Aren't blank mint tins great? They are one of my favorite things to craft because of the countless ways to transform them. This tin has a chipboard facade from Alpha Stamps glued to the front to make a wee house. (I just added siding and shutters.)



The table and chair are made from wire and buttons; one button for the table top, one for the back of the chair, and a fabric button for the seat. I spray painted them white and used acrylic paint to add a pattern on the back of the chair as well as the shutters. Those shutters had been in the stash forever so it was nice to finally have the perfect place for them. There is a shelf inside to hold a few things, and two floral-y lamps made from chipboard shapes. The next tin needs to be a haunted house just to balance out all this pink.

Nine hundred years old I am. Nap I must.



May the Fur Fourth be with you!

Here is a quickie tutorial on how to color free motion embroidery pieces using Sharpie markers and alcohol blending solution or regular isopropyl alcohol. It will also work with hand embroidery, so give it a go!



There is a little bit of prep work before getting to the coloring magic but it's easy stuff.

*Prewash your fabric in a washing machine. I hand washed mine which probably didn't remove all of the sizing, resulting in the ink not dispersing as well on the fabric.

*Gather your materials. Sharpies, isopropyl alcohol or Ranger brand alcohol blending solution (used with alcohol inks), your pattern drawn on prepped fabric and framed in an upside down hoop. I first drew the octopus with a disappearing ink pen then colored some bits with the Sharpies, but you can always just draw your image with the marker. Whatevs...it's art!



*Prepare your machine. The settings will vary depending on your particular machine so play around with the tension and stitch length before tackling your piece. I have an old heavy duty metal Singer that loves to sew at 9 million stitches a second and found that a tension of 2 and stitch length of .5 to 1 worked well. Lower your feed dogs! If they cannot be lowered, cover them with a piece of tape so you can move the fabric around freely.



*Insert your hooped image under the needle bar. You may need to remove the needle and embroidery foot, slide the hoop under the bar, then reattach the foot and needle. With the presser foot up, draw up the bobbin thread and pull it until the end is on top of the fabric. Insert your needle into the fabric and sew a few stitches to secure. Then just follow the lines! (I promise to get to the fun part in a second...)



All done stitching. Snip the weird threads!



Okay, let's see what happens to the ink when we add blending solution.



Cool!





Happy Crafting!

Here's a teensy bin of rainbow flowers to brighten your day!

While deciding on what to make for Challenge 123, I began a free motion embroidery piece to send to my daughter. The iris hadn't been stitched yet and it seemed like a good place for a rainbow.

Don't stop believing.

Hey, who's this peeking out of a bag?



Oh, she has friends!



Looks like this one ate too many sprinkles and had to take a nap.

Unicorns and glitter and yay!









They were made the same way as the pipe cleaner mice only with longer legs, neck, and a horn, of course.

This fun zippered bag was made for craftylittlemonkey, but I had her daughter in mind when I crocheted it. What's better than a unicorn bag? 

What do you do with two afternoons and the most adorable Kitschy Easter collage sheet on the planet? You make a Bunny Train, that's what you do!



The train cars are 3 x 4.5" shadowboxes glued onto wooden wheels and dowels. The inside of each car is full of retro bunnies, pipe cleaner flowers, crepe paper garland, and a puffy little chick! a The bunny sitting on the egg is made from bumpy chenille stems, a pom pom, and one of the faces from the collage sheet.





I don't think the chick is fooling anyone.