Found it! Finally

A couple of months ago I warned about the dangers of cleaning/organizing. In that post I mentioned losing black beads and crystals needed to finish a necklace. Good news everybody! In a frenzy of cleaning (in honor of a weekend visit from my mother) I finally found the beads and crystals.


Now I don't want you to think that I never clean or that I haven't cleaned my house since November. Its just that I try never to look at anything tax related until March/April. As part of my cleaning I looked through my receipts box and found my beads! I can now finish the necklace. Also found was the cheque book for my Sparks unit (girl guides). I can now pay for our cookies.

Despite the way it sounds I am an organized person and my Sparks unit is quite financially sound. I just have a different filing system...and tend to panic when my sister (clean freak) comes to visit.

In defense of my disorganization my house regularly gets turned upside down when family comes to fix up my poor house. Thank God for Family but not so thankful for the mess each construction adventure brings. For example I'm not sure if I'll be able to get dressed tomorrow because we built a closet this weekend. (by WE I actually mean my Mom and Dad) Some of my clothes are in the front bedroom and some are in the back bedroom. No laundry was done this weekend because of the construction efforts. Don't worry, I have lots of clothes and I'll find something. I also have a lovely new closet to fill once I get all the sawdust cleaned up.

My adventures with my house makes me really appreciate handy people/men. As they say on the Red Green Show- "If the women don't find you handsome they should at least find you handy".

Pretty ribbon frames

I'm addicted to a blog called dollar store crafts. I love it because everything is around my price point and amazing things are made cheap. One woman made a mirror for under $20 based on an inspiration mirror sold at Anthropologie (not sure if I've got the name right) for over $100. Many ideas involve taking apart stuff to make something new. Ever since I've visited this blog I've looked at the dollar store differently and that's the inspiration for the rest of this post.

A couple weekends ago I made a Valentine's wreath based loosely on instructions I found on the Valentine's linky party. Not bad for a cloths hanger, ribbon and glue eh? This put me in the mode of using up ribbon I have at home. The next part is a little back story but keep in mind that I've been visiting the dollar store craft blog a lot. The Dollarama (Canadian dollar store) sells a framed tile that looks just like the hand painted tiles that you can buy at gift shops. The frame is crappy looking but the tiles are great. I bought a few to hang in my front porch last year. At Christmas the Dollarama gets in a crap load of decorations and for the last 5 years they've had pretty much the same stuff. This year they had new stuff and it rocked! Despite my resistance and weekly viewings of Hoarders (inspires me not to buy junk), Dollarama managed to get a lot of my money this Christmas $1 and $2 at a time . One of the great things they had were holiday versions of the tiles. Once again the frame were blah but the tiles rocked. I had nowhere to hang these tiles but I bought some anyways (partly because I hadn't seen them at any other Dollarama). Once I got home I realised I could remove the frame, stick some felt pads on the bottom and have a lovely Christmas trivet. Everyone in my family got a Christmas trivet and I ended up with a bunch of square frames which I kept (despite watching hoarders) thinking I could use them for something else. The other thing I kept was last year's Calendar featuring paintings of birds. That's the end of the back story.

So the ribbon heart wreath turns out rocking, looks great on my front door and I'm in a ribbon mood. The glue gun is out and hot so I start fiddling with pink ribbon and getting the usual glue gun burns. Using one of the previously mentioned frames I fold the ribbon loosely then glue it to the frame. I fluff the ribbon to take out any creases. After gluing and fluffing for 10 minutes I end up with a pretty frame that I need to fill. This is where last year's bird calendar comes in handy. I pick a picture that coordinated and trace around my tile/trivet (mentioned earlier) to get the right size for the frame, cut out the picture and stuck it in the frame. That day I made three of these ribbon frames with birdie pictures. As many of you know when you make something it can be either a hit or a miss but I am definitely happy with my frames. They look great in my kitchen!

Right now you may be wondering what's the point of the story? None really, I just wanted to post something and these were the pictures I had. Plus I'm feeling pretty smart about my crafting skills.

A big thanks

A package arrived today for me. I signed up for the tatting goddess valentine's exchange so I was expecting a package. It was from Martha Ess and contained a few goodies as well as 2 tatted hearts. One is Teri Dusenbery's Acorn Heart and the other is Karey Solomon's Peaceable Heart. It took me a couple of minutes to see the acorn. They are lovely and patterns I hadn't seen before. Thanks Martha!

Love on a Stick and Hearty Butterfly

Love on a Stick

Size 10 thread CTM with 2 yards on each shuttle

p- picot

lp- large picot

vlp- very large picot

vsp- very small picot

R 9 p 1 lp 1vl p 4 vsp 4 vlp 1 lp 1 p 1 9

Ch 30 lj (to vsp) 30 lj to base of ring

SR 10/10

SR 8/8

SR 6/6

SR 4/4

SR 2/2 tie and cut.

Hearty Butterfly

2 shuttles CTM

Seta- 3 1st half stitches

Setb- 3 2nd half stitches

vsp- very small picot

lj-lock join

Shuttle 1:R1 10 vsp 7 vsp 7 vsp 10

Ch 15
R2 4+ (1st p R1) 4

Ch 15 lj (2nd p R2) 15

R3 4 + (3rd p R1) 4

Ch 15 lj to base of R1

Ch 15

R4 7 seta setb 7 (the next ring is an onion ring but there’s no joins, just make sure that R4 sits in R5)

R5 30

Ch 18 switch shuttles

Shuttle 2 R6 6 vlp 6 (cut vlp to make antennas) switch shuttles

Ch 3 join back to base of R1 tie and cut.

Hearts in our Heads

Its getting closer to Valentine's day and every tatter is thinking about hearts. What could be more appropriate for Valentine's gifts than hand made lace? Gina (http://threadsofatattinggoddess.blogspot.com/) has been making her favorite hearts, most of which are classic designs. Some are ones I've made a lot and some I haven't seen before.

Betsy Evan's rainbow heart bookmark is one of my favorites. I'm too lazy to make six hearts so I only make one heart for a bookmark. My mom and I (mostly my mom)once made over 300 of these hearts. She gave them as a gift at a Special Ladies dinner for the widowed wives of Shriner's. Thankfully, this pattern is still available at: http://www.frontiernet.net/~TammyRodgers/rainbow_heart_bookmark.html.

Just a note to those avid collectors of heart patterns that Jon over at http://tatsaway.blogspot.com/ has shared a new pattern that is very pretty. Its a very unique pattern. In the line of unique hearts, I really like Tattycat's Victorian Heart at http://www.freewebs.com/laurasmuse/heartpatterns.htm. I have to confess that I've never done the pattern but I love the way it looks.

I have been thinking of hearts and since I can never decide on one pattern I just fiddled around. Do you ever wonder why we tend to start at the top when making hearts? I have 2 attempts that turned out so I thought I would share them here. They are relatively simple patterns- I only ask you to do split rings and onion rings.

Love on a Stick
Size 10 thread CTM with 2 yards on each shuttle
p- picot
lp- large picot
vlp- very large picot
vsp- very small picot
R 9 p 1 lp 1vl p 4 vsp 4 vlp 1 lp 1 p 1 9
Ch 30 lj (to vsp) 30 lj to base of ring
SR 10/10
SR 8/8
SR 6/6
SR 4/4
SR 2/2 tie and cut.
Hearty Butterfly

2 shuttles CTM
Seta- 3 1st half stitches
Setb- 3 2nd half stitches
vsp- very small picot
lj-lock join
Shuttle 1:
R1 10 vsp 7 vsp 7 vsp 10
Ch 15
R2 4+ (1st p R1) 4
Ch 15 lj (2nd p R2) 15
R3 4 + (3rd p R1) 4
Ch 15 lj to base of R1
Ch 15
R4 7 seta setb 7 (the next ring is an onion ring but there’s no joins, just make sure that R4 sits in R5)
R5 30
Ch 18 switch shuttles
Shuttle 2 R6 6 vlp 6 cut vlp to make antennas switch shuttles
Ch 3 join back to base of R1 tie and cut.

If you are a huge butterfly person then you're in luck because Sherry has her new book of butterflies hot off the press at http://ladyshuttlemaker.blogspot.com/.

Valentine's party

I love Valentine's and have decided to join Craftaholic's Valentines day linky party. You can find out about this at: http://diaryofacraftaholic.blogspot.com/2010/01/surprise-valentines-day-linky-party.html.
For the linky party I thought I would share the message ornaments I made. They are very simple and the tatting is basic.
This is an absolutely beginner pattern. For those of you who don't know how to tat I highly recommend this site to learn: http://www.gagechek.com/slb/demo/media/index.html. You will be able to do this pattern after watching the tutorial. I've written out the pattern in long form for people who've never tatted before. Even if you think its not working don't worry you are gluing the tatting to a heart anyways.

Materials
size 10 thread 2 yards
paperclip
foam hearts (or wooden ones)

marker
ribbon
glue

Short terms:

p-picot (made by leaving extra thread between the double stitches which forms a loop when you snug up the stitches)

lp- large picot (leave more thread)

lj- 1st half stitch unflipped, 2nd half flipped (if this is your first time tatting then just make a square knot)

Start Chain as in tutorial (http://www.gagechek.com/slb/demo/media/index.html.)

Chain 10 p 1 lp 1 p 10 p 1 lp 1 p 10 p 1 lp 1 p 10 lj 10 p 1 lp 1 p 10 p 1 lp 1 p 10 p 1 lp 1 p 10 tie back to beginning

At this point you have what looks like a big sloppy mess- don't panic just tie back into the starting point. You then shape the chain into a heart. The square knot (lj) is the bottom of the heart and where you started and ended is the top. Don't worry if the ending knot is messy because you are going to cut really close to the knot when you glue the tatting to the foam hearts.

Write messages on foam hearts using a marker. Glue the tatting to the heart, shaping as you go.
Make a loop by sandwiching ribbon between 2 hearts. When everything dries you have a pretty lacy heart ornament to hang.

How simple was that?