Storybook

 {2012 Craft Books}

Show Me a Story: 40 Craft Projects and Activities to Spark Children's Storytelling by Emily Neuburger

What you need to know:

• Colorful, well-done kid's craft/activity book, take a peek inside by watching the video 
• Free projects from the book: Story Stones, Story Blocks 
• Recently I asked my daughter (who is in Kindergarten) what her favorite thing is at school and she said art. So this blank storybook was a perfect project for her. She picked out the color of the materials, only general supplies were needed, so we already had all of them on hand. We worked together to construct the book, then she did all the rest, finalizing the subject (shapes), writing the title, decorating the cover, writing the book and coloring it in.
• If you've got kids who are in the 5-12 year old range, this is a great book to pull out on weekends and especially during those long school breaks and do some creating together. This is a good one!    

Happy weekend!

Felt Owl Ornament

 {2012 Craft Books}

Craft-A-Day 365 Simple Handmade Projects by Sarah Goldschadt

What you need to know:

• The author is Danish American and with her Scandinavian background she has filled this book with super-simple projects that are easy to make
• Super thick craft book with 365 (a years worth of) projects that are organized into weekly themes
• Lots of really cute little things to make with just regular craft supplies and tools which you already have at home
• Add photos of your completed projects to the Craft A Day flickr group 
• I made the felt owl ornament, I love that it is minimalistic, and it is in one of my current go to colors: gray. With just felt, hand sewing needle, thread, and stuffing, it definitely took less than one hour to create, from start to finish
• This is a great craft book to take out and do projects with kids during their school breaks, weekends, or even with a group of students in a classroom

 Here's the author signing my copy :)

Social Media Friends: Ravelry

Today I am over at the Train to Crazy for Andrea's Social Media Friends series. Each week she is featuring a different social medium and this week it is ravelry.com

What is Ravelry? ...from the Ravelry site... "Ravelry is a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, weavers and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, project and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration... Ravelry is a great place for you to keep notes about your projects, see what other people are making, find the perfect pattern and connect with people who love to play with yarn from all over the world in our forums."

I learned how to knit in 4th and 5th grade summer school, did a few knitting projects, even knitted myself 3 sweaters during High School and early college. Then I didn't touch any knitting needles until I was pregnant with my daughter and joined ravelry in 2007 the same year it began. At Ravelry my username is saganaga and you can click here to see my projects page.

If you like yarn, knitting, crochet, then I highly recommend joining the Ravelry community if you haven't already. And if you are already at Ravelry be sure to check out the Social Media Friends post about Ravelry, link up and make some new friends :)

Canvas Loose-Leaf Paper

 {2012 Craft Books}

Improv Sewing: A Freeform Approach to Creative Techniques; 101 Fast, Fun, and Fearless Projects: Dresses, Tunics, Scarves, Skirts, Accessories, Pillows, Curtains, and More by Nicole Blum and Debra Immergut

What you need to know:

• 101 projects! including doodled stitching and stacked appliqué 
• Many of these projects can be completed in an hour
• Add photos of your completed projects from the book to the Improv Sewing Projects flickr group

About the project I made, Canvas Loose-Leaf Paper:

• Quick, easy, instant gratification project 
• All it takes is a small piece of canvas fabric, red and blue thread, and a sewing machine
• This would be a perfect project for teaching a child how to use the sewing machine for the first time, to learn/practice sewing straight lines (In fact, I'm going to use this project to teach my 9 year old how to sew on the sewing machine very soon)
• You really can 'write' on this 'paper', either with hand embroidery, little alphabet rubber stamps, or a disappearing ink marker

Men's Button Up Shirt

white peasant dress with 3 ruffles down the front

 For Project Run and Play season 6 week 5 the challenge is using a men's button up shirt to create your look.

I went looking around for inspiration and to see what other people have come up with and here are some ideas I found:

• Colorblock button up shirt
• Daddy's Little Girl Dress (clever back detail)
• men's dress shirt to girl's dress 
• The Shirt Jumper
• drawstring shirt (maybe could be made into a drawstring dress?)
• white shirt to little girl summer dress

white peasant dress with 3 ruffles down the front

•  girl's sailor shirt
• The Ashton Top Tutorial
• girl's shirt dress 
• sleeves to toddler pants 
• men's dress shirt sleeves to pants tutorial

back view of peasant dress made from men's button up shirt

 You can find lots of ideas with how-tos in the Cut Up Couture book by Koko Yamase. Only 3 chapters in this book and one whole chapter is devoted to just men's shirt which includes 16 projects…

 here are photos of quite a few of them...

 ...loving the details on this dress & tunic...

 ...and loving this skirt made out of sleeves...

Do you plan to sew along for the men's button up shirt challenge? If so, what do you plan on sewing? I'm really interested in seeing what everyone comes up with for this challenge.

2012 Craft Books Month

Do you like paging through pretty craft books as much as I do? Well, It's February again and I'm back for another craft books month where I'll be blogging about my favorite 2012 craft books and what projects I created from them... feel free to check out the previous years:

• 2009 Craft Books 
• 2010 Craft Books 
• 2011 Craft Books 

This is a fun winter project for me, challenging me to try new things, and something to keep me going during this very cold and dark Minnesota winter we've been having. It'll be mostly smaller projects (no adult sweater knitting here ~ that would take way too long), also for some I will be crafting with my children :)

See you back here soon for the first one. 

More Little Geraniums

 These Little Geranium dresses are too cute, I just had to sew more… click here to see the first 'bouquet', Little Geranium is a free pattern/tutorial, size 0-3 months, and calls for a skirt with a width of 44", but I only used about 34" for these.

Such a small amount of fabric is needed in order to get a bodice and/or pockets to complete this sewing project, so it's fun to dig through the fabric stash and use up those small pieces of fabrics, like small rectangles of precious Liberty of London fabric…


First dress: bodice and pockets, Liberty of London; skirt, raspberry pink 100% cotton twill

 Second dress: bodice, Liberty of London; skirt and pockets, raspberry pink 100% cotton twill

 Third dress: bodice, Liberty of London; skirt and pockets, tomato red 100% organic cotton sateen

 Fourth dress: bodice and pockets, Russian nesting doll fabric from Denmark; skirt, tomato red 100% organic cotton sateen

{dresses displayed on an 18" doll dress form, showing how teeny tiny they are}

These dresses were made for and will be donated to Dress a Girl Around the World :)

Valentine's day is coming soon… "do small things with great love." ~ Mother Teresa