Happy Holidays

It has been a very busy holiday season. This year we decided to stay home for the holidays rather than traveling to California. I'm happy with our decision, but this means Christmas at our house... which means a clean house (as close as I can get) and it means decorating for Christmas. So, of course, some things have to give. The blog is often the first thing to be pushed to the back burner. But it's not because I haven't had things to share.

First of all, today is the last day that I will ship for Christmas delivery in any of my shops. I hate the stress of knowing if a present gets to the recipient in time, the craziness and the post office and just trying to juggle yet one more thing before the holidays. I'll still have my shops open and I'll still be shipping... but I won't guarantee that it will arrive before Christmas.

Okay, on to the fun stuff. Crafting! House cleaning is not one of the things I do well. I get bored or I get absorbed and do more than my body can handle. So, I have been breaking up the house cleaning with a little holiday sewing for myself. First off... the trees.

I love these trees. I've made a forest (well, a forest of 5) for our HUGE mantle. I think these trees are the first thing to actually look like they are filling out the space. They are made from recycled tshirt scraps sewn onto cotton. I made the bottom of the trees so that I could easily stuff and unstuff them. And the genius part? They are stuffed with all the plastic grocery bags that keep building up because I forget to take them back to the grocery store (yes, I forget my reusable bags all the time). After Christmas, I can unstuff them and fold them away neatly. Yay for space saving decorations! I'm hoping to make some of these for the shop next year... and maybe even some in other colors for the rest of the year. They are fun to make and they use up the ridiculous amount of scraps I have built up. I'm fairly certain it's an illness of some sort not being able to throw away scraps. I made a huge step the other day and bagged up all my cotton and miscellaneous fabric scraps and gave them away to someone off of Craigslist. Hopefully they'll be able to use them since I can't seem to find the time. Of course, I kept the tshirt, cashmere and fleece scraps.

So I felt like the trees needed a bit of a back drop. Behind the trees I have shoved all the things that were already up there. This way, I didn't have to pack any of it up (it's all my Grandfather's pottery) and after the holidays, it would easier to set it all up again. My solution to hiding these things was to use what I have... presents. I wrapped our presents in white paper from the dollar store (not Christmas paper, I think it's wedding paper). Used silver ribbon and finished them off with a snowflake tag. They look great behind the trees, I got most of my Christmas wrapping done... and again, putting them away at the end of the holiday will take care of itself.

My daughter decorated one of the trees with one of her plastic star mardi gras necklaces. It actually looks really cute. These trees vary in size from 18" to over 2 ft tall. I love them :)

I've also made miniature versions of these trees. I plan on having the kids glue buttons on them and we'll hang them as ornaments. Perhaps I'll get around to taking pictures of those when they are complete.

And the last thing I wanted to share is our advent calender... or advent garland. We actually made this before December 1st - I think that's a first in history for me and advent calendars. I'm usually having to catch up a week or so into December.

This garland was super easy. My son helped me make it. I took some cotton yarn I had and made loops in it every 6 or so inches. I made 25 of them. My son took a bag of these super cute adhesive glittery stars I picked up at Walmart for $5 (one package was all I needed - they are similar to these, but came in a bag).

I bent paper clips to make loops and my son sandwiched them between to adhesive stars. And that was it! we made 25 of them. The one pictured below is the one he made for Christmas... he put an extra star in the middle to make it fancier :) You can also tell it was our last one because I stopped caring so much about getting the wire straight before I made the hook :) I mean really, who is going to notice (unless you take a close up photo and post it on your blog).

The kids have been very diligent about keeping it current... and by Christmas, we will have another completed decoration. Again, this will be easy to pack up - taking very little room (can you tell space saving is one of my big things right now?).

I'm also using the stars to decorate packages. I just sandwich the paperclip between the two stars with one end hanging out for the loop. Super easy and so pretty! I love pretty packages.

Next up will be a wreath from tshirt scraps. I have to use different scraps though, so it won't be the traditional green. I have a ton of red... maybe I'll make it a candy cane wreath and stripe it with red and white.

So now that I've taken an hour of cleaning time to post to my blog, I need to get back to cleaning. today my task is to get ready to bring the Christmas tree in. I know, it should already be up by now... but I hate having needles all over my house - especially while I'm still trying to clean it! Bah Humbug, right?

Have a great holiday!

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Origami Tree Ornament Tutorial

Growing up I loved doing origami. I had many books (many in Japanese that I couldn't even read) and loved to challenge myself with new designs. I have since forgotten many of the folds except for a select few of my favorites. This fold is really a flower. It's just one piece of what normally is a ball (fold 36 of them and string them through the narrow end). But I love the single unit and it makes the perfect Christmas tree ornament. Use a larger piece of paper and make a centerpiece that the kids can decorate.

I apologize if the directions are unclear and hope that the pictures help. The better you match corners, the better the end result.


Materials:

• Green paper
• Star Beads
• String
• Large eye needle (for string)
• Glue

1. Cut paper to a perfect square. To make the ornament, I used 5.5" squares... the one in the tutorial is for a standing tree for my daughter to decorate. It measures 8.5" square.


2. Bring opposite corners together and crease it down the center to make a triangle. Open and repeat with the other corners. Unfold to open.

3. Fold opposite sides together and crease to form a rectangle. Open and repeat on the other sides. Unfold to open.


4. When you open the paper, you should have 4 folds that all cross in the center.

5. Fold along your previous crease to make a triangle. Take one corner along the fold side and bring it to the top, folding it into the middle of the triangle. Crease along your previous folds.

6. Repeat with the other corner.

7. You should now have a square with two corners the meet in the middle.

8. Stand one flap up and push the fold down to meet the center of the square.

9. You should have a smaller triangle with the center crease lining up to the center line of the square.

10. Repeat on the remaining three flaps.

11. You should have a kite shape once all 4 flaps have been folded into the center. Fold the flaps over (they should fold over like turning pages of a book) to one other sides that does not have the small triangle.

12. Fold the flap in to the center lining up the top of the kite shape to the center fold. Repeat with the other flap.

13. Fold the top that you formed down to the center (see picture).

14. Unfold back to the kite shape and flip over to repeat on other three sides.

15 & 16. Unfold all folds.

17 & 18. Flip the square over and refold the folds you made in steps 12 & 13 from the inside (you have already made all the creases, so you should not be making any new folds).

19. Repeat all the way around.

20. The last fold will be tight, but be sure to tuck the tip all the way inside along the original fold.

21. You should have a cone shape with a flower pattern on the bottom.

My daughter decorated hers with sequins and googlie eyes (in her opinion, they belong on everything... lots and lots of them). We glued a star bead on the top. For the ornament, I threaded a string through the top of the tree and strung the string through the star bead before gluing the bead down.



I love this fold as a tree as it's very versatile. I cut some branches into the larger one...

And even painted some white tips.

These would make great package toppers, centerpieces, ornaments, or even place holders if you snip the top.

I tried to find a better tutorial that shows this fold, but couldn't find one. If you know one, please let me know. Thanks!

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Puzzle Tree Ornament Tutorial

I finally sent these ornaments out yesterday for our ornament exchange through the Crafty Crow (sorry that they were a little late!). But Robbie had fun making them... and then letting me finish them once he lost interest. He was good for the first few - then got tired of doing it over and over.
Anyhow, I thought I'd share a tutorial on these as they came out really cute. I also made a few for our tree in the shape of a wreath - using the same method, just a circle instead of a triangle.

Materials needed:

• Puzzle (I went to the local thrift store and found a 1000 piece puzzle that had lots of green in it -.99! The 1000 piece puzzles have nice small puzzle pieces)
• Glue (we used a glitter glue)
• Waxed paper
• Permanent marker
• Sequins (optional)
• Twine (string or yarn - something to hang it with)
• Green paint
• Sponges

1. Pull out all the green puzzle pieces. You don't have to use green - you are welcome to make your tree any color you want.

2. Draw the shape of the tree (or whatever shape you want) onto the waxed paper with the permanent marker as a guide.

3. Lay your first layer of puzzle pieces out using your drawing as the guide. Try to get the pieces as close together as you can.

4. Run a line of glue from one pieces to the other in the places you plan to put the second layer. Keep in mind, the second layer pieces will be covering the gaps of the first layer so you will want to keep your glue toward the inside part of your tree and the edge of the pieces. Excess glue is okay if you plan on decorating your tree later with sequins.

5. Place your second layer of puzzle pieces on top of the glue. Be sure to overlap your pieces and cover as many gaps as you can (rather than placing on puzzle piece right on top of the other). Overlapping the pieces will give you a fuller tree - and will keep the tree together.

6. Repeat step 4&5 for a third row.

7. Decorate with sequins if desired. I put sequins on the glue that was left after placing the puzzle pieces - then added a few dots of glue on the to layer. If your tree is a bit "off", you can adjust it now, while the glue is wet, by pushing the pieces together.

8. Allow to dry (I waited about 5 hours) and peel from the waxed paper.

9. Turn it over and paint the back. We used two different color paints and sponged them on to give a more textured look.

** I recommend spraying the finished ornament with a sealant of some sort. I didn't have time before I had to put them in the mail. **

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Tshirt Tree Tutorial

I love this tree - it has so many possibilities. It can be decorated with buttons and jewels, it can stand alone or in a grove of others, it can be made from tshirt scraps, cotton scraps, fleece scraps - I could go on and on. Also, this same concept can be adapted to make ornaments - it can be flat or it can be stuffed to stand - my head swirls with ideas!

But first, for the basic tree.

Materials:

Tshirt scraps - any color, I used shades of green
Muslin or another tshirt scrap
Polyfil (or fabric scraps for stuffing the inside)
Scissors
Sewing Machine

1 - Cut a pattern from the Muslin (or another tshirt scrap like I did). This will be used as the base to which you will stitch the scraps to. The first tree I made I not use a base which made for a bumpier tree (see first picture - tree on the cedar block). It is easier, however, to stitch to a base. The shape of the tree is a quarter of a circle - size will depend on what size you want your tree to be (final size will end up being approximately the height and a third of the width if that makes sense). Round the bottom.

2. Place scraps across the base pattern you just cut - making sure to cover the entire shape (it doesn't matter if the pieces are hanging over). Pin the scraps in place against the base shape. Do not trim.

I did this in strips. I'm sure it would also work with small pieces - I went for simplicity (I also have a lot of scraps that are in strips). I also started from the bottom and worked my way to the top so that the tshirt fabric was hanging down as the branches of the tree would.



3. Stitch across pieces from one side of the shape to the other. I begin by stitching to the areas I have pinned so that I can remove all the pins, then I start filling in areas the seem to need more stitching. You can stitch as much or as little as you want. I used white thread on this one and green thread on the first one. I like having the contrasting thread color.

It might also be nice to do decorative stitches - again, I went for simplicity.

4. Trim off excess edges from the back following the pattern shape. Fold in half along the side edges with the scrap side on the inside. Pin in place.

5. Stitch along the side of the tree to form a cone shape. Trim the top point so it will be less bulky when you turn it inside out.

6. Cut a circle to fit the bottom of the cone from another scrap. I do this by eyeballing it and guessing. You can also open your cone, place it on a piece of paper and trace around it to make a pattern.

(If you want to make this into an ornament, you can always sew up the bottom at this point, leaving a space to turn it. Turn the tree and sew up the bottom by hand. This would give you a flattened tree shape that you can attach a hanger to the top (or sew the hanger in on step 5.)

7. Pin the circle to the bottom of the cone. Stitch around the bottom leaving an opening large enough to turn it (pull the tip of the tree through so you can turn it inside out). I left the opening in the back so that the stitching wouldn't show as much.

For the first tree I made, I hand stitched the bottom of the tree leaving the edges exposed. This does help it stand a little bit flatter and gives it a different appearance. If you choose to do this, I recommend stuffing it 80% of the way before sewing the bottom on - then stuffing it the rest of the way once you have stitched most of the bottom.

8. Turn the tree inside out exposing the green side of the tree. Stuff it and hand sew it closed.

This tree would be great with a bean bag stitching inside to weight the bottom, maybe even filled with a little pine potpourri.


These would be great on a mantle, hung on the Christmas tree, used as a pin cushion or set out for a center piece. Possibilities are endless... and they are so much fun to make! Make one for your kids so they can decorate it for their teacher! Have fun! And, please, let me know if I've missed any steps. For more pictures on the process, you can check out my Flickr pictures here.

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