Again something Floral

I am having busy weeks now, owing to work and household chores. In between I managed to sneak in a few stitches here and there. And the results are …..

Yes, floral coasters.

And no, I didn’t stop at making two.



I made whole two sets of four each. So eight all together.

I don’t have a written pattern. Just worked it out. Will share the pattern if I ever write or draw it J

Hand-Picked

Recently I joined an online community of crafters - ItsHandMade. There you can sell your handmade products. I came across it after a friend referred the site to me. First thing I like about the site was that it is very neat and organized.

I immediately put up a shop and uploaded two items for sale. I am not sure of the visitors or page ranking of the site. Though I haven't sold any yet, I have found some really cool crafty people.

And today, to my delight, I saw that my coaster is on the Handpicked page. No words to express my happiness.

See my coaster set at the left bottom corner?

Red and Blue

Recently I did some yarn shopping. I was not too happy with the colors though. I did not get many colors I had in mind. Still I did buy a bag full of yarn ;-)

Yesterday I took out the red and navy blue out of the lot and started making circles.

Ended them off with a shell edging.

Made a loop to it.

And here is what one looks like.

The other one is like this.

Place a small bowl on it and it looks cute.

The more you add, the cuter they look.

And yes, use them everyday (you can see it on the mug in the picture) :-)

Actually the writing on the mug reads as "Wish it was Sunday everyday." I always hope it was true! The mug was a gift from my Secret Angel in office an year back.

Making these coaster were addictive and super easy. What I particularly enjoyed was the Shell Edging. Add there was very little weaving in the loose ends involved or to be more precise I just had 2 loose ends to weave in. I used the weaving-in technique I blogged about earlier while I stitched. It did save me a couple of minutes and unnecessary yarn snipping.

Grassy-Lush Tablemat

Recently I came across this. Ever since I wanted to make something similar. Though there are instructions on how to make it, I headed over to the PlanetJune blog where I had seen this tutorial earlier. I had some green yarn left over from my Mini Green Blanket. When I started off I was not sure of the project. After some retries, I nailed it! And then there was no turning back!

It was super-easy and didn't take much time. I was able to complete it within a few hours. After all the loops were done, I cut through the loops and I loved every moment of it.

I love the lushness and softness.

The back is just some normal dc rows. I made this one variation from June's tutorial - June used SC stitches to turn over, I used DC stitches.

So I will be making more of these and in bigger sizes.

More Paper Circles

After the Paper Mobile Project, I wanted more of it. So I gathered all the empty milk covers I had been collected over the past few weeks, traced out circles, and began cutting and cutting and cutting. Almost an hour later I had piles of cutout paper circles. I rushed to the sewing machine with the circles and started sewing them together. And then after half an hour I had a looooong string of paper circles.

So what do I do now. I measure, cut, paste, and hang!

Ta-daaah!

Yes, a paper circles curtain.

I was so thrilled throughout the project.

It is more than a week since I completed this project. But still my heart leaps with joy when the circle rotate in the wind.

Cute little Envelopes

Recently when I was in office, I had to make an envelope to put in some delicate stuff. I made the envelope in about 5 minutes from printer paper and stapler pins. Since it was too quick and easy, I felt I should just mention it out on the blog though there might be a lot better envelope ideas out there on the Internet.

Step 1. Gather any paper of your choice to make the envelope (I had some papers remaining from my Paper Mobile project. These were colorful and gave me pleasure at the thought of being able to recycle them.)


Any size would be fine - rectangle or square. As you can see in the picture, the papers are of varying sizes. Towards the end you can see the sizes of the envelopes also, so that you get an idea of the size to be used for your project.

Step 2. Make a fold from one side as shown. It should be a little more than 1/3rd and little less than half of the length of the paper. Let us call this as First Flap.

Step 3. Now fold in the other flap. The newly folded flap overlaps the older flap. Let us call this the Second Flap.


The other side looks like this now.


Step 4. Draw a thin line on the Second flap.


Make sure that the line is well before the edge of the First flap.


Step 5. Cut along the line and let the center portion remain as shown in the picture. The uncut portion will serve as an insert to keep the envelope flap in place. Let us call the uncut portion as the Insert.


Step 6. Now press the Second flap against the First flap and mark the corners of the Insert.


Step 7. Open the flaps and make a cut within the marks on the First flap as shown.


To make the cut you can use a retractable safety blade. You can alternatively use a pin also. Make holes very close to each other using the pin along line you want to cut and then move the pin horizontally to tear along the perforation. Or you can even use a ruler and draw on the line using the pin back and forth. A neat cut will appear after a few drawings.

Step 8. Now fold the First flap back in place and staple along the edges. Alternatively, you can also use gum/glue, tapes, or even sew along the edges.


Step 9. Fold the Second flap and slide the Insert into the cut made at Step 7.


Your envelope is now ready! Put in whatever you want - your bills, earrings, hair clips, pins, and any knick-knacks.

You can also sneak in love-notes for your beloved ones.


And make labels for the envelopes. Love the colorful splash of envelopes I have now.

Organizing!

Organizing is something I love to do. But what makes me sad is that it doesn't stay organized for long! :-( With people like hubby and me, who throw around things, how can I expect my home to be on order. Well, but every other day I would be organizing something or the other.

Since marriage, hubby's socks were a problem. After the laundering, socks are always subjected to get lost, especially when I am a person who keeps on pushing the task of folding the clothes. So I started keeping the socks in a separate box soon after drying out the clothes. Things looked okay for a while.

But we needed further simplification. When almost all your socks pairs are of the similar colors, you usually end up wearing the wrong pairs :-) So I had to come up with a better idea of organizing. After many days of thinking, I finally figured it out.

A cardboard box with compartments in it. I had seen the pretty versions of these in malls earlier. So why not come up with a simpler one on a trial basis. Yes, I was on my heels in no time.

Found an empty box, cut out some cardboard pieces to act as the separators, and glued them in place. When done, it looked like this.




>And when I folded and put in the rightly paired socks into the compartments, they looked like this. Neat!





Well, it was so easy and quick. I intend to do a bigger, better, and neater version of this soon. Will keep you posted.

The Liebster Award

My friend, Raji, from the Thread with Me! blog just presented me an award - the Liebster Award. The word Liebster means 'favorite'. And this award is passed on to the upcoming bloggers.

So I am actually happy that I have an award now.

Now comes the fun part - I need to pass it on to 5 other bloggers... hmmm... Need to decide :-) Let me choose... And here they are:

1. Miss Holly from Seaview Cottage. I came across her blog recently and loved her tutorials.

2. Raji from Raji's Ramblings. Love her blog for the simple and everyday things she blogs about.

3. Narayan from Through the Motions. You can read some genuine and interesting movie reviews here.

4. Kavitha from In This Journey Called Life. To encourage her to write more (;-))and she does have some interesting posts on her blog.

5. Carol from Tapestry Crochet. Head over to her blog for some awesome crochet items and techniques.

And now the rules for the award winners:

• Thank your Liebster Blog Award presenter on your blog.
• Link back to the blogger who presented the award to you.
• Copy and paste the blog award on your blog.
• Present the Liebster Blog Award to 5 blogs of 200 followers or less who you feel deserve to be noticed.
• Let them know they have been chosen by leaving a comment on their blog.

Congrats to all! :-)