Easy Reindeer Ornament

As I mentioned in my last post, here's another one of my Christmas crafty gifts. I made this quick, fun and cute reindeer ornament for a family member. I think it was my easiest project of the year because it came from a kit and all I had to do was to arrange the pieces, glue them together and then cut and tie the hanging cord. I did also place a heavy book on top of the ornament as it dried because it didn't seem like the glue was adhering well enough on its own but that did the trick.

There wasn't quite enough cord length for my taste so I might use my own ribbon or something when I make the next two so the hanging cord can be longer (the kit makes 3 ornaments but I haven't made the other two yet). Another change I might make for the other two (if there's room without hitting the ears) is to place the reindeer's antlers a bit further apart so there's a bit more room for the hanging cord in between.

Did you have any easy and quick projects this holiday season? Are you planning any special Valentine's day crafts? I'd love to hear about it!

Loom Knit Hat

Hello, my crafty friends! I've had requests to post some of the crafts I made for Christmas presents last year so I'll have more to post as I come across the photos. There were some that didn't get photographed but at least you'll have an idea.

A few years ago one of my brothers asked for a hunter green knit cap and I finally found the right color yarn in the super bulky kind I like to use for loom knitting so this is the hat I made for him this Christmas. I hope he likes it! It's nice and thick and should keep him warm and toasty.

I didn't post it here but on my main blog I shared my first beaded ornament and that was also given as a Christmas gift and the recipient seemed to love it so I might make more this year.

Hope you're having a wonderful New Year! What kind of crafts are in your plans for 2014? I'm planning on more knitting, some painting, some beadwork and a couple applique projects. I'm more focused on getting organized this year but crafting is a great creative outlet.

Art on My Main Blog

Cherry Blossom Joy Art & Poem:
Copyright © by Phyllis Wheeler, May 2013

This year I've been busy organizing and have cut back on arts and crafting. Cut back, but not stopped entirely. Just in case you weren't aware, I have an inspirational blog at http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com and post some of my artistic photography and general art projects there. Today I posted some of my sketches (cherry blossom and pear). If you haven't been, I'd love for you to visit! Happy spring!

Free Crochet Along With One Dog Woof

I absolutely love this idea and started following ChiWei's One Dog Woof blog today because of it. Not only is she hosting a free to follow crochet along but she's teaching people how to crochet as part of the process. As if that weren't nice enough, there's the added fun of voting on which one of eight projects you'd like to do the most (you can vote for 2 projects). My first choice was the reusable gift bag so of course I hope that gets picked. But I've tried (with rather pitiful results) to crochet before so I'm hoping this will be the attempt that works.

Source: http://www.1dogwoof.com/2013/02/cal-pick-project.html

Super Cute, Fast and Easy Personalized Craft Gift

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Paper Wings posted this fabulous, easy and frugal personalized post it note holder gift craft and I thought it was so neat I had to share it with you in case you're looking for some last minute gifts that won't break your budget or take a crazy amount of time to make. You can probably make them for under $2 each if you already have enough extra scrapbook paper, embellishments and ribbon lying about. Her original post and instructions are here: http://violetpaperwings.blogspot.com/2010/12/post-it-present.html. Merry Christmas, happy Chanukkah, happy Kwanza and greetings of the season dear crafting friends!

Happy Birthday Banner Card to Celebrate Craftsi's First Birthday

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It's hard to believe that this blog is already a year old! Happy 1st Birthday, Craftsi! In celebration I thought I'd share this beautiful happy birthday card. I don't know that I'm going to ever make it but I do adore it. I've seen it on Pinterest and was thrilled to find it's source and instructions at Martha Stewart's crafts department. What are your favorite happy birthday crafts? 

Sources/original links:
Balloon card image: https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-TGVqGFkS45U/TZpD2n25hcI/AAAAAAAARIk/_xnKmiH8sPM/8.jpg?imgmax=512
Happy birthday banner card: http://thecraftsdept.marthastewart.com/2011/04/happy-birthday-banner-card.html

Cute and Easy Snowman Ornaments

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Simply Cute Creations made these adorable, cute and easy snowman ornament crafts from clear ornaments, baby socks, fake snow and bits of ribbon and string.  I love them. Here's the how to link: http://jhagfeldt.blogspot.com/2010/12/snowmen-ornaments.html. You could turn this into a recycled craft by using scrap ribbon and string and/or repurposing some baby socks.

Can you believe the holiday season has begun already? Merry Christmas! Happy holidays! Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanza! I wish you joy, peace and happy crafting!

Cat Painting

This is my first cat painting (as far as I remember, anyway). It's from a paint by number kit but all the mixing got complicated and I suspect I didn't quite do the kit justice. However, I still love the painting, even though it's far from perfect. Probably because I love cats and sleeping cats are always cute. What kind of crafts are you doing? I'd love to hear about it! Happy crafting!

Bath Rug from Recycled Towels

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Fine Craft Guild's easy tutorial for making a soft bath rug from recycled towels caught my eye today. You could use recycled bath towels, kitchen towels, face cloths or even tee shirts. This looks like an easy do-in-front-of-the-tv craft and I live that I'll be able to custom size it for my weirdly shaped bathroom. Have you ever made one of these kind of rugs? How did it turn out?

You can find the tutorial here: http://www.finecraftguild.com/eco-friendly-bath-mat-fun-diy-project-to-do-in-the-easter-break/

Happy crafting!

Easy Halloween Cards

When I was first married my mother in law encouraged me with cards for every holiday. It was a tradition I soon adapted (for immediate family members - it's not a huge undertaking like Christmas cards are) in hopes that it would encourage the recipients too. Now that I'm getting crafty (not that I have a clue as to what I'm doing) I've started making some of my own cards. Hopefully folks will like the personal touch and hopefully, with time and practice, I'll get better at it. But I thought you might like to see how easy card making can be. With some blank card stock, an orange sharpie, a black ink pad and $1 stamp from Michaels I was able to make this year's Halloween cards.

I started using my regular card writing script (freehand quasi-calligraphy). The card stock was cream instead of white and I guess that was enough to make the orange marker look more red than orange but I still think it's cute and Halloween-y.

Then tried patterning my writing after the scrapbook page Halloween greeting below. I didn't quite achieve their look but it was fun trying. We have two black cats so I liked the black cat stamp and hope our recipients like it too. I added orange dots to the stamped cats eyes to give them a more Halloween-y feel.

If you made your own Halloween cards and posted photos I'd love to see them! Happy Halloween and merry crafting!

Halloween Pumpkin Recycled Egg Carton Craft

I made this cute Halloween pumpkin out of a recycled egg carton (the cardboard kind) and set it on top of some extra upside-down Halloween colored cupcake wrappers (I used three so they'd be strong enough to support the pumpkin). The stem is made from a pipe cleaner and I used basic acrylic paint for the pumpkin (orange for the body and black for the facial features). It was a relatively quick and easy project. The only time suck was waiting on the orange paint to dry before painting the black Jack-o-lantern face on the pumpkin. I had planned to make three of these for our dining room holiday display nook but decided to give it to a friend instead (the photograph was taken in her house where she'd placed it in her foyer).

Happy October and Halloween everyone!

Craft Room Inspiration

Someday, I'd love to have my own beautifully organized craft and hobby room. Until then I'm inspired by my friend Janet's room. You can see my virtual tour of her super organized craft room here. Is your craft room/area organized? I'd love to hear about it or see pictures if you've posted them on the web. Please share!

As always, I wish you happy crafting!

(Full link just in case you need it: http://lovejoyandpeas.blogspot.com/2012/10/janets-super-organized-craft-hobby-room.html)

Halloween Cat Dishcloth

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I totally have to make One Crafty Mama's Halloween Cat Dishcloth. I'll likely make it in vanilla or blue yarn because that's what I have on hand in cotton but if I love it as much as I think I will I'll buy some orange and black yarn and make two more of the little dishcloths / washcloths. What a fun little knitting project for Halloween (or any time of the year if you love cats)!

You can find the original post with pattern here.

Happy crafting!

Source: http://onecraftymama-2011.blogspot.com/2011/09/halloween-cat-dishcloth.html

How to Make an Easy Clothespin Wreath for Fall, Thanksgiving or Harvest

Over a year ago I saw a cute clothespin wreath somewhere (maybe in a Martha Stewart magazine?) and decided to make my own version as a thankfulness wreath. Now that I see it against my white door I wish I'd painted the clothespins yellow instead of white but other than that I'm pretty happy with the wreath. You don't even have to paint the clothespins if you don't want to but I did because the marker bleeds some on the unpainted wood and looks nicer on painted clothespins. Here's how to make your own.

• Cut out a donut shape for your wreath base (I used a recycled priority mail envelope for mine; it was handy and it was already white so I didn't need to paint it, saving me a step). I recommend making the width about the same or slightly less than your clothespin grip depth (so your clothespin has the maximum amount of cardboard to grip but isn't sticking out into the middle of your wreath).
• Clip your clothespins all around your wreath until you're happy with the arrangement. I recommend using a multiple of three if you are going with my design.
• Spray paint your clothespins your desired color, following the directions on the can. You could also use acrylic paints if desired.
• Wait until after the wreath is completely dry. 
• Using three different colored markers (I used brown, orange and red for a fall/harvest/thanksgiving theme), write something that you are thankful for on each clothespin (this could be a fun family activity).
• Embellish your wreath as desired. I used leftover sunflower and scarecrow stickers from last year's wreath. I also cut out a rectangle from another part of the recycled priority mail envelope, used a red marker to create a border around the edges and wrote "Thankful" in the middle and then affixed it to the wreath with double sided tape.
• Tie a ribbon around the top of the cardboard wreath form and securely knot it in a bow for hanging.

Happy autumn and happy crafting, dear readers!

Flower Power Pincushion

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The Sewing Loft Blog has a tutorial for this cute flower power pincushion. When I get around to making mine I'll likely use a red background and pink and white flowers but I absolutely love her idea. Of course. first I'll need to learn how to embroider, make a french knot, and embroider with beads but in the meantime I can admire her pretty pincushion. Happy crafting and happy National Sewing Month!

Source: http://thesewingloftblog.com/2012/09/20/nsm-flower-pin-cushio/

Cute Cat Magnet Plastic Canvas Craft

This is my very first plastic canvas craft using yarn. I adapted it from a kit pattern and I love how it looks on our refrigerator. Most especially because you can't see the mangled back side of it.

Plastic canvas lessons learned:

• You count the bars not the holes/boxes when trying to follow a plastic canvas craft pattern
• It's better to work an area at a time than to go back and forth and wind up with a tangled yarn mess
• If I ever have another tangled yarn mess on the back (likely as I'm still a newbie at this) I could cut a piece of blank canvas before finishing and sew it to the back part of the front piece to hide the mistakes before applying the magnet strip (thanks Kelly!)
• It really is better to keep your yarn strings to manageable lengths because it gets really tangled if your piece is too long

Do you do plastic canvas? Do you have an tips or lessons learned to share? I'd love to hear them! I thought this was a really fun project and I look forward to doing more plastic canvas crafts in the future. Happy crafting!

Plush Knit Scarf Completed!

I think I started this scarf last November but I posted about it back in December 2011. Well, it's finally finished! I had planned to keep it for myself but there's a special someone who looks fabulous in this baby blue color so she might get it for Christmas if I can part with it. It's just a basic knit stitch scarf but the yarn is crazy soft and feels wonderful. I didn't put fringe on it because the unbound ends unravel a lot and the fringe would soon look like a few scraggly strings instead of fat yarn pieces.

What's the longest it ever took you to complete a simple craft project? I'd love to hear about it!

Happy crafting, dear readers!

Happy Harvest Plastic Canvas Craft

Isn't this scarecrow, pumpkin and bird plastic canvas craft cute? I think of it as my happy harvest decoration. I figure it can be displayed from September through Thanksgiving so it has a nice long time on display before being put away for next year. I was the lucky recipient of it on my local freecycle group (I'll have to do a post about freecycle on my Frugal Phyllis blog soon - it's a fantastic way to build community, help others, save money and is good for our planet).

My plastic canvas crafts aren't that advanced (until a few weeks ago I'd only done basic ribbon cross bookmarks; I'll post my first project using yarn with plastic canvas on Monday) so I can certainly appreciate all the hard work that went into this craft.

It's a happy craft that makes me smile. What makes it even more special is that my Freecycle friend's mother made it before she passed away. That kind of makes it an heirloom craft. So when I see it I'm reminded to pray for their family. Do you have any crafts in your house that are especially dear to you? I'd love to hear about them!

Happy crafting, dear readers!

Easy Sisal Trivet

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Thanks to the Too Much Time on My Hands blog I found this great yet easy sisal trivet craft on the Hi Sugarplum blog.  I'm thinking of doing a heart instead of a cross (not quite as easy but I like hearts) and using red spray paint instead of blue. Our kitchen is yellow with red and black accents so I think the red would work nicely.

What would you do with this fun trivet craft?  Happy crafting!

Craft instructions and source: http://hisugarplum.blogspot.ca/2012/06/diy-sisal-trivets.html

Pillowcase Craft Ideas

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As the lucky recipient of a back of used pillowcases I had to go online and see what kind of crafts I could make with them (not all of them - some are too pretty or soft to cut up) and I thought I'd share some of my favorite links with you. There are projects for making tote bags, skirts, dresses, purses, crafts projects, autograph pillows, decorations, aprons, table runners, home decor, laptop cases and more from vintage, used or inexpensive pillowcases. When you reuse a pillowcase you're making a green craft and even helping our plant.

How to sew a pillowcase tote (pictured above) from Country Living

11 pillowcase craft ideas from Crafting a Green World (video tutorials)

9 craft ideas using pillowcases from essortment

5 pillowcase craft projects from Care2 (video tutorials)

Have you ever made a pillowcase craft? I'd love to hear about it!

Happy crafting!

Disclosure: I have no material connection with any of the people or companies linked in this post and am just sharing my opinions.