Flower Button Scarf

Last month, my sister asked if I could make this Bow Scarf from Little Inspiration for her friend’s little girl. It was such an easy and quick knit, and it turned out absolutely adorable in grey with a light pink bow – I really should have taken a picture of it before I handed it over to the sister – that I decided I would make one for my own little niece.

I used pink Red Heart Soft Baby Steps left over from the cabled hat I mentioned in my post December in Review last year. Because this is a weight 4 rather than the weight 5 or 6 recommended in the original pattern, I did use smaller needles (US 10.5) and cast on 20 stitches rather than 13; but of course you can use whatever you need to achieve your desired width and gauge. Since we were watching my niece for the weekend, I just determined the length by testing it out on her as I went. I think it ended up being closer to 28 inches long.

Instead of a bow, I decided a flower would be more fitting to her personality and wardrobe. I followed this pattern from 5 Daughters, but I used a magic loop rather than ch 6 to start, and I only crocheted the first two rounds. This cut down on the bulk of the flower, making it easier to pull through the button hole. White yarn tied it in with the white pom-poms on her hat.

The basic design of this scarf is so simple, and you can go so many ways with it to achieve a variety of looks. And since it’s such a quick knit, it’s a great last minute gift too! (Although, thankfully we are not down to the last minute yet!)

As always, questions and comments are welcome! Hope you enjoy your weekend!

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Felt Reindeer Ornaments

We have a Halloween costume contest at my work each year. This year my friend and I decided we’d do a group costume, and rope another co-worker, who doesn’t normally dress up, into it with us. We went with a Frozen theme, which is very fitting since Joy and I are like sisters and we almost always end up belting out Frozen songs on any type of road trip. We told our co-worker to just wear brown and we’d take care of the rest (we’d decided he’d be Sven, the reindeer, but of course we didn’t tell him until the day of). Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any reindeer antlers in the stores, so I ended up making them myself. Didn’t turn out too bad, if I do say so myself! And he was really such a good sport about it all 🙂

So, what does this have to do with ornaments, you ask? Well, there was left over felt, and I thought as a little joke, I’d make a reindeer ornament for Sven to remember the time he dressed up for Halloween.

And it turned out so cute, I just had to make another one!

For the shape of the reindeer, I traced a cookie cutter onto a piece of thicker glossed paper (Sephora mailing) that way it held up to multiple tracings. I did make some changes to the antlers, going with a single outline, rather than two separate antlers that were in the cookie cutter, just to make it easier to cut out and stitch. With the dark color of the felt, I found a black Sharpie worked best, and cut 2 shapes for each reindeer, flipping the stencil so that any sharpie marks would be on the inside of each piece. I sewed the 2 sides together using a blanket stitch (you can find a great tutorial over on futuregirl) and stuffed with a little bit of fiber fill as I went.

I used an old button I found in our button tin for the 1st reindeer’s nose. The second reindeer got a mini pom-pom nose. To finish it off, I stitched a loop of ribbon onto the back of one of the antlers, with a dab of glue to keep the ribbon from unraveling.

Seriously, these are so adorable, I think I’ll be making more! And they would be a good craft for older kids too! And you can really do any shape you want, add whatever embellishments you want. The sky’s the limit!

Anyone else starting their Christmas crafting yet? I’d love to see what you’re up to. And if you decide to make your own little felt reindeer, please share

Footprint Christmas Art

It’s November 1st, and you know what that means: it’s the start of the holiday season! Christmas movies are on TV, decorations are in the stores, and I’m pretty sure there are at least a few radio stations playing the periodic Christmas carol.

In keeping with this theme, when the little nephew was over today, I decided to take advantage of the opportunity and paint his little feet. Naturally, the inspiration came from Pinterest.

As you can see, the little guy wiggled a bit for the first print, but that adds some charm (and subtracts a couple toes, lol). We learned our lesson though, and for the second footprint, we held his foot still and brought the canvas to his foot, rather than pressing his foot to a stationary canvas.

At a year and a half, Brayden is a bit too young to understand what we were doing, but slightly older kids would absolutely love this project and could do most of it themselves. The canvas is 10″x10″ and was just the right size for Brayden’s feet, so if you do make it with older kids (or even a family of mistletoe), you’ll probably need to do 12″x12″ or bigger.

I think this is just so darn cute. And it would be fun to do some sort of variation on the foot/hand print theme each year to see how the kids grow.

As always, questions and comments are welcome!