Not Cards « mama urchin

Archive for the 'Not Cards' Category

Welcome and A Year in Review

I’ve been seeing a bit of a traffic surge here at Mama Urchin in the last few days due, in large part, to my recent whiplash win over at Whip Up. Thanks so much Kath for choosing my little pea as one of the winners. And thanks also go to Blair for such a fun idea that I only adapted. Wow, this is starting to sound like the academy awards, and I’d like to thank Jill at my LYS for helping me select the yarn…. Seriously though, thank you.

And, I figured since there might be some new folks hanging around I would share a mosaic of some of the notable creations of 2006. I’ve been meaning to do one of these anyway and, with all the new traffic, now seemed like the perfect time. The links will take you to the flickr photos — for more information about each project you’ll just have to poke around.

1. Hat and Scarf, 2. Bomber Baby Hat, 3. Stitchette, 4. Tulle Bag, 5. Little Pea, 6. Pom-Pom Sweater, 7. Hat Stack, 8. Aran Pullover, 9. Dinner Last Night, 10. Autumn Dinner, 11. Pillow, 12. Felted Bag, 13. Bolero, 14. Card Box, 15. Scrapbook in a Tin, 16. Mini Scrapbook, 17. Father’s Day Book, 18. Finished Scarf, 19. dream, 20. Baby Bonnet, 21. Mini Flower, 22. Bunny Slippers, 23. Felt Beads, 24. Final Product – Hand-dyed Yarn, 25. Felted Flower

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

Handmade Christmas Recap

Published January 2, 2007 Cards , Embroidery , Fiber Crafts , Knitting , Not Cards , Paper Crafts 4 Comments

I apologize in advance if this post seems a little braggy but I want to recap all the gifts I made by hand this year if for no other reason than to remind myself next November that it’s worth it. I amazingly got just about everything done that I had planned. Here’s the lowdown:

My Mom — a hat and an elfin stitchette
My Dad — a hat and scarf set (pictured above)
My Sister — an evening bag
My Brother — a hat
My Sister-in-Law — a hat
Papa’s Sister — a card box with cards (sorry no photo but it is similar to this)
Katrina — a sweater
Tristan — a pea

Now I just need to update my Completed Projects – 2006 and I’ll be ready to start fresh for 2007.

The Making of a Hoedown

Published November 21, 2006 Cooking , Crafting With the Urchins , Fiber Crafts , In the Kitchen , Not Cards , Paper Crafts , Sewing 3 Comments

So the party went well on Saturday. Of course, I didn’t get everything done that I had wanted but that’s okay. Everyone seemed to have a good time and there was no doubt it was a cowboy party. Here’s a little info on the making of Tristan’s party –

I made the invitations, the treat bags, and a bunch of signs to coordinate using a cowboy stamp set. Stefan made the Wanted posters by using our digital camera to take a photo of each of the kids that attended and then converted them to black and white on the computer. He used a wanted poster font and just added appropriate text in MS Word. These were then printed on parchment-y paper and then he burned the edges.

All things fabric were made by my mother. She whipped up the tablecloth in no time flat from two Michael Miller fabrics. And keeping with tradition she made Tristan his first birthday party outfit — she did the same for Katrina and my niece. I wanted something cowboy-ish but not too costumey — so he can wear it again. Anyway, I chose Burda pattern 9751 and I am beyond pleased with how it turned out.

We used disposable pie plates for food — chili, fritos, crackers, and wagon wheel pretzels — and decorated the table with plastic horses, bison, and steer from Target. I found the cutest little hobby horses and had one for each child in the horse corral that was created from a dog pen. We had cowboy hats, sheriff badges, and bandanas for the kids too. All in all I think it turned out to be a nice first birthday party and Tristan seemed to enjoy it — which is really all that matters anyway.

A First Birthday Party

Published November 20, 2006 Cooking , Crafting With the Urchins , Fiber Crafts , In the Kitchen , Not Cards , Paper Crafts , Sewing 3 Comments

It’s Off…

Published March 10, 2006 Cards , Fiber Crafts , In the Mailbox , Knitting , Not Cards , Paper Crafts , Swaps Leave a Comment

So I sent off my package as part of Open Yours Too trade 02. I had so much fun doing this I will definitely be doing it again in the future. The things I included were: a letter, a felted flower pin, a ball of hand-dyed yarn, a little pack of personalized handmade note cards, and a handmade paper-bag scrapbook. The scrapbook took the most time and turned out awesomely (is that a word?) if I do say so myself.

I’ve talked about the felted flower and the yarn previously. For me, there’s really nothing to making cards (once you have an idea) so I can’t really talk about that here. The scrapbook on the other hand… it was made from 3 paper bags laid on top of each other with the bottoms at alternating ends. I then bound them together using my little paper sewing machine. It’s a good thing I planned to cover this since I can’t sew straight to save my life and the recipient is very capable in that regard. Anyway, the pages were created using all kinds of things but mostly rubber stamped images. The covers were made using wood veneer (Papa Urchin’s idea) and then embossed with copper in a harlequin pattern. I was really happy with how that turned out. The inside of the book was decorated with vellum, polyshrink, watercolors, copper embossing and little bits. The cool thing about using paper bags is that the bottom part of the bag becomes a flap and the top of the bag becomes a pocket. For photos I printed copies of images at dear birthday which was a nice way to personalize it. Hopefully, she’ll replace them with other photos. The whole thing was tied shut with maroonish ribbon.

After everything was together I had to take two photos — I wish Papa Urchin had been here for that part — to submit and they will be posted on flickr along with photos of all the other packages (as they are delivered). I put everything in a black leather box I found at Target and then sent it priority mail. Now we’ll just wait and see if she likes it…