How to make a holder for your yarn out of a pop bottle

Hey there fellow crafters! I come bearing a small tutorial for you, it's my first one, hopefully the first of many. First a little background on this tutorial:

My grandmother was a very creative and crafty individual. She taught me and my mom a lot of what we do today. Well, back when my mom was a kid, my grandmother and her cousin came up with this idea on how to hold your yarn so it wouldn't get tangled while you were crocheting or doing some other kind of yarn work. She was a crocheting fool, my grandma. She made afghans, dolls, scarfs, doilies, all kinds of things, so it makes sense that she would come up with this: a pop bottle yarn holder.

All you need for this simple project are the following items:

1 clear plastic pop bottle

1 pair of sturdy scissors 

That's it! For this one, I used an empty Sprite bottle. After all the pop is gone just wash it out with a little soap and water then let it dry for a bit. Once it is dry you are going to cut an oval shaped hole into one side of the bottle like you see in the pictures below:

Make sure the hole is large enough to squeeze skein of yarn in but not too big because it might fall out otherwise. Basically you are done at this point, told you it was simple. Next thing you do is put your skein of yarn into the hole you just cut. Make sure you pull some of the yarn out first because you are going to thread it through the opening in the top of the bottle where the cap used to be. Once you have it threaded, put the rest of the skein in and voila! You have a nifty gadget for your yarn! It should look like this when you are finished:

All you have to do now is start your crocheting project! My mom uses this one. She loves it. She has others as well for when she is working with more than one color at a time. Hope you all found this useful!

It's already been a month!?!

What happened to the time???

I swear, between this post and the last one it seems like I got sucked into some kind of vortex. Mainly because the entire household was gearing up for my daughter's dance nationals competition in Orlando. I would share pics but in truth they aren't spectacular or anything. We went to Disneyworld in between things and it was all kind of a blur. Never again lol.

In the mean time, things have been developing on the business front in certain interesting ways. We are officially showing at Deluxe Indie Craft Bazaar again this year! I am extremely happy about this. We had such a great time at it last year and are much better prepared for things this year. I can't wait to see who all sets up and talk to all the customers. We have also been acknowledged by Zazzle.com as one of their ProSellers! This means something, I am still learning about it, but it is exciting nonetheless. I got a cute little badge to put on our storefront there and I think we will get more traffic because of it, not sure, like I said, still reading on what it all means. So we are slowly growing, which is fantastic! I am glad for all the support and people who like us enough to buy something. It makes me so happy! So thank you!

Been working on small commissions here and there, it's been a lot of fun. Still doing the pin ups. I have lots of examples in the Deviant Art gallery. Working on some bookmarks right now. Going to put them up in the etsy shop in the printables section. Also going to bead some team logos for sale as well.  Gearing up for shows in the fall, that's when we like to do them. Weather is nice and you don't feel like you are going to melt. That's about all for now, let me leave you with a pic of my sis, daughter, and youngest son taking you to the gun show:

Thank you! They'll be here all week! Take care everyone!

Here comes the Catbus

Here are the Totoro shoes from earlier, all colored in and finished. Came out pretty good I think. My daughter loves them, which is good because she is the one who has to wear them.

For some reason Blogger is not letting me upload photos from my computer today so I will have to post the other things later. I had some bags and other things to share but since there are technical glitches beyond my control I will have to do it later.

Still getting ready for the Plaza District Festival next weekend. Really looking forward to it, hopefully I remember to bring my camera so I can share it with everyone later. More to come!

Bead Madness

I have been beading like a maniac for about 2 weeks now, I think. My perception of time is a bit wonky cause I work from home so I never see weekends anymore, but that's a whole other post about the side effects of working in your pajamas every day.

These are for the upcoming Plaza District Festival on October 9th in Oklahoma City.

The top one is going to be a bag and the others are hair pieces. I need to edge them and put them onto some barrettes. Then I decided to show my mess. I have this HUGE stack of drawers that are full of nothing but beads in them. I am slightly shocked though cause when I went through them the other day I realized I am running out of a few colors. I haven't had to buy beads in about 5 years, I buy in bulk, so it was a bit of a surprise to me.

Other than this, I am just trying to get my whole look for my booth together. I haven't had a real booth in a long time and I have changed what I sell so coming up with a cohesive look is stressing me out a bit. I want it to be simple but pleasant to the eye, but not to where it is distracting from what I am selling. The crafts are the stars after all. Until next time, happy creating everyone!

Craft Show Madness

I have been busy the last few weeks getting ready for an upcoming craft show here where I live. I was accepted to have a booth at the Plaza District Festival here in OKC in October. I was busy anyway getting new things made for my Etsy store, but I like making things so I just decided to make more. It is mainly a lot of beadwork. I am making some beaded floral hairpieces, I will show them later when they are finished, and am also beading some hand sewn velvet clutch purses. So for today's show and tell, I have some shoes, a screen in process, and some really cute charm pendants with some of my art work in them.

The shoes I have are just some regular canvas shoes, I am making them for my daughter. She asked me to put Hayao Miyazaki's Totoro characters on them. My Neighbor Totoro is one of our favorite movies to watch as a family and if you haven't ever seen it  you should. So, one of the shoes is Totoro and the other shoe is the Catbus. I haven't painted them yet so they are just drawn in at the time being. I have them on my agenda to do this weekend.

 

  

 

I have another blank pair to do as well, but I am still trying to decide what to put on them. 

T have also been making screens for some shirts I am going to make. I took a pic of me drawing in the design on my Zombie shirt:

 

 

There are two more designs that I am going to have as well, but I figured I will take pics of those after I make the shirts. I do have to say, I love my mod podge after all of this. It is amazing and I will never use anything else.

 

I ordered some resin stickers and some glass cabochons to make pendants with. I spent several hours in Photoshop as well making templates for my pendants so I can put in different designs without having to make new sheets every time. I am going to me making smaller ones as well so I can make charm bracelets with them. The pendants are all 1 inch in size and all the artwork comes from some of my illustrations and doodles I have done. 

 

 

These were a lot of fun to make and a lot easier than I thought they would be.

If you want more information on the show, you can go to their site: http://plazadistrictfestival.com/

More to come!

Craft Show stuff!

I have been meaning to do this update for about a week now. I let things get away from me and lose track of time because my weeks get so crazy with three kids and my new part time job.

I was part of a craft show at my mom's place of business. It was their annual Christmas Craft Show. I tried it last year but was not that successful.
It gave me a year to think about what to do next. I clearly
am not a jewelry maker. Frankly, I hate making it. I do however love to sew things by hand. I spent time at the library pouring over all kinds of books about sewing bags, hats, clothes, you name it, but nothing was really making me feel passionate about making it. That was until I went digging into my grandmothers old craft folders. She has patterns in there from the 1950s! It made me remember how much I loved making dolls with her when I was a kid. So I sat down and sketched some ideas out and then made the patterns for them. I also read a few plush toy books to get some ideas on sewing and materials. Then, I got down to business. I made dolls like crazy. I had to hide them from my kids. They kept trying to steal them, especially the youngest one. I made them out of felt, fuzzy fake fur, velvet, and canvas. I dug up my embroidery thread and my buttons and just had a great time. I also painted a few with acrylics. I worked like crazy to get my stuff done for the show. Day of the show and I can say I did much better this time. So now I am sharing my little creations with you. I still have some left over and they are going to go up for sale in the Etsy store.

I have a few more ideas, I know definitely the big dolls are getting made in more colors and in a bigger quantity next time. I sold all but one of them! I am also going to work on more screenprinting and block print note cards. My plan is to enter more shows this year and have fun meeting new people. I have to get out of my cave some time! Here are the rest of the pics. Make sure to check out the Etsy store some time in the next day or two because I will be posting the rest of my stock there.