Thrifty Find - Little Teapot

I have to admit, I feel like Goodwill can be like a yardsale sometimes. Not always, but every once in a while, there is an item that strikes the eye as something of a treasure. In a recent trip, I was lucky enough to have found two! You'll see the other once I'm finished refurbishing it, as it took a bit of elbow grease to make it look pretty. However this item needed no care other than a good scrub-down. It's this uniquely fun, yet sort of odd little teapot!



I can't believe it, it's shaped like a sewing machine!! Holy cow right? Not normally my style of decor, but It's made for me, I'm sure of it. I thought of giving it away as an extra for a swap sometime, but I'm being greedy and keeping it. Anyone who is a true blue stitcher would find this to be pretty neat. If you're not then you probably think I'm silly for liking it so much, since it's not entirely glamorous. I'm just going to use it as an ornament, though it is fully functional. The sewing machine comes off the table! *squeels* How neat!

Bib Bouquet

My best friend Kellie has a friend who is having a baby shower tomorrow. I've been working on something for her baby for a few weeks, and I polished it off tonight. I call it a Bib Bouquet!



It's a floral arrangement of baby goodies, mostly bibs. All of the goodies I put in it are hand made. I whipped up 3 bibs, 2 burpees, and 1 onesie. I got a metal floral bucket and surrounded the bibs and etc. with faux carnations. I also added a couple of binkies for fun. I made the card as well with some of my new set of stamps called "boys will be boys" and some blue scrapbook paper. I think the whole thing wound up looking really cute!





These are all the things I included in the bouquet, plus the onesie from my previous post.






And here is a close up of the fabric, as well as the items separate so you can see them a bit better. I'll be adding a tutorial for the burpee soon, as it's a great item to give new moms and super easy once you get the pattern cut.

(Click to enlarge thumbnails)

Owl Onesie

I made this around October last year, but I didn't have a blog back then! I found it upstairs, hidden away. Poor little owl!

I made it using scrap fabric, and I hand embroidered it along the edges when I discovered how to make zig-zag stitches really tight. I have no baby, I don't know many people with babies, but I love making stuff for babies! So how about you all just enjoy looking at his sleepy cuteness? He's fuzzy too!



Edit: I should clarify, I bought the white onesie, it was the owl part I made. I wanted something to actually practice on piecing together tiny design things.

Pin Cushion Swap - From StellaAndJim

Well Stella, you sure spoiled me! I love everything you sent. I love that they're bunnies, I love that they have an interesing way of being used, and I love that you gave me a needle book too! I've wanted one for some time. :o) I'm pretty sure you embroidered that bunny's face on the pouch too, but I'm guessing.

Here's the pics! (Click thumbnails to enlarge.)


The joke is "thumb bunny loves you" because you can wear it on your fingers!



Here's my favourite pincushion, because it's cute with plaid and a tiny clear button heart! The fourth one has a velcro strap that you put on your wrist and you can take the bunny face on or off. It's really convenient!

Midnight Mehendi

I've been going to bed so early lately, which isn't really like me at all. I had a creative itch to scratch but didn't really feel like doing any major project. So, some simple mehendi was the answer!

I found a design I liked online and modified elements of it that I liked to fit into where I wanted the mehendi to be on my hand. Last time I did a palm design, this time I'm feeling a bit less shy to show my design, so I put it on the back of my hand.



I really feel like my life is flowing in a million directions right now, so I ended up incorporating a lot of water symbols. I feel so much calmer after having expressed how I'm feeling on my hand, albeit interpretive. I think I can fall asleep now though! With my hand hanging off the side of the bed of course, I wouldn't want it to chip off before morning! Gotta have that schmexy dark stain. ;o)

Pin Cushion Swap - PicNick Pincushion for stellaandjim

I've been waiting FOREVER to post these photos!!! I'm so excited that she received her package so that I can put this spoiler up! I finished this Pincushion back in March. I was getting rather excited for spring, and I wanted Stella to have a nice reminder that the season was coming!

The top is a pincushion (recognize the fabric?), and the lid I made for the basket actually flips open to reveal a caddy for miscellaneous sewing doo-dads! The ribbon around it has embroidery of tiny bows to hold it in place. I hot glued it to the side and tied a bow in front. All in all the project took me maybe 1.5 hours, so it would be even quicker the second time around if I were to make another. If anyone is interested in the how to, message me on craftster!

Coin Pouch

My Dad... He's not an organised person. We love him inspite of his messy ways. While my mum has relinquished the fight of "trying to improve" on this quality, I being young and possibly naïve, always try to give him the benefit of the doubt and restructure the way he does things.

Last year I went through a massive amount of his papers, books, and varying teaching ephemera that needed to be organized or thrown away. I bought him some magazine files for Christmas, and he has since done a wonderful job keeping each child's lessons separate, adding and removing books and lesson plans in preparation of each day with them. Now when he's ready to go, he just takes what's in the file and leaves, instead of searching through a pile of crazy. *sigh* Organisation is a beautiful thing!

Another of his shortfall areas in the clutter department is stored 24/7 on his butt. Ahem. Yeah, his wallet. Well I should say wallets, as he has so much crap in them that he has somehow needed two. I can't help but roll my eyes as he desperately searches for a card at a check out or for a piece of paper containing this weeks shopping.

I decided today I was going to take him by the hand and walk him through sorting out plastic, papers, money, business cards, and sad to say... old candy wrappers. *shudders* After going through his wallet we found 5 cards that needed to be cut because they were old, a duplicate of a rewards card, and triplicate of his car insurance contact. Oy Vhey!

After cutting the fat, I got him down to one wallet! One flap contains cash flow cards, another contains points and rewards cards, another contains insurance and ID, and the inner compartment contains cash bills, and now only three sheets of paper!! No more searching! It's wonderful.

You must be wondering by now what all this is about if it's in my craft blog right? This new wallet is much slimmer, but left us without any spot to put change. Aha! Sewing time!

I made him a drawstring coin pouch! It's very Robin Hood if I do say so myself. It's also divided to separate large and small coins of course! Naturally I couldn't have him throwing it all in one spot and searching desparately for a dime right? ;o)



He loves it. Here's some detail shots, you can click the thumbs to enlarge. It's a lined bag that pulls at the strings to close. When opened up, there's a fold of fabric to separate large from small. I made the drawstrings by swirl-braiding some yarn-ish strings together. It's pretty heavy duty to stand the test of time. After all, this will inevitably get sat on too! haha.

Mum's Birthday

It's my mums birthday today. She won't be home from work until the evening, so I made her a little surprise! I just finished setting it all up and putting the birthday greeting in them.

Chocolate muffins and hand made decorations!





I also gave her a present last night, as she is working most of today. I didn't make this pillow, I got it at White Feather. It's a country store she loves just outside of Port Perry. I saw her looking at it and snapped it up that day. She loves it! :o)