Crafty Holiday Wrap-up

Craft punches by Martha Stewart, cards from Papyrus,

pink wrapping paper from Target, white and red paper from 
The Container Store

Better a belated holiday wrap-up than never!  What with such a range of prices for gift wrap this year I got a few different designs for a little holiday splurge and wrapped up my gifts, handmade and otherwise.

When I knit a hat for my Dad last year from Lion Brand Vanna's Choice in Taupe Mist it only fit Guinness the dog, so I tried again for Christmas...it sorta fit, but quite snugly -- gee, a gauge swatch really is a good idea!  Off to buy more yarn and a new pattern, here's to hoping 3rd time's a charm.

I made my sister Emily a lace applique tank very similar to mine.

And used the Heather Prime Alpaca I got back in October from ImagiKnit in San Francisco

to make her a fluffy pink Diamond Knit Cowl from a beautiful pattern by Susan St. Martin.

And THIS actually fit (much easier)!  I whole-heartedly recommend Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind-Off, a really nice finishing touch. 

The tank and cowl got wrapped up in little, pink packages with Martha Stewart craft punch Icelandic snowflakes.

I liked that her gift to me was wrapped so the penguin was peeking out around the little gold bow.

Feeling a little chilly myself I started a cowl for me with 2 huge balls of heavy grey wool my Aunt Jean sent me as part of a big box of craft supplies donated to my blog! 

It seemed the perfect yarn for the chunky seed stitch pattern of the GAP-tastic cowl by Jen Geigley.  I got about 1/3 through before running out of yarn (mental note: this and the hat fiasco proving I must work on more accurate yarn-age estimates...) but no worries, it's quite wide.

I can drape it twice around my neck and hopefully stave off these cold, cold days we've been having in NYC.  

Happy New Year crafting!

Adorn Me

Finally made something this week: a lace applique tank from this great and easy tutorial from Ruffles and Stuff (a fantastic blog, LOVE!)  That's also the necklace by Lauren Haupt that I posted about before.  I always make things when I have the least amount of time, like Christmas and Valentine's and Easter, guess I like the pressure, so I've been zipping all over town gathering trimmings and adornments for a work project (and fitting some exploring in at the same time):

The flower market is just bursting with peonies lately, I've been in awe.

And saw this little, pink pouf, not sure what it is, but it was pretty cute.

Then I headed to Beads of Paradise on 17th Street, which I mentioned in my first resources post.

Their selection is really quite varied: so many colors and sizes and materials and all different price ranges, my thanks to the very patient staffer who helped me!  My search also took me to Beads World, Inc. on Broadway between 37th & 38th where they have a huge array you could pore through for hours:

and close by on 6th Ave to Toho Shoji where there were even more beads, beads and more beads!:

I also found CJS (Crafts, Jewelry Supplies) on the 2nd Floor of 16 West 36th Street -- piles and piles of boxes all being unpacked and organized, who knows the treasures that could be all around.  This was on my way to Gettinger Feather.

I learned from Dan Gettinger that they only supply feathers from farm-raised fowl, not from the wild, and we chatted about the different feathers from different kinds of birds, fascinating!

Over at M&J Trimming there are walls and walls of lace, appliques, ribbons, threads, tassels, fringe, braids, rhinestones, sequins, amazing....and a whole room of buttons! 

The saleswoman who helped me was so sweet even though I had no idea what I was doing, and she happily cut me 1/2 a yard each of two styles of black Venice lace.  

Got a little lost on 37th Street on the way to my next stop, but passed Stretch House, Inc. (now I know where to find spandex!) and Kiki Riki (I'd like to make a pastel pink mini skirt!)

But finally I made it to Mood Fabrics, THE go-to-place on Project Runway.

SO inspiring: all of the colors and textures and materials, solids, prints, stripes, shirting, weaves, silks...I had so many questions!  I eyed the fancy lace:   

but ultimately was there for a more sheer fabric and decided on 1/2 a yard of silk chiffon.

I made sure to pet the shop's adorable dog, who I've loved since I saw him in this tutu pic.  I was also looking for fusible to meld my lace applique onto my tank top and the very nice staff directed me to find double-sided fusible at Steinlauf & Stoller, Inc. just 2 blocks uptown:

And they have a fantastic supply of sewing notions, threads, needles, zippers and more.  So, at last I had enough of a haul to head back to the office:

Yep, that's a real ostrich egg with real feathers: different sizes come from different parts of the bird.  And we needed gold and black beads so I had a bunch:

And at home I looked over my findings:

Might not look like too much now, but I have some nice plans for these things.  The tank was adorned in just minutes and I was so happy that I wore it for yet another day of work today.

Easter Wrapup

Hope everyone had a Happy Bunny Day!  There sure are a lot of baby bunnies in this shop window.

and over at Amy's Bread there were bunny-shaped loaves for sale.

I remember all the years my Mom made this Easter bread out of sweet dough and candied fruit.  I loved the sprinkles and dyed eggs that covered the glaze on top.

She always had great Easter projects: a bunny cake, Easter egg tree, ducky lollipops, chocolate covered peanuts and raisins that we boxed up to give to grandparents, teachers and friends.  I wish I had pictures of all of it, but it's so much harder to sort through prints than to scroll through your digital photo library, but here's one.

This year I had a few projects in mind too.  I started out with 3 sizes of lace doilies from the amazing Boutross Imports in Brooklyn.  Mike and his mother Mary are so sweet that when they sent my package it had candy inside too!

Then I had to find containers that were about the right size to fit each one

because

with a little fabric stiffener they were going to wear them like litle bonnets.

not to make little hats, but when they dried they were little bowls!  Thanks to this Martha Stewart tutorial.

Next I needed to blow out some eggs, kinda messy!  I was really doing more of the pierce-egg-shake-rinse-with-water to get all the yolk out method, but eventually it worked.  The boyfriend tried not to be too horrified when he found this scene on Saturday morning.

and he was also patient enough to help me dye them on our way out the door to enjoy a beautiful, warm, sunny weekend.  This looks like an egg tree, or egg lollipops, but I was just trying to dry them.

Then I cut out designs from some pretty paper napkins

to decoupage the blown out eggs, thanks again to Martha. 

And the Easter Bunny, I mean boyfriend's daughter, left us some cute bunny cards this morning.

and we definitely have more than a few made out of chocolate in the house too.  Not sure those will last too long though...