Last Christmas Gift!

In between anatomy studying, making some supersuits and working out I finally finished the last Christmas gift.  My little brother is another aspiring DIYer and he remodeled his kitchen with the help of Ikea.  The kitchen is modern so I knew I wanted a unique design.  The black and white fabric was purchased from walmart for $6.99 and the red came from my stash.  I hope they inspire good dinners, fine wines and wonderful memories.

Pinspiration: Holiday Window Decor

One of the cutest holiday pins was this little gem.  Simple, elegant and EASY!  I mixed it up with jingle bells I had in my craft room and for $3.00 I had window decor.  I used my gun on the ribbon and the bells are jute twine.  I will re use this next year and maybe extend it to other windows in the house it was so cute.

Pinspiration: Christmas Card Holder

 Here is a short, glue gun project that will help get all of those Christmas Cards off the nicely decorated mantel and on a blank space.  Based on this pin I created a Card Tree.  I used a sheet of foam core, existing fabric from my stash, red and white ribbon, sewing pins and sequins.

Cut the foam core to the shape you desire and using some sewing pins, pin the fabric to the foam core on the edges.  Wrap the fabric around to the back and glue down.  Next you will have to decide where to place your ribbons.  I used 4" between my ribbons.  If I have time after the holiday I will remake this using 5 inches between ribbons.  Some of the cards are larger and don't fit very well.  Use a decorative sewing pin where the ribbons cross.  I used a sequin to make it extra sparkly.  Total cost was around $5.00.  $3.99 for the ribbon and 1.59 for the foam core at Hobby Lobby.  Everything else was from my stash.

This would be a great beginning project for any crafter- sans the slight burning of my fingers with the hot glue.

Pintrest Christmas placemats

Pintrest is the devil.  Or at least his little sister.  I try to limit my Pintrest browsing time to during my morning coffee but sometimes that becomes two cups of coffee and then whoops- it's noon.  As a crafter my biggest beef with Pinners in general are the missing links.  I hate it when someone links to a tumbler (last time I checked at tumbler was a glass!) and there are no directions on how to accomplish the look in the pin.  I try to always link my Pins to good sites, even if I have to link back to my own blog.

This year due to money < time, I made all of my family place mats for Christmas.  The first set I tackled were for DT's brother and his family in Chicago.  Frogs have a special place to DT's family so I designed these place mats based on this pin.  I giggled the entire time I was designing this place mat.  I freehand drew out out the pattern, using the pin as inspiration.  The light green fabric is rit dyed Osnaburg cotton that I had dyed for a tunic (and promptly went yuck!) and cotton twill.  The buttons came from my button stash.  I made 2 frog place mats and 2 lily pad place mats with lotus flowers.  Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the lily pad place mats but DT liked them so much I will probably make a set for us this summer.

The second and third place mat projects I made were both easier and harder.  Easier because they are squares- yay!  Harder because these took forever to finish- at least a full audio book.  I made 12 place mats for DT's brother here in Columbus and 4 place mats for my sister's MIL.  I used the same fabric for both- a cotton yarn like weave from the fabric stash with a rust red cotton twill backing, again from the stash.  For DT's brother I used 2 sizes of cranberry grosgrain ribbon for trim.  My sister's MIL has a much more neutral decor and I used the below gold braid.  I also neglected to take a photo of BOTH d'oh!  I still have some of the below fabric.  I think it was purchased when I was still in my RenFair phase and thought I would make bodices and sell them.  Turns out I detest both Monty Python and the Holy Grail AND The Princess Bride and couldn't imagine spending my free time sewing for people who could only quote those movies.  I'm glad this fabric found a use, it was getting lonely in the WTF box in the attic.

Disney Christmas Dresses

This is the first Christmas in the past 15 years that I have had the gift of time.  I took my last final at Columbus State on Dec. 11th and since I am a poor college student with a fairly large fabric stash this is going to be a Pintrest Christmas. My first project I tackled were Disney inspired Holiday Dresses for my nieces, Gigi and Emma.

My sister and her family have been planning a trip to Disney World for February 2013.  Knowing that they needed Christmas dresses AND something cool to wear to the Magic Kingdom, (and something non-scratchy and washable!) I climbed into the attic and like a dragon with gold, started sorting through my fabric stash.  I have no clue what the cranberry cotton velveteene was going to be, but it became a Holiday Belle inspired dress for Gigi and a brothers Grimm inspired dress with pinafore for Emma.

Gigi is always HOT so I made sure her dress had short sleeves.  PopPop helped me pick out the gold and creme crepe back satin.

Unlike her sister, Emma is always cold so her dress has long sleeves.  The pinafore is made from white on white cotton purchased from Joann about 10 years ago. The trim on the pinafore was purchased at Pennsic and the velvet ribbon is from Momma Tingley's ribbon stash.  Both dresses have a generous hem and are a little loose so if they grow I can adjust the length.

 The dresses were a great opening project for me to get back into the swing of creativity.  I am hoping the girls have a wonderful time at Disney World and are still excited to wear their dresses at Be Our Guest Restaurant for dinner!