written by threadslinger

Inspired by Marie’s NES Mario Quilt, I decided I would try my hand at quilting NES Zelda. This is just my first block although I am thinking about using him as the center piece and doing a quilted border so that it is a lap quilt, perfect for playing video games. Below is the pattern I used to make the border. Download the largest if you want to make your own NES Link.

written by threadslinger

Since I am kind of a huge political nerd I threw a party on the day of the Texas/Ohio primaries a few weeks ago. I decided that for the event I would make a cake shaped like Texas. And, while it wasn’t a resounding successful night for the candidate I wanted to win, he did net the most delegates out of Texas. I think the cake had something to do with it.

written by admin

I’ve been loving zines for quite some time and decided to make my own! The first issue is sewing/art themed.

If you’d like purchase a copy of the first issue of the DIYnamite zine, written/created by me, Marie, then purchase below.

Your $2.50 covers a full color zine, eight pages, 4.25″ x 5.5″, designed by me in high resolution Photoshop, professionally printed at Kinkos, and shipping plus a FREE 1″ button made by me. After you pay, you can send me an email requesting a particular image for your button and I’ll try to honor that request (i.e. deer, shoes, crafty, Obama, etc.).

This is the cover and Table of Contents:

I will take orders until March 19th for the first batch which is when I will have them printed and shipped.

written by threadslinger

I actually stole this idea from Marie but will post it here anyway. Crafting is kind of like going down a long rabbit hole. You start out with just a few supplies but it quickly can turn into a heap in the corner of your bedroom that your cats sleep on and you have to step over unless you are careful. This is why I learned from the masters that organized crafting is the best crafting. I am still not the best at this, but slowly am picking up speed. Here is a simple way to organize your magazine cut outs so that you don’t have stacks of magazines hanging around your house just waiting to be modge podged. It also saves you a lot time when you want to make something because all the coolest pictures are neatly organized in this bin.

Materials needed:

-File folder
-Magazines
-Marker

1. Take your stack of magazines and tear out anything you think could be used in a future collage. Then try to categorize them and make little tabs like this:

2. After you have filed away all your magazines throw the old ones away. Resist the urge to be a pack rat and bam, now you have an organized magazine file just waiting to be used for modge podging.

written by marieann

My boyfriend’s mom and I made these cute little stepping stones as yard art pieces for her friend. They are simple to mix up as long as you have good weather and an outdoor space to work in. It’s also a great way to use up your old plastic toys or broken plates.

Materials:
Cement that is for making stepping stones; ask your hardware guy for help choosing the right cement. It must be the really fine grain kind and not the large rocky kind. It doesn’t have to set as hard, it must be small grain. I know from experience (and a lot of tossed out cement) that the rockier kind will NOT work
Stepping stone molds — they are also at the hardware store and come in round or shapes
Broken plates and other ceramics
Toys, try barbie, plastic small McDonald’s things, shells, etc.
Cooking spray oil

Tools
Big bucket to mix the cement and water in

Directions:
1. Make the cement according to the package instructions.
2. Spray the mold with cooking oil (this makes it easier to remove later). Pour cement into the mold.
3. Be sure to smooth the top of the cement carefully as this will be the top of your stone (usually, if you were making blank ones, the part you see would be the bottom of the stepping stone, but you have to reverse it to put stuff in it).
3. Let it harden a bit (just like ten or so minutes) then push things into the cement. Let the blocks dry over night in the molds.
4. When the cement is totally hard, gently pull the cement blocks out, and put onto the ground. You have to be careful in this step so as to not break them.

Hula girl (they live in Hawai’i)

Hibiscus

Cat in the hat

written by marieann

I have some cute fabrics in my stash, some of which, I am too scared to use!  Here’s some of my favorites:

These fabrics came from Urban Outfitters. They call them “bed covers” but they are really a giant piece of fabric (80 x 108) with a seamed edges. I have already made a lot of stuff out of the owl fabric including a quilt back.

These fabrics were part of my Christmas fabric shopping spree. Every now and then fabric.com has a 20% discount and then I can afford the designer fabrics I love. There’s some Alexender Hendry and Robert Kauffman prints in that stack.

My mom got these in a fat quarter pack from Joann’s for me. They are my perfect quilt asethic — a blend of traditional and modern in the prints and my favorite color scheme.

Finally, I got these fabrics when I swapped with my quilting friend, Rose. We both took the opportunity to trade away scraps from bigger projects and other pieces of fabric that were growing stale in our own stash. I used the zippers for a bunch of zip up pencil cases. I used the pink/greens in a fairy quilt, that turned out really cute.

written by marieann

I followed this tutorial to make my guys a kitty bed. The tutorial is shockingly easy to follow. However, I underestimated just how much space I would lose from the stuffing and I made the center circle too small. I noticed the bed was really shrinking so I stopped stuffing it. So in the end, it’s under stuffed. After this photo was shot, the kitties proceeded to lay across the whole thing, not just in the center hole, and basically deflate it with their weight. It’s not nearly as cute as it’s supposed to be but they do like it. It keeps them off my coat when I toss that on a chair or jeans on the floor (see photo). I used their favorite blanket and cut it apart to make the bed. It’s already covered in kitty hair so it seemed perfect.

This was one of their previous “kitty beds”

written by marieann

I finally bucked up and spent the $60 to buy the Badge-a-Minit button maker. I longed to make 1″ buttons to pin to everything that I own. I’ve already started making a bunch for swap partners and I made Sean a Heath Ledger button that made him a superstar for a weekend. I have to tell you, though, they are a lot harder to make than you might think. I am still messing up about a third of them. The plastic doesn’t always get perfectly trapped under the metal backing and it ripples. The instructions explain that even pressure is the key to a flawless button but that’s much easier read than done. I’ve been making cute little fabric bookmarks to ship the buttons too.