Batman Soft Book

Here is the soft book that I made for my nephew's Christmas gift:

 My nephew's name begins with the letter B (although, this works for Batman also).
Also, this picture shows that I used black and yellow Cam snaps for the closure. I bought the Cam snaps for this project (well, technically his sister's, but close enough) and now I'm in love and so is KL (she put snaps on her socks so they stay matched in the wash this weekend).

 The first page was just a simple puzzle page.
With this book, it was kind of fun to put it into "story mode"- I used the "directions" to lead it.

 Next, was a "paper doll" page. It wasn't finished when I took the picture apparently, but they were in dress suits and need to change into their super suits.
Then was readying the utility belt. There was a different tool in each pocket (anchored so they weren't lost, or thrown at his little sister) - there was a Batarang, a rope, and a key. I took to Google and found many lists of tools from Batman's belt, most are sprays or too big to fit in a soft book page, so I took what I could and made it work.

Bat Mobile - The wheels button on and off, simple fine motor practice.
Grappling Hook - This page slides the same was as Ariel in the princess page, I took the advantage of the side angle to add a satin cape, because why not?!?!

 Next we're tackling the villains, Penguin is an abacus page of weapons (batarang, "POW", throwing stars, and bat bombs). Joker is just a simple lift the flap, under the flap is the traditional comic book "BOOM". I tried to keep it simple and not to violent appearing.

And finally another ISpy page, looking for the villains. (Harley Quinn is showing.)

I found the cute, more kid-(and felt cut out)friendly character style by searching through Pinterest. The simpler animation was a God send for this project.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Soft Books Christmas Gift

This year we had my niece's name for Christmas, who is very similar to my girls and myself; she's crafty and loves to learn. So along with a few crafty and educational gifts (dry erase to be done multiple times, of course), I put together a Princess inspired soft book. So here goes.

I forgot to get a photo of the cover, but it was a simple crown, nothing too fancy.

First we have Snow White. She and the Seven Dwarfs are done in Shrinky Dinks and stitched on.
I love an abacus page because it's so educational. You can practice counting and addition, and it's just fun to push them side to side. So we've got the gems from the Dwarfs' mine.

 Next, we get to build Cinderella's castle. I used a sandcastle template, but cut it out of the proper colors. It's all velcro, so it can be mixed and matched.

Then Aurora (I looked up the years the movies came out and put them in that order, but I'm sure that the 6 year old I gave it to won't notice). Pink dress, blue dress - a simple dress up page, following the Disney version. I reinforced the dresses to make sure they wouldn't tear after several uses.

 Beauty and the Beast - The magical rose, the petals can be removed and put back, another simple Velcro page.
Ariel - She's on a looped ribbon so she can swim back and forth. There's also a couple lift the flaps (that I also, apparently, forgot to photograph) that expose Sebastian and Flounder.

 Mulan- this one was a little tricky, I had a hard time thinking of what to do. So I Shrinky Dink'd (sure, that's a word) a few characters and hid them in a pocket with some colored rice for an ISpy page. I was pretty fun to play with though.

Tiana - The frog's tongue is looped to "catch" the button flies.

 Rapunzel - Braid the hair- this is just sewing floss to be played with as her hair.

Elsa, well Olaf really - This page is 2-for-1, Olaf can be taken apart and rebuilt and the snowflakes on the white felt each match a snowflake drawn on the blue background.

That's all for this one, but there are 2 more that I'll post after they make it to their future homes. I finished them on the first day of the girls' winter break and it got super cold so I didn't want to take everyone out and then it snowed, so I REALLY didn't want to take everyone out. So they finally got out this week after the girls went back, and should be there early next week.


That's all for now,
Jo!

Shape Soft Book

My kids didn't let me sleep and I was super frustrated so I needed a little craft break this weekend.
I didn't really have the energy (or patience) to stand at the sewing machine and work on the Mario quilt and I was looking to try out my new hot glue gun anyway (nothing fancy, just not the old one).
So I settled on a quick and easy, no sew soft book about shapes.

I had a plan drawn out a while ago (when I first got into the idea of soft books) and so the first step was already done. As for the rest, I pulled out my felt, ribbons, and stickers and just kind of threw it all together as I went.

Here's the pictures:
(My plan was to be quick, so I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the cover, I contemplated using more stickers, or hot gluing ribbon or twine on to make the cover, but settled on just writing it.. because quick and easy, and the twins were waking up as I was working on the cover.)

 (The little circle on the triangle is a candy corn sticker.)

Quick run-down:
*I planned on the diamond being last, but I wasn't thinking and since it was blank on back I made it the first so the blank side could be the cover page.
*I finished it off with a simple tie binding, since there weren't a lot of pages (and again, trying for quick craft therapy).
*I spent a total of maybe 3 hours over the course of 2 days on this. (Seriously, just nap time plus a little finish up/clean up past nap time).
*I thought about having rectangle too, but the examples are really similar to square, so I went with just square.
*I got KK involved by making her look through the stickers to see if she could find anything to fit the shapes. I saw it as taking advantage of her, but she had fun getting to help out.
*Looking at these picture reminded me that I was going to use the star sticker (the silver to the left) as a shooting star and will add silver streaks with a Sharpie after I finish typing this up.


That's all for now,
Jo!

New Quilt

I've not really had a whole lot of time for crafting lately. KO has earned the nickname Baby G (short for Baby Godzilla) because she has a tendency to investigate, through destruction, everything she finds. So to keep her safe, I have to keep my needle points tucked away, or anything that would require scissors or hot glue or anything else that she could manage to hurt herself with. (And with all the work to get it all out and set up and then remembering to put it back up, it's become easier just to grab a puzzle book than to craft recently.)

There have been a few minor projects that I didn't get pictures of, most recently a book cover for KK because the school got new math books so they're required to keep a cover on them. They made covers out of paper sacks at the beginning of the year but it ripped and so I had to make one before it went back to school the next day. I even gave her a pocket to keep some things in. Maybe I can catch it at home soon and grab a picture of it.

Otherwise, the sewing machine is in a whole different room that Baby G doesn't get much access to, so I have been working on a project for my brother. A few weeks ago he sent me a picture saw online of a Super Mario themed quilt and said "I need you to make this for me". Ha! Apparently he's forgotten that I've made 1 quilt in my entire life and I spent about a year doing it. Also, made up nearly entirely of appliqued pictures. I told him to give me some time to do some research and see what I could find. I was honestly hoping to be able to find a whole collection of pre-made iron-on patches, or a fabric that incorporated the same quilt block look that I could make a simple blanket from, but instead I found (what I'm assuming is) the inspiration picture for the user posted picture. (PS- it wasn't even like a blog post picture- it was just a single picture of the finished project, laying on a bed draped partially over pillows, posted to a "list" site.)

Anyway, I couldn't find my easy way out. So I took the source picture, enlarged it, and started tracing my shapes, marking coloring along the way. I took the chance to use up some of my scraps by seeing what I had there first (which honestly was a pretty good portion of the appliques). After a few days of tracing (and realizing I forgot to flip the images and flipping) and tracing and cutting and ironing and cutting, I was here:

FYI: This is missing a shape, that I didn't realize I was missing until I went to apply them to the squares.

So this is all the applique pieces just laid out, I honestly had a bit of fun with it all. I've never done big appliques; I think the most has been adding little shapes to clothing (hearts on gloves, birds to a shirt to make it match a skirt). There were a few pieces that gave me a hard time, you can see the light green liked to curl, but getting it on the square and off the paper took care of that, and there were a few pieces I had to add more bond to because it didn't take, or maybe I over heated it- I don't know, just know that it needed redone.  But overall, it was fun.

Here's the pieces all laid out:

I've actually got them all sewn together, but apparently that picture didn't load. Anyway, right now it's about 56"x37" so it is throw/lap sized. To finished it off, I'm just going to use a Mario branded fleece for the back (brother's request) and do a simple (probably blue or green) binding. I contemplated self binding, but I didn't want to loose any length, seeing as my brother is over 6 foot tall.

I'm also contemplating a star shaped pillow to throw in for the fun of it... we'll have to see.

PS- the dark teal for the squares (behind the star) is GORGEOUS in person.

That's all for now,
Jo!

Blackwork Fun

I've been toying with the idea of a blackwork project for a while now. They appear so elegant, but understated, and as much as I hate that final step when working on a cross stitch, it really does just make the whole project beautiful. 

Yesterday I was scrolling through Pinterest and found a site that had over 250 blackwork patterns!! I was in awe just staring at how they all looked, even though there was no "picture " to it, just the fill patterns. So I decided to start small and just go for it. 

I looked through a few of the kids' coloring books and found a picture without too much detail but enough to showcase a couple designs. Then I traced it on to a piece of graph paper and got to work making it into a pattern. (Please note this is only the second time I've made my own pattern so I am by no means an expert- honestly, I'm no expert in anything really, just a dabbler in all things.) 

After I had the pattern made, I decided that since the coloring book I choose the picture from was a color by number I would do a colored blackwork piece. So I just filled in the background of my pattern sheet to know what color to use when stitching. Then I used a regular pencil to find a few designs I liked and felt "fit" the picture and drew them in also. 

I'm sure that reads completely confusing- sorry. It all makes sense in my head. 

Here's how it all turned out: 

There is a yellow patter in the body of the fish (it's diamond shaped, but with some filling) I know it's hard to see, I thought about pulling it and using a darker color and then remembered that this was all for fun and just to test the waters. (Haha, get it- because it's a fish!)
I looked for designs that were scale-like in look for the main sections- the others I just looked for designs small enough the fit the small spaces. 

I think it's kind of cute! KL loves it for some odd reason that I don't understand. 

That's all for now, 

Jo!