Coffee Cozy from Goodwill Sweater

A few weeks ago, I was sitting at home, feeling sorry for myself (thankfully, I can’t even remember why now).  I was surfing the Web, trying to find something that would make me smile when I came across a new blog: A Little Junk in My Trunk.  This blog is awesome for so many reasons, but what really got me jumping up and running out the door to Goodwill on that day was this coffee cozy made from a Goodwill sweater.

So, with one of these in hand:

and a few of these:

and one of these:

I got to work and produced this:

Not so much to look at, until you pair it with one of these (found for 25% off at Fred Meyer!):

And you get this:

How cute is that?  I’m thinking Christmas presents here!

Dee has full instructions here, if you want to make one yourself!

Old School Tissue Paper Craft

My girls have been REALLY into art projects lately.  Seems that’s all they ever do.  They don’t play with their toys much anymore, but reading or art projects keep them happy for hours.

We were at Michael’s the other day and I wanted to buy them some supplies that would be new and exciting.  We walked by a huge pack of tissue paper and I remembered a craft that I had done many times as a child.  I had never seen or heard of the girls doing this particular project, so into the cart went the tissue paper and off we went to home.

Do you all remember doing this project?  You cut little squares of tissue paper, wrap them around the eraser end of a pencil, then dip them end in glue and press the tissue paper into a design. 

I did this project quite a bit when I was a kid, but my girls had never seen it before.  Is this project now considered old school?

We spend a good hunk of the afternoon crafting together.  It was a good time for all.  And we got some pretty artwork out of it:

Chalkboard Thought Bubble

Now that Father’s Day is over, I can show you the great project the girls and I made for their dad.  He has been seriously into photography lately, which is very nice because it makes it easier to find presents for him.

A few weeks before Father’s Day, I caught him checking out a very cool site called PhotoJojo.  They have a bunch of fun accessories for the photographer.  We did end up ordering him a few things from there, but one item caught my eye as something we could make ourselves: the Chalkboard Thought Bubble!

One day while Dad was at work, we grabbed our tools and got to work.  I decided to use a piece of the giant white board that we had sitting in our garage because it’s light weight and easily paintable. (It’s actually called shower board at the hardware store, but it makes fantastic white boards.)

Then, we (I) went to town with the jig saw.  First, I cut a smaller rectangle off so it was easier to work with. 

I taped the line where I wanted to cut with masking tape to help keep the board from chipping and splintering when I cut it.

Then, I drew in the curved corners and the little jutting do-hickey at the bottom and cut them out.  I did it all free-hand, but I think it looks pretty good!

 

Finally, we grabbed our trusty cardboard paint and gave both sides a couple of coats.

We found some of those chalk ink pens at Michael’s and included those with the board.  I must say, they’re pretty darned cool!

And here’s what Daddy got on Father’s Day!

We had a lot of fun writing silly phrases and taking pictures with goofy faces!

Hope you all had a great Father’s Day!

I'm linking this up to:

The Best Laid Plans

Sometimes things just don’t go according to plan…

When my oldest daughter (we’ll call her Thing 1) was very small, I had my mother-in-law teach me to knit. I picked it up pretty quickly and eventually decided to knit my little girl a blanket. I chose a very nice cabled pattern and a pretty rose-colored yarn. Unfortunately, I’d never done a cable knit before and I soon found out that I don’t actually *like* to knit, so that thing took me three years to finish! And once I finally sat down to get it done, I couldn’t find all the yarn (or I hadn’t bought enough) and couldn’t find more to match, so the blanket is a bit short. It’s worked fine for her, though, since she’s still fairly short herself and she loves it.

When my second daughter (Thing 2) was very small, I was informed by Thing 1 that Thing 2 would need a blanket as well. She was right, of course, but this time I thought I would be smart. I chose a pattern that was actually no pattern at all. A friend of mine has a blanket that his mom knit him that is simply a knit stitch from one end to the other. It is long and narrow with tassels at each end. The things that makes this blanket even remotely interesting are the yarn and the fact that the stitches run the length of the blanket and not the width.

So, I went out and bought a beautiful blue yarn with hints of purple and green in it. That was *four* years ago! Once again I was reminded that I just don’t like to knit. I don’t hate it, but it’s not something I want to do at night when I’m tired and sitting in front of the TV. At first, I chose to knit it with small needles (I believe they were 10). That took waaay too long. This was going to be a big blanket (I wasn’t going to leave Thing 2 with a too small blanket also)! After about two and a half years, I was about halfway done and I realized that I was never going to finish at this rate, so I started completely over with much larger needles. These new needles were much better and the blanket progressed at my usual snail’s pace.

Last Fall, Thing 2 started asking when her blanket was finally going to be done and I promised it would be by Christmas. Suffice it to say, I didn’t quite make the Christmas deadline, but I finally finished the length of it (without tassels) soon thereafter.

It’s beautiful…and about 8 feet long! I have no idea what happened. I wanted this to be a long blanket – at least as long as me – but not this long! I was so embarrassed about it, that I couldn’t bring myself to finish dealing with the yarn ends and putting on the tassels. Last week, she asked about it again and I made myself finish it. It is now complete. and ridiculous.

Thing 2 can lie on the top of it and double it back up over the length of her body and still have extra. She puts it on her bed and drapes the extra 4 feet across her room like a red carpet.

You probably are thinking, “Oh, it’s not THAT long,” so here:

Yes, it really is. Also note that it’s actually longer on the right side. Not sure what happened between casting on on the left and casting off on the right. Not even I would have picked up that many stitches, guess my knots just became looser, but good grief!

Here are some pretty pictures of it. The yarn really is beautiful:

I’m slightly mortified by this thing, but she is loving it, so I guess I should call it a success. And, if nothing else, I’m sure it will become part of our family’s lore in no time.