Hooded Towel

I found a super simple tutorial for a hooded bath towel from Make And Takes here. She adds appliques and bias tape to make it even cuter (perfect for a gift) but mine is plain and simple with no frills... lucky for me my kid loves it anyway because he thinks it's a superhero cape :) The only thing I did differently was rounded the back of the hood (by tracing a dinner plate) to get rid of the point.

I presented this tutorial to a group of women in my church tonight and got some great feedback with even more ideas to try out. One woman used to make these using 2 washcloths instead of half a hand towel (if you decide to use a hand towel, I suggest cutting it even smaller than just in half as the hood is pretty long otherwise). Another woman said to use the leftover half of the hand towel to add triangle pockets to the top corners of the inside so little ones can put their hands in there and hold it on. I'm so doing that!!! Lastly, someone else mentioned adding ears to the hood. CUTE.

I'll definately be making more of these.

Mason Jar Soap Dispenser

Here is the tutorial for turning a mason jar into a soap dispenser by Intimate Weddings. It's so much cuter than the little $1 one's I get from Smiths. I always use my .35 soft soap coupons when they have their deal where all coupons under a dollar are worth $1. And since this was free to do too I was excited to try it. Free plus free equals awesome. I spray painted the lid with brushed nickle (it was originally gold and said Kerr) since I already had some for other house projects. Give it a shot!

Wood Blocks

I had a bit of fun with my Cricut for the holidays :) I bought this great program called Make The Cut that makes it so you don't have to buy and use cartridges. You can create whatever you want on your computer then cut it with your Cricut.


I mostly just used it to cut out letters using my favorite font but I did find this soccer ball image:


The other great thing about it is you can overlap the letters to cut a word as one piece instead of individual letters:


And I guess I forgot to take a picture of the gift I made for my mom using a block the same size as the "Believe" block; it said "Grandma" and underneath that word it said "Established 2007" since that's when my son, her first grandchild, was born.

Cute. Ness.

Oh and one little thing I found was to wrap the sets that have many blocks using cellophane (that clear wrapping paper) so they stay together the way you want them displayed and the person opening it won't have to unwrap it in order to see what it looks like. If you're mailing it though, do what my friend did for me when she gave me a set and take a picture of them set up then include that in the box.

BTW all of these were made with letters cut from paper, not vinyl. I'm still a little gun shy about cutting my precious vinyl for the first time! lol

EDITED TO ADD: In this original post I never explained how I made the blocks because when I gave these gifts to my cousins, one said to her 7-year-old niece "Did you see what Star made? I don't know how she did it!" and her reply was "It's pretty obvious." lol It was awesome.

But for those of who don't find it obvious ;) all you do is buy the wood (2x4s or whatever you like) at Home Depot, mark them to the size you want, saw them, sand them, paint them, cut paper, distress edges of paper with Distress Ink, Mod Podge paper to the block, let dry then Mod Podge over the paper and stick on the letter you cut with your Cricut, then after it dries Mod Podge once more. The end.

Rag Stockings

Forgive me but this is more of a shared idea than a full blown tutorial because I have too much stuff to do before Christmas to take the time to put a tute together! :)

It's so simple though.

I saw these cute stockings on Etsy last year and just kinda copied them the best I could. Wish I could remember who's shop it was.

Anyway I just traced an old stocking I had onto some newspaper and cut it out. Next I traced that piece adding a 1/2" seam allowance around the entire thing onto a more sturdy paper. Then I took the newspaper stocking, cut the heal, toe and top where I wanted, and took each cut piece and traced it onto the sturdy paper adding a 1/2" seam allowance all the way around each one. I used those as pattern pieces to cut my fabric. From there you just pin and sew the five pieces wrong sides together and cut slits in seam then wash!

I realize this is completely unclear so email me with any questions :D

Crocheted Star Ornaments

You can make these using yarn if you'd like, but I had a bunch of jute twine and liked the look of it for these ornaments. I used an "I" hook and my stars are 2&1/2" with a 3" tie.

First, make a magic ring (aka magic circle, disappearing circle, ajustable ring) and leave a 6" tail. All that is, is the circle you make when starting a slip knot but instead of tightening it like you would with a slip knot, you crochet into it. This way you don't have to make a circle out of chains and there's not a big hole left afterwards because when you're done you tighten it.

Next, make 5 single crochets in the circle, slip stitch to finish that row then chain 3x and single crochet in 2nd chain from hook. Now half-double-crochet in next and slip stitch in next then repeat until you have 5 points on your star. Take your tails from starting and finishing and weave them to one of your points then use them as your tie. I love when I can avoid weaving in the ends :)

Questions are always welcome!