saturday spotlight - shining on sarah

After a break from Saturday Spotlight last week, I'm super excited to shine this week's spotlight on a friend of mine from college, Sarah.  Sarah is a busy mom of a super cute three year old who fits in a craft here and there when time allows.  She hooked up with my blog through Facebook, and she crafted her own crayon roll a month or so ago that I'm so excited to share with you because I think it's beautiful.  Check it out, and if her crayon roll inspires you to make one refer back to my blogs from January for links to a few different tutorial options.  

This week's Saturday Spotlight is a "two-fer" because Sarah also just finished up an absolutley adorable little clothspin doll that I have to share with you.  I have to admit that this doll looks a bit daunting to me, so I have to give Sarah a huge round of applause for taking on this task - especially since she had a set of three-year-old hands helping her all along the way.  You too can follow in Sarah's crafty footsteps by checking out the tutorial for this little doll at Going Sew Crazy.    

If you, like Sarah, have recently tried your hand at a craft, please drop me an e-mail at lizbeth694@aol.com and let me know.  I would love to show off your handiwork on a Saturday Spotlight in the future.  Thank you, Sarah, for letting me show off your work this week, and thank you for inspiring me to try something new and . . .

craft on!

why didn't i think of this?

The crayon roll just got way easier!  Check out my friend Amanda's tutorial on making a crayon roll from a placemat.  This is genius for many reasons:
1) no rotary cutter necessary
2) bye-bye fusible interfacing . . . yippeeeee!
3) only two supplies needed - cheap placemat and ribbon
4) she uses lined placemats which makes sewing straight lines soooo easy
5) super fast - she said that she was able to make the crayon roll in 30 minutes . . . woohoo . . . that's my kind of project

So check out her tutorial by clicking the blue words above or copying and pasting this address into your browser http://onweb.net/amanda/. You are on your way to mastering the crayon roll. 

Craft on!

third time's a charm!

I wasn't planning on posting anything tonight, but I 'm so excited!  I made a crayon roll in a reasonable amount of time, and I like it.  That's huge for me!  After the girls were snuggled in their beds, I intended to sit and veg in front of the TV.  I made it about 15 minutes, and heard the fabric that I had cut out (with a rotary cutter) last night calling my name.  So . . . here it is my third roll . . . drum roll (no pun intended - honestly) please . . . 

I also found some mini gel pens at Target for a dollar.  They fit perfectly in the roll made for crayons, and they won't mark up the fabric like crayons do when you slide them in and out.  I'm so excited that I feel a little giddy! 

Before I sign off and head to bed, I have to give a little credit to my new friend - disappearing ink - without whom none of this would be possible.  I met disappearing ink while exploring the sewing department at Hobby Lobby, and I thought it sounded like a wonderfully helpful tool.  So . . . thanks for making my life just a little easier and my seams just a little straighter.

i've been brought to my knees by fusible interfacing!

Let's just say that I am not a fan of fusible interfacing.  How can such a light, wimpy fabric-wantabe be so maddening and frustrating.  First of all, I asked for a 1/2 of a yard from the gal at the fabric counter, but when I unfolded it I found out that I only received a 1/4 of a yard.  (That's technically not the fusible interfacing's fault, but it started our relationship off on the wrong foot.)  Second, the directions for using the interfacing were cut in half due to the fact that it was only 1/4 of a yard, so I didn't have all the instructions that I needed to use it correctly.  I found instructions at sewingsupport.com.  However, I'm a slow sewing-learner so I didn't fully get it.  Also, as I mentioned before I don't follow directions very well.  Long story short - my fusible interfacing didn't actually fuse to the cloth.  Arrrrgh!  I may be going back to the flour-sack cloth I used in the first crayon roll.  Any advice from those of you who have more sewing smarts than me?

   

On the up side (I'm trying not to be overly negative), my relationship with the rotary cutter has definitely improved.  The second time around went much smoother, so I do have hope for fusible interfacing after all.  My fabrics pieces are ready to be joined together; however, I'm going to be taking a break for the next few days from crafting (and probably blogging) due to a busy work weekend.  So unless these fabrics figure out how to join themselves together in the next three days, I will be finishing up round two of the crayon roll Sunday evening. 

In the meantime, craft on!  

finders keepers, losers weepers: behold . . . lightweight fusible interfacing!

Friday was the coldest day we've had in a century, and what did I do?  You might think I would stay inside with a cup of hot tea and enjoy the day.  You would be wrong.  I bundled the kids up, piled them in the car and went in search of lightweight fusible interfacing.  And behold . . . I found it.  Well, I didn't find it exactly.  I found featherweight fusible interfacing and light-to-medium fusible interfacing.  Nothing called simply . . . lightweight fusible interfacing.  Why would I expect this to be easy?  So I stood there like a horse with blinders on as my youngest started throwing everything in our cart onto the ground and my oldest started pulling her favorite fabric bolts off the shelf.  Of course, I could have asked someone for their expertise, but that would have been the easy thing to do.  Why would I do that when I can blindly choose one on gut instinct and experiment?  So after loading the cart up again and putting the bolts back on the shelf . . . the light-to-medium fusible interfacing is in my possession, and I plan to start on crayon roll number two sometime soon.  

In the mean time, I am teaching my oldest daughter to use a needle and thread.  For Christmas I put together a sewing basket just for her with a variety of age appropriate sewing projects and other sewing items.  She's been tinkering with the sewing cards and today we tackled her first project . . . a little coin purse.  About 45 seconds into the project she said, "This is hard.  My arms are tired."  But she persevered - with some prodding, and she did finish it - with some assistance.  Then she spent the next thirty minutes turning over every cushion, looking on every shelf, and peering into every bag looking for change to put in said change purse.  All she came up with was one lone penny - it was a plastic penny from the toy cash register.  Poor kid.  

I'd love to know if you have any patterns or suggestions for my next crayon roll.  A friend from the past mentioned that she makes her crayon rolls with placemats.  She called it the cheater method.  Truth be told the cheater method sounds right up my alley.  

Craft on!      

sew stupid

So . . . I chose the crayon roll as my first of twelve crafts till Christmas on the premise that this is a craft that "anyone with a sewing machine can make".  Now, in theory I did make and finish the crayon roll.  (I used the pattern and directions from Cindy at Skip To My Lou.)  Of course, I use the word "make" very literally as in I picked fabrics, cut them, pinned them, did some sewing, undid some sewing, did some more sewing and came up with a finished project . . . finished not necessarily polished.  This picture does not do my many mistakes justice!  However, I also learned some valuable lessons along the way.  Here's four for those of you who would like to learn along with me.

1)  It might be a good idea to have all the recommended supplies.  I didn't have this thing called lightweight fusible interfacing.  Not only did I not have it, I have no idea what it is.  It appears to be used to add some weight and stiffness to the fabric, so I figured I would just use some extra flour sack material that I had on hand.  I think that complicated the sewing process and added some extra bulk that I didn't need.

2)  Using a rotary cutter is not as easy as you might think . . . or maybe I'm just rotary- cutter challenged.  For the life of me, I could not get that thing to cut straight - as you can see from these photos.  All of these fabric pieces were supposed to be the exact same size.  Clearly that is not the case.    

3)  Measuring is important.  So . . . in my life outside of sewing and crafting, I am incredibly Type A.  One of the reasons that I decided to start sewing and crafting was to allow myself to be more creative and not so focused on some ideal of perfection.  Because of this goal, I typically don't get too worked up about measurements when I sew.  However, apparently in many instances measuring is super important.  Who knew?  This particular crayon roll was supposed to have 16 inch-wide slots for crayons.  I, on the other hand, had to modify my crayon roll to a 15 slot roll due to some mismeasuring.  This unfortunately displaces shag-carpet orange from the box of retro colored Crayola crayons I am going to use to fill this crayon roll.  As you can see I just cut off the part that didn't seem to work for me.  That was clearly not Cindy's intention.

4)  Fabric glue is a sew-stupid crafters best friend.  Due to the above mentioned rotary-cutter mishap, I had some edges that needed to be glued shut.  I'm grateful for the invention of fabric glue, and I have a feeling that I will be using it frequently in the year to come.

Well, I have finished my first of twelve crafts; however, I think I'll be taking a couple more shots at this before the month is out.  First on my list of things to do before try number two . . . track down the elusive lightweight fusible interfacing.

Craft on!

to the left, to the left, to the right, to the right . . . let me see your crayon roll!

It's simple.  It's classic.  It's something every child can use.  It's the crayon roll . . . marker roll . . . colored pencil roll.  Who knew a roll could be so versatile?  I think it may be my first craft till Christmas.  I've looked a patterns on multiple crafting blogs, and they all claim that this is one of the easiest projects out there.  One blogger said, "Anyone with a sewing machine can make a crayon roll."  Anyone?  Really?  Hmm . . . I am going to be testing that theory. 

Here are a few variations on the nifty little craft that "anyone with a sewing machine can make."  If you have a sewing machine why not join me in testing this theory.

First, I like Cocoa's crayon roll pattern at Chocolate On My Cranium mostly because I like chocolate and also because I credit Cocoa with giving me the basic skills necessary to make my own blog template.  Thank you Cocoa!

Second, I'm a big fan of Skip To My Lou's crayon roll with vinyl.  Cindy provides three variations on the crayon roll.  You can find links to the other two patterns by clicking the crayon roll with vinyl link.  

Cindy's Crayon Roll - SO CUTE!

Last, but of course not least, I'm loving Serena's version of the roll at Nap Time Crafts.  She actually used Cindy's tutorial but with different dimensions to come up with the colored pencil roll.

So now that I know the craft, I just have to pick the version that's easiest, find my materials and start. 

Craft on!