Finished projects

I forgot to post my finished advent calendar on here! I'm such a slacker. I did post about it with all of my Christmas decorations on my other blog, though.



I really, really like how my advent calendar turned out. It took a couple of redo's on the tree, and I ended up hand-stitching all the pockets, but I'm not very happy with all the ornaments. I didn't pack it away with all of our other Christmas decorations, though, because I want to try and redo them a little better for next year. I'm really inspired by some of the ones posted HERE, so maybe next year I'll show you the new and improved version of it. :)

I also made some felt ornaments to give as gifts to some of our family members, but I was in such a hurry to get them mailed that I forgot to take pictures first. I am planning to make them for my own family this year, and will for sure take pictures to show you. (And for some reason I can't find the link that gave me the idea, but if I do, I will post it here as well.)

One of my new year's resolutions is to start sending birthday cards to all of my family members again. I used to do this, but the last couple of years it has fallen by the wayside. I, personally, love receiving birthday cards. I love feeling like someone was thinking about me. And as the golden rule goes, treat others as you want to be treated. So, over the last couple of days, I have made about 30 of these. I think they have turned out really cute, and I want to find some inspiration to make a few other different styles as well. I just wanted to make a big batch at first so that I won't always be scrambling at the last minute to try and get something ready to send.




I have a lot of projects on my to-do list this year, including catching up on my scrapbooking; making the quilts for my girls that I had intended to have done by Christmas 2010 but I couldn't find all the fabric I needed; and princess dresses inspired by THIS tutorial, (fabric is bought, just need to DO it). I've got to organize my tutorial inspiration links a little better on my left column and prioritize the ones that I really want to do, and delete the ones I've moved on from.

Time to get started!

What are your crafty goals for 2011?

Advent Calendar

Last week during one of my daily craft blog surf's, I saw this post from Homemade By Jill about a darling felt advent calendar. I went to the blog she had referenced, and instantly fell in love with THIS idea. I put it in my Tutorials to Try link list, hoping that I'd have time to do it before December.

Well, seems like this week I've had nothing BUT time! So I got busy on it. I'm not done yet, but here is a little sneak peak on what I've accomplished so far.




I am too impatient to do all of the intricate hand stitching that was done in the original, so I have just been using regular old craft glue to keep it together. It's not nearly as cute as hers, but it gets the job done. I may have to stitch the pockets on, though, because for some reason the glue is not doing it's job there.

Well, I'm still plugging away at it, so stay tuned for the big reveal!

Last bits of Christmas crafting...

I have two last little projects to share from Christmas. The first is a Christmas wreath. I found all the pieces at Spotlight, which sadly is going out of business and closing down in one week. :( Everything was 70% off, so I decided to go for it. We've just had a tiny little wreath for the last few years, and I really wanted a bigger one. When I got home, I just hot glued the baubles and small silver pinecones on. I guess you can't really see the pinecones very well, but they are there. Looking at it now, though, it doesn't seem complete. What is it missing? Should I have done 6 sets of baubles instead of 5? Probably. Hmmmm... Oh well. Maya said it was "perfect", so I'll just leave it as is. :)



The next project was the girls' Christmas jammies! I already made the jammie pants once before, so this time it was much easier. Except that I was in such a hurry to get them done that somehow my measurements were off again. Maya's fit well, although they were about an inch shorter than I had planned, and also the length from the waist to the crotch was too short. Definitely miscalculated that. She didn't mind it, though, and loved them. Zoe's on the other hand, were a tad too long, and the legs were a tad too narrow. Again, not a big deal and she loved them, too. I didn't make the shirts, (don't know how, yet), but I did cut out the candy canes and sew them on to the shirts just using a zig zag stitch around the edges. I think I sewed around them about 3 or 4 times to make sure they wouldn't come off, lol.

In the beginning...

(Portions of this post copied from my regular blog, Adventures in Hong Kong.)

Welcome to Crafted by Katie!

I have recently been really inspired to expand my crafty horizons by several people near and dear to my heart. I have been really impressed by their abilities to make beautiful things, and share their talents with those around them. I thought to myself, if they can do it, I can do it!

I started scrapbooking and making cards about 7 years ago, but now I am ready to start sewing and learning other crafty techniques. I've had so much fun browsing through several craft blogs, and can't wait to get started. I've just recently (last month) bought my very first sewing machine! I am "sew" excited. I learned the basics of sewing when I was a teenager, and I can't wait to learn more.

This blog is a place where I can showcase my creations, and keep a record log for myself. I hope to not be limited to just craft and sewing things, but also expand into cooking, baking, and possibly other areas.

Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on my first two projects. I figured they would be pretty easy to start with, as I get to know my sewing machine and refresh my memory of basic sewing technique.

Without further adieu...

Now, before you are too impressed by it, it's just one of those prints that you buy off a roll of fabric. But here's what I did... All of those squares are little pockets. I had to cut them out individually, iron the seams down and then sew them on. After that, I layered some batting and backing fabric, pinned it all together, and then started "quilting" the layers together by sewing around some of the pockets and outlining the picture.

While I was doing that, though, I ran out of thread! (Don't judge... I'm a beginner). Luckily, my friend Charisse came to my rescue. She invited me over to work on our calendars together (she happened to buy the same one), and she was a huge help! First of all, she gave me a huge spool of thread (like serger machine size spool), gave me the blue fabric for the binding since the fabric I had didn't match very well, and showed me how to sew it on. I would have been lost without her!

Over the next few days I worked on hand stitching the back of the binding on. Yesterday I finally finished it! Now I just have to figure out how to hang it up..... I think I'll need to attach something to the back, but am not sure what just yet.

The second item on my sewing project list was making pajamma pants for my girls. On Monday, I went over to my friend Lynelle's house to talk over some things for an upcoming activity. She had mentioned that she had a lot of leftover fabric that she wasn't planning to use, and let me take whatever I wanted! When I saw this fabric, I immediately thought they would be perfect for jammy pants.

I followed THIS tutorial on the Made blog (minus the knee pads, obviously). It seemed simple enough, but my inexperienced brain could not quite follow along. I won't tell you how many times I had to rip out the seams before I got it right!! :) Finally, eventually, I got both pairs done. I know what to do in the future, and how I can modify them to fit better. When I went to pick up my sewing machine from the store, I bought some really cute red and white striped fabric to make Christmas jammy pants for my girls. This was good practice for me so I can get it right next time!

The girls insisted on doing some funny pictures, and who am I to say no??? :)

Next on my 'to do' list is the shirt dress, also from Made. I'm debating whether or not I'm going to attempt the shirring, as shown in THIS post. I've already bought the elastic thread, I just need to gather the courage to actually go for it! Wish me luck!