The 30 Minute Challenge

The other night, my boyfriend and I were watching tv together for a few hours. I realized it was about 8 o'clock however, and needed to work a little and make at least one of the things I have people wanting to pay me for. I told him I needed to work for a bit and his response of course was, "Ok, see you in an hour, if even." I simply stated, "I don't need an hour, I can work for only half an hour and be back in here!"

Needless to say, he didn't believe me so I made sure when I went to my craft room, to take special note of the time. I didn't do a clutch as I know for a fact these take about an hour, maybe an hour and 15 minutes for me to make, so I tested myself on making a simple tablet case with no frills or bows or anything.

Wouldn'tcha know, I totally won the challenge and was back in 30 minutes to watch some more tv with him!!

He did ask me when I got back however if it would even fit her tablet, and did I check to make sure? So he made me sufficiently paranoid enough to ask her exactly what tablet she has (Kindle Fire) so that I could look up the exact dimensions to my Nexus 7" tablet and there was only a 10mm difference on top to bottom measurement! Yay!! AND she likes how it looks! 

Now I only need to finish her clutch and I'm golden!!

Craft ya laters!

The Monthly Challenge - January Continued

I am still working on finishing my loom knitted scarves for January's:

I will show you guys scarves #4-#6 now, but I still have more ideas and I still have 4 more days to see how many more I can do!!!!

First off,  I finally finished that green scarf with the gold stripe!! YAYYY!!!!

What do you guys think?!?! Isn't it awesome!? Thing is, as much as I love how this one turned out, I either won't do another like it, or I'll just maybe have money for it next time... lol

Next up, I made another turquoise blue with fringe as the boss of the recipient of the last one wanted one so they could be twinsies! lol:

I love doing that single e-weave pattern cuz it's soooo easy and soooo fast!!

Next up, one I made for myself so that I can maybe wear it under my motorcycle jacket and keep my neck warm on those darn cold mornings:

I've had this yarn for a few years now and just didn't know what to do with it.....until now!! I just LOVE the way the rainbow colors are laced into the green, don't you?! I didn't use the full loom as it's 12 pegs on each side since I only had so much, so I'm really glad I made it only using the inner 8 because that's the only way I got it long enough to actually matter!!

Now, I know I promised a sort of how-to on making the green/gold striped scarf, but I went ahead and least took pictures to give you a good idea of how I did it. If you have done any loom knitting, or possibly just any knitting or crocheting in the first place, you'll probably understand better, but hopefully if not, the pictures at least give you some sort of idea on how I conceived the pattern:

The above picture shows you what it looks like before you start a row. The middle shows the first part of the gold weaving, doing a double e-weave wrap and then the 3rd picture shows the next step which is to wrap the gold around the middle two peg pairs to get a double layer only on those middle 2 pairs of pegs.

Next, I wrapped the green around using the double e-weave, wrapping the first and last gold pegs and crossing over the gold in the meantime. Lastly, I wrapped the green around the loom again, only, I skipped any gold pegs and only got the double layer on the green only pegs. Once you have 2 strands on each peg, you can loop the yarn over the pegs, push them down, and on to the next row!! To start and end the whole scarf, I just did 2 rows of green only, doubling up on all pegs using the double e-weave pattern.

Ever have one of those things you're trying to figure out how to do, or do better? You think and think and think, and you just cannot think of a good way to do it... then one day, BAM! You finally think of something that'll totally work! This was one of those things. When cutting pieces of yarn for fringe, it seemed a little hard to measure to match one piece, or guesstimate and then trim after. I decided I wanted to use a ruler last night but since I couldn't find any.... I grabbed a 3-hole punch that has about 9 inches marked off, put a piece of masking tape on the floor and just marked off increments of how long I wanted the fringe. This made cutting the fringe pieces soooo much easier, and I barely had to trim one little group of fringe after wards! w00t!

Alright guys! That's scarves #4-#6!! Later this week I hope to show you at least 2-4 more that I've done to complete my challenge for this month!! I want to use a gorgeous chocolate brown and gold I got of the Simply Soft - Caron yarn to do 2 different scarves; one with vertical stripes where the gold and brown overlap in the middle and the other with horizontal stripes between the 2 colors all the way through. I also want to maybe try and make a scarf with a gray and cobalt blue yarn and try something like a zig zag throughout the length...?? Either that or I'll just attempt to make a few cowl scarves with buttons to close them.

Craft ya later!!

The Monthly Craft Challenge!!

I've seen this type of idea on other people's blogs where they have a weekly or a monthly challenge that they invite others to join in on. This can include people that already have those supplies, or maybe have to go out and get supplies so they can participate.

For me, I already have a ton of supplies just not getting used. I feel more like a Jackie of all trades, master of none. My goals in doing this challenge is to attempt to become more of a master at the crafts and hobbies I have delved in. My supplies currently are stored away in their boxes or drawers, wasting away, and that just makes me sad! The following should give you an idea of what all I have: 

Clay - clay, pasta roller, blades, carving tools, toaster oven, bead baking rack with pins, pearl ex powders, cutters:

Resin - clear resin (2pks), white resin (1 pk), tons of glitter, mylar flakes, transparent and opaque color dyes, molds, mold release

Candles - double boiler, thermometer, 3 color dyes, 6-pk scents, wicks, 10lb slab of wax, stearic acid, vybar:

Beads - seed, large seed, bicones, wood, glass, crystals, shells, cubes, colored wires, fireline thread, memory wire, jump rings, head/eye pins, earring hooks, clasps:

Scrapbooking - stickers, more stickers, gel pens, stamps, 4 pairs of edging scissors, mod podge glue, mod podge dimensional magic(to compare to resin), papers (singles and pads), ribbon:

Embossing - powders, resist ink, embossing ink pad, heat gun

Sewing and String Crafts - yarn, embroidery thread, spools, needles, crochet hooks, sewing machine, tons of fabric, patterns:

This isn't even all of the supplies I have, but it is a majority. I've been collecting supplies, as well as hobbies to go along with them, since before I was in High School. As such, I've clearly amassed a collection worthy of 5 crafters at least!

To try and whittle this stock of supplies down into actual items, I will attempt to challenge myself monthly with making things using the supplies I currently have, with only buying new things if it's something like more sewing thread mid-purse, or more yarn to finish the latch hook I'm doing, etc.

I'd like to try and do this all year, but let's see how long I can keep this up. Is there anyone else out there with a massive supply stock that wants to join me?? Or even if  you don't have a supply list like I do to choose from, is there anyone that wants to challenge themselves to either learn new methods of crafting and use the challenge to hone those skills, or even just get better at skills you already have? Let me know in the comments!