Some ATC Love

I participated in this lovely girl's ATC swap last month. The theme for the cards was {love}, and the color scheme was grey, red, pink and white. Just look at all the beauty that I received in the mail this week:

These cards were created by 12 women living in 5 different countries (Switzerland, UK, France, US, Canada). I love the connection between the 12 of us over some scraps of paper and bit of glue. I think Alexandra's card said it best:And that little pink heart? Filled with the most beautiful smelling lavender. How sweet is she?!

Fun at the Farm

This layout is inspired by this week's sketch over at Ella.

I started out following the sketch pretty closely, just substituting 2-4x4's for the second vertical 4x6, and stacking 2-5 x 3 1/2's for the 5x7. But as I shifted and rearranged, added and subtracted my photos, this was the result. I guess you could say I took some liberties with the sketch. But that's what it's all about, right? Sketches shouldn't make you feel trapped and challenged. They should be a jumping-off point, a design guideline to help you get your layout going.

I embossed a shipping tag with the Big Shot,

then layered elements onto it from a Making Memories kit.

I repeated the shipping tags in the title, and as a place for my journaling.

More Amigurumi

I had the brilliant idea at 8:30 the night before Valentine's Day to crochet each of my boys a little amigurumi for the holiday.

This little guy came from the Lion Brand website (oh, the goodness of patterns there--and all for free!). He only took an hour to make, but the embroidered mouth took me about 30 more minutes to get just so (while I watched the Olympics, so that may have had a little something to do with it). My middle guy is just smitten with him.

This owl also came from Lion Brand.

And in order to save my crocheting sanity, I had to make some adjustments to Dogbot to give *her* a more *him* look (namely, ridding him of pink). Three little friends for three very happy boys. And one happy crocheting mom!

My Very First Amigurumi

Meet Dogbot, crusader for all things crafty and creative. She's fearless in the face of projects gone awry (there seems to be a lot of those around here these days!) and poo-poo's the site of blood from a finger pricked by a sewing needle (again, lots of that). Dogbot won't balk (or bark) when glue oozes from your projects, or your stitching looks like it's failing the sobriety test. And with those big 'ol ears, she's always there to listen to your crafting woes, even when they contain some less-than-suitable-words uttered under your breath.

This was a blast to put together. I am totally *hooked* on crochet (Dogbot came up with that little pun!). This pattern came from the adorable book Crobots by Nellie Pailloux.

I'm setting straight to work this weekend on a little friend for Dogbot. Don't want her to be lonely!

Method Playground: Ruffles

As you know, I will look for any reason to *girl up* my layouts, and this week's challenge on the Playground was the perfect excuse: ruffles! It was also the perfect excuse to learn something I've been wanting to try: gathering fabric into ruffles. I found a great tutorial on line (of course!), and couldn't believe what a *cinch* it was.

Here's the how-to:

1. Cut your fabric into a strip. Mine is about 1 1/2" by 30"


2. Use your sewing machne to sew two lines down the length of the strip close to the edge, being careful not to et the lines cross over each other.


3. At one end, tie the two back thread (from the bobbin) together.


4. At the other end, begin pulling on the bobbin ends and gently sliding the fabric along the thread to gather.

To create the flower, use a narrower and shorter length of fabric (mine is about 1/2" by 6", but I would make it more like 12") and follow the same instructions for gathering. Once ruffled, stitch the two ends of the strips to each other and flatten to create a circle.

Could it get any easier?! Give it a try to girlie-up your next layout, and post your creations at Method Playground. And here's one more link to give you some inspiration for your project: ruffled flowers.

This layout uses a sketch from My Sketch World.