Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Valentine's Cards


A few weeks ago I noticed a few fun ideas while looking around one of my favorite stores, Impress Rubber Stamps. I bought some red and pink velvet ribbon, a greeting stamp, and made a mental note of a few paper punches to look for on a sale at Michael's. Since finishing the string of crochet hearts, I've had the past couple days to pull all my paper craft stuff out and create!

Some of my favorite products right now are alcohol based Copic markers, punches and these super fun grass cutting scissors from Martha Stewart.

I hope you enjoy them! I've even listed a few on my Etsy shop!

String of Hearts



I started working on this string of hearts about 2 weeks ago. I got the idea when I saw one similarly made with crochet snowflakes before Christmas. I made the snowflakes, but didn't have time to get them strung so they're tucked away for next year! I found this crochet heart tutorial, printed it out, and started working away. I used a variety of hook sizes and yarns. Once I had the pattern down, I could make a heart in about 20 minutes!

Friday, January 22, 2010

Valentine Wreath

Last month a couple friends posted a wreath they made in a similar fashion as this, along with this wonderful tutorial! A couple weeks ago I realized I should probably take down our Christmas wreath on the front door, but wanted something fun to put up in its place. I remembered the cute felt wreath and decided to see if I could make it work with a Valentine's theme. I bought a foam wreath form, a couple yards of white and ivory felt, and a few small sheets of reds/pinks/oranges to cut 3" circles from.

It took me about 3 days of intermittent circle tracing, cutting, and pinning to get it finished. I definitely have a blister on the tip of my thumb from pushing in about 200 straight pins! Once the felt circles were all pinned, I decided to add some fun flowers and the little bird to cheer it up!

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Ellie-phant

I made this cute little guy for a cousin of Tom's who is having a baby. I found the pattern on Etsy.com for a very reasonable price and set to work on him! This is one of the faster projects I've knitted recently. I started 2 weeks ago while waiting for my surgery to start (I had to check in about 4 hours early) and finished exactly one week later! It's knit in the round with very basic knit, purl, and increase stitches. I'm already contemplating a color combination for the next one, and have noted a few ways to improve the pattern.