My Brain on Hyperdrive

This should be the last of my Christmas Craft posts, but I saved the best for last! The boy loves some mittens that I have, and we could never find anything like them. My mittens are super warm, and also rather large, so the boy calls them pancake mittens. Anyway, I decided to make him some mittens instead. Other than being as warm and large as mine, they don't have much else in common. In fact, I think these are better. For starters, they have a flap over the fingers so you don't have to keep taking them on and off all the time. I used this tutorial to make the mittens. I used a heavier yarn (the same yarn I used to make my dad's hat ) because I wanted them to be really warm.  I know with crocheted type things, it's really common for the wind to go right through them, but we have experience with this yarn being really warm. Last year, I made the boy this hat using the 5 and 6 oz yarn. So I knew when I made the mittens I wanted them to match in add...

I saw an example of something like this somewhere and I thought it would be kinda cool to do as a gift for someone using my photographs. In this case, my parents were the lucky recipients! It wasn't too hard to do, but I thought I'd throw together a little tutorial in case someone was curious about the steps I used. The first thing I did was find a piece of plywood at Lowe's that was 24" x 24" and ask them to cut it into 4 equal 12" x 12" squares. I used one of those squares for subway art .  The remaining three pieces I painted white. Using Photoshop Elements, I changed the pictures into the shapes I wanted on a 10" x 10" canvas, and had them printed at Office Max. Then I cut out the shapes. Note, for this part I was careful to keep the unwanted part of the page intact for the most part so I could use it as a template as I placed the shapes on the boards. After using some double-sided scrapbooking pictur...

One of the other gifts for my mom was some pot holders. These were kinda fun to make, and simple, so I made my self a pair as well.  I used this tutorial for these, though not their fabric.

This was a last minute addition to my pile of homemade gifts. I saw this on a blog I read and knew I HAD to make them. I built a fire pit for our condo association this summer and my parents have a lot on a 5-star campground, so a made a set for each of us! Here's a direct link to the post where she talks about making the ornaments. Note, I deviated slightly, though they're pretty close to what she did.

This gift was for my man. He had been using one of my lunch bags, but a dish shattered inside and we weren't sure we got all the glass shards out. So he resorted to grocery bags. Ugh. Not a good look. So I decided I needed to make him a lunch bag. This one is just to show how tall it is. Fits A LOT! And this one came from this tutorial . If I didn't like the lunch bag I already have, I'd have to make one of these for myself, too!

This was another gift for my mom. She picked out the fabric, but didn't know what I was going to make.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but it's actually a smaller tote bag, maybe 8 or 10 inches tall. It also has 6 pockets around the outside. A handy little thing; I might have to make one for myself. I used this tutorial .

While we were doing our Brown Thursday shopping (gasp! It was later at night, not dinner time), we ended up at Michael's. They had a pretty good sale on beads, so I had my mom pick some out. She picked out some flat round beads with black and white on them. I used them to create this for her for Christmas. I think it turned out pretty good. What do you think?

Last year I made myself and the boy warm winter hats. This year, I decided to make one for my dad, too.  We all LOVE how warm these are. Great for Minnesota and Wisconsin winters! I used this tutorial , though I had to edit it as I went along. I used a heavier yarn (5oz and 6oz) to make them warmer, but that made the stitches bigger, too, of course. I just tried it on as I went to make sure it wasn't getting too big and only had to back up once or twice. It was totally worth it, though! (On mine and my husband's, we have the braids hanging from the ear flaps. I opted not to add those to my dad's.) Unfortunately, I didn't write my changes down, but it's not to hard to adjust as you go along. Here's a picture of the boy's hat (made last winter). Coming up soon, I'll post a picture of his awesome mittens that I made this Christmas to match the hat!

When I made the puzzle blocks for the kids, I also decided to make some bags to put them in. I haven't used my sewing machine much in the last several years (I was a little scared of it), but when I started playing with it this fall, I had a lot of fun! The best part of this project was picking out all the different fabric! This is the tutorial I used.  It's meant to be a tutorial that you can use to teach kids to sew, but it worked well for teaching me, too! They end up being a great size for kids.

One more Christmas Lights Abstract before we take down the tree. Today's the 12th day of Christmas, so it seems fitting. If you like my photography (and many of you tell me you do), PLEASE leave comments on my pictures throughout this year. I don't know if I'll be able to continue without that encouragement. Also needed will be suggestions for photography subjects or locations. I'm always looking for ideas!

I love doing a personalized project for my friends' kids. This year I made puzzles using blocks. Each kid got a puzzle of a picture of themselves. They were a little difficult for how young they are, but I think they still enjoyed them.  They were pretty easy to make, but I threw a few photos together for you anyway.  First thing you need to do is cut up the pictures. I used this scrapbooking cutter because it has a ruler right on it and cuts better straight lines than I do with a scissors. I tried a few different ways of doing this. I don't recommend trying to glue the picture to the blocks without cutting it down at least a little first. I made the pictures 3 x 5, so first I tried cutting them into 3 x 1 strips. This worked okay, but wasn't great. As annoying as it might be to do this with a lot of pictures (I made a total of 10 of these puzzles), it worked better to just cut all the pictures down to 1 x 1 size (the size of 1 block). Then I use...

This is my 100th post! Woot! I had a really hard time picking just one picture or even just a couple pictures today. It was our annual Holiday Pajama Brunch and we had a great time! Tell me how to choose from these adorable faces? Yep, no way I could have left any of these out! They're just too cute. If you like my photography (and many of you tell me you do), PLEASE leave comments on my pictures throughout this year. I don't know if I'll be able to continue without that encouragement. Also needed will be suggestions for photography subjects or locations. I'm always looking for ideas!