My Little Pony Soft Book

Here is the soft book that I made for my niece.
She's into My Little Pony right now so that was the theme I went with. Each page represents a different pony character and I put that character in the corner (using Shrinky Dinks). My girls love MLP (as if the hair bows I've shown didn't give it away) so this one was pretty simple.

Here goes:

 Again I labeled with the first initial, it was easy, especially since they didn't get sent out until after Christmas (*Cough*NewYears*Cough*) anyway.

 Princess Cadence - A simple mix and match page to build the Crystal Palace, similar to Cinderella's castle.

 Princess Celestia and Princess Luna - This is a spinner that changes from day to night (I just used a cardboard disk with a brad)
Princess Twilight Sparkle (And Spike) - Mixing potions with another abacus page (I seriously love the educational possibilities of the abacus)

 Apple Jack - Picking apples -- (This is the reason I bought the Cam snaps) Everything is attached because we know a 4 year old will not manage to not loose these little apples, even if the basket is made to hold them.
Rainbow Dash - This was the hardest one for me, so I went with just rainbow colored layers. The red is actually glued to the book but the others are free to twist around the brad in the corner and fold back over.

 Pinkie Pie - Color Matching - each balloon has a matching colored snap (the purple snap is more lilac, but I didn't have the snaps yet when I cut the felt)
Rarity - Dress-Up, because that's how Rarity is, all about fashion

And finally an ISpy page for Fluttershy. Since Fluttershy is all about animals, I made animals the object to search. (That's the butterfly on the left side of the panel.)

I got a message from my Sister-in-law containing images of them both playing with them and huge smiles on their faces. That's why I do these kind of things. I know some people say it's the cheaper route (PS- not always) to make a gift instead of buying, but I love putting thought and love into what the individual wants, and customizing it as needed. I usually try to buy something to throw in there too, so they don't think I'm doing it to be cheap- not sure if that's how it comes off but whatever.
I love it, and if it makes them happy, I am over the moon happy for them.
Sorry to end on a mini-rant, but it's how I'm feeling right now, and I said from the beginning this is more like an online journal than a blog, I'm not trying to push it on anyone, just keeping the memories together.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Cross Stitch

I finished a kit last week. This was a Dimensions kit bought online from Walmart (because I prefer them cheap of course).

I also just finished a few found online patterns to help complete our MLP collection:

The twins have recently discovered My Little Pony and they are in love! I found Apple Jack, Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash online. I couldn't find a Princess Celestia in any form other than perler beads and it was HUGE!! So I used the charts for the other ponies and a picture in the same heart shaped form courtesy of some awesome fan art and made my own. I'm super proud of it and the girls love it! This was the first time I've done anything more than just fudging a purchased kit's chart because I made mistakes. There's definitely not the same amount of definition in the hair as the other ponies and she's missing the outline around the hair as part of that, but I still love it.

That's all for now,
Jo!

MLP Hair Bows

Here's my most recently finished project:

I found this adorable heart shaped My Little Pony (Rarity, they also chose Pinkie Pie but you'll see her later) on this cross stitch sight, along with several others. And knew that my big princesses would love them... the question became what to do with them.

I figured since they're small-ish in design I would try my hand at making some hair clips out of them, although, I couldn't find any directions on how to do it. I couldn't find anything like them. So I decided to wing it. I looked for instructions on making pins and ornaments out of cross stitch designs but all of them seemed to included perfectly square designs, that pulled the excess material behind and I knew that wouldn't work for me. Anyway, here's how it came together, and I'll include "instruction" as I go.

My mother gave me some Aida cloth that she had found on sale but never used, so here's the finished cross stitch.

After that I thought I would add a little interfacing to secure the stitches and stiffen them up just a bit.

After that I found a site that gave instructions on turning a cross stitch into an applique. It seemed to be the most secure way of cutting around the shape. As I cut, very carefully, around the design, I used some Fray Check to secure the Aida from unraveling, which was my biggest fear.

Then the problem was attaching the hair clip piece. I use alligator clips with all my other hair bows, so that's what I had to work with. I decided the safest bet would be to use felt over the back and secure the clip to that. I ended up cutting a few slits in the felt (after deciding which corner of the felt the design best fit and glued it there. Here you can see how I just slid the clip through the felt, and I put a dab of hot glue on the back side.

Then I glued the cross stitch to the felt over the clip.

Then I cut off the excess felt, and as an extra security measure I back stitched around the design through the felt (although if I would have thought of that before I wouldn't have used the glue all the way to the edges).

(I hadn't done the back stitch yet when I took this photo but you can see it in the first picture of KL with it in her hair.)

And here's KL at school this morning, fake smiling because I told her I wanted a picture of her with the clip in her hair.

That's all for now,
Jo!