Midnight Crafting

Not quite midnight, but a good friend agreed to come over after the kiddos were in bed and work on some refashioning projects with me. She was the genius behind that sweet shirtdress up at the top, for her daugher. She made it from one of her own shirts that just never quite fit right, and then used the cuffs of the sleeves to add those adorable little puff pockets. I could just eat it up!

I used one of Lo Gung's old black t-shirts, and a pink PJ top that we found on clearance. Overall cost for a new nightie and v-neck top - $2.97. Not bad!

The Shirt Frock

I had a request for a clearer shot of the front and back of this dress. So....here ya go! *mwah*

Never Too Young to Be Polite

As I've mentioned before, I absolutely love my local Re-Use-It network. (Previously known as Freecycle...but our moderators jumped ship. Long story.) A good portion of my crafting materials have come from generous ladies in my area - bags of ricrac, stacks of vintage fabric, and sacks full of tulle have all found their way into my home.

As I prepare to relocate across the country, I am doing my best to de-stash and simplify. When I get my daily e-mails from the network, I look very carefully at all of the "Wanted" notes. If any of them match anything in my craft room...chances are, I'll drop them a note. Many of the requests are on behalf of children, just budding into their creativity. I love that what I rounded up (for free) can now be redistributed to young people who are in need of copious amounts of (free!) materials to experiment on.

This past week, a grandmother put out a request for any sort of craft materials. Her (very creative) grandchildren had recently moved into town, and she wanted enough materials on hand to keep them occupied for the majority of the summer. I contacted her, and put together several sacks of things I thought young children might enjoy working with.

I was tickled pink when they arrived. Grandma was such a sweet and gracious woman. As they approached the door, her grandson put on his best Polite Face and handed me the card that you see above.

To: Aunt LoLo
From: The one you helped


(inside) 
Thank you for everything you have given me and I'm so happy I don't know how to say.....


(yarn on right)


The sweet words were accompanied by pictures of candles, a boy making a candle, and a ball of yarn that was unraveling to spell out the words "Thank you."

I was so impressed with this young man, and his (beautiful) and sweet gesture!

LoLo Tute: A Silhouette Project

In Joy School right now, the girls are learning about the Joy of Being Unique. As an on-going project, one of the moms helped the girls start little books, All About Me. I'm not sure what all they have in there so far, but she mentioned to me that silhouettes were needed, approximately 5x7. I was on the case!

I started by taking head shots of all the girls. I underexposed the pictures, and posed them by windows, to get as much contrast as possible. They were in the playroom, on the hardwood floor, so I lined their feet up on the boards to try and get a perfectly placed "side view." (Ming Wai's was still a little off...but I think her head's on crooked. All the other girls' pictures turned out fine. Heh.)

The next morning, I loaded the pictures onto my computer and cut several pieces of computer paper into 5x7" rectangles.

To make the silhouettes, carefully tape a piece of paper over the screen (fixing the tape to the computer, and not the actual screen) and then use your mouse to shrink your picture viewing window until the head fits comfortably inside your paper. Carefully, trace around the head with a pencil. (Lightly now, you don't want to damage your screen!)

Remove the paper from your computer screen, and carefully cut out your head with a pair of sharp scissors, or a craft knife.

Give your Little a piece of paper (in their favorite color, please), trimmed to size (5x7" here) and tell them to go to town. I intended for the girls to scribble and mark up the page in a riot of happy colors. Most of the girls obliged me, but one drew a beautiful little picture of a snowman. Overachiever. *grin*

I used double-sided tape to attach the silhouettes over the girls' artwork. (Except for Miss Overachiever - her silhouette was mounted on the back of her artwork. I didn't have the heart to cover it up!)

And there you go! Easy peasy silhouettes, perfect for small All About Me books. 

Thing No. 11: Something for Me!

Finally...a little project just for me! I've made several of these teacup pincushions (tutorial here at Gingham Cherry), but all of them left the premises in the possession of other friends. No more!

Since I started sewing three years ago, I've kept my pins all jumbled up in a small baby food bowl. It worked great - it was especially easy to pull pins out of my project while I sewed and just chuck them into the bowl. Getting them out..was not nearly as much fun. I guess that's why we all have pincushions...and not pin bowls.

Anyhow...I've seen the light. Here's my pincushion! I found this beautiful little cup, all lonely-like, on a shelf at Goodwill. The fabric is a fat quarter from my local quilt shop that I fell in love with. Look closely - it's cherry blossoms and little lucky red envelopes. How sweet is that?! I'd never seen Chinese New Year fabric before...

A little bit of sleuthing on ebay makes me think that this line of china, while not very valuable or rare, is approximately 50 years old. I'm happy to have such a pretty little piece of history sitting on my craft table!

Easter Outfits

I made these up for the kids this morning, and I'm really pleased with how they turned out! (I'm less than pleased with Siu Jeun's cooperation during the photo shoot...but what can you do, right? I just barely managed to snap this before he ran off. Even Ming Wai couldn't hold him down. He was a boy with places to go!)

The dress and the shorts are made out of a short-sleeved button down shirt I saved from our Goodwill-Bound pile. The shirt used to belong to my husband. I believe he bought it back when busy brown floral prints were still all the rage in men's wear.

 Heh.

(PS - A tutorial is in the works for both the dress, and the shorts. The dress used up most of the body of the shirt, and the shorts use the sleeves. Pretty slick!)


(PPS - I promise that Siu Jeun will be wearing more clothes than this on Easter. I was too anxious to get this shot to get him dressed first! I'm picturing a nice cream colored polo shirt...)


PPPS - Happy Easter, everybody!

Quilting Basics ~ Preparing & Cutting � Sew,Mama,Sew! Blog

Quilting Basics ~ Preparing & Cutting � Sew,Mama,Sew! Blog

If you've always wanted to learn how to quilt...now's the time. Sew, Mama, Sew is going with a Quilting theme this month. I'm looking forward to loads of awesome tutorials! This one is the first, and it's great.

Cheers!