Crafts

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

And if it can hide some crafting or sewing tools along the way we have an added bonus. Visit today's article for ideas on strickly covering the box with fabric or paper. I promised to include some additional ideas here on our blog space so here goes.

Crazy Quilt

Instead of using a solid piece of fabric you can make it to look like a crazy quilt. Gather up all of your fabric scraps and trim scraps. You will need lots of trim. Cut the fabic into irregular shaped pieces about six inches in either direction. Make sure to vary the shape and size of each piece. Instead of spraying the adhesive onto the box, spray each fabric piece and lay them onto the box filling in all of the spaces. Next hot glue pieces of trim at every intersection where two fabrics meet.

Collage

If you have a collection of magazines, spend and afternoon cutting them up. Cut out any word, picture of patch of color that draws your eye. Using white glue, stick all of the magazine pieces onto the box in all different directions. The glue will dry clear.

Tissue Paper

This is a fun project to get the kids involved with. Purchase a variety of tissue papers. Have the kids tear them up. Don't make the pieces too small though. Using a sponge paint brush and white glue, paint each piece of tissue paper onto the box overlapping as you go. The glue will dry clear and the tissue paper will make even more color combinations where ever it is overlapped.

Thanks Carrie for the idea.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

You can view today's article by going to the home page or simply clicking here. I thought for today's blog I would give you a third method of creating that rustic, aged look to choose from.

For this technique we will be burning the surface of the wood. Make sure once again that the piece is wood and not a laminate. It is very important to remove any varnish that might be on the surface. If you burn the piece with varnish on it you will be burning varnish and not get the look we are after.

You will need a small hand held torch. You get these at your local hardware store. They come as about a 12" tank with a nozzle at the top. When you turn the nozzle it releases gas. You light the gas to create your flame. Read all safety labels before beginning this project.

Once the piece is sanded you will actually be running a flame over the wood. Move the flame around the wood slowly. You will see the grain of the wood darken while the rest of the wood appears to recede. It will almost look like the grain raises up. It is important to keep the torch moving. You want to create an even design in the wood.

Have fun with all of the distressing ideas this week. Feel free to write me with your own ideas and results.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

To view the original article click here.

I promised to leave some more variations for this project and I am a woman of my word.

I used the comparison in the article of using ceramic tile. So why not use the scrapbooking paper like ceramic tile. First paint the entire wall the color you want for the grout lines. Instead of several different colors, choose one paper that resembles stone. Leave a 1/4 inch, 1/2 inch or 3/8 inch space between sheets for the wall color to show through. It doesn't matter which measure you use as long as you consistently use the same measure all the way through. Omit using the embroidery floss altogether.

Another idea for the patchwork quilt wall is to create your wall just as we did in the article but instead of using the floss in a perdendicular manner in a variety of lengths, make it look like a running stitch. We do this by making all of our strands 1/2 inch in length. Instead of laying the threads across the seams, we lay them about a quarter of an inch inside of the square running parallel with the seam. Leave a 1/2 inch between the pieces and run them all the way around the inside of each block so that it gives the impression of the block being stitched all the way around. It is more work but adds a lot to the look.

Leave me your ideas and I will be glad to post them.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

Or do you take a different craft project each time you go on holiday? I would love you hear from you. There are times when you have had to come up with a project on the fly to keep the kids from getting bored. For crafters like me, a project is always included when packing for a trip. E-mail me with your vacation projects.

Crafting on vacation is very different than crafting at home. The reason being that you are limited to what you have with you or gather on your vacation. This makes us get even more creative because it is much easier at home to go to your stash of materials when you get stuck. I know I have gone on vacation with a canvas, brushes and ten different paint colors. There are always more colors I would use if I were home but this forces me to look at things differently.

Today's article is all about crafting your vacation. If you have a special way of preserving your memories of your vacation, send me those ideas too. I would love to share your ideas with all of the other readers. No one ever has all of the possibilities.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

DRG is a leading publisher of needlework books. On July 30th they are going to be making available a book entitled Think Pink. The book contains 35 different crochet patterns in all different skill levels and of course they are all done in pink. The book has three purposes.

The first is to give you some great new crochet patterns to try. The second purpose is to raise awareness of the fight for a cure for breast cancer. And the third and most important is that it will raise funds for research. DRG is going to donate a portion of the sales from each book sold to aid in research.

The projects are even intended to be made by you in pink. In this way you can comfort someone struggling with cancer of give a gift to a friend they can wear to help show their support.

The book will be available at local craft and needlework shops or you can buy it online at the Annie's Attic website.

This is a very worthy cause all crafters should stand behind. Make sure to visit DRG's website to add your support for their generous work and as always Think Pink.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

Many adults struggle with purchasing gifts for father's day. Dad's and Grandpa's are just really hard to buy for. Now imagine you are seven years old and have no money to buy a gift. You can ask mom but it's not the same. You want it to be a gift from you that he will really like. It doesn't have to be all about money. Even as adults we find times when the money gift is beyond us.

My son was going through a lot of health problems a few years ago. It meant he was out of work for sometime and we knew he had bills to pay and was really struggling. We told him not to worry about buying a gift. We didn't want him spending money on a gift we knew he needed for survival.

He came over on Father's day and gave his father a small box wrapped up with a bow. At first we were very upset to think he went and spent money when we knew he couldn't afford to. When his father opened to box he found a small stone. He was told it was a thinking stone. It was small enough to keep in his pocket with change. Then whenever he had a tough decision to make he was to reach in his pocket and rub on his thinking stone.

What a simple gift, but a perfect gift.

It actually worked in a different way though. Whenever he would reach in his pocket and feel the stone he was reminded of his son's love. He still carries that stone with him everyday.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

I think you are really going to love this one. You can make lettering for your scrapbook pages any size and style you like. You can try all different color for the floss as well as the background fabric.

If you know someone who loves to scrapbook and they are having a new baby or grandbaby they would love to receive a set with the new babies name to use in their scrapbook.

Look at your cross stitch and embroidery magazines for even more ideas. You can even use cross stitch fabric instead of material. In this way you can actually use a pattern you have for either the lettering or the embellishment of the lettering. Use a floral design or graphic design to add dimension to an ordinary letter.

You can even add other elements. Why not try either embroidering the letters using ribbon instead of floss. Or embroidering in floss and making ribbon flowers to add a three dimensional element to the surface of your letter.

You can hot glue tiny wedding rings or miniature baby bottles to any of the letters. Get really creative and see how far you can take this idea. I think you will even surprise yourself.

If you missed the article, just click here and I will be happy to take you there myself.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

Ideas can come from anywhere. You would be surprised how many ideas you can come up with for quilting from a magazine that has nothing to do with quilting. Want to decorate a cake? Check out the latest stamping catalogs.

It is easy to look at quilting books for quilting ideas and cake decorating ideas for cake decorating. That is where everyone else looks too. That limits the original ideas possible.

If you want to really come up with something different go to another medium. You will be amazed at how you can find ways to push your craft past the boundaries you have established subconsciously. We all have the self made boundaries and it is important for your creativity to find ways to go beyond them.

One of the simplist ways is to try techniques or designs for one craft and take them to another. That is one way you can come up with a truly original idea and a totally new concept for your crafting.

Many companies are happy to send you their catalogs. Create a file of catalogs without labeling them for a specific craft. Then when you are looking for an idea, pull out all of the catalogs and see what you come up with.

Include in the file any magazines that inspired you. You will also want to keep a notebook in the file. Whenever you see an idea in nature or in any environment, write it down. Even if you won't be using it anytime soon. It might be a year from now that you look at that book and the idea you wrote down triggers a masterpiece.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

She didn't have a lot of money to spend and wanted to know if we could make the sign rather than buy it. It took some thinking but we found it wasn't that hard.

We had two magnetic sheets (10" X 12"). She really wanted something larger than one of the sheets could provide. Now how do we create a magnetic sign that would measure 12" X 20"?

Here is what we did.

On the computer we formatted the business name and contact information. After trying a few different fonts and colors we printed out several drafts. The words were all cut out and placed on the side by side magnet sheets. This way we could enlarge or shrink any part until if was just right.

Once we had everything perfect we reprinted a fresh copy and cut out each of the words. The backing was removed from the magnetic sheets. Wanting the magnetic side to remain strong but wanting to adhere the two magnetic sheets we attached the magnetic sheets on the non-magnetic side with a piece of black electrical tape. Using a glue stick all of the paper words were adhered to the magnetic sheets.

The entire surface was then covered with clear contact paper to protect the paper from weather and help secure the two magnetic sheets together. It was then magnetted to her car door. We found the possibilities were endless. We could add a photo of her, a photo of her work or we could just add clip art.

It turned out great.

Posted by Mary Welling-Bonney

There are a lot of books out there that are the same old thing with different fabric, different paper, different color, etc. They are still the same old thing. When I get a book that is really different, I love to make sure you know about it too.

I recently received a book that at first glance I thought was just another knitting book. I was not excited or in any hurry to check it out. I am being honest here. How many scarves does a person really need? I set the book aside on my desk. I'll look at it later. Well I actually had some time to look through a stack of "I'll look at it later". Boy was I surprised.

One Ball Knits: Accessories is really different. Just as the title suggests, these are all projects made using only one ball of yarn. Can you imagine the challenge to the authors? The three sisters who developed this book made patterns that are beginner and advanced beginner level but they are not your basic boring designs. All of their patterns are made with stylish flair for today's fashion.

There are patterns for belts, wraps, ponchos, handbags, jewelry and even fingerless gloves. This is not your grandmothers patterns. Make sure to check out this book at the Watson-Guptill website.