Craftgrrl - Where Crafters Unite! - February 6th, 2008

In keeping with the green crafting trend, here's a fuse-free tote bag for groceries that I knitted from old plastic bags. It is a modified version of the Elisa Nest Tote from Purl Bee, in that it's shorter than the pattern calls for and I added an I-cord border on the sides so the opening was reinforced.

	Plastic bag tote bag
	Plastic bag tote bag Close-up of I-cord handle.

Hi all;

[mods, please tell me if this post is not allowed and i will delete it; please note, however, i do NOT have a shop and am NOT selling anything]. This year my valentine cards are going to be little mini-notes featuring heart-themed photographs that I've taken, but I'm having a lot of trouble narrowing down which images to use.  As a result, I've decided to make it into a contest on my wordpress blog [which is supposed to be a blog about my writing - i study and write poetry - but admittedly mostly functions as a craft and food blog...]  The idea is that if I can rassle up enough votes (10 or more is a good number) to make opinion worth it, I'll randomly select one of the commenters to receive a gift of a set of notecards using the image(s) of their choice from the ones I've posted, plus a bonus of their choosing (either a bento accessory or a handmade heart ornament).  The contest closes on Friday at midnight.

Please help me out by voting on the images found at this post:  Help Me Choose My Valentine Cards

Here's a teaser image to pique your interest:

This is my first main page post, though I've commented a few times. My name's Mindy, I'm 25 and live in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. I love to do crafts, but due to an injury that limited my left hand motor skills I had a lot of trouble doing the projects I loved. What happened, you might ask? I won't go into major deatils, but I got hurt on the job almost two years ago from two seperate falls, and ended up with some entrapped nerves in my brachioplexis (bundle of nerves in the shoulder) and elbow on my left side. I had surgery for the shoulder entrapments on Thursday of last week, and once I got home, I realized that while I had ice/hot packs, I didn't have anything to cover them. The anesthetic was still working on Saturday, so before it wore off and I felt like I was beaten with bricks, I willingly and spontaneously got on the sewing machine for the first time since I got hurt and cranked out a couple of ice/hot pack covers (as I have two different sized reusable packs), in a lovely pink zebra velboa that I had left over from a custom kitty ear/tail set I had made for a friend a while back. It lets the cold/hot through slower so it's not such a shocker to my aching arm, and I put a dropperful of sandalwood essential oil all over the smallone so when i heat it up the whole room smells like sandalwood and helps calm me down. They aren't impressive, they aren't prizeworthy, but I feel very proud that I made them and didn't have too much pain while doing it, a first in a long, long time!



Oh, and to show what I used to make, before I got hurt (so you can see how big of a deal this small step is for me), I offer you a picture of my cat, Kiyone, modeling a pair of the kitty ears I used to make.  The ears themselves were machine sewn, then hand sewn onto the headbands.  She was purring the whole time, don't let her dour face make you think she's angry! 

I have this comfy grey hoodie that I love! Recently, I spilled something greasy on it and it stained :( So I did a quick hand embroidery over it to draw your eye away from the stain :) I think it works, you don't notice it. Elephants are my favorite animal, have been since I was a kid :) I chose lavender cuz I love purple and grey together. I did it freehand and messed up a bit on his trunk, but I'm still happy with how it turned out

closeup and further away so you can see the placement. I should've had him face the other way and put peanuts on the other side :p

Anyone got any tuts for home screen printing?

I was told by the guy at my Uni that it isn't worth doing but I saw an article about it in Craft Magazine and there's looked as good as the real machine done deal.

Any advice would be nifty, I have only done it with help from Uni, would like to do it off my own back and be able to make/keep my own screens.

Hi ladies!

I have a new finished project to share...let me know what you think...
( 3 pics this way )

Thanks for looking!

I have an idea. I want to make several hand made journals with the same theme. The thing is, I have a hand draw idea for the pages. I would need to reproduce about 100 pages for each journal (making the journal have 198 pages). It seems to be costly doing it the old fashioned way of just getting hundreds of copies in b&w doubled sided. Are there any alternatives I haven't thought of or discovered?

Also, is there a link to different kinds of paper? Like, I'm thinking I might want to use something thinner than computer paper but not super thin like the Bibles have... how do I find out what is right for what I have in mind?

There's this lovely little craft sale happening in a little coffee shop in two saturdays and i've been invited to go :D!  This is my first craft sale and i'm not really sure what to expect...  Here's what i have so far, and yes i am aware i have almost nothing.  Suggestions, comments, constructive criticism...?

 

meet Miss Cherry