MADE: Baby Jacket with Monkey Applique

I recently made this sweet little flannel jacket for the newborn of my friend & biz partner, Beth A. I just hope the tiny little guy grows into it before the weather warms up!

The jacket pattern is from an awesome book that I got for Christmas, One Yard Wonders. I highly recommend it - tons of great patterns! And the monkey applique is from a template of my own design.

Like to applique? Never tried it but want to? You can get your own PDF copy of my monkey template in my Etsy shop. Comes with detailed instructions to walk you through the process. It's fun & easy!

MADE: Cheshire Cat applique & fabric bird sculpture

This crazy cat was made for my friend who's having a baby girl. They're doing the nursery in an Alice in Wonderland theme. I was quite happy with how it turned out, this being the most ambitious applique project I've done to date!

And below is my most recently completed fabric sculpture. You may recall my post about the beginnings of this piece called, "Art Waiting to Happen." Well this is what happened:

Milk & Cookies appliqued art for Miss Salty Oat

Just made this for my pal, Caitlin, who is moving away to Washington, D.C. this week. She's an amazingly prolific stitcher, sewer & all-around crafty gal who makes the cutest things! Her blog, Salty Oat, offers tons of inspiring photos & crafty tips. The name was also the inspiration for my art piece; the salty oat at Quack's is her favorite cookie. I hope this sewn version (along with a chocolate chip, just for good measure) will bring her sweet memories of Austin!

For the past few months, we at The WonderCraft have been lucky enough to have Caitlin as our intern, and we sure will miss her! She's been a big help to us and it will be sad to not see her smiling face around the shop anymore. We'll still be carrying some of her adorable work at Stella's though, such as handmade napkins and cross-stitched buttons & wall hangings like little Clarence. That will be nice. Wishing you all the best in DC, Caitlin!

Snuggle Herd Mystery Revealed!

All of you who guessed "elephant ears" were correct, and Meredith, you are the winner! I will contact you later today about your prize, a set of my "Say What?!" coloring cards. I was very amused by all of the creative answers - thanks for playing, everyone!



I've been working on a slight re-design of Elsa the Elephant, so it was sort of a trick question! The ears I'm making now are quilted, so they look a bit different.



The material I'm using for the body is now quilter's cotton instead of upcycled t-shirts. Using cotton allows me to skip a couple of steps & make them more quickly & easily. However, I think I may still keep making the t-shirt ones as a "luxe" type of item because they are sooooo cuddly soft, and I like the re-use aspect. I'm going to be using many vintage & re-purposed fabrics for these new cotton ones, too, to keep them earth-friendly.



I hope to have these new elephants listed in my Etsy shop soon. Also working on a few other super-cute animals... stay tuned!

Homegrown Bouquets for Giving

Taking fresh flowers when visiting friends & family is one of my favorite things to do. Everyone appreciates the gesture, & flowers are perfect for every occasion. Plus, when you've grown them yourself, they are extra special & impressive! : )

Since March, when our garden began bursting into bloom, I've been gifting flowers left & right. It all started when I took my mom & dad a bouquet of pink heirloom roses & rosemary for their wedding anniversary, arranged in one of the canning jars I was returning to Mom. The simple beauty of that arrangement & the joy I got from giving it to them really inspired me. Since then, I've tried to take a homegrown floral gift whenever I'm invited to someone's home.

The bouquet pictured here is one that I took to my mother-in-law as a housewarming gift when Patrick & I first visited their new home in late April. It contains Verbena, Spanish Lavender, Gaura, Rosemary & California Poppies. Granted, none of these flowers are very hardy, so not usually recommended for cut flowers. They are delicate & droop & wither after a day or so, but I don't mind. Their beauty is fleeting, which to me, just makes them more amazing & worthy of our adoration.

 my ribbon stash; saved from gifts & packaging & project scraps

Tips for creating your own homegrown bouquets:
- Save empty food jars & bottles of interesting shapes to use as vases; you'll want to have them on hand when the need for a host/hostess gift arises! Plus, it's a great way to reduce/reuse/recycle. I used an olive oil bottle for the arrangement pictured here.
- Tie a ribbon around the mouth of your vase to give it that finishing touch - tres shabby chic!
- Put a few inches of water in the vase before adding the flowers.
- Check for bugs on each stalk; you don't want to gift those tiny stow-aways!
- When arranging the flowers, start with the tallest ones in the middle, then add shorter ones around them.
- Keep turning the vase around as you add the flowers, to ensure that it looks pretty from all angles.
- I aim for an interesting mix of flowers that are tall & short, large & small, bold & delicate (in form & color), and upright & billowy. However, a gorgeous arrangement can also be made from only 1 or 2 kinds of flowers. Just trust your own eye - flowers are so pretty that it's hard to go wrong!

Appliqued Kitchen Towels - Christmas in May!

Yesterday we had a WonderCraft meeting & I finally gave my biz partners
their Christmas gifts! Geez. It's May.

 

I made a seahorse towel for Beth A, lover of island vacations & scuba-diving explorer of the sea.

For Kim, a true Parisienne at heart,
an Eiffel Tower in the clouds.

And I designed this Robot Chef character especially for Jen, lover of robots & all things sci-fi.

I had every intention of giving these handmade goodies out during the actual holidays, but... I didn't get them finished until February or so, then I wanted to wait until we were all together & our schedules were crazy (although there were several times we were all 4 together when I just forgot them). But anyhoo, I finally gifted them & they were a hit. Better late than never! : )

Green Crafts to Honor Earth Day's 40th Anniversary

Happy Earth Day, everyone! What are you doing to celebrate? I've rounded up some awesome green crafting ideas from the blogosphere to share with you. I hope you find them inspiring!

First up, my absolute favorite idea: Jessica Wilson's Garden to Go tutorial, which she shared on the Craft blog. She made pretty little gift jars full of seeds from her garden, complete with costume jewelry-topped lids, to give to friends.

What a wonderful way to share plants & spread the gardening love! As an avid gardener myself, I'd love to receive a gift like this. I'm now thinking of which of my plants I can collect seeds from to make my own jars to give...

Another awesome garden-sharing idea is making your own seed tape. Amber of Giver's Log has put together a fab DIY seed tape tutorial (thanks to Rachel for sharing it on Craft!). Amber's how-to explains how to make the seed tape as well as how to turn it into a super-cute gift.

Seed tape helps a lot when planting those extremely tiny little seeds. It allows you to create nice rows with the seeds evenly spaced. And what a great way to share the bounty of your garden & inspire others to grow their own!

Along with tending the earth in the form of gardening, being a good steward of our planet includes the three R's of course! This next idea helps you reduce the amount of plastic you send to the landfill: reusable food storage bags. Bells and Unicorns, a great Etsy shop with an even better name, stocks their shop with a plethora of reusable bags in lots of sizes & pretty fabrics. They have Velcro closures & a water-resistant nylon lining for easy cleanup. How cute is this "Give a Hoot" bag?!

There are also lots of opportunities to reduce & reuse in the ways we clean our homes. One of my favorite tools is my Swiffer, but I don't like the throw-away nature of the cloths. So I was super-excited to find The Quilting Mama, an Etsy shop that offers reusable cloth Swiffer covers (among lots of other great earth-friendly products).

I bought a set of these covers & I looooove them - I highly recommend them! You just throw 'em in your washer & they're good to go for tons more uses. Here's a tip, though: give them a quick rinse under the tap to remove major dust bunnies before throwing in the laundry; they'll come out of your washing machine a lot cleaner.

Etsy has tons of awesome, earth-friendly products, of course; way too many to list here. A search for "eco friendly" comes up with over 51,000 results!

And now for the grand finale, a masterpiece of recycling (or upcycling may be the more accurate term for these): reclaimed plastic horse sculptures by Sayaka Ganz (via Craft again).

Wowee-wow-wow! I can't get over these. So beautiful, and made from discarded spatulas & the like!

I hope these craftacular ideas inspire you to come up with your own ways of honoring Mother Nature today. Please leave any awesome green crafting ideas or links of your own in the comments - thanks for reading!
{re-posted from Get Crafty, Austin!}