Dish cloths

These are some of my mindless knitting that I carry around. I keep a bag of cotton yarn and thread when I want to do something but am too tired to have to think. They make great gifts.

Scarves for Chemo Hats

Several of our women in our hat group make a great hat that you weave a scarf through and tie. We have trouble finding scarves that are cost efficient. So this is the second batch of donated fabric I've cut and serged. There are 28 in this batch and about the same in the last batch I made several months ago.

Diapers for Haiti

I was given several sets of upcycled flannel sheets and some well used cotton tablecloths to cut into diapers for Haiti. I cut and serged them into 72 diapers. They consider themselves lucky if they have one to wash and one to wear. Anyone else have any used clean sheets and tablecloths I'd be happy to turn them into diapers for Haiti as well.

Bagged the Big One Wedding Shower

This little spurt of creativity was a fun deviation from my normal pursuits. One of Becky's (my daughter) friends eloped (kind of) and we wanted to give them a nice shower. Spencer is a girl who is, by nature, wonderfully unique and non-traditional. She loves zebra print and her favorite color is green. So this was the decoration scheme we came up with.

The topiaries were inspired by Pinterest but theirs used beautiful fresh flowers. I opted for tissue paper in lieu of black, green and white flowers (can't think of black or green flowers). The zebra print on the table is an inexpensive fleece throw that we gave to the bride after the shower.

The amazingly cute zebra print cake was made by my incredibly talented friend, Cathy Maples. Oh, and the gift table was covered in the cheapo green party table cloth and had two diamonds of zebra wrapping paper (laminated) in the center made by the shower mastermind and master organizer Belinda Anderson. I didn't get a picture if it, unfortunately.

We were thinking of a theme title like "Welcome to the wilds of marriage" or "stop the hunt. You've bagged the big one" or something like that but we gave up a title and just went with the theme.

Many happy years, Spencer and Brandon!

Calming Bottles for Therapy

We have been making these for around the therapy office. The blue one is just a calming bottle that you shake up and watch as the glitter falls. Pinterest had a pin about using it for a time out timer. It takes about five minutes for the glitter to settle. Calms them while they watch. The red one is a combination calming bottle and I spy game. I put around 75 or so specific objects in it (all plastic) plus a lot of beads. Then I added glitter and food coloring so they can look and calm down.

Materials:
-plastic jar or bottle (peanut butter jar, drink bottle)
-bottle of glitter glue or several if you like to mix colors
-one drop of food coloring
-hot water
-for I spy, lots of plastic goodies.

Put in goodies for I spy. Then a good dollop of the glitter glue, the water and food coloring. Put lid on and shake until the glue dissolves. May take overnight. The point of using glitter glue is it slows it down more than just water. It is a good idea to use super glue and glue the lid on after it is all well mixed to prevent accidents. Make sure surface is dry before applying glue. Easy as pie.

I Love You Because...

Totally swiped this off of Pinterest! 5 minutes to make and cheap. One cheap 5 x7 frame, dry erase markers, and a piece of notebook paper. Keeping me focused on why I love my family makes me more forgiving of shortcomings. I wrote "I love you because ..." on the paper, cut it to fit the frame and then write the family members name and why. Just wipe and write again. I also thought this would be a great wedding gift.

Procrastination

I have fought my whole life with procrastination. Deadlines are good for me because it forces me to finish things. I used to be the queen of procrastination but now I'm down to merely a lady in waiting.

When I was queen, I started many, many projects and finished few. Now I am finishing a myriad of partially completed projects as I find them. We crafters call these UFOs. UnFinished Objects.

This past weekend I had the flu or something like it. When I got totally sick of lying in bed and the headache had gone away, I decided to pick up a bag of cross stitch UFOs and finish one. This is the one I finished from back in the 80s. These little ones will all end up in a scrap quilt some day. It will take years to finish my UFOs but I'm working on them one stitch at a time.