Make Something Monday: (almost) No-sew Braided T-shirt Collar

finished braid, with rouching effect!

I came across this fairly simple idea for updating/fancifying a t-shirt: creating a braid around the neck opening using the fabric of the shirt itself. Her inspiration came from a picture she'd seen on pinterest of a Banana Republic shirt with two rows of "braid" around the front of the collar.

G came over on Monday night with Odin to hang out so we decided this might be a low-key craft to do, and it seems to be follow our current theme of t-shirts.

Make Something Monday: T-shirt produce bags

. . . and other updates.

A while ago, my sister and I had decided to establish a weekly crafting routine on Monday nights (my last class ends by 5, and I have the evening free from dorm-parenting duties). This weekly crafting idea comes from my friend Nicole from ME, who has been holding "Too Cute Tuesdays" off and on over the past several years. She started after she moved off the island, so I never got to be a part of them. She and her crew have made a lot of cool things over the years that I keep meaning to try my hand at (the Fabric To Go boxes I made last spring came from a craft she had posted about). Winter being winter (and colds, and lack of planning) has kept us from actually starting up. Last night (yes, Tuesday), however, we decided to get the show on the road.

old t-shirts, mostly from G

Last week I'd stumbled across a t-shirt repurposing project: turn old t-shirts into produce (or other) bags with a seam or two and some snips through the fabric to give it some extra stretch. One take on the project is here, another take is here. We mostly followed the former example.

2012 Knitting challenge

I've decided to take on a knitting challenge for 2012. Inspired by a fb share from a grad school classmate, I'm knitting at least two rows per day on what eventually become a blanket.

At thirty stitches per row, two rows per day, and three hundred and sixty-five days in the year, it's going to be a lot of stitches (21900, to be exact. Oh! It's a leap-year, so that would be 21960).

Calendar Craft



paper source wall art calendar

I have  a growing collection of calendars from past years that I've kept for the photography or artwork. I've had intentions of "doing something" with them - frame the photos, perhaps - although I've yet to make that happen. Not for lack of ideas or time, but perhaps motivation.

Enter the Paper Source Wall Art Calendar.  The genius folk over at Paper Source sell a calendar that not only has gorgeous, colorful silk screen images, but the back side of the each month is a template for making the artwork into one of a number of projects: gift box, gift box pillow, note cards, book mark, file folder. The pages are sturdy cardstock so will hold up well to being handled. Now there's no excuse NOT to do something with the pages right away - the instructions are right on the pages! I love built-in motivation! 

Year of the Pie: In Review

Well, I didn't quite make it through the entire Pie compendium. But given the busy second half of the year I've had, I'm fairly pleased with twelve new pies in the course of eight months of 2011 - seems pretty good to me!

To review:

Christmas Cards, 2011 edition

I haven't been all that crafty or creative as of late, in part due to the craziness that is the new job and grad school. Last years family-imposed hand/home-made gifts was a huge motivation for crafting - I think I need to impose that on myself again in the future, simply to make my self do something creative on a regular basis! I really enjoyed making Christmas cards last year and decided to give it a whirl again this year.

I had already decided to do something in a tree-theme with some green origami paper and several stamps I'd bought through Paper Source - this store is one of my favorite sources of stamps, papers, funky gifts, their catalog is full of beautiful and colorful pictures. Further inspiration came as I flipped through a recent Paper Source catalog.

some trees and
some papersource catalog pictures

Year of the Pie #11 & 12: The Simplest Cranberry-Apple Crumb Pie & Maple Pumpkin Pie

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our family is fairly consistent year-to-year in what we have at Thanksgiving dinner - there's something about tradition, I suppose. We had turkey, stuffing, green beans, apple-herb rolls, kidney bean salad, homemade cranberry sauce, roasted carrots and parsnips, and sweet potato casserole. Dessert consisted of two pies and cranberry mousse.

My sister and I were assigned desserts, and everyone knows that it's not Thanksgiving without pie! Hopefully these two pies (plus a bonus dessert!) will partly make up for the baking pie-atus (get it?) I've been on as of late. We were charged with making an apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and cranberry mousse (my favorite holiday dessert - and SUPER easy to make).

cranberry-apple pie

maple pumpkin pie

Paper Elephants

Well, I found an excuse to be crafty this past weekend! My roommate's birthday was earlier this week and I decided I want to make her something.

She has an affinity for elephants (a tasteful affinity, of course), so I wanted to do something along those lines. Mostly because I've only lived with her for a few months, and I haven't got her totally figured out yet. Elephants come up enough in our random conversations that I decided it was appropriate to follow that theme.

If I'd had more time (maybe next year) I might knit her an elephant, or a hat with an elephant. But, being short on time I needed to come up with something else. Cue my bin of craftiness.

Fall is in the air

August was a bit of a busy month; I returned from grad camp in late July and had roughly two weeks to get packed and on the road to Vermont. I arrived at GMVS late on the 15th after a very rainy drive. Needless to say, most of the unpacking waited until the next day.


My apartment is cozy (read: tiny), but nice. Over the summer the wall-to-wall (ugh) carpeting was ripped up and pergo flooring put down. Zoe's not so much a fan - it's hard for her to grip, and it's most evident when she tries to get quickly from one side of the apartment to the other. There's just a little bit of slipping and sliding.

Crafting in July

I've been on a bit of a crafting hiatus (at least a pie-baking hiatus) since I was away for the start of my grad school program for three weeks, although I did manage to be a little bit crafty at grad camp (as we have affectionately dubbed it - it really did feel like camp most of the time!).

We were journaling almost every day, so I was drawing and sketching a lot.