Mama Loves Crafting

Willa’s Quilt

I decided I didn’t want this blog to be all about my projects because I have an amazing circle of crafty Mama friends – so I’d like to share some of their projects too. We used to have a little gathering once a week (before kiddos) that we called the Sharing Shack. We’d share our talents with friends and learn all kinds of new crafty things from one another. I had a stained glass night one night (my friend Syd and I taught how to do a simple stained glass project (very simple since it was in one night) other activities I can recall included candle making, stop motion movies, crocheting rugs with old sheets, screen printing, Ukrainian egg decorating, the list goes on. We’ve got friends with skills!

Anywho – that kind of fizzled out after everyone started having babies about 6 years ago…so I started up a Wednesday night crafting night for Mama’s again (this year) and it has been on hold because of a photography class, but I plan to start it up again next Wednesday. One of our Wednesday nights a few months again Erin and Willa came to join us. Usually we craft after the big kids are sleeping, but little babes are always welcome and my favorite addition to craft night. Willa crawled about sucking on things and smiling at us while we knit, embroidered, crocheted and crafted. Erin was working on a quilt for her sweet little Willa so I asked her if she would share. She was at a point that night where she was hand stitching around some colorful little donkeys. She put the fabrics in a rather large embroidery ring and used thread to match the donkey she was working on and stitched around the body. It was a slow but adorable process. She told me she wouldn’t hand stitch around each of them (as that would take forever) but pick and choose a few here and there.

I fell in love with Erin’s project because I actually have my own stash of donkey material that I’m not quite sure what to do with yet. I love quilting inspiration. I’m going to do it someday darn it, a whole quilt by myself! I keep saying I am so I must.

Look at how crafty this Mama is! I love your quilt pieces. You did an amazing job!

And we’ll finish up with a Willa shot. Thanks for sharing your crafty skills with us Erin and the photos of your sweet baby girl!

Happy Crafting! And please share your projects with me Mamas!

Birthday Treasures

So we just celebrated a couple of birthdays at our house. Little August just turned three a couple of weeks ago, and our chickens celebrated their first year. We like to “whoop” it up with some traditions like our sweet little birthday ring, but we also always hang a special banner that I made for my family. I actually made three at the same time, one for each of my sisters. It seemed easier to knock a few out at once. It was a complete labor of love and I probably won’t ever make another as long as I live, but it will be something I get to see often and I’m pleased with the results.
I used a cardboard birthday banner as a pattern (for the letters). My sister had all kinds of scrap fabric so I honed in on that when I was visiting her. I made them all pretty much exactly the same as one another, with little variation obviously. It took a couple of days to make them and since I have kids I took advantage of the time while Simon was with Grandpa and Grandma and my sister could help me with my little Gus. I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning stitching away on my sister’s sewing machine. I gave it a good run for it’s money.

First I stitched each letter to the front of the pendant piece. The pendant pieces are pretty on both sides because I stitched two pieces of fabric inside out and flipped them and stuck a piece of fishing line in the bottom and closed off the end. (I think it has been a couple of years.)

You can see a bit more detail. I used this simple colored ribbon to connect all of them because we had it leftover from our wedding several years ago. I also used that ribbon at the bottom of the pendants (in addition to the fishing line) for a bit of extra decoration. You can also see that I beaded at the bottom of each letter (on that fishing line I keep mentioning). This wasn’t something I did on all three of them myself. I decided it would be fun for us each to bead our own. So after the stitching was finished we went to my parent’s cabin on Lake Holcombe in WI. My sisters, brother, parents and I sat around the table in their camper in the evenings (after dark) beading and chatting and laughing. It was a fun memory that I’ll think about each time I bust out the banner!

And as you can see there were some bells involved. Not that the banner ever moves once it is hung, just seemed like a little bit of extra fun to put a bell at the end of each bead strand.

So there you have it, the magical birthday banner!

Happy Crafting!

PS you can click on the photos to enlarge them! Enjoy!

Tooth Fairy Bag

So my 5 year old lost his first tooth and boy was it exciting! He got a little plastic junky tooth box from the dentist, that was promptly lost in the shuffle. I thought he would be really upset that we weren’t able to find it so I decided I’d try and make a solution. I’m the kind of Mama who would prefer to make things rather than buy them, but of course that can’t always be the case. Today it was.

I have some 100% wool felt that I use for random projects – some of which you’ll see on here from time to time – but this seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to use a little bit of felt. In hind site, I might have used something else (for the bag), just because the drawstring didn’t work as well as I would’ve liked it to…I think because the felt is so thick, but it holds the big bucks in so I guess it doesn’t matter.

This is just one of my helpers…I have two little boys and Gus decided that he’d help me make RaRa’s (aka Simon’s) tooth bag. Of course that meant that he’d need a bag of his own as well…so we stitched one together for him.

This is Gussy’s little bag – he told me he would put rocks in it. I used variegated colored thread and just a zig zag stitch on the outside. This is after I’d already straight stitched from the reverse. I’m pretty sure the thread is just cotton. I bought a handful of different variegated colors when they were on sale at Joann’s one day, so I have all kinds of variegated goodness to choose from. And my sewing machine (who just turned one about a week or so ago) has all kinds of fun stitches. I’ll feature my machine in one of my next posts.

Simon’s tooth bag has a tooth on it and the tooth on the top is open on the one end so he can put his lost tooth inside and the tooth fairy doesn’t have to wonder where that little bugger might be. There is plenty of room inside the bag for the loot. I ended up stitching a few colors of felt together for Simon’s tooth bag just to give it a little bit of character. I also thought his favorite color was blue but found out it had changed (that day) to green when he got home. Oh well…luckily he was still pleased as punch with his tooth bag.

Happy Crafting!

Mama Loves Crafting

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