DIY Belated Christmas part 4 “Clouds”

Believe it or not I got almost all of my Christmas gifts done on time, with a bit of Christmas gift card cheating.  Of course the holidays are so packed with fun I had no time to write about the adventures in crafting.  I have started learning knitting (my crochet hooks look at me as a trader now), and my resolution is to learn how to spin my own yarn, and make my life a bit more creative.  (Also yoga, be more tolerant person, and love love love)
Anyhow, one of the presents I forgot to tell you wonderful blog readers about is the gift I gave to my littlest niece Hanna.  Hanna is very small.  She is so small I figured that if I was talented enough to draw in a small space, she would only be able to enjoy her custom shoes for about a week until her feet incredible hulk their way out of them.  So what to do for my little one?

CLOUD MOBILE A LA PORTLAND!     All you need for this project is:   

Felt (8.5 x 11 sheets 4 for a dollar) in red, black, white (x2), and blue   $1.25

Needle and thread or sewing machine  

String of beads  ( 50 cents at a second-hand store)

fabric paint (1.99 big bottle)

Stuffing (3.50 a bag)

Steps: 1. Stick the two white pieces of felt together and cut into a shape of a cloud.   You can do this free-handed as well.  2. fold the red felt in half and make 2 hearts big enough to fit on the face of the cloud.  3.  Cut a small tongue (kind of like a heart with a rounded edge at the bottom of it instead of a point) out of the red felt. 4.  Sew  the tongue to the black felt and cut the felt into a U shape.  Also cut off two of the corners for the winking eyes.  5. At this time I would paint the letters of the name you want to have hanging from it on the blue felt and let dry.

6.  Here is the easy but tricky part… look at your white felt sandwich.  you want your face to go in between the white felt so sew the pieces in and then sew your  felt on the top, left, and right side ONLY.  Set your cloud to the side.

When you turn your cloud inside out it should look like the photo above.  7.  Cut the string of beads however long you would like them to be and secure them to the inside of the cloud.    8.  Cut your “hopefully” now dry raindrops around the name and secure them to the other side of the string of beads.  9.  Stuff the cloud and sew the open end. It should look like this:

YEAY TO HAPPY CLOUDS IN THE SKY POOPING RAIN!  Oh and if you don’t want to make one… I can!  Just email me or visit my shop and I can make it happen for $15.  Thanks!

 

DIY Christmas Part 3: Crochet for Men

So here we are… on the 3rd instalment of DIY Christmas.  For those of you that have been following you have seen me create kitty bags and customized shoes  for the little ones.  If you have not been following, you can click the links above or do a search for DIY Christmas.  You may be saying to yourself… “Well not all of my family is under 12 years old, so what do we give the bigger manlier version of my family?”  Well that question is a toughie!  It is hard to think of anything that can be given to a guy you may not know much about.  What I do know is that my brother-in-law has everything he needs and my blood brother is quite elusive, so I better crochet my way out of this one!

So what does every man need in the winter?  No matter how hairy that man may be, even the furriest of mammals could use a hat and scarf !  First pick your manly colors (grey, black, dark reds, and blues are my go to man colors, as well as earth tones)  I apologize in advance for my gender specific color assignments, but when it  comes down to it, my brother is a picky picky man!  Find your crochet hook and get to crocheting.  I used a single stitch for the hats below.  If you need help on how to crochet, you can refer to the wonderful world of You tube for tutorials and color changing for striped is easy, just knot the new yarn onto the one you are finished working with.

DIY Christmas Continues! Custom Shoes for the wee ones

Thanks again to all my readers for patiently waiting for my next instalment on DIY Christmas.  If have not been following or are unaware of what I mean when I say “DIY Christmas”, allow me to explain… At the present time I am working for pennies over minimum wage, and have an ever-expanding family.  I love them all and need to show them that I care in the form of THINGS this holiday season.  For the readers that know me, they know that I am cheap therefore I CRAFT.  Last post I created some kitty bags for my little nieces that were filled with crochet hooks and colored pencils. 
                                

This week I decided to make customised shoes for each of my princesses.  I found shoes at H&M $5, Forever 21 $5, and Target $10 dollars a pair.  All three pairs for 20!  I went to JoAnne Fabrics with my boyfriend’s handy-dandy iPhone and got a 50% off coupon on JoAnn’s mobile app.  If you are unaware of this app LOOK it UP.  The coupons on the app are stackable with the ones you get in the mail and online, and it cost nothing to download.  I picked up a pack of 5 paint markers which retail at $14.99 but with the stacking coupons came to about $6.50. 

Get ideas and don’t be afraid to paint!  Here are examples of the shoes I made…

                      

Little Kitty Bags

 This Holiday Season has left Auntie Venus broke for the remainder of the year, which is funny due to the fact that Auntie Venus has not even started Holiday shopping.  Good thing this Auntie is a dang cheap and pretty skilled crafter.  This month I am going to bring you my handmade creations so you can be inspired to make your own holiday gifts and save the dough for the Christmas cookies. 

This first gift is being made in bulk for my little nieces.  I wanted to create something over the top cute, but not so juvenile that my soon to be teen niece hides it from her friends.  Now I am also into making sure my little ones learn the art or Crochet, so the answer was simple… crochet hook bags for the older ones and a pencil-case for the younger ones.  LITTLE KITTY BAGS, I think I can make those!!!!

MATERIALS NEEDED

• Thread  $1.25
• Fleece $5 a yard  (cut 6 inches by 8inches)  
• A Zipper (I used 4 inch) $1.50
• Doll eyes (pack of 4 for 1.99)
• Material for lining. (cost depends on material)
• embroidery thread $1.50
• fabric paint $1.99

I can make about 6 bags with 1 yard of fleece.   

 I cut the lining of the bag to be about 1/3rd of an inch shorter on the sides so that I can sew them inside out and then flip them causing the seam to be invisible.  I also cut out a piece of cardboard to make guide for the size of ears I used.  I wanted this guy to look as uniform as possible so I recommend using straight edges and stencils if needed.  Also I used embroidery thread to make the nose.

I only used the fabric paint to write their names on their bags so the paint is on optional purchase.  I recommend that the zipper be the first thing you sew on.  Do this by cutting a slit in the fleece where the mouth zipper is supposed to go. Sew the zipper to BOTH the fleece and the material you are using for the lining.  Once that is sewed on (hand sewing takes longer but it can be done) I unzipped the zipper and cut out the lining material up to 1 cm away from the stitches that are on the material now that you have the zipper on the kitty.  Once the zipper is done use the embroidery thread to make the nose, and cut out the slits for the eyes.

Once that face is made, make sure to sew all pieces in this order:  Lining ,Back of cat fleece panel ,  face of cat looking at fleece panel, and last piece of lining.  If you are unsure if you have it right sew only one side and turn it inside out.  It should look like the image above. Sew 3 sides together… but LEAVE THE TOP OF THE HEAD UNSEWN!  You need to make sure to sew the ears.  I sewed the ear triangles together and then turn them inside out.

Once that is all done sew the ears in between the top of the cat face fleece panels and BAM!!!!! KITTY BAGS!!!!!

 

If you don’t feel like working on this I am also selling them here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/88160926/customized-kitty-mouth-bag  Have a Great Holiday!