Monday, January 26, 2009

My Rear's in Craft Gear

With my commitment to working on Christmas gifts each month, an upcoming sewing party and Valentine's Day on my mind, I desperately needed to get my rear in craft gear! And this was the perfect weekend for it! We didn't have a single thing to do! (Just for the record, we were home the whole week! That's the longest we've been home at one time since Christmas!)

Saturday morning, Casey, Braelyn and I all got a little crafty. We made heart-shaped bird feeders! So fun!
My accessorized ballerina princess...ready to show the birds some love.
Here it is out in our back yard. A lovey, yummy birdie snack! Sadly, since this picture was taken, both bird feeders have fallen apart. :(
The recipe is bird seed, flour and water and then you bake it for an hour. Any ideas how I could make them hold together a little better?

After went Braelyn went down for her nap, I ran up to Wal-mart (it's my only option) to pick up some fabric for a number of different projects I want to work on. As soon as I got home, I pulled out my dusty sewing machine (I haven't sewn since March!) and got straight to work. To get reacquainted with my sewing machine again, I just worked on something fun. Nothing to be given away, just something for myself that was easy and cheap.

Ta Da! I made the little tote bag from Jansdotter's Simple Sewing.As it is with all my sewing projects, you can't look too closely. There are some pretty obvious mistakes, but hey...that's what this project was for. From far away though, I'm rather proud of my little bag. I wish I had lined the brown fabric with interfacing. It's not quite thick enough. Is there anything I can do about that now? Would it be super tacky to iron the interfacing on now?
It bothers me that the fabric I like, usually isn't heavy enough. Does anyone else have this dilemma? I did experiment with the interfacing, so I'll probably start using that more, I guess.

To close out my low-key, crafty weekend, I finally finished ALL of my homemade recipe books! There were some questions about how I put it together, so I took a few more pics to demonstrate.

First, I picked out some photo albums (2 photo slots per page) and a collection of coordinating scrapbook paper. I typed out the recipes and printed them on postcards/index cards.
Then, I lined the back of all the cards with the scrapbook paper to make them a little stronger and to add some detail. Plus, my index cards were not the full 6" to fill the 4x6 photo slot. So this added the extra width. I glued the paper on with mod podge.
To add some detail to the front of the card and to cover up that missing half inch in the front, I added a tab along the edge. I used the same paper for the front and back.
To finish it up, I put a picture of each dish above each recipe (I love cookbooks with pictures!). Make sure you give yourself A LOT of time to work on the pictures before you have to give your recipe books away! For the 2 months leading up to Christmas I ONLY cooked things that I needed a picture of.
Hope this helps, Charli! Sorry it took me so long. Let me know if you decide to make these. With your grandmother's recipes, that would be such a special gift!

More crafting to come...

Alright gang, that wraps up my weekend, but before I go, I just have to post this picture of Casey and Braelyn...
bonding...Guitar Hero style.

5 comments:

Coffman Family said...

Fun! A crafty weekend sounds remarkably relaxing. Hm, sewing, yes that is definitely on my to-do list very soon. I like how you gave yourself permission to just make a fun project for yourself. I'll ponder that. :)

casey said...

You can use peanut butter, and dip it into the bird seed, and it stays. I have seen it done with a pine cone. Spread peanut butter all over the pine cone, and then dip it in the seeds, and voila! a yummy birdy treat!

Charli Honas said...

Thanks Steph! I'll let you know how mine turn out! I'm excited to be doing this for the whole family! She has a ton of recipes so I will have to get creative!

Abba's Girl said...

I don't know of any recipes for various birdfeeders hold up in our humidity. I just put the seeds in hanging platform and tubular style feeders as well as throwing some on the ground. Right now, we have numerous Goldfinches, so I have thistle socks out too.

Your tote and recipe books look great.

One day I will knit and learn to sew unless I am raptured 1st.

Love, Annette

mandi said...

fun weekend!
i would try peanut butter in the bird feeder. but once the birds get after it, i don't know how well they'd hold up anyway.
your bag looks great!