One of our favorite Fall crafts to make is the pinecone birdfeeder. The boys love it because they can get messy and sticky and play with the birdseed!

Supplies:
Peanut Butter
Cornmeal
Pinecones
Scrap Yarn or string or twine (or whatever you want to use to hang up the pinecone birdfeeder)
Bird Seed
Butter knife or something to use to spread the peanut butter mixture onto the pinecone

We have a lot of pine trees in our yard so we are able to just go outside and pick the pinecones we need right off of our lawn. I then get together the peanut butter and cornmeal. I’m not sure of the exact reasoning behind it but I have always been told to mix the cornmeal into the peanut butter because the birds need the cornmeal to help digest the peanut butter. I have no idea how factual that is or isn’t but I add the cornmeal because I don’t want to take the chance of making a bird sick! The amount of peanut butter that you want to use just depends on how many pinecone birdfeeders you want to make. When I add the cornmeal I usually add about half of the amount of cornmeal compared to the peanut butter. I like to be able to see the cornmeal in the peanut butter after I mix it.

Peanut Butter mixed with cornmeal

Once the peanut butter and cornmeal are mixed I tie yarn to the pinecones so that we will be able to hang them on the trees. We have found out by experience that it is better to tie the yarn onto the pine cone before you spread the peanut butter on it. It’s not so messy that way. Depending on the age of your child, you can have them help you tie the yarn onto the pinecones.

All ready to put together

Once the yarn is attached to the pinecones you can go ahead and spread the peanut butter/cornmeal mixture onto the pinecones. I use a butter knife but the boys use their kids’ safety knifes that are smooth. You could probably even use a popsicle stick or a craft stick too. We like to spread the peanut butter mixture pretty thick so that we can stick a lot of birdsead to it.

Peanut Butter and Cornmeal Mixture

Once the peanut butter mixture is on the pinecone you can pour birdseed over it. We keep our birdseed in a big bucket so that it’s easier to fill our birdfeeders so sometimes the boys will pour the birdseed over the pinecone and other times we just drop the pinecone into the bucket of birdseed and roll it around. I lightly pat the birdseed onto the peanut butter so that the pinecone gets pretty full.

Pouring the birdseed on the pinecone

Completed Pinecone Birdfeeder

Once you have finished putting the birdseed on your pinecone birdfeeder you just need to hang it up. We just hang them up on various trees in our yard. I love to see the pinecone birdfeeders hanging in the trees because I always remember how much fun the boys had making them and hanging them up. Some of the pinecone birdfeeders are hung up high by mom and dad but a lot of them are down on lower branches where the boys can reach to hang them up.

Hanging up the pinecone birdfeeders

This is a fun and simple Fall craft project that we like to do every year and that my mother did with my brother and I as children. I tried doing this last year with the boys and we did it in the kitchen. I think that I was cleaning up birdseed for a week! This is definately an outside project or, at least, in the garage. I learned that from experience!

This past weekend Tom and I took the boys to the local civic center to make Scary Cottages. We did this last year too and the boys enjoyed it so much we signed up for it again.

When you arrive you have half a table reserved for your family and you sign up in advance for how many cottages you want to decorate. Since the boys are still so small one cottage is plenty for us to decorate. Each boy does half of it with help from mom and dad and it works out just fine. Once you find your table you have a cottage made out of cardboard and you are given two containers of chocolate frosting, all kinds of candy and some halloween decorations to decorate your scary cottage. Of course the boys had to sample the candy first!

The boys dug right in with the icing. Since the chocolate icing was pretty thick they took duct tape and taped two popsicle sticks together for added strength so that it was easier to ice the house without the stick breaking. The favorite part for the boys to decorate first is the roof probably because the roof is the easiet part for them to reach.

Mom and Dad enjoy making the Scary Cottage too so we decorated what we could. Once the boys were done and went to play with the other kids at some of the other activities that were set up, Mom and Dad were able to do a bit more decorating too! This year they gave each family some spanish moss to use as grass around the cottage so we added some of that when we were all done and it really tied the whole thing together. They gave us green cotton to use in the chimney so that it looked like smoke. Since so much of the decorations were edible we had to make sure that the boys understood that the cotton for the chimney smoke was actually cotton and not cotton candy!

In the end I think that we had a great Scary Cottage. However, I am having some doubts as to whether or not the Scary Cottage will make it to Halloween. Almost every time that the boys go into the kitchen and see it sitting on the table they try to take a little piece of candy off of it. By Halloween there may be nothing left!

I am all about accessories. I enjoy wearing fashion jewelry, cute shoes and I love purses and bags so why not accessorize my knitting? After many years of knitting I have collected a lot of cute knitting accessories. I really like the Della Q bags so I have one to carry most of my accessories. I have had a few cute tape measures over the year such as a sheep, a bumblebee and a hot pink round one. I like beaded stitch markers and I have a couple of knitting pins on my accessory bag.

As you can see, I enjoy knitting accessories almost as much as I enjoy knitting. Then I heard about The Knit Kit.

The Knit Kit contains your basic knitting supplies all in one neat little plastic container that is so easy to carry in your knitting bag, even a small knitting bag. I was really excited about The Knit Kit but then I did not know what to do with all of my cute accessories. When I looked at The Knit Kit I saw that you received a row counter, crochet needle, yarn cutter, tape measure, stitch markers, point protectors and scissors all neatly packaged together in pink and white. When The Knit Kit came out in turquoise it also included a tapestry needle and the crochet hook had not only the larger hook on one end of the needle but a smaller hook on the other end of the needle. I have seen another Knit Kit in black but I already had two so I did not buy it so I am not sure if there is anything different in that one.

When I originally purchased my first Knit Kit I carried it along with my accessory bag because I was not about to give up that bag just yet. Over time I found myself only using The Knit Kit. I finally conceeded to the fact that I only used The Knit Kit so let’s put the cute accessory bag away. I even purchased a second Knit Kit for my other knitting bag as I usually have a larger project and a smaller project going at the same time. I also replaced the stitch markers in The Knit Kit with some of my beaded ones. Sometimes when I have a project that may require additional items such as stich holders and cable needles I will also carry my accessory bag. Otherwise, I usually just carry my Knit Kit.

I would highly recommend The Knit Kit, especially if you are working on a smaller project or just need something simple to take on a car ride where you might have some knitting time. I also like that if I just take a partial project with me in a smaller bag I can just grab my Knit Kit and go. So, for me, while I really like my accessory bag with all of its cute items, the one item that I probably use the most and like the most in that bag is my Knit Kit.

I would love to hear your views on The Knit Kit. Is it something that you use or would like to try? Or would you prefer to stay with your accessory bag?

My boys love to paint so when I found these Jar-O-Lanterns in the Disney Family Fun magazine I decided that we should give it a try.

I started out by collecting some jars in various sizes for the boys to paint. I like to can apples so we have a lot of canning jars so we just used those. I did not have any masking tape but I found double-sided carpet tape in my Husband’s workshop so we used that and just used one sticky side of the tape. I bought 2 bottles of orange acrylic paint from the craft store for 50 cents a bottle. I then bought the battery operated candles. I have never purchased those candles before and I thought that they were a bit on the expensive side. However, Gabriel was helping me to look and he found some on the clearance rack for 50 cents each. They were even shaped like little pieces of candy! The boys were so excited to start the project when we got home that I barely had time to get their paint shirts on them. I tried to cut out the faces for the jars but the boys were starting to paint faster than I could cut the tape so that is why our jar-o’-lanters have no mouths on them.

We used foam paintbrushes from the craft store which were only 20 cents a piece. We poured the paint onto paper plates and started painting. We painted over the tape and everything. After the boys went to bed and the jars were dry I peeled off the tape and put in a candle and the jar-o’-lanterns were so cute!

When the boys woke up the next morning they went straight to the jars to see if they were dry. We turned on the battery operated candles and they took them into the closet to see what they looked like in the dark. They each fell asleep that night with a jar in each of their rooms! We really enjoyed doing this project and are even thinking of doing some red and green jars for Christmas.

How do you organize your projects? Right now my projects are spread out all over. Eventually, our two boys will share a bedroom once my youngest is out of his crib and into a toddler bed. Once they start sharing a room I will be turning the extra room that my youngest son is currently using into a craft room/office.

I currently have my knitting and my sewing projects spread out in two different areas. When it comes to knitting, what I usually do is keep my current knitting project in my knitting bag with a second knitting project in a second knitting bag. I am really into bags! For example, right now I have my sweater project in my big knitting bag and then a scarf for my Step-Father in my smaller knitting bag. As for my other knitting projects, I have a couple of them that I would like to do in the near future so they are in one drawer of my yarn stash. I keep my yarn in one of those plastic 3 drawer storage units and I have two of those that I keep in my closet. By keeping my stash in my closet it keeps my boys out of it. They love to play with the yarn so I give them my left over yarn but my good yarn stays in my closet! I keep one drawer of my yarn storage dedicated to projects that I really want to do. Sometimes the project happens and sometimes it doesn’t and then the yarn and pattern goes back into my stash if I decide to put the project on hold.

Then there is my sewing. Currently, I set up my sewing machine in the dining room. Since we have an eat-in kitchen we do not use the dining room much so I am able to keep my sewing set up in there for awhile before I need to put it away. I usually have my current project spread out on my cutting board on the table (when it’s opened up to it’s full length the table is real long) and then another project usually sitting on the corner.

When my projects start to get too large in number then I usually write them out on a list in the order that I would like to complete them. Of course, this gets modified alot depending on whether or not I find a new pattern, yarn or fabric.

The more crafters I talk to the more I find out that they too have many project going on at one time. How about you? Do you find that you have multiple projects going on at one time or do you focus on one project, finish it and then move onto the next? I would love to hear how others handle their project organization.

On Sunday nights I like to take some time to reflect on the weekend and to go over my calendar for the upcoming week. This weekend we said goodbye to the Lake for the summer. Now we are looking forward to staying cozy during the winter months in our home and working on all of those crafts and projects that we have put off all summer.

Today I decided to use up some scrap fabric and make a scarf. I used a piece of fleece left over from my fleece blanket project and I used a leftover piece of fabric. I cut a strip from each piece 43″x 8″ long. Now that I have the scarf completed I feel that it is a bit wide as an accessory scarf. Next time I make it I would only cut it 5″ wide instead of 8″ wide.

Once I cut out the pieces I stitched them together with right sides together using a 1/2″ seem and leaving a couple inch opening so that I could turn the scarf. Once I finished stitching around the scarf I turned it right side out. I then topstitched around the entire scarf using a 1/4″ seam which also allowed me to stitch the scarf closed.

Once I finished the scarf I decided to add some yarn flowers to it using the Hana-Ami flower loom that I posted about yesterday.

The fleece against my neck is actually very warm and the flowers brighten it up a bit and add some style to it.

This past week I just purchased a Hana-Ami flower loom at Michaels craft store. A friend of mine had purchased one and she really liked it. I knew I had to have one for myself when she showed me how pretty her flowers turned out. They really look nice as an embellishment to a scarf, a bag or an outfit.

When I first brought the Hana-Ami flower loom home I opened the package right up.

The loom came with a covered plastic case, a base, 3 circular looms, 2 square looms, 1 hexagon loom, 1tapestry needle and instructions on how to use the loom.

I used some scrap worsted weight yarn that I had leftover from other projects. I also used some leftover cotton but I felt that the worster weight looked better than the cotton did when the flower was finished. I was very excited to try my new loom but I had was having some trouble understanding the directions. While the directions theemselves were good it was difficult to see the pictures of the descriptions. I really wanted to make a flower so I went online and found three tutorials that greatly helped me. Each tutorial built upon the previous one and was shown in 3 parts at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZuw9qx7of4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B5OA7FU7o4&feature=related and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-vKipcqxS4&feature=related. Once I watched these tutorials and reviewed the dirctions one more time I had a much better understanding as to how the loom worked.

First I tied a not in my yarn about 4 inches before the end of the yarn. I then slipped the yarn through one of the slits that is located on each side of the base. I then secured the yarn by putting it in the tiny slit that is under the larger slit that I had just pulled the yarn through. I pulled the yarn through the tiny slit up to the point of the knot that I put in the yarn. While the tiny slit does help to keep the yarn in place I found that I still needed to keep my finger on that piece of yarn for a few wraps to keep it from pulling out.

Starting point - yarn knotted and slipped into the slit

At that point I began to wind the yarn around the pegs on the loom. I went to the peg directly across from where I had my yarn in the slit, wrapped it around the peg clockwise and then came back down to the peg by the slit and wrapped the yarn clockwise around that peg. I then went up diagonally to the peg to the right of the last peg that I wrapped on the top, wrapped it around the peg clockwise and then went back down diagonally to the peg to the left of the peg that I did last time on the bottom. I continued in this fashion until I came back around to the slit where my yarn was knotted. I ended up having two loops on each peg.

This is after all of the pegs have been wrapped

When I finished the wrapping I cut the yarn leaving a few inches for a tail. I then tied a knot, like a shoelace knot, by using the two strands of yarn.

The next thing that I did was to secure the yarn flower together by stitching the center. I threaded the tapestry needle with a different color yarn and I then put the needle through the center of the flower by coming up through the bottom of the base. I then kept a tail of yarn under the base and held onto it with my finger for a few stitches. Once I pulled the yarn through the center of the flower I put the needle inbetween two of the pedals/pegs, slid it towards the center of the flower and then pushed it through the bottom hole of the base. I repeated this process until I had gone all around the loom. I did a few extra stitches to make sure that it was good and secure.

Beginning to secure the yarn in the center of the flower

I then untied the knot on the base and then took the loom and flower off of the base.

The loom and the flower removed from the base of the loom

At this point you must still leave the flower on the loom. I then secured the two strands of yarn that are securing the center of the flower. I weaved in the ends but I also like to tie a knot because I feel that the knot is more secure, but that is just my opinion. I did the same thing with the two strands of yarn from the petals of the flower.

Securing the yarn underneath the flower

Once all of the yarn was secured then I popped the yarn off of the loom and the flower was done.

Finished flower

This flower is just the basic flower. You can add the other looms to make a flower with a couple of layers and backstitch the two flowers together. You can also make smaller flowers, square flowers and hexagon flowers. There seems to be so many possibilities to the different kinds of flowers that you can make.

Using the loom does take a bit of practice. Although I like to use mine while I’m sitting and watching television, I have found that the loom is easier to work with when I am sitting down at the table with it.

Overall, I really like this flower loom and I would recommnend it.

I made my first no-sew fleece blanket last Spring. My mother had made one for each of my boys to use at her house and they really liked them. I bought the fleece at Joann Fabrics and made the blankets for both boys and they loved them. When I was shopping at Joann Fabrics a few weeks ago I came across fleece that had a school days theme. I decided to buy it and make a blanket for the boys’ preschool teacher for Christmas.

When I make these blankets I lay out the front and the back of the fleece, with wrong sides together, on the floor on top of the cutting board. I find it best to do this after my kids are in bed. I then slide the cutting board around under the fleece so that the corner of the fleece blanket lines up with the one-inch squares on the cutting board. At that point I cut out a 6 or 7 inch square from the corner of the blanket and repeat the same process on all four corners.

Fleece fabric with the corners cut out

Once the corners are cut out I slide the cutting board out from under the fleece and I lay it on top of the fleece. I fold over one side of the blanket so that you no longer see the cut out corners on that side and I slide the cutting board right up to the fold. I line up the cutting board so that the edge of the folded fabric will line up with a one-inch square on the cutting board. Once I have everything lined up I then use the one-inch squares on the cutting board as a guide to cut a fringe in the fleece. I cut from the bottom of the fabric up to the fold. Keeping the cutting board under the fabric allows you to cut the fringe without having to mark the fabric every inch. I find that it just makes the process go a bit faster. Once the fringe has been cut all of the way across I slowly push the cutting board into the fold and then the fringe is eventually pushed off of the cutting board and lies flatly on the floor. By doing it this way the fleece fabric will not shift all over and the fringe will line up nice and flat. Repeat this process on the other three sides.

Cutting board pushed again fold in fabric and fringes are cut

Once the fringe is cut it is time to knot the top and bottom pieces of the fabric together. Instead of tying a knot where you just cross the two pieces of fabric over each other, much like tying a shoe, I choose to do more of an overhand knot. I hold the two pieces of fleece fringe together and wrap it over the top of my finger and back through the opening in the fabric under my finger. I then slowly slide the knot up to the edge of the blanket. If you do it too fast the knot will get tight before you reach the edge of the blanket and then your knots will not be even. Tying the knots in this fashion also allows for the knots to lay a bit flatter and look a little smoother.

Once you tie the knots in all of the fringe you are finished! You now have a nice and warm fleece blanket. When my boys’ fleece blankets need to be washed I usually just wash them on cold and put them in the dryer to dry them. Sometimes a knot or two will come undone but I just check it when I take it out of the dryer to make sure that any undone knots are knotted again.

Finished blanket

I really enjoy making these blankets because they are so soft and cozy and are really not a lot of work and they do not take a lot of time. I have bought some Christmas fleece for the boys and will be making them Christmas blankets for them. Since they enjoy the fleece so much I also have some fleece to make them each robes but that will be a project for another post.

Crafts have always been a part of my life for as far back as I can remember. My Great-Grandmother, Grandmother and Mother all loved to do various crafts and they handed down their love of crafts to me.

Four generations of crafters

When I was a little girl my Great-Grandmother would crochet house slippers for all of us kids. Each year as we grew she would crochet us new ones. I saved the last pair that she made for me and will always treasure them.

My Grandmother used to sew, crochet, cross-stitch and needlepoint. This was the Serenity Prayer that she cross-stitched and it hung in her kitchen for years. Even whey my Grandparents moved this Prayer was put up in their new kitchen.

When I was born my Grandmother made me a baby quilt which she sewed and cross-stitched. My Mother saved it for me and gave it to me when I had my children. Of course I had boys but I still use it because it was from my Grandmother.

I remember as a little girl sitting next to my Grandmother’s sewing machine while she was sewing her chicken doorstops. She used to make chicken doorstops and she would sell them at craft shows. I used to go to a lot of the craft shows with her too. When I would sit next to her sewing machine sometimes I would just watch her sew or I would rearrange all of the pins in her pincushion. I also used to use her tailor’s chalk to draw on scrap fabric. I will always cherish those times with her.

My Mother also enjoyed sewing along with knitting. She attempted to teach me to knit but I did not like it. When I was an adult I became interested in knitting again and now I have been knitting for about 10 years. My Mother taught me how to knit again and this time I really enjoyed it. My Mother still knits so we have fun going to yarn shops and sharing patterns and yarn.

My Mother used to sew most of our clothes when we were growing up. She had the sewing machine set up in her bedroom and while she would be sewing on her machine my brother and I would set up her cutting board against her bed and race his Matchbox cars down the front of it.

As for me, I enjoy knitting and sewing the most. I used to do counted-crosstitch but I do not seem to have as much time to work on that anymore. I knit this blanket a number of years ago. It is pretty but the mohair is somewhat scratchy so we use it more as a decoration.

I am so grateful to my family for sharing with me their love of crafts. I have learned so much from them and have so many treasured memories. My boys, who are 3 and 4 years old, also enjoy making crafts. We made these paper bag puppets a couple of weeks ago.

The boys also like making playdough, painting and anything that has glue involved. I hope to share with them my love for crafts and to teach them to create their own creations.

Thank you to my Great-Grandmother, Grandmother and Mother for sharing with me your crafting skills.