Knick Knack Craftywack

Wonderful Wallpaper

2010-05-20T12:38:00.002-05:00

After the floors came up, the walls had to come down (anyone else think of that song?) In preparation of the wallpaper removal, the baseboards had to come out since the wallpaper went behind them. This will make it easier to paint everything too. Welcome back, Wonderbar!

I took a tip from the floor guy and labeled all of the pieces so that we can easy put them back where they belong. You can see that really beautiful wallpaper in the background.

After removing all the baseboards, light switch covers (these were also covered in wallpaper by the way) and outlet covers, we were ready to rip. I read up on wallpaper removal and had asked several people about their experiences. I rented a steamer and prepared for the worst. As it turned out, we had the easiest wallpaper removal on the planet. Here's Jordan ripping down a piece of full width, floor to ceiling section in one big pull. (Sorry, I tried to get this video off my cell phone, but it didn't work. Imagine Jordan pulling down a large strip of paper, followed by him going "ARGHHH) as it falls on top of him. Good times.)

After that, we were left with all the glue on the walls. We tried using the steamer here and found that it was a long, wet and sticky process. Jordan actually spent 5 hours doing the hall this way until I brought over a couple of spray bottles I picked up. New process: spray with warm water, wait a few minutes, scrape off glue, wash walls with scrub sponge (got any remaining tricky spots), wash walls with clean water and big sponge. Here you see the process and the final scrape. That bucket is full of the glue.

And there you have it. We ended up not even needing the steamer at all and saved ourselves couple of bucks. It took 3 nights because of the amount of wallpaper that came down. We also were helped out by Tom and Sue (she ran a very tidy clean up for us) and my little sister, Bri. Next step, spackle, prime and paint!

Two short weeks..

2010-05-13T09:56:00.001-05:00

Sorry, I haven't been good about making updates here. We've been working on the house almost every night till around 11, then driving back to MPLS. I've just been too tired for posts, but I'm feeling good now so here's a doozy!

Let's start back at what happens after we pulled the carpet out of the house. In the one room (soon to be the craft room/office), we were left with some beautiful wood floors surrounded by a tack strip. This is what holds the carpet down. With the help of a my hammer and a Wonderbar (Only the absolute greatest tool ever invented! Seriously, I've used it for pretty much everything!), I pried up all of the tack strip. See how it's done.

That was by far the easiest room. After taking off the doors to the closet and the room, it's ready for refinishing. The rest of the house wasn't so easy. The rest of the rooms on the main floor had carpet (new, but ugly) except the kitchen which had the most God awful yellowish (not sure if it started out this color) linoleum. All of it had to go. Pulling the carpet was an easy task. We just started in one corner and pulled. Since it's new carpet, we rolled it nicely and taped it up in the hopes of someone taking it off our hands via Craigslist. I tried to get a charity to take it since it's new, but they were uninterested. I kept some of it and put it in my laundry room. This instantly made it feel nicer in there.

Back to the floors. What was under the carpet/linoleum was a second subfloor. They put this in when a house has real wood floors and carpeting so that the carpet will be at the same level as the wood floor. If you layed the carpet on the first sub floor like the wood is, the carpet would be a bout 3/4" lower than the wood floors. This second sub floor all had to go for the new hard wood to be layed down. Our floor guy told us how to start. Get a circular saw and cut a square out of the middle of oone of the sub floor sections, then pry it up (hello Wonderbar!).

Doesn't sound too bad, right? Well it wasn't hard really, just SUPER time consuming. The first piece was the hardest since we were prying it out by the middle. After that we pryed from the edges. We often had to cut the floor pieces in half to make this easier. Here we are getting down and dirty with the floor. (p.s. Without the help of my in-laws, we may still be at this step! Thanks Tom and Sue!!!!)

Sometimes pieces came up nicely, other times not so much. There were a zillion big nails holding it all in place. Sometimes they came out with the floor. Sometimes they didn't and the old Wonderbar had to pry them out after the floor was out.

While Jordan was working on the prying, I started in on getting that linoleum up. thanks to my dad, we had the perfect tool. It was basically a scraper on the end of a stick. I used this tool a few years ago when we put in a new kitchen floor for my parent's. It was kind of fun.

Since the kitchen cabinets were installed on top of the second sub floor, we had to rent a toe kick saw. This is made for cutting right along the edge of cabinets. Jordan was a champ and did a really great job. I had to show everyone how manly he felt using it! (All those specks are from the insane amount of saw dust kicked up from the saw.)

All of this took just a couple of days, but they were definitely long ones. Sue Roske was a champion cleaner upper after everyone. See?

Underneath all that extra sub floor was a layer of thick paper. This also had to come up, but not till the wallpaper came down...

A new project

2010-05-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

So, we are finally home owners! The house we bought was built in 1968 and looks it. The previous owners had some questionable taste, especially in wallpaper.

Exhibit A: (and yes, that's fuzzy and the old owner had coordinating bath accesories and towels)

Exhibit B: (yup, those are weird muti-tan geometric shapes)

Exhibit C: (Ok, this is in the master bath and I like this one)

Despite the wallpaper (and their choice to cover hardwood floors with carpeting) the house has great bones. The first thing we're going to do is use our tax credit and put in hardwood floors throughout the entire main floor (currently only 2 bedrooms have it). We bought the house on Thursday and on Friday we started tearing into it. The first thing to go was the nasty carpet in what will be my office/craft room. The rest of the house actually had new carpet, just not that room. Jordan and I were closing the windows for the night to head back into the city when I decided the room smelled gross. I poked at the corner of the carpet and before Jordan even got back from the windows the carpet was out! Grosser than the carpet was the old pad underneath. My hands stunk for the next hour even after being washed.

I'm going to try and be good about posting up our progress, so stayed tuned for what happened after the carpet was out...

Pillow Talk

2010-03-28T10:59:00.010-05:00

I have wanted to update my pillow situation for my bed for awhile now. Paging through Pottery Barn or Crate and Barrel's catalogues always left me wanting a more beautiful bed. I started the beautifying process by updating my duvet cover. I have a really nice one from Ikea that's soft and nice (see it here), but a little boyish. I found a new one at Pottery Barn (over 50% off!) that I had to have. My bed immediately looked nicer.

Next I needed to update my body pillow cover. I purchased one from Target awhile back to help the bed situation, but it no longer went with my new duvet cover.

I was on the look out for a new cover when I noticed a stack of tapestries I had in my closet. I bought a bunch of them back when I worked at Urban Outfitters whenever they went on sale for $5. You just can't buy fabric that cheap. My bedroom walls are actually completely covered by tapestries for a fabric wallpaper effect. The hubby just told me the other day he loves that about our bedroom!

Back to the bed. One of the tapestries looked just right for a new pilow cover so I pulled it down.

I didn't want to make a zipper case (like the Target one was) because I thought it might get too complicated. I decided to go with a pocket enclosure style cover. I didn't have a pattern but I figured a pillow case has to be one of the easiest things ever to sew. I found some plain white scrap fabric I had and experimented. I got it right on the first try! All that was required were 4 seams. 2 were for finishing the ends of the fabric, then 2 sewn up the sides to creat the case. So easy.

I whipped out the tapestry and cut out the length I needed. I also cut a duplicate piece out of plain white linen I had so that the case was fully opaque. My body pillow is made of brown fabric and I didn't want to see through the one layer of tapestry. I carefully pinned everything together and sewed it up. I actually only needed 2 seams for this one becuase the tapestry already had a finished edge for the pocket part. I stuffed my pillow inside and stepped back.

My bed was looking better already but it was still missing something. I decided I needed a few large square pillows to hide our pillows that we use to sleep with. I own a ton of extra pillows in the exact size I wanted (my couch purchase came with more than 10 pillows) so now I had to find a good fabric.

I got an e-mail from Hancock about all linens being 40% off so I clicked on over to their site. Right there on the hompage was the perfect fabric staring back at me! I knew it was the one so I navigated to the linen section only to be totally disappointed to see that they didn't have it online. That same day I stopped in to my local store and checked there. No go. The next day I stopped at another Hancock's. Nothing there either. At this point I was pretty irritated. Who puts a picture of a product on their homepage and then doesn't sell it anywhere?!?! I contacted the head offices to see what was going on and if the fabric was available anywhere. I got a response the next day saying the fabric would ship to Wisconsin stores (no MN!) in mid March. I noticed that they removed the picture from their site that same day. I patiently waited for March and called the stores in WI each week to see if the fabric had come in. Nothing, nothing, nothing! I was about to give up when I saw the fabric was suddenly available online! I rushed over to my store and what do you know, there it was! They even had 2 colors, purple and green! I got a swatch of each to bring home and see what went with my bed. The purple ended up being a little too dark, but the green (the one I originally wanted) was perfect. I went back the next day and bought 3 yards.

The next day I whipped up three more cases, this time making all 4 seams. Still super easy! I stuffed the pillows and BAM, bed beautiful! I love making my bed now because it looks so pretty when I'm done. Lovely!

For Kathy

2010-03-13T14:49:00.016-06:00

Well, actually it's for Laura and Chris. I finally got them their wedding gift (only 5 months late). I think it may have been worth the wait if you ask me. I'd been trying for months to think of something special for L and C. It came to me when I got an e-mail from Snapfish about wrapped canvases being on sale. I've always thought wrapped canvas photographs were awesome so I checked it out. Even on sale, they were a little more than I could afford. I got to thinking that I could probably make a wrapped photo canvas myself with a little work.
So I started digging around the internet and got some ideas. I headed over to Michael's where I picked up some iron on transfer paper you can run through your ink jet printer.

Then I went on over to Joann's and purchased a yard of duck cloth. It's sort of like canvas, but not quite as thick.The last thing I needed was a frame to wrap the picture around. I poked around while at Michael's and Joann's but wasn't willing to pay $5 for a frame that wasn't the exact right size. That's when I went on over to The Home Depot. I bought a 2x1 that was around 6 feet long for 62 cents.
At this point I needed to figure out the photo (I actually ended up doing 3!) I wanted to use so I would know how big to make the frame. I looked at my pictures from the wedding and picked out 2 that I loved. I decided to make a third frame for a monogram I created with Word.

I don't own a saw, so I went to my parents' house and borrowed theirs. My dad couldn't find his miter saw, so my first attempt to make a frame was with a regular hand saw. This proved to work, but took forever to do one piece!

That's when I brought in the circular saw. It was slightly difficult to keep at the 45 degree angle I needed, but nothing some rasping and sanding couldn't fix. I got all my pieces cut in no time at all (plus a few extras just in case).

I found a square and started to piece together the different pieces. I roughly fit them all together to form 3 frames. I labeled each piece with a number and letter so that it would be easy to put them back together when I got home. I brought the square with me and used it to help make sure my frames would be good. I got out my handy staple gun and attached the frames.

After the frames were done, I got to printing out my photos. I had a few that didn't turn out so well, but I ended up with three transfers ready to be ironed on. It should be noted that the prints had to be a mirror image so that when they where ironed on they would be the correct direction. I definitely wasted one transfer by forgetting to do that.

Once they photos were printed and dried, I got out the duck cloth and ironed out the wrinkles. p.s. I had the iron on for this picture and took too long to take it. I was left with a nice burned in iron print that I had to cut off and throw away. Oops!

I carefully set my new transfers down and went to work with the iron. The hardest part was letting them cool down before peeling off the paper (and keeping the cat from pouncing on everything since I was working on the floor)!

Once cooled, I peeled back the paper and revealed 3 awesome photo canvases. At this point all that was left to do was wrap them around the frames. This was really easy actually. I pin tucked and folded in the corners, stapled them down, and they were done!

This was a really fun project and very budget friendly. Here's the breakdown.
Photos - free, I took them
Iron-on transfers - $4 with my 40% off coupon
Wood for frames - $.62
Duck cloth - $4 for the yard (this could have been even cheaper, but I forgot my coupon)
Tools - free, my dad owned the saw and I owned the staple gun

There you have it. 3 sweet photo wrapped canvases all for under $10! I will absolutely do this again.

My lovely lamps

2010-02-08T21:34:00.008-06:00

For those that don't know, I am a garage sale junkie. So last summer I stopped at a sale on my way to my aunt's house. I poked around a bit and found two great lamps. I got a steal of a deal at $4 for the pair. The thing that drew me to them was their roundness. I had been on the lookout for a pair of lamps for my headboard because I was tired of sharing one lamp for reading at bedtime. They were cute lamps, but needed some help. When I bought them, they were a somewhat boring color. I forgot to take a picture, but it was something like this.

I went to my local Ace Hardware to look for a new color for my lamps. They had a chart of all the colors Krylon makes in spray paint. I found a beautiful color called Ivy Leaf, but they didn't have it in stock. Many phone calls later, I finally found that Michaels (love that store!) had it in stock. I grabbed my 40% off coupon and headed over. A couple of coats later, my lamps looked brand new.

Next I needed to find the perfect shade. I had been looking all summer at garage sales, but tan or ripped or gaudy shades were all I could find. I happened into Ikea one day and found the Alfhild Fagel lamp shade design. Only problem was it wasn't in the size I needed. They had a big one (think floor lamp sized) and they had mini ones (think chandelier size). I asked and sure enough, they carried it in a mid size. I went to Ikea several times over the next few weeks and found one shade. I was starting to get irritated. Then I went online one day and what do you know, my shade had been discontinued! After much grumbling, I found one on e-bay. It was $40 instead of $20, but it was the perfect shade and I already had one. I figured since the lamps only set me back 4 bucks, I could splurge on the shades.

So for a grand total of around $70 (lamps, shades and paint) I got two great lamps. And p.s. they are three way lamps, even sweeter!

Superbowl cookies

2010-02-07T12:45:00.003-06:00

The way it is.

The way it should be.

Finally

2010-01-31T02:16:00.004-06:00

I have been putting it off long enough. Time to post up. Once again in the spirit of being thrifty for x-mas, I made necklaces for all my girls. It was probably the easiest thing to actually construct, but hard to find the pieces I wanted. I started out thinking I would buy a bulk length of chain and split it myself for each necklace. Michael's and Joann's had a different idea. The only colors they offered in bluk chain were bright gold and bright silver. This was highly irritating considering they had several suggestion booklets at each retailer using beautiful antiqued silvers and bronzes. Why would you suggest making something with products you don't carry? Irritating. Anyway, after much searching I found some semi pre-made necklaces (on sale, thank you very much) that I cannabalized to get the chain I desired.

I wanted to make each girl a necklace unique to her. Seeing as how this was my first attempt at jewelry, I decided to keep it simple and do pendant necklaces. After several trips to the craft store and several more to assorted bead stores, I had what I wanted. The actual creation of the necklaces was ridiculously easy.

Step 1: Take off ugly pearl/ribbon strands from pre-made chains.

Step 2: Add pendants to necklace.

Step 3: Go back to the store and purchace a few jump rings. Some of the pendants had holes that were too small to allow them to move freely on the chain. Jump rings give you a go between from necklace to pendant.

Step 4: Wrap and mail! I was a bit late on this, but I believe it was within a week or two after christmas so it wasn't that bad.

I actually liked them all so well that I went back to Michael's and got a pre-made chain and my own pendant to make myself a necklace. Bonus, the chain was an extra dollar off. I adore a good bargain. All added up, I spent under $30 for 6 necklaces that were made with love. Gotta love that, right?

p.s. The necklace owners from left to right: Ann, Laura, Cole, Kathy, Traci and Al. In case you gals wanted to know what everyone else got.

Snuggy, anyone?

2009-12-03T17:59:00.005-06:00

In the spirit of being thrifty for x-mas this year, I am trying to make a lot of my gifts for people. Last year I made a fleece tie blanket for my father-in-law, Tom. I used a Gopher's panel which was the right size for a lap blanket. For x-mas, I made a bigger, bed sized one for Jordan's cousin exchange. It was THE gift to steal in the dice game. When Tom saw it, he was immediately jealous of the size. So this year I went out on Black Friday to Hancock Fabrics and bought a snuggy pattern for $1 (originally it was $16.95) and some Gopher's fleece. I had to go to Joann's for some of the fleece (you'll see which ones, I don't want to give one away!) because Hancock's was out. Of course I used my 50% off coupons. The fleece actually ended up being slightly more than what just buying a Gopher's snuggy would have cost, but I now have the pattern and can make lots of them. I was a bad blogger and didn't take any pictures of the making of snuggy #1, but I remembered part way through #2 and snapped a few. Here's the second one. This Vikings snuggy is for my little sister for x-mas. One reason I opted for the pattern and buying my own fleece is that the pattern also included a front pocket and more importantly a foot pocket. The store bought ones are missing this critical feature. Here I am pinning the foot pocket in place to sew it down.

I think I was sewing on an arm here. No fancy sewing needed, just straight stitching for the whole thing. It was all pretty easy really. There were only 4 pattern pieces to cut; the body, arms, foot pocket and front pocket. You then sew the arms into rounds and hem them, create the pockets, sew them on, hem the body and sew the arms on. Less than an hour sewing.

Jordan was a helper and tried it out.Clearly I had to try it as well, so Jordan put on his dad's (which is longer anyway).While at Hancock's I saw this pattern for a buck as well.

It was completely necessary to then but this fabric so I can be ready for outdoor baseball this spring. Go Twins!

My best cookie ever. No, seriously. Ever.

2009-11-25T22:49:00.003-06:00

Bri and I whisked up some cookies for Turkey Day the other evening. I made a helmet cookie for each of the football teams playing and I have now created my favorite cookie I've ever made. I saved the Lions cookie for last, thinking that it was going to be the hardest. With my handy dandy toothpick I went to work. It was actually really easy and this is what it produced.

Candy Wreath party

2009-11-23T23:59:00.006-06:00

My aunt Maggie hosted our annual Candy Wreath Party tonight. My grandma (the same one that made the stockings) received a candy wreath way back in the day and decided she could make one herself. She tore apart the one she got to see how it was done and a tradition was born. Here's some of the candy I bought for my wreaths. Here's what they look like a quarter of the way done. It's tricky because you have to think about all the sides so you don't get any holes. Candy with twisty ends works best, but we managed to fit some bite sized Milky Ways, Snickers, Twix, Kit Kats, Butterfingers and Turtles on even without the twisty ends.

My mom is the fastest wreath maker. She stared after everyone and finished second behind yours truly. You can kind of see how we do it here. You basically just wrap a hoop with ribbon, then use wire to attach candy all the way around. Sounds pretty easy, but my thumbs are still sore from pulling on the wire to make it tight. My cousin, Kelly, did one wreath in the time I did two, but she sure had a good time doing it. Much laughter ensued as she battled the candy.
My cousin, Tracy, also made two wreaths. The beautiful bows were all made by my aunt Patty.

A litttle peek show. It took a while to get these pictures as we were all laughing about inappropriate things and the wreaths are heavy so we kept lowering them. And finally a nice one. Good work, ladies. Good work.

Speaking of that contest....

2009-11-21T23:39:00.002-06:00

If you could go visit http://www.michaelscontest.com/uploads/1368and rate my stocking(a 5 would be much appreciated!), that would be very awesome. Thanks!!!

I couldn't wait

2009-11-21T15:31:00.018-06:00

Sorry, but I couldn't wait to get going on christmas stuff! I also wanted to take these pictures for a contest that Michaels is having for home made crafts. They have 2 weekly winners that receive $100 Michaels gift cards. Then in February they're going to have 2 grand prize winners that get to fly out to NYC and visit The Martha Stewart Show! Swoon.... I thought it was getting close enough to christmas to enter my homemade stocking. My grandma started making these felt/sequin/beaded stockings way back when my mom was a tiny. Then when my generation was born, she continued the tradition. After she passed away, my aunts and my mom took up the mantle of making new stockings for each baby born in our family. I helped out with some of my baby cousins' stockings and when I married Jordan, I decided it was high time for me to make one of my own for him. Here are all of my fam's stockings. Notice how they get bigger and more elaborate as time goes on.

The front of Jordan's stocking.

The back. Jordan's Santa needed to be a rock star, clearly. Note how he's playing a blue bass, just like Jordan's first one. Putting two elements together like this was a new concept.

The fish is supposed to be for our wedding, since we got married in Barbados.

Everyone gets a candy cane.

Seeing as how Jordan is a mechanic and has always loved his first green pickup truck, I thought this would be cute. The hub caps are buttons from the collection I got from my grandma. Yup, the same collection I used for Finn's bunny. The head light bead was probably the most irritating part of the whole project. I bougth at least 6 different beads for it.

Everyone also gets a rocking horse, though the colors differ from stocking to stocking.

Here's the snowman. He's also a standard for all stockings. This one got a little ribbon bow tie, unlike some of the older stockings. He is also holding on to the popcorn strand that's off to decorate the...

tree! Jordan's is the first stocking where the different components interact so much.

Everyone gets a couple of holly leaves as well. They take the least amount of time to make, but still take about an hour each. This is the oldest of the stockings at our house. This is my mom's front. And the back.
My dad's.
The back.
Jessica's front. Her's started to fall apart, so we took off all the pieces and put them on a new stocking. We aslo added a silk liner, which I thought of to help keep some of the stress of a full stocking off of the felt. All the new ones are getting them.
The back.My stocking's front. Poor thing, it needs a new hanger. The back. And Brianna's front. And back.

Thanks, Ray.

2009-11-15T15:56:00.011-06:00

My mom, my friend Ann and I had the pleasure of going to the Ray LaMontagne concert on Friday night. I had been told that it was going to be one of the greatest concerts of my life and it certainly stood up to the hype. First off, the concert was at the State Theatre in downtown MPLS. Gorgeous old theatre. When Ray came out, it was just him, a guitar and a mike. That was it and it was beautiful. He was really friendly and funny, telling us some lovely anecdotes. The music speaks for itself. My only woe is that the second song I recorded didn't record all the way. Lesson learned. Next time make sure to clear off two ENTIRE sd disks. We were in the second balcony, so I was zoomed in a bit, but I think the videos are good anyway. Jess, this post is dedicated to you!

Ray told us that Elvis Costello told him that this was The Song that would bring people to Ray's music for years to come. Like Alison is for Elvis.

Not your typical snowflake...

2009-11-11T21:14:00.005-06:00

I saw this on my friend's blog (Deucecities Henhouse) today and was inspired to try one for myself. I used an 8.5 inch square of paper and it turned out nicely. If I were to make any more, I'd use a two sided patterned paper or possibly some glittery paper. Plain white is pretty, but I think they could be fantastic!

C is for cookies. Lots of delicious cookies!

2009-11-07T21:29:00.016-06:00

So this post is a little late, but here goes.
For every major holiday I like to make cookies. Not just any cookie. I make my best friend's mom's cookies. She used to send them all the way to Iowa from Colorado, wrapped in bubble wrap, for all major school year holidays. Looks like a sugar cookie, right? Nope, they're short bread. I never liked sugar cookies that much. When you add the frosting, they get too sweet. That's saying a lot for me since I LOVE sweets. So here is the dough, all rolled out and ready to go.

I have tons of cutters. These are my Halloween cutters. I also did my more generic fall cookies. I find that if I cut all the cookies out like this, instead of one at a time, I can keep better track of how many of each shape I have. I learned that from past cookie sessions where I ended up with way too many snowmen and not enough stars (I make them into Santa's).

Here they are, all ready for the frosting party. You can actually keep them in the freezer for quite some time if you can't get to frosting right away.

I splurged and bought really nice food coloring for my frosting. It's the gel kind made by Wilton instead of the standard liquid. The gels come in a ton of colors and they are so vibrant! Michaels has a great selection. I of course used my 40% off coupon. I never go to Michaels with out one! I just found this sweet list of colors on their website.

Liz made a sweet Frankenstein out of a skull cookie. I added a tad too much milk to the frosting and it was slightly runnier than I would have liked. Frank ended sliding a bit to the side, but he still looked good!

Cam was a super froster. My favorite by her was her pink pumpkin. She's also a super Bears fan.

Not to be outdone by his wife, Beak got in on some frosting action. As you can tell, Beak is a Vikings fan. When the Vikes play the Bears, the Mader casa is a house divided!

A small sampling of completed cookies. The cheese in the background was from some sweet Chicken Chili Cam made.

Everyone got there own tombstone.

Finn and Elsa got the best tombstones!

This was my favorite cookie of the night, courtesy of Liz. The owl was a new cutter this year. It produced excellent results.

Will Whitmore and Ugly Bunny

2009-11-05T19:38:00.028-06:00

For those of you that don't know William Elliot Whitmore, you should. Here's a few pics and a video (I missed the first two lines of lyrics) from the show the other night. Don't mind the stupid girl talking through the beginning. She was a nasty person Alison and I almost had to fight. We would have won!
p.s. I turned the video right side up, but somehow youtube turned it sideways again. Sorry!

After the show, Jordan and I joined the Allen's at their house for a nightcap. I saw the ugly bunny doll I made for Finn's first birthday so I took a few pictures to post up. All the fabrics were gifted to me by my mother-in-law, Sue. The buttons are from my Grandma's collection she gave to me about a year ago. The nose and the tail were my two favorite buttons. The nose is a soft suede and the tail is a tweedish coat button.

This was probably the most time consuming part. I first made Finn's name out of bigger buttons, but they wouldn't fit. I had to go back to the button tin and find smaller ones that I liked. Don't worry, I tied those babies down so one year old Finn can't pull any off to choke on!

Let the carving party begin!

2009-10-26T15:49:00.014-05:00

Let the carving party start! I brought some pumpkins and my tools over to the Johnson's house for a little carving fun.

Liz, a fellow carver.

Cam.

Beak.

I chose to do Michael Jackson from Thriller. Here I am transfering my pattern to the pumpkin.

Liz chose a saucy little cat with a monacle.

Here's MJ all transferred. After peeling off the paper, I connected all of the dots with a pen. The lines will be scratched into the pumpkin. The dark parts will be carved all the way through.

The scratching begins. And yes, that's the special tool from a previous post.

Cam is a die hard Bears fan. We couldn't find a pattern for her, so I printed off a picture of a Bears helmet and made her a pattern from that.

Beak's pumpkin.

Liz's cat. Beak helped her finish the bow tie.

Here's MJ, all done. Next step, light him up!

Thriller!

Mumkins

2009-10-23T15:36:00.007-05:00

While picking pumpkins at the farm, Sue (my mother in law) and I saw a beheaded pumpkin. She looked at it and declared that it looked like a planter. She then had the most Martha like idea. Take a pumpkin, hollow it out, plop in a mum and BINGO, a mumkin! Genius.

Another crummy day...

2009-10-22T15:38:00.003-05:00

It seems like all we have is crummy, rainy, blustery days lately. I tried to collect some leaves for making postcards yesterday. I couldn't find enough. I feel like I somehow missed the beautiful, sweater wearing fall. All the leaves were green and now they are brown! Fear not, I have not given up. I will find some worthy leaves and the postcards will be made!!!

p.s. If you'd like one, let me know!

Pumpkin tools

2009-10-19T12:13:00.013-05:00

Here are all of the tools that I use for pumpkin carving. Most are pretty standard, but one in particular is special.

Most of these tools will come with a book of patterns. I have a few books that are especially cool. One has patterns for the front and back of your pumpkin. For example, the front may have a haunted house on it. Then the back pattern is a couple of ghosts which project on the wall behind it (see the middle carving). I like the books, but most of my really cool patterns I find online.

These tools are for transfering your pattern (which you should copy and size to your pumpkin, then tape it on). You basically just go around and poke holes into the pumpkin along the pattern lines. When you're done, you peel off the pattern and I like to use a permanent marker/pen to connect the dots. Otherwise it can be a bit daunting looking at all those holes. The middle and bottom pokers also have a drill on them for making perfect little holes. The roller poker has never really worked for me.

I've had these since I was a little girl. they are only to be used for cutting the top (or bottom) out of your pumpkin. They are to blunt and big to be used for much else.

These are the scrapers I've collected over the years. They work ok, but a nice big spoon has always worked well for me.

These are for most of the carving work I do. Any large pieces get taken out with these.

For the finer details, I have finers carvers. You have to be careful with these, they're pretty sharp.

These are my favorite tools of all. The other tools all come with pattern books, but these you have to buy seperately. I don't really use the carving end...

...but this is the money end. It's what lets me scrape off the pumpkin skin without carving all the way through. It always sort of reminds me of an orange peeler. I stock up on these after every halloween when they're ridiculously on sale. That way I have extras to give to friends!

House pants

2009-10-19T11:25:00.010-05:00

So for those that don't know, I live my life in my house in house pants. The second I get home, off go the jeans and on go the comfy pants. Now comfy pants are not pajama pants. PJ's are worn to bed, house/comfy pants are not. They are to be worn around the house and occasionally to the grocery store when I'm feeling to lazy to throw on a pair of jeans. I decided one day to try and make my own comfy pants. I went online to find a free pattern. No go. So I found this Kwik Sew pattern at Hancock fabrics. It was $12, but I used one of those beautiful 40% off coupons that sewing and craft stores like to send out. This is the pattern.

Cutting the pieces out was a challenge, but only because the cat kept pouncing on it. He was eventually given some paper scraps to keep him occupied. The pattern consisted of only 5 pieces, of which I used 4. It came with different pieces to make different waistbands. I chose to make mine out of the same fabric as the rest of the pants.

My first pair was made out of grey sweatshirt material. The legs are pretty big, but oh so comfy.

After I made these,I lived in them for quite some time. They came up to the cabin and basically ruled the whole weekend.

I had originally planned to make the pants out of a knit jersey, but couldn't find it the first time out to the fabric store. After the joy I got from the first pair, I decided to look again for some knit jersey. I found the fabric for this pair in the Dance/Swimming fabric area of Joann's.

I changed up the waist for this pair. The first pair called for some elastic in the waist, but I thought it might make it a little uncomfortable in a lighter fabric. To make sure the pants looked good and didn't fall off, I doubled the waistband and now I can fold it over. I have lots of house pants, but these two are my favorites. I think the fabric for the grey ones was $12 and the blue ones were $14. They took about an hour to make each (after the pattern was cut) and I think they rule. If you'd like a pair (size medium), I'd be happy to make them for you! It takes 2.25 yards of fabric.

Thanks, Grandma!

2009-10-18T13:23:00.005-05:00

My grandma recently gave me her old sewing kit. It was a bit of a mess,but after an hour or so of a little organizing magic, this is what I got.

I threw some stuff away, this is what I was left with.

The color coded thread is my favorite part.

More pumpkins

2009-10-16T23:18:00.008-05:00

I had the pleasure of going out to my grandparents-in-law's farm a few weeks ago to do a little pumpkin picking. It was raining and muddy and fantastic. My arms hurt for days after and we actually had to go back up to pick the rest of the patch a week later. Here are a few of the pumpkins we picked.

There were at least 4 trailers full.

Yeah, it was muddy. These tracks were from the loader (BIG farm tractor).

This is the one I picked for me. It is the perfect pumpkin. It weighs about 45 pounds. Those would be a man's size 10 boot sitting next to it.

Pumpkins

2009-10-16T20:59:00.018-05:00

So I love to carve pumpkins. I always liked it as a kid, but as an adult I discovered a whole new way to carve. Last year I think I did at least 4-5 pumpkins. The following are the ones I remembered to take pictures of.

This is Edgar Allen Poe and his famous raven. Don't believe me? Keep going...

I'll be honest, I used a pattern. Still pretty cool though, right?

Texas Chainsaw Massacre

Freddy

Knick Knack Craftywack

2009-10-16T20:33:00.000-05:00

Just trying this whole blog thing out. My hope is that this is going to get me to do a little more crafting. I have so many things I'd like to do craftwise, this way I can keep track of it all!