Category Archives: Crafts

The Satisfaction of a Finished Project

Posted on by
Reply

I tend to start a lot of things, but finish very few.

I started this sweater a very long time ago, likely at about the time Soule Mama made this post and I fell in love.

I painstakingly hunted high and low for the perfect wool and worked quickly to knit the sweater up within a week or two. However, when I’d finished, I didn’t weave in the ends of the string and I didn’t wear the sweater. I threw it in a drawer and left it there, so very, very close to finished – but not.

Screen Shot 2013-03-05 at 3.51.51 PM

I found it when I was unpacking boxes and finally took the 10 minutes needed to finish it up. I am really glad that I did. It truly is an awesome sweater that just makes you feel good.

Screen Shot 2013-03-05 at 3.52.13 PM

I wonder what project I can finish off next, perhaps my rainbow quilt or maybe I’ll add the crochet flowers to the edge of the skirt I knit for my daughter last year.

 

Trying Something Eggstrodinary

Posted on by
Reply

Well, if you are like me, you are probably on Pinterest (or at least facebook) and you’ve probably seen these beautifully coloured boiled eggs that retain their colour after they are peeled (I’d share a picture but you know, copyrights and all…oh, wait, I’m a genius (or something) here’s my google search). I was given the instructions to boil eggs, then crack the shells, add food colouring to the water, and boil again.

So that is what we did yesterday afternoon.They didn’t pack quite the punch I was expecting considering the vibrant colours of the water they were cooked in.

The red one wasn’t so bad but the amount of dye I was used was ridiculous and I sort of let it boil for an extra long time because I was nursing the two year old FOREVER.

Thank you, Baby!

If you want to make beautifully vibrant boiled eggs that you can eat in all their splendor, do not follow my instructions but feel free to visit Barefoot Kitchen Witch and find out how she makes her eggs, instead!

(Or you could throw them into a boiling pot of dye and forget about them, I suppose.)

Hot Rock Craft

Posted on by
Reply

If there is something that we have a lot of in Cape Breton it is rocky beaches. While the kids were too ill this week to walk on the beach, we were able to complete an art project using some of our previously collected rocks.

Here’s our bit of youtube inspiration:

Here are our finished projects:

My creation. The rock already had lines dividing it and Morgaine wanted them to still be there so I made the pink and filled in the other parts.


Liam’s scenery.

Morgaine’s rainbow.

Simple, fun and pretty, too.

My Little Budding Artist

Posted on by
2

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know my little girl better as her temperament has improved greatly and she has enough focus to be able to sit down and work on projects or have a conversation without whining or arguing. She’s certainly a very creative little one, full of imagination and style. She’s always but together crazy creative outfits (changing 5 or 6 times a day) but now that she has the ability to sit still she’s also started creating on paper. For a five year old I say that she has talent. What do you think?

~Giraffe in Acrylic Watercolour~

~Lady in mixed media~

~Self portrait in pencil crayon~

And since my daughter is work colourful and bright, I’m making her a colourful and bright blanket out of wool scrapes and as it doesn’t deserve a post of it’s own here’s a few of the 250+ squares I have to make.

Advent is Upon Us Again – Or Almost

Posted on by
Reply

I can barely believe it, but it’s true, Christmas is coming yet again. In attempt to keep the man with the big white beard out of our lives as much as possible and keep to meaning of Christmas sacred I try to do something special with the children for Advent. Last year Liam and I did some scripture reading together that involved some colouring and underlining (which was Liam’s big thing last year….diagramming). This year I wanted to try something different but I wasn’t quite sure what. Yesterday, at a newly formed Mother’s Prayer group (thanks, Beverly), I was introduced to the Jesse Tree, which takes you and your child through the Bible from Genesis to Jesus’ birth with scripture and symbolic ornaments that you hang on your very own “Jesse Tree”.  For more information, I encourage you to check out this website for verses and easy to print ornaments.

I, being totally nuts, visited this website and decided it would be a brilliant idea to make my own Jesse ornaments out of Fimo and/or clay. So last night, at 11pm, I was balancing a baby on my lap and sculpting little itty, bitty, tiny ornaments.

God created heaven and earth

Eve was tempted

Noah’s rainbow

David’s Staff

We’ll do looking for a branch to hang our ornaments on and start the scripture readings on Sunday. I only hope that I can somewhat keep up with the ornaments. I can see me making them in a mad rush the evening before but we shall see.

What are you doing for Advent this year?

Stitching, Sketching, Scrapping Sundays-October 3rd

Posted on by
3

Well, girls, I didn’t get my sweater finished last week. My husband is going back to work this week so we’ve been preparing for that by totally rearranging the two living rooms (homeschooling rooms) to see if we could add more purpose to the rooms and then in the evening we’ve been watching indie movies/documentaries on Netflix (anyone have good movie suggestions?) Normally I would knit at the same time but my baby is a night owl and is just so cute in the evening that it is much more fun to play with him!

There is someone in our house that is learning to read and my husband has developed wooden transition cards to help her out (and help your kids out, too, if anyone is interested). We felt that a wooden product would be more accepted than the paper variety of letter cards that can be found at the store. The transition cards are the perfect size for little hands and are cut, sanded and hand painted by my husband.

They make a satisfying little tapping sounds when used on a table or hardwood floor which makes it feel like you are working/playing with something substantial. Mike has developed transition cards for learning the transitions between small and capital letters (in cursive and manuscript), between manuscript and cursive writing in small and capital letters and numbers and their depiction on an abacus.

These cards can be used for reading, math as well as playing memory games.

In addition, Mike has also created larger cards that can be use to teach cursive writing by allowing the child to trace over the hand painted letters in the direction of the arrows.

Morgaine has finally shown some interest in learning since we’ve been using these cards so I couldn’t be happier!

Stop in and let us know what crafty things you’ve been up to this week!

Stitching, Sketching, Scrapping Sundays-September 26th

Posted on by
3

I hope that you have all had a wonderful week.

The weather has been absolutely perfect for crafting again here. At the beginning of the month I quite enjoyed the cooler wet weather but right now we actually all have a bit of cabin fever so crafting has been especially hard. Between the fighting and trying to keep the kids occupied there hasn’t been a lot of time to sit and relax. Throw in a teething feverish baby during the evenings and not much gets done. I’m sure you’ve all had weeks like this! It will do us all some good when the sun finally breaks through the clouds!

I did manage to get my shalom cardigan started. Unfortunately, the pattern was made for a teeny tiny woman and not a big boned east coaster. I’m not sure how well it is going to fit in the end. It most certainly will NOT be something that will keep me warm but still, it have been fun to knit and if it really doesn’t fit then it can either wait for Morgaine to grow or be gifted to some lovely teenager in my life. We shall see.

Here it is so far…

It really is an easy knit so I hope to have a finished product for you next week.

Please check in and let us know what you have been doing this week!

Stitching, Sketching, Scrapping Sundays-September 19

Posted on by
2

Welcome back to another week of Stitching, Sketching, Scrapping Sundays! I hope that you had a little bit of time to craft during the week. The weather has been perfect for crafting here, I must say. Unfortunately, curious little fingers and knitting needles do not mix so I am featuring my husband’s lovely work again this week. While I’ve move on from my hat kick, Mike it still working on his using a knitting loom (we’ve also purchased a couple long looms so I’m sure you’ll see new projects in the coming weeks). This week he crafted with our children in mind and made hats to keep their cute little heads warm).


I did manage to get one project on my needles only to find out that I won’t have near enough wool to finish and I’m not planning another trip to Baddeck Yarns any time soon. I think my longies will have to be shorties which is a little sad as I wanted them to be a pair of pants to wear over Ruadhán’s Applecheeks™ (because while I love the practicality of AppleCheeks™, I still cannot resist a wool covered bottom). I’m sure more longies will be in my future, however.

Please stop by and let us know what you’ve been up to as well!

Stitching, Sketching and Scrapping Sunday-Sept 12th

Posted on by
7

There’s a little nip in the air. Do you feel it, too? It is making me want wrap myself in a warm blanket with a nice cup of tea and settle down with a ball of wool to craft. Yes, even if you aren’t quite ready to accept it, fall is upon us. People are beginning to come indoors and I think it is the perfect time to start sharing our craftiness with each other as we’ll need inspiration to keep busy over the long winter months. Maybe I should stop talking about the cold and just post some pictures before I scare you all away!

I’m still in the hat business here but I am looking forward to moving on to some new projects like this with the modifications that SouleMama made which you can find here. Until then, here are some more HATS!

I’ve found my favorite hat pattern, in terms of size (you have no idea how much I’ve struggled to find a hat to fit a newborn) here. I’ve enjoyed making a few slight modifications to the shaping and then changing up the last few rows to allow for all kinds of different looks.

Here is my first go at it, following the pattern to the letter and only adding the braids.

Here it is again with some shaping modifications and bear ears.

I’ve made others with modifications for ribbons and will be crocheting up some flowers to day to girly up a pretty pink one I knit yesterday.

As my husband has joined me in hat making, we are becoming overwhelmed with hats and are thinking about opening an Etsy shop. My husband has also been working on educational wooden cards that he would like to sell as well so we are looking at different ideas. I would love if those of you who craft to sell would leave a little comment talking about your experiences. A shop if probably a few weeks off. I’m up to my knees in finishing off projects and am really itching to start my Shalom sweater so sitting on the computer figuring out online shops is not high on my list of things to do!

I’m looking forward to hearing more about your projects and ideas for autumn crafting!

Friday Favorites-January 1st, 2010

Posted on by
3

Happy New Year!! (it’s the first time I’ve written 2010….time flies, remember celebrating the new millennium? Well, we are already a decade in!)

I’ve decided that the best way to ensure regular posting this month (and maybe beyond) is to start up some weekly features again. I’ll be posting at least one recipe a week (starting with Mike’s long awaited shrimp pasta) and doing Friday favorites as well. I’ll be searching around the web for a meme or two to join. I’d love to almost double my views next month and considering the slowness of my blog in December that shouldn’t be too hard!

This week I am happy to say that I’ve completed the first, of many, diaper covers for the wee little one. I’ve even made a little matching hat! I have a terribly hard time completing projects because I always move on to something new (I have AT LEAST 5 other baby projects in the work) so while I love starting projects my favorite thing is when I actually carry them through to completion (a rarity)!

I’m so looking forward to snuggling the wee little bottom in wool. The pattern is so easy (and fun to modify) so I am sure that there will be many more wool soakers in our future!