New Year - Old Goals

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm not one for New Years resolutions - I've come to the conclusion that if I'm going to change something about myself or my habits, it's best to start trying RIGHT NOW instead of waiting for a kickoff date. But I know that they really work for some people, and I won't lie - I use January 1st as an opportunity to evaluate my current goals and adjust tactics.

So, in the spirit of reflection, let's take a look at one of my lagging projects that I finally finished recently - pillowcases!

For Christmas of 2012, I decided I would embroider pillowcases for some close friends and family. I successfully completed a couple and shipped them off to the recipients before I had a chance to take pictures, but here is one that I completed in time for Christmas and didn't deliver until November 2013:

Here are a couple that I completed late and delivered later:

And here's one that I didn't complete until just recently and was able to just hand to the recipient immediately:

The moral of this story? My goal last year was to get this blog up and running. This year, I'm going to be consistent about it. Fingers crossed, I'll get 52 posts up over the course of the year. The vast majority of them will be finished crafts. Dare I say that I will complete 52 projects this year??

Stay tuned - we'll see :)

Record Bowls

I had a realization about Christmas this year.

To be more exact, I had a realization about Christmas BREAK. This is my first year without a real Christmas break, so when it was suddenly December 23rd, I found myself without gifts to distribute. Until this year, I'd always had the week or so following Christmas to finish up the gifts for my friends and I would deliver them when I returned to school after the new year. Not so much this year.

Ah well, you live and learn, right?

So this year, I made a bunch of the same gift to distribute to people. I had some 45s sitting around that I never listened to, so I made them into bowls!

I followed this tutorial.

Start with some records. I used 45s, but this works for full-sized LPs as well.

Place them on an oven-safe bowl on a cookie sheet. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Pop it in. The tutorial says to set your timer for 8-10 minutes, but since 45s are smaller, I left them in for 5-8.

When the timer goes, pull it out. I used a different one of the same bowl to help with shaping. Watch out, they'll be hot, but they also cool SUPER fast, so some scorched fingertips were par for the course for me.

Voila! I learned that if you leave them in for longer, the vinyl starts to shrink, so you can make taller or shorter by adjusting the time in the oven.

I'm planning on covering the bottom with a neutral-colored paper. I'll add pictures when I've done that, but until then, enjoy!

Pillow Sweaters

'Tis the season to be crafty!

I'm in a place in my life where I want my home to be a grown-up level of festive, but I don't really have the budget or the stockpile of decorations to do it. So I'm starting that stockpile. Little by little.

This year, one of the things I'm adding to the stockpile is some new pillowcases. In case you were wondering, I consider sewing the fourth side of a pillow to be one of the worst things that a person could be forced to do. Right up there with talking with a close talker.

So, I took a look at my sofa...

...and realized that it wasn't exactly the most festive thing out there. I love those pillows and all, but they don't exactly scream CHRISTMAS.

Living in Seattle, I know that our thrift stores can get picked over pretty quickly. I also know that, with ugly sweater party season upon us, the selection of festive sweaters - ugly or not - would be pretty slim.
I had the bright idea to buy some thrift store Christmas sweaters to cover them up.

Then, I had the brighter idea to use CARDIGANS!

I snagged these three at Value Village and whipped up some cozy little sweaters for my pillows. Bonus: buttons. Because all of them have button closures, I just had to sew the four corners and button them straight over the existing pillowcase!

Behold:

Cozy little pillows.

I'm already formulating a new project to use this technique, so stay tuned for an in-depth tutorial!