Happy Wishes – Homemade Cards and Crafts

I’ve been trying to get creative today and keep getting stuck, so this project was a way to keep it simple! I pulled out my button maker, striped paper, a circle cutter, and some black contact paper mustache stickers I had leftover from the cups (pics coming soon). About 30 minutes later I came up with these cute buttons we can use as favors/decorations.

I am so excited to be co-hosting a shower for a dear friend soon! I will eventually post the pictures of our decorations, but for now here are the invitations!

The front is fairly simple, but I love the mustache to introduce our “Little Man” theme.

The inside is printed on printable vellum (office supply store) in a laser printer. I eventually decided to run the stripes horizontally, but this was my original idea. I used a tiny bit of adhesive in the top 2 corners to let the inside still flutter a bit.

The back was sealed and a small mustache sticker added as a seal. All in all, I like the way they have turned out!

Awhile back I purchased the Ultimate Sweater Knitting machine. I have enjoyed using it but wondered if I was cheating myself because I wasn’t knitting by hand anymore. I decided to have a little “head to head” challenge and do the same project both ways. My knitting machine attempt looks like this:

My hand knitted washcloth looks like this:

Definitely pros and cons to both. The hand knit version I was able to obtain a smaller gauge because I could use smaller needles, but I like the very clean, standard gauge obtained with the machine. Guess the jury is still out and I will just have to keep playing with both!

A friend showed me a cute headband/sweatband that she bought online. After a little reverse engineering and a few tweaks of my own, this is what I came up with. Must say I’m ready for my workout tomorrow!

PS please ignore the post workout hair, I finished the project after today’s workout!

I guess weekends are good for finishing projects and updating posts! Here is my patched squares afghan I finished this weekend. Maybe I was feeling nostalgic a few weeks ago when I picked the colors, but these are a toned down version of my high schools red, white, & black color scheme. I am pretty pleased with the way this one turned out!

I was running out of dresser space for my jewelry & I needed a quick fix for my mess of necklaces so I jumped on the Internet and tried to find a solution. I couldn’t find what I wanted anywhere so I turned to Pinterest. After finding a few things I came up with this setup-

I went to Target an picked up a cafe rod for under $5 and some “S” shaped shower curtain hooks for under $10. Put them up on the wall and voila! A cute, out of the way, and completely usable way to keep my necklaces tangle free! I cleared off my shelf and put my existing jewelry holders on it. Overall, I was pretty pleased with the way this turned out!

These crochet headbands have been fun to make and with the recent cold weather have come in handy as well! I made this brown and pink one a few weeks ago and it came on handy at the baseball game last night!

I made this one this morning and found a cute bow pattern to add instead of the large flower. The bow pattern can be found here

I will probably wear this one to the game tonight because we are going to see some cold temperatures again this evening!

I have a friend traveling by bus to Disney with a group of students next week. God Bless her, I know! She usually travels with an inflatable pool raft to use as a makeshift bed, pillow, etc. Smart, right? Her only problem was that she usually just wrapped a sheet around the plastic, but it never stayed put. So she came to me last week and asked if I could make her a “really big pillowcase” for it because she doesn’t sew. It came out super cute and best of all it was super easy! I didn’t take a full picture of it, because, well it just looks like a big pillowcase! I did take a picture of it folded and you can see my addition of 4 buttons at the bottom to keep it from shifting around or bunching up on the trip. I know she will have a great trip & now a more comfortable one too!

Attempt #2 at a headband. I used a bulkier weight wool yarn & I am pleasantly pleased with the way it turned out. I am hoping my sister who is dealing with the cold up North will find it useful!

Oh the things you can do when watching the 2 hour long season premiere of Downton Abbey! I love this show and couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next. I figured I could see how far I could get on one of those super trendy tapered crochet headbands while watching tv. Turns out I did pretty well. I had the whole band finished before the credits rolled. I finished the flower during the first part of the bachelor. I just need to dig up a couple of buttons for the neck and I will be done! Easy lil project & fun too!

Here is the pattern from Red Heart I found online. I used a slightly larger hook to match that of my yarn.

.pdf available here