I heart hearts

I wonder if I can come up with a different heart craft for the next 14 days. Hmm...

More baby crafts?

It seems either we have gotten to the age where the only thing to do is have babies or there just happens to be a baby surge right now. I promise we'll have some adult related crafts to post about soon!

I went to a baby shower yesterday for an ex-coworker. I know her well enough to know she's very specific and meticulous so I didn't want to make anything to ornate or something that wouldn't match her nursery. Also she's not finding out the gender of the baby so I had to find something gender nuetral as well. I bought a few things off her registry but wanted to add a few personal touches.

So I choose to make this baby hat:

Also some very crafty women that I work for make and sell their crafts. They just started to add burp clothes and bibs to their inventory so I added those into the gift basket. Everything was a success. Except for the fact that me and a 75 year old woman were the only ones who handmade something. I wonder if that makes me on the cutting edge or really old fashioned...

crafts for babies

I have said it before, and I'm sure I'll say it again. I love crafting for babies (and now kids, as all of my favorite babies are getting so big!)

My brother's friend and his wife had twin girls at the end of October, and I found these super-cute leggings with ruffly butts that I knew they had to have, but I wanted to also make something to go along with them. It started with a couple of little hats with knotted tops (made with Knit Picks merino yarn, leftover from the Wild Stripes baby blanket from Knitty). And then I decided they needed matching onesies embroidered with a strawberry.

Now I just need to get over there and meet these girls!

thoughts on shopping locally

I stumbled upon the 3/50 project this morning in an email from Zeff Photo in Belmont (as a side note, I love Zeff Photo). I don't know a whole lot about it, but I looked at the website a bit this morning. More than anything, it made me think about shopping and eating locally and buying from independently-owned businesses.

Over the weekend, while at my parents' house for Thanksgiving, my mom was giving me a hard time for spending more on Christmas trees at a local garden store (Bonny's in Cambridge), and said that I should just buy a tree at a certain highly irritating home improvement store that may or may not rhyme with Dome Meepot. The conversation got me thinking. Is it really overspending? Or is it spending closer to the true price for things, rather than a price that means that Dome Meepot gets to put more small, local stores out of business? And that also means that you get to have a pleasant interaction with the owner of Bonny's as he cuts the bottom off the trunk of the tree rather than aimlessly wandering the aisles of the Meepot? The 3/50 project also tells me that for every $100 spent in independently-owned stores, $68 goes back to the community, compared with $43 through chains, and $0 online.

Given the choice, I am much happier buying produce from a farmers' market than a grocery store. I can find what I need at my neighborhood hardware store much easier than I can at the above-mentioned Meepot. And I would much rather support my favorite local yarn store (before it went out of business, that is) than buying synthetic fiber yarn at a giant, unnamed craft store that is often staffed with unfriendly and unhelpful employees. Having said all of that, I'm not a millionaire. It certainly is difficult not to order things from Amazon when they make it so easy and so inexpensive.

Thoughts?

poinsettia wreath kit

Oh, Martha... I stumbled on a Martha Stewart poinsettia wreath kit at ACMoore last week, and debated buying it before talking myself out of it and leaving the store. I kept thinking about it, so went back to get three of them (the whole triangle needed one, obviously!) today and I'm pretty excited about it! I can't tell from the package how annoying it's going to be to make, but I'll keep you posted.

**update**
After a Greek feast of falafel, stuffed grape leaves, olives, and eggplant salad, the Knitting Triangle started working on the poinsettia wreaths. I'll be honest--there was some initial disappointment and concern when we opened the packages to find that lazy old Martha hadn't pre-cut the crepe paper for us. But baklava kept us going and we went ahead and wrapped the wreath shape with green crepe paper (while complaining that Martha could have given us a few extra inches of the paper so it wouldn't take three attempts to cover the white foam), cut out stacks of red and pink crepe paper into the poinsettia flower petals, and green leaves. For me, everything was going along fine and I was happy with the way the wreath was coming out until I got to what Martha refers to as "pips" (otherwise known as the little centers of the poinsettia flowers). These are tiny white pom poms that MS wants you to cover in crepe paper and then twist into little balls. Um. No thanks. I just went with the white pom poms and forgot about the colored centers.

Here it is hanging on the inside of my front door, looking very fun and Christmasy:

Curtains can make the room

About 4 years ago my boyfriend bought a cottage in the White Mountains region of New Hampshire. Besides being close to some great ski areas, one of the bonuses of the house for him was the fact that it was fully furnished. The woman who owned the house was leaving everything... beds, furniture, linens, and housewares. It was "move-in" ready basically.

But when I set foot in the cottage for the first time I saw it as a blank slate. In the past few years I have gotten rid of almost all of her tacky floral 70's style bedspreads and curtains and replaced them with various cottage themed linens. They were tough to find but I searched every store until I found things I liked.

But there was one room I hadn't touched and that was the upstairs bathroom. There were red gingham curtains (picture a tablecloth) and a tomato bath mat. That bath mat haunted me. I needed some inspiration and found it in some fabric scraps given to me. I decided to use the scraps and make curtains. It's a great way to use some pieces of fabric that aren't quite big enough to use for anything but you can't give them up. I just bought some cheap fabric for lining... and here's the results.

And here's another room I made curtains for. I think the curtains bring it all together.

Adventures of Apartment Decorating

Now that I'm unpacked (mostly) in my new apartment it's time to start decorating. There's much to do... hang pictures, make curtains, buy chairs for my kitchen table...

While packing I came across my wall calendar from 2008. Each month was a new vintage wine poster and I bought it with the intention of someday framing and displaying them somewhere. And that day was today.

I went to Michaels during my lunch break today and found packages of (2) 11 x 14 frames for $7. A steal. I purchased what I needed and picked out my favorite prints from the calendar.

The prints were 10 x 14 so I just cut strips from some scrapbooking paper and used my trusty glue stick to remedy the problem. I think they look pretty cool. It's a great cheap way to recycle and decorate.