Holiday Crafting Round-Up.

These are some smalls gifts that I made for friends at Christmas time.

Embroidery and colored pencil on moleskin notebook.  I used the Tara McPherson pattern (Artist Series #10) from Sublime Stitching.

 

Embroidered fabric and bristol paint chip on moleskin notebook.  I used the Handmade Nation pattern from Sublime Stitching.

Next up are some ATCs that I made on New Year's Eve.  As we were taking a friend to the airport shuttle at 2:30 AM, there was no wild and crazy party for us.  I know, I lead an exciting life.

The last card of 2009- Random

 Watercolors and embroidery floss on Bristol.  Sam aka Sunnysidey was my inspiration for this one.  Everything she makes looks so bright and fun!

1st card of 2010- Banana Pancakes

 Paper clippings, beads and embroidery floss on Bristol.  The stack of banana pancakes is the piece of junk mail, so this card officially carries the Coupon Series over on into 2010.  I'm having a lot of fun with these.  Remember- waste not, want not.  Although that was my motto for 2009, I think I'm going to stick by it for this next year.  It's a good one.

If you don't understand this card, maybe this will help :)

2nd card of 2010- Fetch

Paper clippings and thread on Bristol.

This is also part of the Coupon Series as the picture of the dog came from junk mail.  I made the little newspaper from a few scraps from a local newspaper.

I love the headline.

It's soooo true.  Santa Rosa is home to glorious beers.  My favorite being Pliny the Elder, at the Russian River Brewing Co.

Thanks for looking.  Have a craftastic day!

p.s.  Have you entered the giveaways?!  There's two, sign up for both!

Made this in a Jiffy!

Wow, I'm almost as lame as my titles.  Oh well, at least I can admit it.  I'm big on recycling, so I like to save things I can make into cute stuff.  Like this little notebook for example.  I saw a similar notebook in a magazine a long time ago, but I've been making them since I was a kid.  I have tons of sugary cereal sketchbooks from back in the day.   My fav?   The  Froot Loops one with rainbow construction paper, hell yeah.  Thank goodness my man borrowed the paper-cutter from his work when I decided that I absolutely needed to make notebooks.  It made it so easy, I see a new investment item for my future. What can I say, I work in spurts.

Yep, more of that polka dot tissue paper. As well as some vintage gingham ribbon from my stash.  For this one, I just used my staple gun to bind it together (hence the ribbon to cover up the ugly staples!)  I'm really happy with this one.  The next one, not so much, lol.

I also made one from a 6 pack of my favorite beer, Racer 5.  Man, I'm so lucky to live in an area known for it's micro-brews.  Shop local!  For this one I actually stitched the paper together.  I didn't really know what I was doing so I doubt it's actually the "correct" way to bind it.  I attached the covers separately, I don't plan to do this in the future.  Sewing all the way through the next ones.  The edges are trimmed with vintage bias tape from my stash.

 

Inside I added silly little collages to cover the ugly cardboard.

 

The glittery Bee Keeper.

 

Sailor Jerry, tattoo artist and rum purveyor extraordinaire, on vacation at the Grand Canyon.

   

For some reason, when making things for myself I'm not so concerned with neatness.  That's what happened with my beer one.  This is one case where Modge-Podge was not my friend.  The inside collages demonstrate this well, haha, but then again I was just using the regular kind.  Maybe I need to venture out and use one of the specialized ones.  Oh well, I'll still use it.  I guess I figure since I'm a messy klutz no sense in making it perfect.  However, when making things as gifts or for clients I obsess over every little detail.  When it comes to everything else I'm a perfectionist, just not myself.  Go figure.