Holiday Accessories: Tree Skirt

Another memorable holiday traditions at our house growing up was taking a drive out to Hozak Farm (I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA) the weekend after Thanksgiving to hunt and cut down our perfect Christmas Tree. *queue opening scene from Christmas Vacation* ok so it wasn’t totally like that, but at times it was really cold and snowy, others chilly with no snow, just depended on the year. The event included a wagon ride into the tree farm to spend what seemed like forever trying to decide as a family which type of tree we wanted and which one of that type we were going to select.

Eventually we would decide and my dad would saw it down and would get it trucked back, wrapped in twine and put on the top of the car. After that we were pretty hungry so luckily the barn there is set up for great sandwiches and soups along with hot cocoa. We would bring the tree home and put it straight into the tree stand and wrap my moms quilted tree skirt around it. I found a rather old photo but you can see the skirt in it fairly well.

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So again, I knew another fun holiday accessory I wanted to crochet was a new tree skirt for us to use. Since I moved out I have not always been able to have a real tree, most apartments did not allow them and I initially did not approve of fake ones. This year we may end up going the way of artificial but either way our tree will have an authentic homemade tree skirt at the very least!

I browsed a bunch of options and decided on this one called SmoothFox’s Christmas Tree Skirt. I liked it for the versatility of the stripes and the basic shape.

I used a random stripe generator I found thanks to a tip in a comment because I had 4 colors to use and wanted to mix up the colors a bit. Here is what I came up with.

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I used 4 colors of Red Heart Super Save yarn so it can be easily washed if needed, and since I had a bunch left over from the stockings, it made sense to make them all match a little too.

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I purposely did not make it super large yet to see how it fits with the tree we get, I can always add a few rows if I need to. Once we have a tree I will get a few pictures of it when the new skirt on. I am very pleased with how it came out, the patter was easy to follow and takes shape nicely.

Post Update: 12/21/13

We finally got our new tree up and decorated last weekend so here is a photo of the tree skirt.

When I get time, likely after the holidays, I need to add about 5 or 6 more rows to it so it is a bit wider, it barely covers the tree base right now. I did add 3 buttons to the closures so it stays closed better. I attached a chain 5 to the edge of 2 rows like a button hole and attached the button on the other side. I will get close up pictures of that once I finish adding some rows later on. I do like how it looks though!

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Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!

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Getting crafty with CraftBrewlry!

Last night at Spread in Campbell, CA our host and local SFEtsy team member Gretchen from CraftBrewlry taught us how to make her super cute bottle cap earrings.

Our first task was to dig through the massive amounts of bottle caps she brought to find a pair we wanted to use to turn into earrings. My husband and I thought we have a hefty collection but I believe we got beat! Her collection included unique brands and styles, as well as some soda caps too.

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Then we got to work pounding out our caps using some metal hammers and any current frustrations we needed to expel, sure was fun! After hammering them as flat as possible, you attached the earring pieces using pliers. This took me seconds to complete for 1 but minutes for another as the tiny metal rings can be super easy to fling across the room by accident if you are not careful. Maybe it was just my lack of jewelry making skills but luckily Gretchen happily showed me great tips and suggestions along the way, she was a great teacher!

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I was super excited to find 2 soda caps that said “Fizzy Lizzy” on them, how could I resist right?!?! I also saw this neat pair of orange caps with suns on them that looked fun so I made another set with those as well. Not only did you get to make the earring set, she also provided a really cool eco friendly board to post them onto made out of cardboard cut out from 6-packs, how creative!

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What a fun and great way to reuse things that generally get tossed away without a second thought. Thanks to Yelp for sponsoring the event, thanks Spread for providing the location (they have amazing sandwiches and mac n cheese btw!!!) and to Gretchen for sharing your craft with us and showing us how fun and creative we can be! Please check out her shop, its full of fantastic items and would make great gifts this holiday!

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Thanks for stopping by!

@EcoMonster Snow Globe Yelp Event

This past Sunday I got the chance to check out EcoMonsters new store space and participate in their Yelp Event. There are many of these events going on around the area through mid December, including another I will be going to where you can make your own bottle cap earrings! At the EcoMonster event we got to make cute snow globes out of mason jars and a bunch of little trinkets including trees, bells, sea creatures, angels, elves and all sorts of other things.

You select a jar, then pick out your decorations and hot glue them to the inside of the lid, see my work in progress photos:

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Then you fill your empty jar with ‘snow’, water and a few drops of glycerin. Carefully turn your lid upside down and tighten the lid to the jar then hot glue gun the edge to prevent leaking. The last step is to decorate the outside of your jar and you are finished!

Check out my finished snow globe, it ended up having an ocean seahorse theme to it.

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I really had fun, these events are great for anyone who likes to get crafty but does not want to buy all the supplies each time for what you want to do. Also great for kids and adults alike, a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Be sure to see if there are any Yelp Events in your area and try one out! Thanks for stopping by!

Holiday Accessories: Stockings

One of my favorite times during the holidays was decorating the house with snowmen (my mom had a huge collection of them), putting up the tree, and hanging our stockings on the banister of the stairs. My mom had sewn up one for each of the four of us in the family, and even 1 for  our dog and cat. Mine had my name embroidered on it with an angel. The stockings were felt and fabric sewn together with thread. Each Christmas morning my sister and I would get up and run down to grab our stockings while we ate breakfast before opening presents. Oranges, nuts and other small trinkets were always customary for stocking stuffers are our house.

When I moved away to go to college and subsequently to Atlanta, and presently California, I did not get to enjoy my stocking unless I happen to be visiting my parents for the holiday (which was not every year unfortunately). So one of my goals when I began to learn how to crochet about a year ago was to become efficient enough to make new stockings for myself and my husband, to use as a new family, and one for Chester Cat of course too!

I decided to give this pattern by Red Heart called Holly & Berry Stockings a try because I liked the cuff part because I wanted to put our names on them. I also wanted to use the Red Heart Super Saver yarn because it will always be available if/when I need to make another one.

The pattern is easy to work up and I followed it as described except for 1 part. When I was putting together the first stocking I made, I felt that after I made the cuff and was stitching it together that the cuff part was a tad too small and I did not want a seam to show at the back of the stocking where you join the sides together. So for the remaining 2 stockings I added 2 stitches to the noted 44 they put down in the pattern. This gave me enough to work with at the back so the cuff fit snug but not too tight. Just me maybe, but I liked it with the extra stitches better.

Before I put them all together I had to learn how to stitch letters into the cuff. I had not done this before so I turned to my trusty YouTube search to find a helpful video and this is the one I used:

From that video I was able to figure out the basics and started to put the letters of our names onto the cuffs, my husbands name and the cats name are both 7 letters so I started with the middle letter and worked my way out, I did not remember to take a photo of them prior to putting them together so I took some close ups of the finished ones instead to get the idea. My name is short so I put it all on one side since that seemed to make more sense. Here is a closeup of mine to see the letters stitching.

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I am thrilled with how they turned out, I hope to get many many years of holiday fun out of these stockings. Here are some more photos of the finished stockings below.

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Thanks for stopping by and Happy Holidays!

Cozy Throw Pillow

About a month ago, shortly after I finished my DROPS Blanket, I made a few new squares with this flower motif in them with some extra yarn I had. Link to Ravelry pattern here. After making a few I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with them so I set them aside for awhile.

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Fast forward to about 2 weeks ago when I was needing to get a few more $ into a Joann.com order to qualify for free shipping, I saw that they had these plain polyester pillow forms. That’s when the lightbulb went off, I can make a few more squares and turn them into a pillow! While I am certainly not the first person to do this of course, however I got excited at the possibility of a new project. The pillow forms arrived, I got 2 16×16 forms and I got to work on more squares.

Taking what I learned from the DROPS blanket, I estimated the pillow to need 9 squares for each side. I did not want to leave too big a seam between them like in the blanket so I opted to do a row of sc in the back loops only across each row (I used white to connect all the squares and then around each set of 9). I then did a row of regular sc around each set of 9 squares, putting 3 sc in each of the 4 corners. Finally to join both sides I did another round of sc all around, this gave the edge a slightly thicker look and hold.

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I think it came out really cute, don’t you?!

Want one for yourself or a gift in your favorite colors? Now available as a Made to Order item in my shop, so head there for all the details!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

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