My Brain on Hyperdrive

When the boy and I started traveling together more, we decided we wanted to collect something to remember our travels. Something small and relatively inexpensive. We decided on key chains. They're easy to find and are often unique to the place where you are. My parents have always collected key chains and when I was small they were displayed around the top of the walls of the kitchen. I used to love to look at them and play with them. I knew I wanted a way to display our key chains as well, but I wasn't too keen on putting a bunch of nails in the walls. (That's probably also why my parents never put theirs back up after we remodeled.) So I've just had the idea percolating in the back of my mind for many months now. Last week we made a run to my favorite craft store and as I was looking around, I spotted this unfinished shadowbox. Something about it caught my eye. If you've been paying attention, you know I've gotten into painting recently and I had a ...

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 so much fun to do! I can't wait to try different things! If you're interested, I used this tutorial . 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!

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 .

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.

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...

I'm in my project mode before Christmas again. I've probably done more homemade gifts this year than ever, but I'm loving it. My mom's birthday is in November, so she double benefits from this project lust. This year for her birthday, I made her a little bag that can be used for jewelry or makeup or whatever. I own a sewing machine, but hadn't used it much until this fall. I'm not very good yet, but I was really happy with how this turned out! (Note, this is the second version, I messed up the first version and the zipper wouldn't open.) It's even lined! I'm so proud of myself! I liked it so much I made one for myself, too. What do you think? As always, click on the picture to see it bigger... This is the tutorial I used.

Yes, I know it's April. I got a little busy and didn't get around to editing the pictures until recently, so I apologize for my tardiness. The great thing about this craft, though, is it could be a gift for any occasion throughout the year. It's pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. Family Birthday Display You might remember my  first post on Christmas gift crafting  where I made gifts for the little ones in my life. Well, this one was made for my mother-in-law and her husband. They have a large family between the two of them and several times over the last year, it was mentioned that its hard to keep track of all the birthdays. Well, when I saw this craft on Pinterest, I knew it would be perfect for them! I set my husband to the task of tracking down the birthdays (harder than you might think), while I got to work on the fun part. The supplies... The first thing I did was drill holes in the disks. You'll need a hole in the top and bottom of each disk. I...