Another Crayon Melt Art (Golden Snitch)

Golden Stitch "I Open at the Close"

           1. Pick the crayons that you wish to use. I snap mine in half to get more width out of the crayons. They are so long that you don't need a whole crayon worth of wax to melt down the board.

          2. Get a hot glue gun and glue the crayons along the top of the board. You can peel the wrapper off if you want, but I like to leave mine on. Make sure you have glue sticks near by because you will use up glue quickly. 

           3. Print a picture that is simple, like a silhouette and and cute painter's tape into the shape you want. The simpler the shape the easier it is to cut and remove later.

           4. Place the painter's tape on the board where you would like the negative image to be.

           5. Put paper up in the location where you would like to melt the crayons. I've found that the melting is not too messy, but the paper makes it a lot more worry feel. at the end you can just pick up all the paper and throw the mess away.

          6. A picture of it sitting right before I melt it.

          7. Melt the crayons. This can take 30 mins to an hour with a blowdryer and is messier or about 20 mins with a heat gun. If you hold it too close the crayons will splatter. so hold about 6-8 inches away and be patient. you want to full cover your negative image and make sure to go a bit below it to make your negative image clear. 

           **If you are using a heat gun avoid heating the tape too much or it will melt and become hard to remove.** 

          8. Then while the crayons are still kinda soft but not liquid, remove the tape. a pair of tweezers may help with this step. 

Above is the finished product =) 

Classic Crochet Gameboy Backpack

             As you may remember I made a orange game boy bag last year. A friend of a friend saw it and requested a classic one.

            So Viola! A classic game boy bag =) I love this one even more then mine, because its just so cute! It is slightly smaller than mine but better to scale with a real game boy. I think it is also better constructed because the first version of anything is always a bit of a mess.

            It is the perfect size for 2 skeins of my favorite brand of yarn and is a perfect yarn bag because It will stretch if an excessive amount of weight is applied. My goal is to learn how to line them so that they can support more weight. A cute Tetris or Pokemon fabric would be perfect.

Finished product! =)

So that's all for today =) If anybody has any tips on learning to line a bag just let me know down below =) Post again soon

Zombie Apocalypse Cross Stitch

Slowly but surely building a chase scene :)

            

Tardis Crayon Melt Art

This was actually kinda fun :) It took hours to melt the crayons, but it's interesting so it doesn't get boring like you think it might.

I got a Tardis blue presentation board, because they didn't have any foam boards of the right color. I then set out the crayons I wanted to used from a box of old ones we had sitting around the house. Then I set them in the order I wanted at the top to make sure I had enough. 

After this you simply pick up each crayon, apply hot glue, and stick it to the board. To get the Tardis (but this would work with any basic shape) I made a square of painters tape. One layer of tape perpendicular to the other. I then used a picture I got off google and an exacto knife to cut the tape into a tardis shape. 

Then simply attach the shape anywhere you want it on the board and begin melting crayons.
I found that the completely unwrapped crayons melted the fastest, but also fell off toward the end.

While the crayons are still soft, peel the tape off, and TADAA!!! I hope you have fun =) I got the basic idea of the technique here 

This is mine =)

Christmas Gifts I Made This Year

              The first gift I worked on this holiday season was my sister Britney's weather scarf. She is going to school for meteorology, so I thought it would be cute if she could tell the weather everyday with her scarf. I'm glad she liked it and I look forward to seeing it in her outdoor weather casts in the future.

              The second gift I finished was this skull scarf for my sister Magan. She was unavailable to model it so Mike was kind enough to volunteer. There are skull beads crocheted into the fabric and the ends of the scarf are about 5 inches of just black with no skulls. 

                 The next one, Meredith sent me a picture of some finger less gloves that she liked. They had scales and changed color fluidly as the went up. Unfortunately the author of the image did not include a pattern so I had to wing it. This is my result, they do not change colors as fluidly, but I think they have a neat look. She liked them and that's all that's important. I really liked them so even if she didn't I would hang on to them =)

                For her boyfriend, who is the before mentioned Mike, I made a blue and white hat. He gave me the yarn a couple weeks ago, so I gave it back to him in the form of a scarf. 

This is the last big gift I finished was this cat for my nanny. The body is just a rectangle folded and sewed together to make legs. The head is a hourglass shaped piece, folded in half, and sewn. The ears are made by pushing the poly-fil out of the corners and sewing across

I found the pattern here: http://marmaladerose.blogspot.com/2009/04/crochet-kitten-pattern.html

I also made a lady bug bookmark, but unfortunately I don't have a picture of it. Post again soon =)

Crocheting Cables

I have been wanting to make cables for a long time now and finally looked up how to do them in crochet :) normally it is primarily associated with knitting and since I am not very good at knitting I am glad it can be replicated in crochet. I think These will eventually make very nice finger-less gloves.

 I found the basic instructions at http://crochet.about.com/library/weekly/aa062798.htm  . The cable itself is front and back post stitches, where you skip 3 stitches and then go back after doing the next 3 stitches. The fabric on either side of the cable is made up of half-double crochets.

Reengineering a Pattern my Grandmother Taught me

Years ago when I was about 10 my grandmom was having trouble finishing the baby blanket for one of my cousin's babies. So she taught me the pattern which she called the shadow box stitch and I finished it under her guiding hand. She made these baby blankets with a beautiful pastel rainbow yarn and since then I have been looking for the pattern. I have been unable to find it, but today while messing around I was able to partially recreate it :) I think it came out pretty ok and makes me want to whip up some rainbow colored baby blankets.