Baby Dragon

At the beginning of the week we got an invitation to a first birthday party.  I got the text when I was out shopping and made my way to the toy aisle to see what I might get.  I looked around for about 15 minutes and had pretty much made up my mind when I remembered my handmade gift pledge for the year.  I left the toy aisle and headed home. 
This week I started back to work for the first time in about 16 months.  I was feeling really busy and not sure what I could make for this little boy's birthday.  A book I took out of the library a few weeks ago helped though, and last night I started making a crocheted dragon stuffie.  This morning before the party, I had enough time to finish him off and wrap him up.  Hopefully it is well received by the birthday boy (we don't know if he liked it because he didn't open his presents at the party).
I do know that Lily liked it!

What do you think?

Another gift down!

One of my nieces has her birthday a few days after mine; this year she turned 12.  She is really into horses and plays field hockey but at first I wasn't sure what to make for her. 

I searched my favourite craft site craftster.org using the simple search phrase horse and came up with all sorts of inspiration.  Crochet head covers for her horse, a beanie with a mane and ears made to look like a horse, machine appliqués on a tshirt or bag, etc.  One of my favourite inspirations was a pieced quilt pattern.  I am not much of a quilter so I didn't know what I would do with this great image:

In the end, I drew the design out on a letter sized piece of paper and let it stew a while.  Then I added a mane and tail for more interest.  Finally, after much thought and a little research on what favourite colours the birthday girl liked, I decided to put the picture to canvas, then down the side of the canvas I wrote a birthday message. 

 All done!  And looking pretty cool if I do say so myself.  Thanks to my husband for helping out getting enough layers of paint on there to make it look nice and opaque over the black. 

Skull Tree

Here is what became of the paper mache skulls my husband and I made...

You can click to see the photo a bit bigger.  We simply coloured the dried tissue paper mache with felt tip pens in creative sugar skull styles.  They are arranged on dry branches in a big Mexican jug we picked up on clearance at an importer.  I could see this becoming a permanent display!

The large skeleton man is called Gomez and he was purchased as is, we just gave him some flowers and a shrine to hold.

First Crafts of the Year

Mine is one of the first birthdays of the year in our family.  So, what does one make for themselves as a birthday present?  I've been working on Vicki Howell's Helena crochet sweater in a natural/pink/gold variegated yarn.  I'm about 1/8 of the way through.  This is my first piece of crocheted clothing for myself and I'm excited.  Here is a photo of the completed project from the book:

I'm not sure whether or not I'll add an embellishment like you see on the blue one, but I'm thinking not.  The yarn is pretty fancy on it's own...

I'm also having a birthday party this weekend.  Yes, I am over 30 and still like to have a birthday party - they are fun for the kids.  And for me.  This year I'm going for a Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertes vibe.  Last night my husband and I spent about an hour and a half doing paper mache.  I saw a cute idea on the Martha Stewart website (don't judge me, you know she has great ideas) and decided to try it out.  The Glowing Skull Halloween Decorations are pretty cool, I really like how tape is used to create the skull shape from a regular balloon.  We're not going to do the cut outs and LED lights, but draw sugar skull faces on them and perhaps hang them from the roof :)