Bat Halloween Shirt

October 20, 2016December 1, 2016 by Katie | 2 Comments

Halloween is just around the corner, and now that we have a 3.5 year-old in the house, every holiday is a big deal! Combining Alex’s current love of bats and the coming holiday, I have a great DIY for you : bleached bat t-shirts!

This project couldn’t be easier, but unfortunately, since you’re working with bleach, this is not necessarily a kid-friendly DIY. Don’t worry, they’ll have a great time watching the “magic formula” work!

Supplies

black or navy blue t-shirt
freezer paper (it has a wax coating on only one side whereas wax paper has a wax coating on both sides)
bat stencil (I free-handed on, but you could print out a bat clipart silhouette)
piece of cardboard (an empty cereal box works well!)
toothbrush
bleach
water
latex glove (to protect your hand will applying the bleach splatters)

Hints

Trace and cut-out bat silhouettes from the freezer paper. I made large and small bats, but you have complete flexibility with the size and number of bats you use (whatever you think will look good on your shirt).
With the iron on low heat, carefully iron the freezer paper bats onto the shirts (make sure the waxy side of the paper faces the fabric). Keep the iron relatively still, pressing into the paper and fabric and moving it slowly across the stencil. The freezer paper should will stick to the fabric, forming a bond that will stop the bleach from getting under the wax paper.
Make a 50-50 water and bleach solution.
With a gloved hand, dip the toothbrush into the bleach solution and splatter the solution on the t-shirt around the bats. It’s ok, and even looks great, to make both large and small splatter marks.
You should see the bleach start working on the fabric after a few seconds. Continue to splatter the shirt until you’re happy with the density of “stars” on the fabric, being sure to thoroughly splatter the shirt around the bats so that you get a noticeable silhouette once the wax paper is removed.
Watch the bleach activity – when you’re happy with both the density and intensity of the stars, remove the paper stencils and quickly rinse the shirt under water to stop the bleach activity.
Wash the shirt, and you’re done!

And look at that kid, he loves his new shirt! Such a simple project and it brought this little guy so much joy.

Happy Halloween!

Simple & Personalized Souvenirs

September 13, 2016July 9, 2017 by Katie | Leave a comment

We love a good vacation souvenir like the next guy. T-shirts are a favorite in our family, but that can quickly get out of control. There are so few other things that we want to buy in the shops (except books – more on that in another post!), so we’ve started to get creative with making our own souvenirs. This year we used Cafe Press to make canvas bags and drink bottles for everyone!

We’ve used the site many times to make personalized gifts in the past, and with a little bit of practice, their design tools are relatively easy to use. For these items I wrote out the text and then used a single black and white clam clipart image for the graphics. I just added the clam to the design in different sizes and turned it to different degrees. Since most clams look alike in real life, it didn’t look that odd to use a single clam image this way.

If you’re looking to do a similar project, I have to say that I love the quality of the cafe press canvas bags – both in terms of bag durability and in print quality. I made a few of these a couple of years ago that still get daily use and they have held up really well. When it comes to drink bottles, I’ve tried the plastic “bike” bottles from Cafe Press and did not like the quality. The design was printed onto a plastic label that was then stuck onto the bottle, but the ink started to rub off of the label after a few uses (I think it doesn’t help that the bottles were being squeezed when used). These metal bottles, on the other hand, seem to be great quality. The design is printed directly on the bottle, and while they aren’t a name brand bottle, I noticed that the Klean Kanteen lids fit these bottles. So I already ordered some sport caps to make it easier for the boys to drink from these.

The other reason we particularly love making souvenirs for our beach trips is because Saxis doesn’t have many commercial businesses, other than the island museum goods, there’s nothing else that says “Saxis” on it, so it’s fun for us to be able to make something to share our Saxis pride.

Rose Tea

February 2, 2016February 5, 2016 by Katie | 1 Comment

Tea is our ingredient of the season this winter. We’re using that as an excuse to sit down more often and relax over a cuppa’. If you’re looking for another way to spice up your black tea, check out our masala chai. Click here for our archive of Valentine DIYs.

Hey there, thinking about surprising your Valentine with breakfast in bed and a side of tea? No? How about just surprising him/her with an afternoon cup of tea? Either way, we have an idea for making that Valentine’s Day cup extra special ~ add some dried rose petals.

Doesn’t that look beautiful? Think about letting your sweetheart add the dried tea and petals to the boiled water themselves, that way they can see the delicate pink petals before they go in the kettle and lose their color. #itsthelittlethings

The rose petals will add a light floral aroma and flavor to any variety of tea. I prefer a black base, but this would also go well with the lighter flavor of a white tea.

All rose petals are edible, but not all are created/tended equally; be sure to purchase dried rose petals that were grown and processed without any pesticides or additional chemicals.

So simple, but so sweet for your special someone on Valentine’s Day.

Valentine Archives

February 3, 2015January 30, 2016 by Katie | Leave a comment

Hey there sweethearts! With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, we wanted to share/re-share some super simple projects for dressing up your space and celebrating the ones you love. And don’t forget to put on your favorite lovey-dovey playlist as you craft.

Instead of packing away the felt hearts I made as Christmas ornaments, I strung them on a piece of rustic twine to create a mini garland that greets guests right inside our door.

If you’re throwing a party, Sarah’s tassel and lace garland makes the perfect decoration and photo backdrop!

Felt Ornaments

December 16, 2014January 30, 2016 by Katie | Leave a comment

Hey! I looked at our calendar and realized that we have entered a week of Christmas crafting making on the blog! This isn’t necessarily gift crafting, just more little projects to decorate the tree, your walls, to send off in the mail (technically, I guess that’s giving), and maybe we’ll even have something to eat or drink by the time the week’s complete.

Today I’m talking about the felt ornaments and wreath that were pictured in this post. Both of these ideas came from my Christmas board on Pinterest, but unfortunately the links associated with the pins won’t take you to the original source for attribution. You’ll see that I’ve pinned many different felt ornaments, and I’m thinking that over the next few years I may make quite a few as we become a house with two little boys! Felt ornaments are just so kid-friendly, with a big loop, they are easy for little hands to hang and pull off the tree, and there’s so little investment in terms of both time (the the case of the ones I’ve made) and money, that I don’t mind if little A throws them around a bit while playing. Plus, they look really cute.

For today’s ornaments, I was first inspired by this photo. In addition to the stars, I added a few hearts with white stitching to our collection, inspired by these red felt ornaments. I personalized the stars by using a red blanket stitch around the edges, and I drastically simplified my hearts from the inspiration photo, eliminating the stuffing and choosing simple stitches that would follow the hearts’ edges.

Supplies & Tools

Felt
embroidery floss
thin jute
sewing needle
scissors
shape template

Instructions

Find or draw your template. For my templates, I did a Google image search for “heart clipart” and “star clipart”. I was able to find images that included hearts and stars of different sizes, so I printed them out and cut out the size that I liked for each.
Trace your template on the felt and cut out two of the same shape. As you can see from my template, I traced around it with a marker. Having those marker images on your felt isn’t a problem, because you can have the marked sides face inwards.
Sew your pieces together. Use three stands of embroidery floss for the embroidery. Holding the two felt pieces together (marked sides in), use your favorite stitch to hand sew the pieces together. I used blanket stitch for all of the stars, but was more creative with the hears, using blanket stitch, back stitch, and a simple combination of long and short running stitches to create the third.
Add your loop for hanging. I used skinny jute for the hanging loops. You can find this in craft stores, and it’s usually sold in a smaller quantity than the bigger balls of fat jute (you can see the packaging in my supplies photo). The jute will not pull through your felt as easily as the embroidery floss. I found that it was easiest to thread the jute through the eye of my needle, pierce the felt with my needle, and then move the needle in circles to create a larger hole (but one that is still snug) for the jute to fit through.

While we were so excited to put the tree up, after the lights were hung it looked so pretty that we’ve been really lazy about adding more decorations. But a few nights ago we were looking for one more activity for little A before bath time, so I pulled out these ornaments and a few others for him to add to the tree. The pictures aren’t great, but I think you can tell that he was excited to get in on the tree action (clapping after each ornament was hung), and now it’s become a daily activity to remove and rehang a few.

In addition to making their way onto the tree, I used one of the stars in our new wreath. Again, I’m borrowing and modifying this idea from something brilliant I saw online.

Supplies

grapevine wreath
white bottle brush trees
moss roll (you can see the packaging below)
hot glue gun & glue

How cute is that wreath? It came together easily with a few supplies from the craft store. The project is relatively self-explanatory : wrap the moss around your wreath, slipping it under a few of the larger vines if possible (this just takes a bit of wiggling). Glue the trees where you would like them. Tie a star ornament from the top of your wreath. Bam!

Once I hung this and the green garland above the door, I realized that we have a lot of brown and green going on out on the front porch. Maybe this year it would have been nice to go with something brighter? But I’m loving the peaceful look every time we walk in the door.

So, that’s my little felt project for the season. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything with felt (or even had a little supply of it in my craft room), and I’m excited work with it more in the future. I really enjoyed making these ornaments because they were so easy and mindless to put together, creating a polished result. What does that mean for you? If you want to slow this weekend, but still feel a little bit productive, this is a great meditative project

Orange and Clove Pomanders

December 10, 2014December 7, 2017 by Katie | 3 Comments

Oranges our our ingredient of the season. We have big plans for a winter of zesty recipes and sweet crafts.

Today we’re sharing a super simple craft that you often see around the holidays : the orange and clove pomander.

Pomanders are balls made of some sort of scented or perfumed material. They are considered an original form of aromatherapy and have a long history dating back to the Middle Ages!

The orange and clove pomander is considered a modern version, and if properly dried, you can use these sweet and spicy smelling balls year after year as holiday decorations or in place of sachets in your dresser drawers.

This is a very easy and kid-friendly craft! To make a bare-bones pomander all you need are oranges and cloves (buying your cloves in bulk is the way to go here). If you want to get fancy, you can add ribbon, either tied around your orange and incorporated into the design or looped through your orange for hanging.

With your supplies ready, start making a design on your orange. I did all of these over the course of a couple of days ~ whenever A. Max was busy playing and I had a minute to myself. So rather than fuss over a specific design, I just played with the cloves and did a few free-form patterns.

There were curved lines.

That looked like swirls from the top.

One had a vine with flowers.

And there were polka dots!

The one issue you’re likely to have, especially if you’re in a more humid climate, is some mold growth. I’m hoping that the dry CO climate is going to help us out here! But to be on the safe side, once I was done with the designs, I put these in a cool, dark closet for about a week to dry out more. As they dry, you’ll notice that the cloves are sticking out a touch, so you can go around a poke them back in.

A traditional way to avoid mold growth is to sprinkle your finished oranges in orris root powder. This will help to dry out the orange and will add a violet scent to your pomander. In an effort to keep this project simple and low cost, I’m taking my chances and skipping the orris root!

Putting them all together, it’s a nice little display of pattern that smells unbelievable! Alex loves to walk over to them and take a big whiff, which is unbelievably cute!

Little A’s New Winter Hat

October 15, 2014March 24, 2016 by Katie | 2 Comments

Two months ago I shared some of the projects sitting in my knitting basket. Since then there’s been a bit of progress made on almost everything in that post. The socks have doubled in length. I’ve repaired a few of the moth-eaten hats (going to share some of that soon!). I gave you a detailed update about the sweater and am working on a second post in that series. Today, I’m sharing the pattern for Alex’s little hat, which doesn’t look anything like it did in the previous post. All in all not bad work considering those long winter knitting and TV evenings are just getting started!

I tried Alex’s hat on his big head before the last post, and thought it was a bit snug, but didn’t want to admit it to myself. Trying it on him again last week, which involved wrestling that little 18 month old to the ground for a tickle-fest, confirmed my worries that he would quickly outgrow it. Over the weekend I finally ripped out the original hat and started again. A small sacrifice for that little cutie.

In the process I scrapped the tire track pattern for something that was more detailed, would cover the whole hat, and that included at least one traditional motif. This hat is knit from the bottom up, and I developed the patterns as I went, completing one row of color before thinking about what to do next. A quick Google image search for “fair isle knitting” turned up this sample (shown below) and I decided to use the bottom snowflake for the lowest band on Alex’s hat. I knew I wanted to incorporate a heart somewhere (because how many more years do I have to knit hearts into his clothes), so why not a whole band of hearts? Then I finished the top with a red circle to keep the color repeats going.

I’m sharing the pattern here for the exact hat that I knit. I haven’t put any work into up- or downsizing this pattern, but I do think that it would be a fun experiment to knit it with bright chunky yarn and big needles to create an adult-sized hat (just a different version of the simple fair isle hat I knit for our sister Kristin a few Christmases ago).

Pattern

Yarn : Malabrigo worsted in two colors, I will refer to the color that you use for the patterns as the contrast color

Needles : US 7, 4.5 mm

Pattern Chart : Charts are below, but you can also download a PDF of the charts by clicking here.

Using your contrast color cast on 96 stitches. Use your preferred stretchy cast-on method (I like the long-tail method).
Row 1: Begin a K2 P2 rib using the contrast color.
Rows 2-9: Switch to your primary color and continue the K2 P2 ribbing for 8 more rounds.
Rows 10-15 : Using the primary color, knit in stockinette for 5 rounds (knit all stitches).
Rows 16-29 : Snowflake pattern. Repeat Chart 1 six times around each row (you should read the chart from right to left and bottom to top, with the dark squares representing stitches knit with the contrast yarn).
Rows 30-35 : Using the primary color, knit in stockinette for 5 rounds.
Rows 36-43 : Heart pattern. Repeat Chart 2 six times around each row.
Rows 44-51 : Using the primary color, knit in stockinette.
Row 52 : Decrease row. *K2 K2tog*, repeat ** for the entire row. 72 stitches remaining.
Row 53 : Knit all stitches.
Row 54 : Switch to the contrast color. Knit all stitches.
Row 55 : Decrease row. *K1 K2tog*, repeat ** for the entire row. 48 stitches remaining.
Row 56 : Knit all stitches.
Rows 57 & 58 : Decrease rows. *K2tog*, repeat ** for both rows. 12 stitches remain.
Finish off the hat by cutting your working yarn, weaving it through the active loops, tightening and weaving in all ends.

All in all it’s a super simple hat that will keep any Colorado kid’s head warm with its double layering of yarn from the fair isle knitting. I love it, but I think if I were to knit another one, I might add more little color flourishes between the rows of pattern. Who knows. I do know that I still have yarn left on both of these balls – possibly enough to knit a baby hat for Little A’s little bro!