Kid's Candy Land-Themed Birthday Party

Earlier this month, I showed you the fabric collages I made for my niece's 1st birthday.

Those weren't the only crafty things happening at that birthday!

My mom and sister-in-law put together an incredible Candy Land-themed birthday party for my niece -- nearly everything handmade by the two of them. It was so crazy awesome that I wrote about it for the Martha Stewart Family blog. You can see all the crafty candy insanity there!

Organizing Circular Knitting Needles

As part of my New Year's resolutions, I wanted to organize my craft supplies. One of the problems was my circular knitting needles. Something had to be done about this mess, so I consulted my favorite knitters in the Stitch n Bitch book. Jenanne Hassler's circular knitting needle holder to the rescue!

It doesn't exactly look neat and tidy, but it's a much easier way to store and find needles I need. I took me organizing all of these to realize my needle collection is seriously lacking in the smaller needles!



Before
I shamefully present to you my circular knitting needles and other random knitting supplies, before the needle case.

What I liked about this project: I could use scrap fabric and it didn't take long to complete.

What I didn't like about this project: Iron-on transfers are crazy expensive!

What I listened to while I made this project: Weezer's Blue Album

Inspiration: Crewel Embroidery

The Martha Stewart employee tag sale is always a dangerous day for me. Forget for one moment that one of my resolutions this year was to stop buying craft supplies, and take a look at this beauty that I got at the sale for 25 cents.

The tag says "Hand-embroidered crewel." I own crewel kits and The New Crewel book, a gift from my cousin and his wife this past Christmas, but I haven't had the patience to sit down and try it. Seeing this embroidery in person is really inspiring.

Have you tried crewel? Reassure me. Tell me it's awesome.

Owl and Elephant Fabric Collage

My niece just turned 1 year old, so I wanted to make a special gift that she could enjoy every day.

I really like these Petit Collages on Martha Stewart, but I wanted to use fabric instead of paper.

I bought the wood boards at Michaels, and I used my huge bag of scraps (inherited from my friend Jessica) to choose fabrics for the collages. Someday I will be able to create a fabric pit that I can just roll around in all day.

I was feeling inspired by the color palettes in Better Homes & Gardens. (The palettes I looked at were in the March issue, but they have palettes online, as well.)

What I love about scraps is preserving awesome fabrics that may otherwise go unused, like this cute doggy fabric.

What I liked about this project: Great, inexpensive project for using fabric scraps.

What I didn't like about this project: I had to spread the glue very thinly to make sure it didn't bleed through the fabric and make dark spots.

What I listened to while I made this project: Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips