Photos of naked babies on sheepskins is sooo yesterday! But of course it had to happen, now that I got real sheepskin for my second grandson Dexter.
Now, all the rage is to use props of various kinds. They can be cute or funky or silly or geeky or anything that catches the parents’ fancy. Often it’s something to show the interests of the parents. Just search for “baby photo props” on Google and you’ll get 5 million hits!
My daughter Maria wanted a dinosaur/dragon outfit for her newborn son’s photo. She asked me to make one in lime green and blue, and showed me a bunch of photos she had found online. Seemed easy enough: it’s just a beanie with an attached cape and a row of dorsal plates.
I happened to have cotton yarn in the requested colors. It’s a bit chunky, but it worked. Here’s how I made it:
My grandson is now three weeks old. He’s such a sweetie! I’ve been helping out with night feedings and holding him due to his tummy aches. Poor little one. But I seem to have some granny magic because he calms down and feels better. As long as I hold him!
I haven’t been able to work on my crafts as much, but with one hand I’ve been able to click through my stash of photos. To my surprise, I found a lot that needed to be included here on this blog! Becoming a granny again and focusing on baby things made me forget so many ideas I had. I’ll get it done a.s.a.p …
One craft I’ve been able to do is to crochet. I’ve made some baby afghans and now I’m working on this …
Guess what it is?
I’ll show you as soon as it’s finished … and I’ll tell you how to make one too!
~ Marina
“Purple is not a real color!”
That’s what people told me in the 60’ when I was a child. How could they say that? To me it was clearly a color on it’s own, distinct from red and blue. But no, no matter how I questioned their opinion or argued against it, they still didn’t see it as a color. “Weird old people”, I thought.
My grandson was born yesterday! He’s gorgeous!
I’m a granny times two now. Or “Mommo” as we say in Finland-Swedish. It’s a nickname for mormor, which means mother’s mother.
I’m at my daughter’s, caring for the dogs and the cat, eagerly waiting for the family to come home.
So, yesterday we had a funny “history-repeats-itself” moment.
Some time ago my sister gave me loads of fancy yarns.
She had an exquisite little yarn shop in a small town in Pennsylvania. I loved that shop and all the fine yarns stocked up everywhere. She used to give small knitting gifts to us and even taught my youngest daughter to knit. A few years ago she closed it so that she could stay home with her small children.
We visited her for Thanksgiving and she still had yarns left from the store. Knowing my interest in yarns, my sister offered me some. Some! We ended up loading the trunk of my car with as much as we could fit into it! Thank you, sister!
Ever since then I’ve been knitting and trying out new patterns with these yarns. I made scarves, hats and hand warmers and gave them as presents for Christmas.
But since there is still so much yarn left, I made some scarves for my Etsy shop. The scarves are knitted from a very soft, high quality mohair yarn from France. The pattern is a variation of the honeycomb pattern that makes an airy lace-like fabric. The result is a very soft and fuzzy cloud of warmth.
While knitting I realized I had all the ingredients for a 5 Cup Salad.
Do you need a new pin cushion?
Here’s how to turn a tuna can into a pin cushion. It’s fast and easy and a lot of fun. The most time consuming part is designing your pin cushion and collecting all the materials. So why not make several when you’re at it? You can give some as gifts or make a bunch for a fundraiser or holiday fair.
This is also a suitable craft to do with kids. Let them choose colors and patterns, and then give them as Christmas gifts to their grandmothers and aunts, or even their teachers.
Lao-Tzu, a Chinese philosopher, had the right idea:
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
2013 has arrived and it’s my lucky 13! It won’t be a journey of a thousand miles per se, but it’s still an adventure I’m looking forward to. Who knows where it’ll go from here?
Snovej is my crafting diary, and where I share fun projects and delicious recipes.
What’s Snovej?
Snovej is a blog about handmade and DIY crafting. It’s about enjoying the feel of yarn in your fingers, the steady sound of a sewing machine, the smell of a homemade candle and the taste of homemade jam.
Handmade crafting is many things. It’s practical and affordable, without sacrificing style. It’s satisfying, friendly to the earth, and brings depth to your home. It adds a meaningful, personal touch to gifts.
Sometimes making stuff by hand is frustrating. Like when the dog eats your bamboo knitting needles or the sewing machine jams up, or you burn yourself on candle wax or prick your finger on a needle. Sometimes the project you worked so hard on just doesn’t turn out right, and you have to start over.
C’est la vie! Such is life! Scott Adams, the guy behind the Dilbert comics, said it well:
“Every button has a story. Every button is a tiny piece of history: a moment in time you can hold in your hand.” – Pam Vasilow (button collector)
I love buttons. I collect them. Buttons are more or less the only collection I have if you don’t count my arts and crafts materials. Never mind my trash collection… More on that later.
I started collecting buttons by accident in the mid ’90s. A friend of mine gave me a bag of her grandmother’s buttons to use for my crafting. The buttons were so pretty and interesting that I couldn’t use them up. I decided to make a display of them instead, but of course that never happened. (At least not yet.)
But I found more old buttons and so the collection grew. Mostly I found them among sewing stuff at flea markets and yard sales. I also found them on old clothing that I bought just for the buttons.
I realized I had a lot of interesting history hiding in my button box. I just had to know more. Who made them? What were they made of? Did they have a specific purpose? Did the patterns or logos on them mean something special? An old button made me think of the time when it was new. How was life then, who sewed the button on, who wore the garment?
Here’s an idea for a cute, easy and fast last minute Christmas decoration. Hang it in your tree or use it as a name tag or make a bunch for a garland or mobile.
This is how to do it:
You need a round piece of paper. Any size will work. Easiest way to do this is to place a round object like a plate onto your paper and trace around it. You can use any kind of paper, even pages from an old book or music sheets. You can add gold and glitter and other decorations to it.
Cash mob! I’ve heard the expression before, but hadn’t given it much thought until today. My daughter told me about a Cash Mob taking place in her small New England town. I felt a rush of excitement and quickly googled the idea:
A Cash Mob is a group of people with cash on hand flooding a local small business to purchase something in order to support that business and the community.
There’s a website about it! See if there’s one in your town!
I didn’t have time to figure it all out. Could I just go there and be part of it? Was there a club you had to belong to? Did I have to spend the $20 I read you should bring with you? How did this work?
I almost didn’t go, but then I heard there were cookies! So I went. It was just a quick ride down the road. When I got to the meeting place just as the group had started moving. I followed and we all crammed into a store selling items by local artists. For a moment it seemed the group of about 30 people wouldn’t fit in …