2017 Christmas Projects

The decorations are all packed away, the post-holiday dust has settled, and a slew of home repairs have been accomplished.  Time to catch up on some project blogging!

Crochet

Though my mother taught me how to crochet when I was a kid, I never did learn how to read a pattern.  I could make wobbly squares and long strands that looked like worms (which I gave to friends as bookmarks.  Get it?  Book worm?) but that was the extent of my yarn experience.  A few years ago I picked up a pattern for an infinity scarf, which I was able to complete, but once the arthritis began to set in to my wrist joints, I figured I'd have to give up on the idea of crochet all together.

Then I discovered they make hooks with padded handles for arthritic crafters.  So I owed it to myself to pick one up and see what I could do with it.  Also, the Seahawks colored yarn was on sale.  With the help of YouTube I was finally able to decipher the pattern for a simple granny square.

The hook works great!  Though I failed to take a photo of the end project, I ended up putting about 9 granny squares together into a scarf, which was given away as a Christmas gift.

In my early season "look how much time I have!" days, I attempted a few "simple crochet snow flake" patterns, which I had intended to stiffen up with starch and give away as ornaments.  I completed a few, but upon realizing those patterns required tiny stitches and precise counting, and as I ran out of craft time, I put them aside and concentrated on larger gifts.

This scarf was from a pattern called "Shawl in a Ball" - once the first row was completed, it was just turn, repeat, turn, repeat until I ran out of yarn.  

My daughter had actually picked the yarn out while we were shopping together, so I made this for her for Christmas.  She was very surprised when she opened it, as she'd seen me work on it all season.

Sewing:

Speaking of my daughter... she taught herself how to knit this fall, so I found a pattern for a knitting needle holder and picked up some specially printed giraffe fabric (giraffes are her favorite animal) as another Christmas gift for her.

I have a friend who loves - and collects - pink flamingos.  When I saw this fabric in October I immediately thought of her.  I wasn't sure what I would make out of it, but I bought the whole remnant and took it home.  I started out by making the tote bag, and originally thought I would make a whole series of bags, but as holiday deadlines loomed and I had a solid 2 yards of fabric leftover, I decided to put it together in a big table cloth/blanket.

The tote bag pattern was so fun to make, I decided to buy specialty fabric and make bags for some of my other friends... one is a math tutor, one is a Zentangle teacher who loves otters.

 About a decade ago I made a quilted wall hanging for my bedroom, using a technique called "Stack N Whack".  The technique creates a kaleidoscope effect in the printed fabric.  When my sister saw my wall hanging she said she wanted one too.  I had actually pieced the top shortly after she had requested it, and I had intended to give it to her for Christmas that year - 2012 - however due to our move I had to pack the quilt top away.  It was buried among my unfinished project for years, unearthed last summer during my art room reorganization.  This fall I finished the quilting, binding, and sleeve for it in time to give it to her for Christmas.

Ornaments

When I found that my soldering iron needed to be replaced, I decided to pick up a multi-use tool, one that could also be used for wood burning.  Inspired by ideas on Pinterest, I decided to do a series of wood-burned ornaments as gifts and as my Bunco ornament.  

I started with a pile of wood discs, and a couple of designs... landscape and birch trees.

I penciled the designs on the discs, incorporating any interesting wood knots etc... 

After finishing the woodburning, I then painted features with slightly thinned white acrylic paint.

Most of these ornaments were given as gifts to friends and family.  I saved one of each design for my family.

Speaking of ornaments... this is officially the year where I amassed enough bird ornaments to have a whole tree dedicated to just birds.

I made this drum ornament to commemorate D's experience marching in the Santa Clara Vanguard Alumni Corp.  The original drum was red, I covered it with copper paper to match the drum he marched with.  The sticks are painted to match how his were taped for the performance.  The Vanguard star is made out of Shrinky Dink, which I punched with a large 8 point punch, then colored, then shrank.  I made the Aussie (hat) by taking a pattern for a toy's cowboy hat, I shrank the pattern to scale, then cut the pieces out of green felt and hand stitched it together.  The star on the side of the aussie is made from two sequins and a bead.  I painted the top of the drum head black, to match his marching drum, and the bottom reads "2017 SCVAC"

 Christmas Village

Having been so busy with gift projects this year, my village additions were not completed until after the New Year.  This year I painted the kids sledding on the hill, the ice house and ice salesman, and a little bridge.  The sled hill and ice house are the final larger pieces I have from the original set that I purchased about 15 years ago.  I have two sets of village people with some overlapping characters, so next year I will sort those out and probably just finish the people I haven't painted yet.  A couple years ago I came across another brand of unpainted village buildings that are the right scale for my village, though a slightly different style, so I'll begin adding those to my little town next year.

 

Christmas Crafting

I have this annual problem as the holidays approach, which is to build laughably long lists of projects to make as gifts for friends/family.  It is not so much that I have more ideas than my schedule allows to make them, it is more like I have more ideas than time exists in which anybody could make them.  Even if I had no job, no responsibilities, and no housework, I could not complete all the projects I think of because I have just Too Many Ideas.

Thanks a lot Pinterest!

(and magazines, and crafting books, and supplies handed down to me by Mom...)

Even when I make my list "realistic", I never reach the end.  Once school starts in September, it is just an out of control train of activity, from school sports to Halloween events, to kid's birthday, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas.  Woo Woo! (that was a train whistle)

This year, however, I refocused my energy, lightened up my schedule by replacing huge Halloween and Birthday events with smaller get-togethers, and came up with a few portable craft ideas which I could work on at sports events.  With those changes, plus joining a craft club to keep me focused and pretty much abandoning all TV watching, I found myself able to accomplish a respectable amount.  (though still not All The Things)

Embroidered towels - this idea came to me from wandering through the craft store's embroidery section.  It was a tradition in our house to have sets of towels embroidered in the corners (one set of which I still own and use, which was embroidered by my mom)  I wanted to incorporate some Zentangle in my gifts this year as well, so this seemed a perfect fit.  I drew the tangle pattern on paper using a thicker pen, making it roughly the size of the embroidery hoop.  I transferred the pattern using carbon paper, and then embroidered away.  There was another towel which I neglected to photograph before giving it away, and a fourth which is still in the hoop because I didn't finish it in time for Christmas.  This is the project I brought with me to G's sporting events to work on in between her playing. 

I love doing the paint-your-own ceramics, and have saved many painting idea/inspirations on Pinterest.  The set of plates is for a neighbor of mine... I'd painted a platter for myself a few years ago which shows a tree bent in the fall, the leaves blowing off.  She compliments it highly every time she comes over, so I decided to do a set of plates for her from a similar inspiration.  The set of plates depicts one tree in the changing seasons (in case the theme isn't obvious)  The vase below was painted for D for Christmas, inspired by designs I've seen on Pinterest.  I do like the way the clouds came out.  I suppose I did a weather theme without really realizing it.

Last year I bought up two sets of Melissa Frances glass ornament dome kits, and put them to use this season.  In my efforts to find a tiny nativity scene worthy of the pretty glass, I discovered French Feves... teeny tiny porcelain figures usually used to bake into an epiphany cake in France.  I bought a few kits on Etsy (straight from France!) and also a few individual feves which really spoke to me.  The ornaments above were inspired by and made for individual friends of mine.

I made my own French Feve parrot ornament for myself (unfortunately it dropped during our un-decorating of the tree, and the dome is now cracked, the parrot is laying down.  I'll repair it next year)  I made the bear ornament as my annual bunco ornament exchange contribution - this one was inspired by (and supplies purchased at) my favorite craft store/money pit.  It had originally been opened by my good friend, who immediately recognized that I must have made it, and we made eye contact from across the room.  Then it was sadly stolen from her (but by another friend who really appreciates bears, and really did adore this little guy)  I happened to have picked up duplicate supplies, with the intention of making a bear dome for myself (because Cute Bear!) but instead I used the supplies to make a duplicate for my good friend.  I suppose that could be considered "cheating" the bunco exchange, but people also declare where they bought their ornaments in case anyone wants to buy something they saw, so... all is fair in my opinion.

The craft store was sold out of the adorable bears, so I needle-felted myself a little cardinal and set him into a dome ornament for myself instead.  (This was my project for our December crafting club meeting)

I am most proud of the two sets of coasters I made for D for Christmas.  The idea came to me early on... I've attempted several types of tile coasters in the past, all with poor results, but after a little research I found people had been able to create the look I was going for using resin instead of modpodge like medium, so I headed to the art store for resin kits.  There I found actual coaster kits, with holders and all, just above the resin.  It's like they knew I wanted to make coasters!  

I made two sets, one with 4 images from Jamaica, and one with 4 images from Kauai.  Printing, trimming, and gluing the photos onto the coasters was easy.  I painted over the photos with a layer of mod-podge as well, however the paint strokes did show a little in spots, so I wouldn't recommend doing that... just glue them down all the way to the edges really well, the resin will coat the images nicely.

(I regret that I didn't take photos during this process... I really had to sneak it in without D noticing, so I had very little time in which to work)

The resin did not smell nearly as much as I thought it would, though I still did the resin part inside a bathroom with the vent fan going and a window open just in case.  I set the coasters on small wooden blocks inside of the lids of banker's boxes (to catch the drips), mixed the resin, and poured.  I did the 8 oz kit, which was well more than I needed for the 8 coasters.  After pouring the resin and smoothing it out, gravity pretty much does the rest.  I tried and tried to scrape the drips off the bottom of the coasters, but it kept dripping and once it was set, the bottoms of the coasters had bumpy resin bits.  

My solution to the resin drips on the bottom was to put the scraping blade on my Xacto knife and pop them off, which also took off some of the white paint on the coaster.  (note: use the scraping blade like a planer, scraping away from your body, NOT the pointy one... I started with the pointy one, it slipped and stabbed me in the thumb)  My original plan had been to attach little felt feet to the bottoms, however with the paint scraped they looked beat-up.  After starting to paint the bottoms (which looked uneven at best) I realized that I could just cover the entire bottom with felt instead, so that is what I did.

Here is a close-up of my favorite coaster - notice the teeny tiny helicopter in the shot :)

Outside of gifts, I also worked on my own projects... completing two buildings for my Christmas village.  A little house (colors somewhat based on our own house colors)

The gingerbread bakery (because SO CUTE!)

My village has expanded in size, now requiring a larger space and more lights.  

Inspired by a friend of mine, I hang my Enterprise ornament over the village.  I've often joked about making an Away Team for my village, and this year I decided I should paint some villagers with Star Trek uniforms, as my Away Team incognito.  I was unable to start that project this year, but I already have a Riker and Westly in mind for next year.

I managed to paint just one ornament for myself this year... a little black-capped chickadee who happens to be a Gryffindor.  (I am nerding out our Christmas stuff in subtle ways)

Done back in in the fall... I also gifted out jars of home made jalapeno/anaheim chile jelly, made from peppers grown in pots in my yard.  My grand hope this year is to have a proper garden again, with herbs galore, so that I can return to gifting home grown items to friends again.