I made up this ipad sleeve for my dad for father's day:



I stitched it up from a bit of fabric from my stash, and stenciled it with acrylic paint. I know that's not the best paint for the job, but I figured since he won't be washing it too much it should be okay (and I really didn't want to go buy fabric paint). It was my first time using freezer paper stencils, so that was very fun. It's a bit smudgy in a couple of places, but overall I was pretty pleased with how it turned out.

On the back, a very important reminder:



I lined it with a bit of terry cloth (cut from an old bathrobe and dyed), to help my dad make sure that he always knows where his towel is. Of course, function-over-form fellow that he is, he took one look at the liner and said, "Oh, cool! A built in screen cleaner!"



I would have liked to have given it a more secure closure, but I was sewing the whole thing by hand (my machine is on the fritz right now) and by the time I got to that part I was very much ready to be finished.

The pictures are taken on the tissue paper that I wrapped it in, stamped with a hand carved stamp. Here's a shot of it all wrapped up:



I had a lot of fun geeking out with this one. C & C would be very much appreciated!

My dad - who is very creative and crafty, but couches it in macho terms like "maker" - has some scheme for putting together a mug using a bit of driftwood that he found for the handle. He asked me to etch him a jar for the its body.





I used vinyl stickers for the lettering. They're a little smudgier than I would have liked, but I think that for my dad's purposes, they worked out okay.

The quote in the second shot reads: "what makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well." The quotes are both from The Little Prince, my absolute favorite book. My dad recently moved out to Arizona, so the desert quote seemed fitting.

This past Christmas I decided that I wanted to make lavender sachets as gifts for my mom and her sisters. So, I did a google search for bulk lavender and made what seemed like a reasonable guess as to how much I would need. Lesson learned: I cannot estimate to save my life. After making 12 sachets for my mom and aunts (3 apiece - don't worry, I don't have that many aunts), I had used barely a quarter of the lavender I ordered. Since then, I've been making sachets for every appropriate crafty opportunity, trying to run down my outrageous stock. Here are the results:


These are the sachets that I made for my partner in the Old Fashioned Romantic Swap (I'm hard pressed to think of a place where lavender sachets would be more fitting). The silhouettes are based on her favorite couple, Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth.

A few gratuitous detail shots:


After finishing those, I made these for my friends.


I only learned how to do French knots recently and was so thrilled with the ability. I think I got the enthusiasm out of my system on this one.

This one is a bunch of different types of couching.


I've got them all wrapped up for Valentine's gifts!


A full 18 sachets later, I still haven't used up half of the lavender I ordered. It's okay though -  they're a pretty neat little craft. It's been great fun getting to experiment with so many different kinds of stitches!


ps - Sorry the pictures are so huge. I really need to figure out resizing.

This is a little piece I made up for my sister, who is, with good reason, in love with the Tokidoki-Marvel collaboration. It's very simple - almost entirely backstitch and satin stitch - but it was a lot of fun to make. I worked on it over a weekend. The fabric was scavenged from a pair of truly horrible pants and all of the thread came from my stash.

Here is the whole thing:

I think it's about 5"x5".


Here's a detail of the face:

I wasn't sure what the most efficient way to make the stars would be, so I tried slightly different things on all of them. I think this one turned out the cutest!

Here is the t-shirt that it is based on:

I was too lazy to do any kind of transfer pattern, so I just freehanded it. It's definitely a little wonky in some places, but I still like it!