Owl Goodies for Me

We hosted the Give a Hoot Owl Swap. By now all of our owl swap packages are flying around the world, just waiting to land at their intended destination. I was lucky enough to receive this owl package from Ngaire. It arrived the day before we left on vacation so I'm a bit slow posting a picture. Now that I'm home it's time to share my owl goodies. Ngaire sent an owl emery board, a wooden owl and an owl softie all tucked into an adorable owl gift bag. The owl softie is made from a sweater, so you know I was going to be in love with it! Thank you Ngaire for my owls, I love them!!!

Today I received a surprise package from my friend Val. It's fabulous! Val sent me these wonderful goodies for my birthday. Thank you so much Val! You spoiled me and I love everything! I'm wearing my neck cowl as I type and my ornament has been added to my YOE tree. The owl pincushion is next to my sewing machine awaiting my next sewing project and the bookmark will be used when I start my next book since I just finished reading Winter Garden. I set the napkins aside to use in the coming weeks. The paper owl box was filled with MardiGras beads so it was scooped up and claimed by Nature Girl.

Here's a closeup of the owl ornament and the owl pincushion. Aren't they cute?!

Val, Thank you so much! Your kindness and thoughtfulness means the world to me! THANK YOU my friend!!!

Thoughts on Paper

I've been doodling random thoughts on old book pages. I've been taking thoughts or quotes that have meaning to me and getting lost in the process of doodling them. It's a simple method of artistic expression but I think it might be therapeutic. I'm trying to focus on the positive and this is one way I'm doing it. I thought I'd share this one with you.

Mohammed Ali's trainer, Angelo Dundee recently passed away. No, I'm not a big boxing fan but this was a quote that was associated with Angelo Dundee. I couldn't agree with this quote more! Being nice is important in my book. Being nice can mean different things to different people. And "nice" can be delivered in so many ways; a smile, holding the door for some one, kind words or encouragement. It's true, being nice to someone else doesn't cost anything extra and the rewards are tremendous. . .you make someone else's day and you feel happier yourself! That's my thought on paper for today.

Journals and Paper

I'm not usually a paper crafter. In fact I haven't scrapbooked in eons! (Though I really should stop procrastinating and attempt to get some of the bazillion pictures I have into scrapbooks.) Anyway, over the past couple of weeks I took on a project involving paper. The challenge I set for myself was to create 21 journals for Nature Girl's class. I looked into buying journals but they were expensive. In the end I opted to buy composition notebooks and find a way to alter them. I have modge podged and taped my way to a 21 new journals. I even learned a few things along the way about the best ways to alter a journal, though honestly, I think there is more to be learned in this area as we see how they hold up. Nature Girl did already rip her ribbon through the paper but she taped it and is perfectly happy with hers.

I opted to add ribbon around the middle and cover them with paper so they tie closed. This is one I made for the student teacher in her class. This one turned out to be my favorite one, thought I accidently glued the cover upside down. It still works fine, though the top margin is on the bottom. Oh well after 19 journals I was feeling tired and messed up. It's still my favorite.

Here are a few other examples of journals made for Nature Girl's class. On the inside cover of each journal I included a manila clasp envelope with a ripped book page label that reads "Thoughts, inspirations and ideas." The recipients seemed happy with their journals. As much as it was fun, I am glad this project is complete. From now on I plan to experiment with altering one or two journals at a time not a whole class worth. Of course I have already started thinking about making these for my students as an end of the year gift. Go on, call me crazy, I deserve it!

Happy Valentine's Day

We hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day, filled with love and goodies. Nature Girl is showing the new baby monkey she got for Valentine's Day. It matches the big pink monkey she got last year when she mastered her first grade sight word list. I couldn't resist buying a monkey for my sweet little monkey!

These are the valentines we put together for her class. We found the pinwheel pens at the Dollar Tree and added a paper label. The label was quickly drawn with a sharpie then scanned and printed before being decorated with a crayon and attached with double sided sticky tape. Easy peasy but cute. I was pleased with how well they turned out.

Happy Valentine's Day!

A Gift a Month

Do you remember how much you loved Christmas when you were a kid? It was a magical time, filled with excitement. There were no worries and no stress. How I long for those days again! Now holidays are a time of stress; filled with countless hours trying to shop, bake, handcraft gifts and somehow make the holiday still feel special. Every year I plan to hand-make many of my gifts but each year as the holidays roll around the stress mounts and I start to whittle down my list of intended handmade projects until only a few remain. It leaves me feeling tired and disappointed with myself, so each new year I vow to be more organized and start early. Of course that has yet to happen, but this year I vow it will be different. This year I would like the holidays to be a time of magic again, or at least not a source of more stress and dread. My friend Val and I have accepted a challenge, make just one Christmas gift each month. One gift a month is certainly something I can do, right? Right!

Here is my first homemade gift. My mom recently came across a box of wine corks at a sale. She picked them up and brought some to me. I created this little memo board for her desk. I think she'll like it. It's about 7 or 8 inches tall and wide. I had thought it might make a good trivet but changed my mind and like more it as a memo board for pictures, notes, etc.

See that was easy. . . my first homemade gift is done with no stress, just pure crafting enjoyment! You can see Val's first Make It Monthly gift here. Feel free to join us and complete the challenge. You can grab the badge on the sidebar here or over at Yarnigras. Who knows, maybe next Christmas will be magical.

Zentangle Freebie

Everyone loves a freebie, right?! Well, here's a little Zentangle freebie for you. I made these bookmarks while I sat in a three day workshop this month. Yes, I did actually pay attention and learn even though I was drawing. I'm an auditory visual learner so drawing Zentangles helps me listen and attend. Not only did I learn new things but I left the workshop with these four bookmarks to share. I printed these on cardstock, cut them out and ran them through my little laminator. I made some for my local library and for the workshop presenter. Now I'm sharing them with you too.

The bottom design is my favorite. It has my personal pattern creation. I call it "fancy snail"(it's the spiral design on the left side of the bottom bookmark.) I'm hoping to draw out the steps and submit it to tanglepatterns.com. I thought that if I wrote that here maybe I'd actually do it. Anyway, Click HERE for a PDF of my bookmarks. I hope you will enjoy them!

Bits of Wool & Wine

By now everyone knows I love to work with wool. This year for Christmas I made lots of woolen creations to share with friends and family. You could even go so far as to say with was the year of wine and wool for me.

This little owl drink cozy is made from three recycled wool coats. I sent this to my friend Val as a Christmas surprise.

If I could make wool drink cozies why not wine cozies? So I made this tree trunk wine cozy complete with a little white owl. It's made from a recycled wool sweater and pieces of two wool coats. I hand painted these wine glasses to go with the wine cozy. These are my first ever painted wine glasses. I'm way better with a marker than a paint brush so I need to look into getting enamel markers for glass instead of using a paintbrush.

I made this set of glasses including little red birds and a tree trunk wine cozy for another co-worker. I should have added a little red bird to the wine cozy but ran out of time.

This wine cozy was created for our friend and daycare provider. She like prim decor so I though this was a good way to package up a bottle of wine. This one is literally a sweater sleeve with the cuff cut off and a bottom added. I was done hand stitching this one in 30 minutes.

These were a gift for my partner in our Secret Santa swap. This wool and angora sweater sleeve need something so I added some beaded ribbon that I received as a tuck-in during a swap. I think it added the right amount of embellishment.

Even with these wool creations, I've hardly made a dent in my wool supplies, so I need to make some more woolen creations before spring arrives. I'm thinking I need to make some new wool mittens and try making some wool slippers, since my feet are always cold.

I didn't just work with wool this Christmas. I also made a couple of bags as gifts for co-workers. I filled the bag with crafting and zentangle supplies. This one is made from the Burda Charlie bag pattern. You can print the pattern for free here.

This one is made from a printed duck cloth, using my own throw it together method. I started this last year but messed it up and ran out of time to complete it before Christmas. I had all year to fix it but didn't. Never worry, a year later I pulled it out of my UFO pile and fixed it. I gave it to my co-worker with a tag that said Merry Christmas this year and last year! She laughed and appreciated the joke. I'm lucky to have such great friends.