Baby Taggies and Baby Doll Taggies

After a summer of lots of crafting and blogging, it is back to the grind! I am [trying to] focus long enough to get some straggling projects done. One of them is baby gifts, and, since most of them have yet to be delivered, here is a pic of one that is already at his home, just waiting to be used by a sweet baby boy.


Burp Cloth and wipey case

Taggie and boppy cover.

All of the above was made with my "stash" of fabric from Joann's 75% off out of business sale. (Can you believe instead of moving <1 mile down the road they completely liquidated all of the fabric to open anew? Their loss, my gain!) So glad I could foresee these baby projects in the future, because I LOVE all of this fabric. Love Love Love!
SO....while I'm sewing away during Sawyer's nap time, the big kids pick up scraps of ribbon and minky fabric from the floor and asked me to make their dolls taggies. How do you say "no" to that? So, about 20 minutes later, we had this...


I think Ranger has forgotten all about his, but a week later, Lucy is still taking her doll and taggie EVERYWHERE! And, while we're talking about Lucy, I want to also report that she found these hats in her toy box (crocheted 2 years ago) and she and bitty baby are both wearing them to sleep tonight! I love you Lucy! You will get plenty of handmade things from me in your lifetime!

Designing Dana's Header

So, I am flying high right now! I entered a "Design my Header" contest for my favorite handmade blog, MADE. Out of 180 people and 309 entries, TWO of my headers were chosen to be in the top 35! No way! Here they are. Dana is showcasing her top 35 today and tomorrow and will narrow it down to the top 3! Even if I make it no further, I am pumped to have made it this far. Here they are, and here is the link to her post to see the rest. And, if you don't have her site bookmarked or followed, do so now! You won't regret it!

MADE 2, a photo by speech_chicky on Flickr.

I just love the sidewalk chalk font on the picnik site. Here I was able to use it in a very neat way. I LOVE the pink converse and red curb. Also, I am a sucker for pink converse since I had some as a child.

Made 4, a photo by speech_chicky on Flickr.

The inspiration for this picture was the super cool funky tattoo font that picnik has. I remembered reading this post about Dana's super crafty sisters, and I thought, "I wonder if I could find a photo of her super rad temporary tattoo artist sister to tattoo the made logo on." It took some searching, but here it is. I really thought this would make Dana and her sis smile and was floored that it made her top 35! OK, there's my bloggy joy for the day.

Thrifty Finds: Etched Vases

My interview is up here. I had decided I would do this as my craft if I made "the cut". When I didn't, I decided I would do them anyway. There is a very COOL and CHEAP thrift store in the area that I scoured for plain glass vases. The guy gave me a deal: .75 for the big vases and .50 for the small ones. I took it. And, in about 5 minutes, made this.



Here's what I did. Using my Silhouette, I cut words out of vinyl and used the negative space and stuck them to the vases, making sure to seal the edges of the letters very tight. This was a little difficult since the surface is curved, but it helped to start in the middle. Some of the letters required pieces to be placed in the middle (like the middle of the "a").

Then I painted thick, even layers of etching cream on them. Silhouette sells this, but I used Armour Etch from Hobby Lobby ($9 for 3 oz. which will last FOREVER!) This stuff is potent and includes ammonia and other strong stuff, so use gloves and keep out of children's reach!



Then I washed the etching cream off after about 5 minutes and removed the vinyl.

And there ya have it! I also made some flower pens to put in it since we seem to ALWAYS be out of writing utensils around here. This is a cheap fun gift. I actually made another vase for a newlywed couple that turned out really neat. This is a great cheap gift for anyone!