12 Days Box

I found a handmade cedar box at the Goodwill for $1.99.

I consulted my neighbor, The Woodworker, and he says I could shine this puppy right up with some sanding and polyurethane.   Now that the snow has finally melted, I can start looking into that.  The latch is busted, as you can see, but it shouldn't be that hard to find a new one.

Hopefully the scratches come out of the top after some TLC.

I think I'll leave the hinges alone.  

Maybe it will be a little too big for all of the ornaments?  Also here's my French Hen:

Out of Season

I finally got around to putting away all my Christmas baggage and remembered to take a picture of them beforehand.   Sometimes I line them, sometimes I just serge them.  Some get grommets, some don't.

I gave a number of them away when I sent the boxes off in December.  My family was also invited to a gingerbread house decorating party and I brought five or six as a thank you gift for the hostess.  And I still have this many left:

I did not increase my Christmas stash by much at the Textile Center Garage Sale this year - I actually still have quite a bit from last year that still needs to be made into bags.  I've also been going through my regular stash and trying to cut out fabric for birthday bags. I just have to switch out thread in my serger to accommodate non-Christmas colors.  

Slime Fail

I am a procrastinator and I'm sort of cheap.  I knew my kid's birthday was coming up and that she wanted it at an art place where they'd glue gems to a cardboard box and call it a day, but I procrastinated and didn't make the reservation in a timely manner.  Admittedly, I also dragged my feet on that because it cost a buttload to rent the place.  I mean, I know it's a non-profit and they could use the money, but I had procrastinated so I was left scrambling for a last minute home-based birthday party theme.

As if "Birthday Party" were not a theme in and of itself.

Anyway, she'd been pestering me to make homemade slime after she received a small little container of slime on Valentine's Day.  As we had our hands in containers of slime, I asked if she'd like to do this for her birthday party and she got so excited for that.  Perhaps I was high on Elmer's fumes when I made the suggestion.  I mean, seriously, what was I thinking??

 So...we had a Slimey Seventh Soiree.  Oh joy.  With one practice round of slime-making under my belt, I figured I would be ready for such a party.  

I was wrong.

I changed to a different recipe at the last minute (because I'm foolish and addicted to Pinterest) and nothing took.  I was so grateful for the help of another mom who stayed at the party.  She was all hands on with me and a real champ about it.  In the end, thankfully, all of the kids took away containers of glittery slime.  Yay for them.  My apologies went out to the parents because that stuff stains - we used food coloring and I did not police the amounts.  Yikes.  Sorry!

So here are some photos from the event.  Mostly of my decorations, which made me happy and which I have not yet taken down. 

The slime decorations were made with poster board.  I just cut some freehand slime shapes and came away with two pieces of slime that was strung up.  For the gift baggages, I just did the same on a smaller scale.  These two things were my favorite.

(Question, though:  Since when did birthday gift baggage for guests become a thing?  Maybe I wasn't invited to many parties as a kid, but I don't remember getting gift bags for attending parties.  Usually I stuff these baggages full of junk from the Dollar Store, but this time I exercised some restraint and only did a sheet of stickers and a ring pop.  The take-home slime was the real gift, don't ya think?)

An example of slime that did not take:

I thought if I had one hand in each bowl it would make the slime work faster.  Again, I could not have been more wrong.

Oh, and then there was the slime cake.  What a nasty mess that did not at all resemble its tidy inspiration on Pinterest.

The inspiration cake base was black with neon green slime.  I couldn't bring myself to use that much black food coloring.  I was afraid of sending children home with oddly colored mouths (from cake) AND hands (from slime).  I also feared that my child would cry if she didn't have pink somewhere on the cake and I'd already committed to the green pudding slime.  

I don't think we'll do this again.

But a Mad Scientist party would be really cool. I mean, I could reuse the bowls...and get some beakers...and eye goggles.  

Again...why can't I just do a "Birthday Party" theme??

Playing with Fire

Belated Christmas craft post!  The girls and I set some ornaments on fire!  I saw this on Pinterest from It's Always Autumn.  I followed her directions and supplies list, so if you have questions about how it was done, go there.  If you want to come over and make some more with us, just let me know and we'll set some more things on fire together.  It will be fun. We will singe our eyebrows.

The ornaments have to be glazed porcelain.  I inadvertently bought unglazed ones and the alcohol ink just got absorbed right into them (if I ever do marbling again, I think I'll try to marble those unglazed ornaments.   Until then they've joined the Craft Room Abyss.). We made stars, rounds, and baubles.  I can't think of another description for the third shape.  Bauble.  You know what I mean?

Here they are putting the drip drops of color onto the ornaments.

The directions seemed to suggest that we should only do two colors.  I tried to tell the girls that, but, as you can see in the above photo, they went for full color saturation.  (That's the bauble shape I was telling you about!). Luckily we only had six colors.

Then we squirted them with alcohol, stepped back, and I lit them on fire.  

It was really fun.  We made an initial batch of 12, I think, but some broke so I had to order some more.  Then we tried it again and invited the neighbors over to set things on fire with us.   I would not recommend using the tin foil directly on the table as I did above.  Use a lipped baking tray.  That's smarter.  I didn't ruin the table or anything, but the alcohol should be more contained.

Each one was so unique.  Can you believe that there were no tears shed while actually doing this craft?  It was amazing.  One of us always ends up crying when crafting together.  The tears came later when I asked them to sign their names on the back.

For the signing, we used a Sharpie, but not a regular one.  This Sharpie is maybe oil based.  I can't remember and I can never keep track of where I hide this pen so I can't find it to tell you.  Anyway, in the end all of the ornaments were signed by the children themselves.  I added the year.

Sometimes the backs were just as pretty as the fronts.

And how do they look like on the tree?  They look glorious on the tree:

Partridges, Pears, Turtle Doves

I have been eyeballing mmmcrafts' Twelve Days of Christmas ornament series for many years and a few after-Thanksgiving-sales ago I purchased 1-9 (Partridge-Pear through Drummers).  I figured I would wait to put them together until the patterns for 10-12 were created, which, as it happens, was last year sometime.   Yay!  

Well, as you, gentle reader, are aware, my book club has an offshoot sewing group.  In the past we have made bunting, napkins, gift bags, bibs...and we make the annual excursion to the Textile Center Garage Sale.   Anyway, I whispered to one of my reader-sewer-friends about the ornaments and asked if she'd be interested in doing a stitch-a-long.  She whispered it to another and another and then solicited the group as a whole....and in the end, four of us now have a Twelve Days Stitch-a-Long.  

We have decided to make one per month.  For the Partridge and Pear, we got together to plan, share supplies, and stitch.  Since then, we have incorporated a little show-and-tell at our monthly book club.  The plan is to document the ornaments on a monthly basis.  So, without further ado, here is what we've done so far:

And for the close-ups:

Some of us are using additional embellishments like sequins, beads, and buttons.  I'm a fan of sparklies at Christmastime, especially when the lights from the tree hit them.  Oh, speaking of the tree, for full disclosure, I am not making them into ornaments.  I'm thinking that I will somehow string them, sort of like a garland...perhaps with little felt balls between each ornament set?  I don't know.  I need to use the felt balls up somehow.  I've had them for seven years (they were purchased as a potential nursery mobile craft) and have not done one thing with them.  So we'll see.

More photos?  Yes, please!

And the reverse:

The satin stitch on the No. 1 looks pretty good, but can be time consuming.  Satin stitch is hard for me because it never seems to be very tidy.  I used the same color for the number and the No., but I think I'll try a two-tone scheme next time.

I think that's all for photos for this round.  My camera battery was about to croak, so it was a rush job.  Next month we have the French Hen pattern.  I already have my colors chosen and cut out.  

Oh, and I suppose you are wondering about the mechanics of the pattern.  Everything comes together so easily.  I haven't had a terribly hard time with removing the Sulky stabilizer.  It really does not like to dissolve from underneath the stitches, so I feel like my embroidery is kind of stiff.  I have reduced the number of strands from four to three in a lot of places.  I feel like the needle gets gummed up from the Sulky and, with four strands, I felt it got tough to pull it through the felt and one of my needles even snapped in two.  Nuts.