it is quite the ‘wow’ project that the first was, more like, hrm? Ha! I envision it adorning the office of some of the more interesting admins I’ve known. I designed it for brocade – wait:

Also totally flamboyant, but more Rococo/opium den than the modern print in the book. I should have fussy cut the pieces for the book version of the clock, so that the spots would have all come out in the center of the petals, or something, but I thought that might be cheating, since it would *technically* use more than one yard of fabric. I know, I can’t believe myself, I am such a rule follower! I follow rules that I think might exist. Ha! And I worry that my oldest daughter is such a rule follower… I need to work on me before I worry about how to help her!

So, which would you make?

And, oh, the giveaway, Storey publishing is generously giving away a copy of Fabric-by-Fabric One-Yard Wonders as part of their promotional blog tour, comment to enter. (This draw­ing is for US res­i­dents only, sorry!) [edit: giveaway will be open until Friday the 6th, because that is when I will have time to close it. :-) ] So do tell me, which one of my projects would you make? I’d love to know. Or if you’ve seen the book, what project most strikes you?
 Giveaway is now Closed!

Hmm, what would I make? There are a lot of bags and clothes in this One-Yard Wonders, much moreso than last time it looks like. Having never sewed a purse, maybe I should give it a try. Probably not though. Maybe the Drawstring Tidy Caddy (practical), perhaps the Tuffet Inspired Ottoman if I could find the space for it in our tiny crammed house (I really like the funky but simple geometry of the design), mmm, The Monster Backpack (Domo-kun!) would be very popular around here (super cute opening mouth with glottis!), the art (Toddler) smock would be pretty useful around here too, although I am *not* making all that bias tape. The Pig & Piglets! So cute how you can stuff the baby pigs in the mom, and they have little velcro noses to nurse! (But so much sewing!) Also squee worthy is the Little Girl’s Capelet! I wonder if I could talk Penelope into that… So what about you?

And don’t forget to check out some of the other blogs in this tour, past and future, for more chances to win copies of the book, and just for some good inspiration! The ikatbag review is especially nice if you want a review, & I just LOVE her blog! So much crafty cardboard goodness.

12/12/2011 Becka’s Project Journal
12/13/2011 Craft Buds
12/14/2011 Patch Work Duck Designs
12/15/2011 A Spoonful of Sugar
12/15/2011 Nifty Kids Stuff
12/16/2011 Nom Nom Nom
12/16/2011 Quaint and Quirky
12/17/2011 ikatbag
12/17/2011 Two Brown Birds
12/18/2011 Sharon Sews
12/19/2011 LBG Studios
12/19/2011 Carolina Fair Designs
12/19/2011 Under Construction
12/20/2011 Little Blue Cottage
12/21/2011 Craftzine
12/21/2011 Neuroses Galore
12/21/2011 Emily Steffen
12/22/2011 Jenna Lou Loves You
12/23/2011 Spincushion
12/27/2011 One Inch World
12/28/2011 Sew Sew Etc.
12/29/2011 While Tangerine Dreams
12/30/2011 Studio Cherie
January ’12 Lu Lu Carter
January ’12 Fiberosity
January ’12 Zuhause
January ’12 Obsessively Stiching
January ’12 No Bad Days
January ’12 Craft & Cackle
January ’12 AfricanKelli

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Rolling Gingerbread

Monday, December 26th, 2011

This year we did it, we built a rolling graham cracker car/train thing. It rolls! I had to slightly violate our 100% food rule, because I forgot to bring stick pretzels, so the only thing I could find to use for an axle was the stick for a cocktail umbrella… they were there for gingerbread house decorating, so it sorta counts, but I’d like to have a do-over with 100% food. Next time maybe. Although, I think I’ll move on to a counterweight trebuchet… But a car with a gravity weight drive… the belt would be tricky, I could use those sticky gummy ropes, does a candy necklace with elastic in the middle count as food?? Lollypop sticks would also make fine axles come to think of it… Oh, or large candy canes. Does custom pouring hard candy gears count as cheating?

(Direct Youtube video link)

Here is proof that it rolls! The wheels are made out of graham cracker plywood (2-ply) with a hole cut in the center (used a bento circle cutter designed for cutting out eyes from cheese and such) with a Good N’ Plenty stuffed in it, which the tooth-pick-like cocktail umbrella stick stuck into that. The toothpicks go straight through the body of the car. My original plan was to build box tubes under the car and run stick pretzel axels through them, this is cleaner and simpler, but disappointingly not 100% food based.

(Direct Youtube video link)

Here is Jesse’s micro car, with Necco wafer wheels and similar toothpick construction.

Previous years:
2010: Gingerbread Marble Run
2009: Gingerbread Castle

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How to Make a Drop Spindle

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

Spinning is awesome, and I bet you have everything in your house you need to make a spindle, and if you have a dog, or some other sheddy type of pet you might have everything you need to spin! (But wool is probably easier to start with.) This spindle I’m about to show you is super low tech, and slightly shoddy, but it does the job. The other CD tutorials I’ve seen want you to get a rubber grommet to snap the CD into, but I had a hard time finding one the right size, so I made this up instead. Heck, if you want to go really old skool though just go out in the front yard and pick up a rock. Done. The first drop spindles were very likely rocks with a leader yarn tied around them. Now I want to try spinning with a rock.

What do you need?

  • A wooden dowel, about 12″, (but a pencil will do fine in a pinch)
  • An old CD, (or some cardboard cut to look like a CD)
  • Some masking tape or two rubber bands
  • Some kind of hook – if you have a picture hanging kit look in there, otherwise you can get creative with a paper clip or sewing pin. Or you can ditch the hook altogether and just put a notch into the end of your dowel to hold the yarn, or tie your yarn in a half hitch around the end of the spindle. So many choices!

Wrap masking tape around your dowel or pencil until it just fits through the CD or cardboard. For a top-whorl spindle put the tape about 1/3 of the way from the top, and for a bottom-whorl put it about 1/3 of the way from the bottom. The ‘whorl’ is the thing that whirls around, in this case the CD. :-) I like a bottom whorl spindle because it is more stable, but a top whorl spindle is easier to hook the yarn on the hook because of the way the yarn comes up and over the edge of the CD and then through the hook.

Use small pieces of masking tape to secure the CD. You could also use hot glue.

To do the same thing with rubber bands, wrap one rubber band several times around your dowel to make a lump, stick the CD on, and then make another rubber band lump above it to hold it in place. This is what we did in our class. These rubber bands are too small though, you should use something thicker. Next time we will too. Or we will skip the CDs altogether and use wooden toy wheels.

Screw the cup hook into the end of your dowel or pencil eraser. You probably want to drill a pilot hole, but you can get away without if you are lazy like me and don’t mind a bit of cracking. If you are aiming for a heirloom spindle you probably aren’t going to use a CD, or follow this tutorial at all.

If you don’t have a hook, I would hammer in a pin, then pull it out, bend it into a curve with some pliers, and super glue it back in.

Then tie a stout piece of yarn around the middle of your dowel and start spinning! It is so much fun!

Actually, I think the CD doesn’t quite have enough mass to give you a nice spinning inertia, to make it better I’m going to try taping some pennies on the underside of the CD right at the outside edge. I bet that would give it a nicer feel.

Here are some getting started links from the Joy of Hand Spinning, there are videos over on the far right side of the pages.
Spinning with a Drop Spindle
Basic Hand Spinning Techiques

So much fun! I have no idea what to do with the yarn I’m making though, I’d like to make something special, but I’m not sure what. Any ideas?

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