Remember when I posted this nifty little idea? Well, little did I know that rip-stop nylon is $16 a metre at Fabricland and when I was there last time it was one of the few fabrics that was not included in their sale at the time. So, no ripstop nylon for us. But today I was reading someone's blog and they mentioned oil cloth and I thought I remembered seeing something about making your own oil cloth. So, Google to the rescue and I found this handy little tutorial by Burda Style. It's a little different from the one I remember reading earlier. This is not an authentic oil cloth. I think authentic oil cloth is actually oiled many times over. But I think this could be a much cheaper option to buying rip stop nylon to line the other side of a pretty fabric bowl cover.

On the table tonight: another flip

So, on Sunday, husband arranged to have some people over for dinner. I think somewhere between his brain and my brain, it wasn't fully communicated that he meant to barbeque some hamburgers for said company. I usually like entertaining and having people over is no big deal and even better when it motivates me to get everything tidied up for company. But I didn't shop for hamburgers; I was just going to stick with my meal plan and make a little bit more. I was pretty sure I had enough chicken in the freezer to feed a few extra people.

Tonight was supposed to be grilled chicken with my mom's Rice Pilaf (boy, my mom's recipes sure are being featured this month!). Since next Saturday is supposed to be hamburgers and hot dogs, we will flip the meals around, since I didn't buy anything perishable especially for this meal. I will have to send husband for some patties since I'm not sure I have enough ground beef in the freezer to make enough burgers for everyone, and if I do, I didn't take it out to thaw it in time. Frozen patties are not so bad, though I don't usually like to have so much filler in my burgers.

I am experimenting with baked potatoes in the crockpot. I got the idea from the Saving Dinner newsletter and googled it to find "A Year of Slow Cooking" come to my rescue again with Crock Pot Baked Potatoes (it's also where I learned to make my own yogurt). I hope they work out because I didn't get them started until after 1:00 and it's supposed to be 6 hours on high or 10 hours on low. Our company is expected around 6:00 pm. We might have to finish them off on the BBQ if they're not finished in time. They were super easy to prepare and if they work out, we'll totally be doing baked potatoes once a week throughout the summer. If they don't, we'll be headed down to the mini-mart for some potato chips tonight.

I Won!

I feel like I never win give-aways. Part of the reason for that is that I don't enter very many. Sometimes I decide the entering process is too arduous to bother with. Sometimes I just decide I don't really want what's being given away. And when I do enter, it's usually for something so good and cool and well-advertised that everyone enters (ie. Pioneer Woman giveaways). Still, entering online give-aways always have better odds than the lottery (even Pioneer Woman's giveaways) and they're free! So, when I see that I've not won another give-away (even one I didn't enter) I feel like I never win.

So, here is my first win! I entered a giveaway on Monster Bites for one of my friend Naomi's Owly Baird stuffed owls. So I get to pick one of these cute owls! Because, as it turns out, Naomi is actually my friend in real life, I won't be picking my Owly Baird until either the baby is born or we decide to tell people the gender of our baby. I don't want to choose a gender-neutral owl just to keep our little secret (not telling people is a LOT harder than I thought it would be!).

Naomi's shop, Butterfly Garage isn't just full of cute stuffed owls. She also makes adorable upcycled wool bears like this guy:

But I think my favorite things she makes are Judies Booties. How sweet are these?

Naomi actually gave me a sneak peek into some new projects she has on the go. They're so great. You'll have to check back at her shop in a week or so to see what she's got new in there!

Fundamentals of Cuteness 1010 by WooWork Crochet

I can't rememeber if Dude Craft crochets or not, but if he doesn't, this is the only guy I "know" (and that in the Internet way of knowing) who crochets. And he's come up with this adorable study in cuteness, pertaining to the placement & size of eyes & mouth on amigurumi. You need to click through the link to see what he makes with all his samples!

So much inspiration, so little time!

I found this sweet Shirred Shirt Dress tutorial on Ruffles and Stuff via Whip Up this morning. If you remember, I made some shirt dresses for Z last year and she loved them. I loved them, too! I loved making a new dress out of my husband's old shirts. And they're pretty fast!

I have at least three sewing projects all ready to go (fabric purchased and whatnot), so I shouldn't start anything new, but this certainly is cute and inspiring! I wonder if I could find a men's shirt that would be big enough to accomodate my growing belly to make a good maternity shirt...

Eco Travel Lid

Here is a sweet tutorial with great pictures showing the easy steps to making this handy travel lid for your bowls and dishes when you're travelling to picnics and BBQs this summer. Once I finish the projects that I already have fabric purchased for, I think I may try this baby out.

What do you think? Would this make a good teacher gift? I think teachers must get a lot of useless crap as teacher gifts. This is super handy, but is it too utilitarian/not-related-to-being-a-teacher for a year-end teacher gift?

Princess & the Pea Play Set

I'm headed to a baby shower this afternoon. When I am back, I will post the gifts I made. I doubt the mom-to-be will be hanging out on the internet reading my blog, but just in case: I like surprises. In the mean time, I want to show you this sweet play set I saw on Stitch/Craft today. She has a tutorial on how to make mini-mattresses that are an important part of the play set.

I'm sure my Z would love something like this, but I feel so overrun with toys lately, I'm not sure I can handle adding to the mess. The kids have been trashing Z's room in the hour before they're allowed to wake us, by pulling every book off her shelf, emptying her box of small toys (Little People & such), and throwing all her bedding on the floor. Not to mention that someone climbed on the dresser and one drawer (that has be repaired before) has broken again and another one is a little wonky.

(ok, little rant:) You know what comes with children's furniture? Anchors to attach it to the wall so that in case they climb on it, it won't tip over and fall on them. Not really something they need to do, since the drawers can't support the weight of a toddler without breaking to pieces. I'm just saying'. So, if you haven't purchased your children's furniture yet, don't bother with Storkcraft (obviously, with all the recalls, is anyone buying Storkcraft anymore?) and just about anything from their Sears line. Go to Ikea instead. Honestly, I can't say enough good things about the quality of furniture that comes out of Ikea. Our family is kind of rough on furniture, and everything we've bought from there has held up beautifully. It's a brilliant company. Go to Ikea.

Resurrection Eggs

With Easter approaching, I was pleased to find these Resurrection Eggs, which you can easily make from some store-bought plastic eggs and sundries from around your home. Each egg is symbolic of part of the resurrection story.

Having not grown up in a very religious family, I don't have many traditions highlighting the real meaning of Easter, but I think this would be a great way to help tell the story of Easter and form a tradition in anticipation of our most important Christian holiday.

Easter Basket

I saw this on Sew Mama Sew today, and while I agree that it is an adorable flower girl basket, as intended, don't you think it would make a fabulous Easter Basket?

There's a tutorial there on how to make one.

This Makes Me Happy

 

Found this on Dude Craft (who found it via You Might Like This via NotCot). It makes me happy, too. Something about flowcharts.

Paper Portraits

I am a huge fan of Dude Craft. He finds the greatest stuff. And he shows us all that men can craft. Cool stuff, though.

He has a tutorial to make these stunning paper portraits, which I totally want to try out.

Yarn Christmas Trees

Back to the world of things I might actually make. I love these yarn trees! Pretty Ditty has a great tutorial on how you can make them yourself.

I subscribe to the Pretty Ditty blog, but I also saw these on Whip Up. I think I even have some leftover yarn that would be perfect for this project.

Oh, and on another note, will you take my poll for me? It's over there on the right. I'm wondering if you have a preference with how links open. Personally, I like them to open in a new window, but I have heard that people get confused when they get multiple windows opening.

Pac Man Ring Set

Check out this sweet Pac Man Ring set by Rachel Pfeffer. I would probably never wear it, but I would love it if you would! How come I can't be funky? I want to be funky.

  Found via CRAFT.

Advent Ideas

As a child, I remember having those chocolate calendars that now you can buy for super cheap and are filled with gross, waxy, cheap chocolate (gee, can you tell how I feel about those now?) At least I remember a year or two of those. I remember better, though, my mom making an advent calendar for our family (and then for the families of all her siblings) and filling them with treats and activity sheets for the whole month. We have an advent calendar that I made for Z a couple years ago at a church event, which has little pockets that I can fill with small treats. I can't really fill it with treats, though, since our little sweetheart has a sweet tooth and has, on more than one occasion, helped herself to the days ahead.

I found a few ideas that could solve our little problem of not being able to wait for the day to come to have another yummy treat.

 This lovely little idea has me intrigued, little reusable links at Stitch-Craft. Found via Ohdeedoh. I love the idea of creating traditions by doing activities together as well as having our children look forward to a family activity instead of just a piece of chocolate. I'm just trying to figure out how we make it work as part of our routine and don't end up forgetting. Roxanne at Craft Addictions has a great starter list of advent activities that you can include in your calendar.

Also, Amber at giverslog.com has a great post full of advent ideas. I love her family tradition of hanging an advent wreath, chandelier-style over their table.

Nope, nothing happening over here

Actually, quite to the contrary. I know it doesn't look like I've been all that busy lately, what with all the posts of old things that I've done and give aways, but the crafts that I've been working on are gifts. Gifts for people (or the children of people) who may or may not read this blog. What's a girl to do?

Link to other people's wonderful crafty ideas with their how-tos. That's what!

Whip Up posted this really great link to this german star tutorial. I love stars and snowflakes at Christmas, even though they're not that overtly Christian. The star is, though. Warning: there is music playing on the tutorial website.

Lace Beret

This is a beret I made at the end of last year/beginning of this year. It was my Christmas break project. The lace pattern was a little bit addictive, so it only took me about 3 days. Of course, I have children and a husband and all that, so it wasn't really 3 days, but I do remember putting in a little more than just evenings. It was a mystery knit along pattern called "Meret" found on Ravelry. I didn't knit along, because the knit along was finished by the time I found the pattern.

Here it is being blocked. That's a charger plate it's being blocked on! I was a little worried this would stretch it out too much, but it's bounced back a little bit since and looks quite good. If you could see the other side of the charger plate, you would see that the brim of the hat comes almost to the middle of the plate, so blocking it on the charger plate did not stretch out the brim which is really important. I made 2 extra lace pattern repeats since I wanted a slouchy beret and I had read quite a few reviews that recommended doing 2 extra repeats before finishing off.

This is a great pattern for introducing lace knitting, since it's a pretty easily memorized pattern and fairly easy to see where you are in the pattern. It became quite addictive. I recommend it!

Daily Drop Cap

love these beautiful illustrated letters from Daily Drop Cap "for your enjoyment and for the beautification of blog posts everywhere." They're so gorgeous. I might just start using them in all my posts. There are so many more beautiful letters over there. It's definitely worth checking out.


Here are some of my faves.

The evangelist who turned me onto this was How About Orange.

Fabric covered clips

I think I might make these.

I've had this tutoriall as an open tab in my browser for a few days now. And so I don't forget about it, or at least so I can find it again, I'm going to put it here. You might like to try it, too. My daughter wears this kind of clip in her hair almost daily, since we've just about got her bangs grown out. They still fall in front of her face a lot if she doesn't have a barrette in.

The author of mairuru, where the tutorial comes from is from Japan and English is not her first language. She does really well, but there are some little language quirks that betray her second-language-ness. I love it and I don't think it gets in the way of her instructions. She has lots of good Japanese cuteness on her blog. You should check it out.

Hexagonal Stacking Boxes!

These are awesome. I love little containers. I want to buy small things in bulk so that I have little things to put in great containers like this.

Please go and download the free pdf from Evil Mad Scientist Labratories and make yourself some cool hexagonal stacking boxes. That's right stacking boxes! I love these already.

Squirt Gun Refill Station

Ok. This is so sweet. I would totally do this. Especially if I had a fountain pump and 1/2 inch hose just hanging around in my garage (and if I had a garage). Instructables rocks.