Crafting Mommies

If you haven’t heard (if that’s even possible), my sister-in-law and I have started a crafting business.  We sell crocheted and knitted hats, stuffed animals, accessories, and baby items.  Here’s a sampling of items we have made in the past:

  

  

Visit our facebook page here to see pictures of items we’ve created or to place a custom order.  You can also visit our Etsy site to see items that are currently for sale.

All proceeds from items I sell will go directly into our adoption fund.  So go buy something cute and help us adopt at the same time.  🙂  And buy stuff from Rita too.  Just because she’s awesome and every child should have one of her monsters.

I’m also working on a special item with the specific purpose of raising awareness of orphans and adoption.  More to come on that soon.

Countdown Blocks

My new obsession is with block decor.  I don’t know if I ever posted them, but I made Thanksgiving blocks for the fall season.  I painted them fall colors and had the blocks spell out “Give Thanks”.  I loved them so much that I wanted to make Christmas ones too.

The result?  Some pretty awesome Christmas countdown blocks!

A while back I bought a giant strip of 1×1 (or mayber 2×2) wood (don’t even ask me what kind – I don’t know).  I cut it all up into cubes that sit in a bag and wait to be turned into awesome block decor.  I had a longer strip of wood leftover that I used for the base.   I also had some leftover holiday paper that I’ve been using the last few years to make Christmas cards.  I used four different paper patterns, cut out the block shape on them, and used modge podge (my all time favorite crafting stuff!) to glue them to the blocks.  After they dried I sanded the edges a bit to give them a worn look.  Then I cut out numbers, a few shapes, and the word “countdown” in red and green paper and modge podged these to the blocks.  Make sure you use a good bit of modge podge to seal them.  On one block I have the numbers 1-6, on another block I have the numbers 1-5 and a Christmas tree, and on the third block I have the numbers 7-0 with a couple of other Christmas shapes (like the star).  This way I have enough letters to countdown.  The block not being used for the countdown becomes the top of the tower.  Does that make sense?  Probably not.

Anyway.  I’m pretty excited about them!  They look awesome.  And in the future, they’ll help Nathan with his numbers because he’ll be able to change the countdown each day.

Yes, that number is correct.  Only 35 days until Christmas!

Christmas Crafting

For the last two weeks I’ve been working on Christmas gifts.  Most of our gifts this year are homemade thanks to a small Christmas budget.  I like homemade better anyway and have a feeling most Christmases from now on will be like this one.  🙂  Crafting during naptime is much more relaxing and fun than shopping with one – by next year two – babies.

I have my mother-in-law’s gifts finished up.  But I can’t post them until after Christmas because she sometimes reads my blog!  I also have set one of the baby gifts finished.  My niece, nephew, and son are all getting a handmade set of alphabet magnets.  Here’s the first set!

This is the tutorial I used.  I had to modify it a bit since I apparently bought bigger magnets.  Check out her site – she has lots of awesome ideas!

I Made a Banner!

I did it!  All by myself.  See it up there?  That lovely banner at the top of my blog?  It’s all mine.  :love:

Yes, it’s simple.  But I’m not a graphic designer by any stretch of the imagination, so I think it’s pretty darn awesome.  Here it is again for good measure.

I used Gimp, which is the same image editing software I use to edit my pictures (when I get around to it.)  And Gimp is free!

The backgrounds are digital scrapbooking pages and embellishments I was able to download online.  There are a lot of awesome free sites out there!  (You just can’t use any of them for commercial purposes, obviously.)

I’m so proud of this silly little banner that I’m linking it up on Today’s Creative Blog.  Yay!  🙂