Stuff I've Made

*I hit a ton of sales yesterday, including four different Rummage Sales within 1/2 mile of my own house.  I haven't had a chance to take photos yet.  So, the junk shall wait.

I love to make things, but I really only make stuff during the holiday months.  Of course, the "holiday" months" means from Halloween to the 4th of July, so that only leaves a couple of months that I don't create.  I'd love to be one of those people that makes Halloween stuff in July, but I've never been that organized or clever. 

I participated in Sarah's Halloween Swap this year.  I had to make 11 Halloween ornaments.  I am completely enamoured of the old wooden beaded  Crib Toys from the 1940's.  Barbara at Oodles posted this pattern a while back and I have been searching for beads at thrifts and yard sales all summer.  I've made a crazy amount of them now in all shapes, sizes and colors.  I love them all.  Now, I see beads everywhere - just yesterday I found two great old garlands of pastel beads for an Easter Tree.  I cut them apart and now I have a nice bag full of pink, blue and white faded beads for making more beaded babies.

For Sarah's Halloween Swap, I made Black Cat Trick or Treater's.  I thought buying a big bag of black beads would be an easy task, but apparently no one uses wooden beads much anymore.  So, I had to do some thinking.  We have a $1.00 Jewelry Store here that has some seriously gaudy and tacky stuff and some not so bad stuff too.  I had remembered seeing some long strings of black beads with wooden crosses on them a few months ago, so I went back to see if they still had any in stock.  They had four necklaces, so for a total of $4.00, I got all the beads I needed to make all of my cats.  I added a pipe cleaner tail and ears and at the last minute, drew on some whiskers, which I think was the perfect finishing touch.  I ran out of black pipe cleaners, so I took white ones and colored them with a Sharpie and they looked just fine.  Now I am thinking of all the custom colored pipe cleaners I can make!  Stripes!  Patterns!  Colors!

I have two special little ones in my life - twin girls that are 16 months old.  Their Mom dresses them in tutu's nearly everyday and they are stinking adorable.  I like to send them little surprises in the mail like books, but I wanted to make them something from my heart.  They needed something for Halloween from Auntie Shara. :)

First, I found black tutu's at the store and bought white onesies.

Since I was already in a black cat making mood, I hand cut out these cat faces, trying to make each one the same.  Here is #1.

 And this is #2.  I think they look pretty similar.  I hand sewed them onto the onsies.  I've never sewn anything so tightly and with such small stitches before - I wanted them to be baby safe!

I also made black headbands with big orange Gerbera Daisies and their initial in the center of each flower.  I can't wait to see the girls in these outfits.  I hope they like them.  I had fun making them, but I won't be doing much clothing making again. 

I've got some things on the way to get me started on some fun Christmas crafting too.  It feels good to get my create juices going again!

What have you made lately?