Loryn: Old wool sweaters from the thrift store make a great source for inexpensive wool felt. Just run the sweaters in your washing machine on the hottest cycle, and you’re ready to start sewing!
I made a basic stocking template that makes a 16″ stocking. You can download the PDF here. To print it on an 8 1/2 by 11″ printer, choose the tile option and tape the pieces together.
These were assembled with a 1/2″ seam and a simple turned hem at the top (it won’t ravel, so I just turned it once). Sew a simple hanger from a 1″ piece, folded in half and top stitched.
Lynne: I was going to make some joke about poo in the bush not in the hand, but I won’t. I used colored pencils and markers. The markers formed the base only.
I wanted to work with violet and orange with a move from orange to yellow in the bird and the red and green of his breast and head. Two complementary pairs.
I realized that I haven’t posted any of my jewelry lately and decided that I would show some earrings I have made as presents for Christmas this year. They are all made with pearls and sterling silver. I made the earwires as well.
I just love the almond shape for earwires. I have made several pairs of these for myself and they always look so beautiful. I think I will have to make a pair of the white pearl earrings for myself too. These would look good with just about anything!
Eight days til Christmas and we are now more than half way done with our Christmas Ornament Countdown. Cheri’s Teeny Tiny Places was just awesome!
My ornament for today is based on some crochet work I am doing for another Christmas present and just sort of made itself up last week. It is a simple wreath made of green cotton yarn.
I used a 3″ in diameter metal ring for the base, making a single crochet stitch around for the first row. The next row is half double crochet and the last row is half double crochet as well, but is stitched into the front leg of the first half double crochet row. This gives the wreath a nice thickness and also makes what I call a pie crust edging.
The bow is made with red cotton yarn. I pulled the yarn through the stitching at the bottom of the wreath and made a standard shoe tie bow and then used the ends of the thread to make two more bows. Nice and easy!
Lynne: I love it when my dogs start bouncing and their fur stands up. I am fascinated by the process of rendering objects in motion on a sheet of paper. The squiggles give me a chance to explore the motion before the actual form takes a more static shape.
I used colored pencils and blended a yellow, red and blue to get this particular shade of brown. It’s a brown I use a lot, because I like the yellow undertones. I emphasized the tongue with marker. There is nothing cuter than a dog with its tongue hanging out.
Cheri: I received a call from my sis, (Lynne), the other day discussing the button give away. She wondered if I could make the next ornament in the Christmas Ornament Countdown with vintage buttons to coincide with the Vintage Button Giveaway. And my reply was, sure, let me see what I can come up with.
I love buttons, and as I have said before, I have a lot of them. So I picked up two of my jars and poured them out on the coffee table and started sorting them. As I was looking at them, I noted that I had a lot of vintage white glass buttons. These buttons are beautiful, but they are pretty plain.
I spent some time looking at them conjuring an image in my head of what I wanted to make. I decided I would use a styrofoam ball and hot glue to make the ornament resemble a snowball.
I started gluing, and gluing and gluing. I was shocked at how many buttons I ended up using, but I really love how the ornament looks. I think the glass buttons give it a really nice reflective sheen and the glue that you can see looks a little bit like ice.
I hope everyone is able to get in on the button giveaway and I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas.
Squiggles have the rights to petition and to assemble.
Lynne: This squiggle was a lot of fun for me to do. I have been thinking about politics and this just seemed to pop up. Even squiggles believe in having something to say.
I used red-violet and yellow-green for the basic colors and had fun with a blue eye and orange shoes. I used markers as the base and colored pencils to add the shading.
the crafty sisters 