Pirate Girl

With Halloween only two days away, I thought I would post instructions for a super easy last minute Pirate costume.  My daughter and I made her version of the costume to wear to the Harbor Festival in Wickford Village earlier this fall.   This costume  involves no sewing and can be completed in less than 10 minutes, so it is great for a last minute costume party!

Materials Needed:

• 2 old t-shirts
• 36″ of ribbon
• scissors

Optional:

• Pirate Hat
• Old Skirt
• eye patch
• head scarf

Instructions

1. Cut t-shirts along green dotted lines as shown in the photo below.  The first t-shirt will be the “Pirate Vest”; the 2nd t-shirt will be the undergarment
2. Place vest over the undergarment
3. Lace ribbon through the holes in the vest as if you were lacing a shoe
4. You now have your complete pirate shirt!

Cut Along Green Dotted Lines

Closeup of Pirate Vest

Variations & Tips

1. This method can be used for either a child or adult; for adult, you may want longer ribbon for the ties
2. Use a white undergarment, black vest and red ribbon for a real “piratey” effect
3. Instead of a pirate hat, pair the costume with a headscarf and be a gypsy!
4. Cut a square neck on the vest for a different effect
5. Make more or fewer holes for the lacings for different effects
6. For a boy, use the same design, but do not cut holes for the lace up ribbon; leave the vest plain
7. I found that smaller size t-shirt work better since they stretch out when cut

And, since you are in the Pirate mood, here is some fun Rhode Island Pirate history for you.  Have fun dressing up!

A Very Cute Little Gypsy!

We really had fun with “Egyptian Week”.  Needless to say, everyone wanted to study ancient Egypt rather than modern Egypt.  Although, we talked about pyramids, the sphinx, mummies and Egyptian gods, we also learned about ancient Egyptian homes, cuisine, and clothing.   Here are a few interesting facts that we learned this week:

• Ancient Egyptians used honey  to help wounds heal and help prevent infections
• Beer and bread were staples in the Ancient Egyptian diet
• In the Old Kingdom Egyptians were even paid in food
• Some authorities credit ancient Egypt as being the birth place of modern medicine

I checked a book out of the library called Ancient Egyptians and Their Neighbors, an Activity Guide by Marian Broida which had crafts and activities associated with almost every aspect of ancient life.  I definitely recommend it.  The book covered everything from daily living and food to religion and the afterlife.  Based on the book’s instructions, we made a model Egyptian courtyard (just the right size for Polly Pocket), made a mummy out of Pink Bear, made our own Egyptian costumes, wrote in hieroglyphics and baked fig bread.

Model of an Ancient Egyptian Courtyard Garden

Pink Bear as a Mummy

Ancient Egyptian Dress

We also did a night of Egyptian cuisine.  The pictures don’t do the food justice — it was actually really tasty!  Our menu consisted of Egyptian Beef and Okra Stew over rice (yes, another excuse to use the okra in my garden), hummus, pomegranate, and fig bread.

Egyptian Cuisine - Beef & Okra Stew over Rice, Fig Bread, Hummus, Pomegranate

Finally, we found watched a series of video shorts on the Discovery Channel about ancient Egypt.  Next, we are off to France!

We didn’t find any books on Dominica in the children’s section of the library, so we did all of our research on the “Nature Island” online.

Dominica - The Nature Island

I have to admit, looking at pictures of this gorgeous Caribbean island made me want to schedule a vacation RIGHT NOW!  The things that most impressed the kids about Dominica is that fact that it has 16 active volcanoes, a boiling lake, and is surrounded by beautiful marine-life. And, as Jon pointed out, there is amazing kayaking to be found.

In the spirit of Dominica, we decided to create our own volcanic island in our backyard.  As luck would have it, I left the top off the sandbox right before a rainstorm, so we had a large box of sand and water right at our finger tips.  We made a mountain out of the sand, surrounded by our ‘ocean’.   The core of our  volcano was a bottle (Pilsner Urquell left of from Czech week!), and we used paprika to make our lava appear red.  Then, we just added some baking soda, poured in some vinegar, and voila!  A volcanic island!  Yes, I did spend the next 45 minutes bailing out the sandbox so that we did not end up with 0ur own ecological disaster.

Building our volcano

Pouring the vinegar

Kaboom! Lava flow!

After looking at pictures of tropical fish, turtles and other sea life, we decided to do an ocean-themed craft.  We actually combined the concept of traditional basket weaving and marine life to make these cute woven-paper fish.  They were fun to make, and Deirdre was able to do most of the cutting on her own, although she needed some help with the weaving.  Jonah decorated his fish like a ‘robot fish’.  I’ve included some instructions to make your own.

A School of Fish

Cut 2 Rectangles

Cut into strips, leaving about 1/2 uncut at the edge

Use basket weave technique to weave together your 2 pieces

Alternate weave until all pieces are woven together

Fold edges over and glue down

Cut fins along lines as shown

Give your fishy a happy face!

Next stop — Egypt!

I learned a few things myself this week during our ‘journey’ to Bangladesh.  I had always thought of it as a ‘tiny’ country over by India.  I really had no idea that it is one of the most populous nations in the world (7th largest population).

Fresh Okra

The book that we selected from the library was a little bit too dense for the kids, but we had fun scanning through the pictures and talking about what life might be like in a small village or large city in Bangladesh.  There was one chapter that talked about children growing up in poverty, and it mentioned that although kids didn’t have many playthings, they enjoyed playing games like hide-and-seek.  For some reason this really resonated with my kids — a common bond over one of their favorite games!  And, of course the wanted to talk about Bengal tigers (as luck would have it, we saw one at the zoo while we were on vacation a few weeks ago).

We also found a website that translated the letters of your name, or any word for that matter, into Devanagari, one of the forms of script used in Bangladesh. We printed out the kids’ names in really large font, and they decorated them to look like calligraphy painintngs.

Our two biggest projects were pottery and cooking Bengali food.  We learned that throwing pottery is a traditional trade in a number of villages.  I don’t have a pottery wheel, but we did manage to have fun doing some hand-building.   And, I’m pretty sure the villagers in Bangladesh focus more on  throwing bowl and pots, rather than animal-shaped Christmas tree ornaments.  Hopefully, we will be able to have these fired soon (thanks, Laurent!)

Our Own Pottery Workshop

Finally, I decided to try my hand at a homemade Chapati (flat bread),  Dhedosh (Okra) and Masoor Daal (lentils) The chapati was surprisingly easy and satisfying to make.  It was definitely a recipe that lent itself to having a 5-year old sous-chef.  Deirdre loved making balls with the dough and rolling them out flat.  And, I was thrilled to make the okra since we actually grew it in our garden this summer.  Yes, the picture at the top of this post is okra straight from the garden!  whoo hooo!  I had to leave out a couple of the more exotic spices since I didn’t have them in stock, but the meal was actually very tasty.  I’ll definitely cook my okra this way for the rest of the season.

Attempting the Cuisine - Lentils, Okra and Chapati

Next week, Czech Republic…

One of My Displays – Kitties, Bags, and Hair Clips

I did it!  I survived my first large-scale craft fair this past weekend (a joint venture with my mom and cousin).

It was the Prospect Park Craft Fair in Brooklyn, and, I have to admit, it was pretty fun! I sold more than I expected, and I met so many great people — both sellers and customers.   Aside from a very small church fair that my mom and I participated in a couple of years ago, this was my first real craft fair experience as a seller.  Since I didn’t know what to expect, I reached out to some of my fellow etsians to seek their advice on what I should do to prepare.  I’m happy to say, I got loads of great info.  That said, there were lot’s of lessons I learned along the way.  Here are just a few things I’d like to pass along:

1. Beware of the Weather – since we were expecting a rainy day, we packed out canopy to keep our stuff dry.  As it turns out, the rain blew in sideways, at an angle, and totally defeated the canopy.  Now, water won’t hurt most of my things, so I wasn’t that upset.  That is, until I found out the hard way that the ink on my tags runs when wet.  (I printed them with my color laser printer at home).  There was a moment of frenzy as I ran around ripping tags of my carefully priced items to prevent the ink from staining my crocheted pieces.  Nothing was ruined, but I did end up with a number of items without price tags.   Then, once the rain ended, we had to deal with gale force winds which blew over canopies, blew over displays, and covered everything with dust and pollen (yuck!!!).  Honestly, the wind did more damage the rain ever could have.

Some More From My Stash

2.  Kids Count – One of my fellow etsians gave me a heads up to include some children’s items in my inventory.  Based on her advice, I whipped up a bunch of really cute amigurumi animals.  These ended up being really big sellers, and next time, I will be sure to have even more on hand.  What I didn’t expect was that kids would have such an impact on their parent’s purchase.  Whenever a child came over to my shop, I treated him/her just like an adult customer.  I chatted with them, told them about my items, and asked them to pick things up and touch them.  Most importantly, it’s just nice to make them feel welcome, but I realized the adults seemed to linger more if they didn’t feel like their kids were in the way.  And, the kids were definitely very vocal about making purchase recommendations to their parents.  As an example, I ended up sale a very ‘grown up’ looking celtic purse to a 7 year old girl, because she convince  her mom she really loved it.

3.  Hagglers are Not a Necessary Evil – At the small church fair my mom and I did a couple years ago, everyone haggled over our prices (which weren’t that high to begin with).  I had braced myself to face more of the same last weekend.  I was so pleasantly surprised that not one person haggled over our prices.   Its nice to know that given the right venue and right crowd, people actually appreciate the effort that goes into handmade goods.  I know there were a few people that walked away empty handed because they didn’t want to pay that much, but it was done in a very respectful manner without questioning the value of our items.

4. Get to Know You Fellow Sellers – Like I said, we met some great people.  I wanted to give a shout out to some of the other crafters we met along the way.  Please check out the 2010 Park Craft website for some pictures of the day (the little felted kittens were mine!).  Also, here are a few highlights:

Wooly Cat – this is my mom’s shop where you can find some amazing felted bags, hats and ballerina dolls.

Lyrical – this shop was our next door ‘neighbor’ at the fair.  I really admired her beautiful jewelry made with lovely, sparkling gemstones.

Born In Brooklyn - this shop was our other ‘neighbor’ at the fair.  She makes amazing handmade ceramic pendants.  I used to do pottery/ceramics myself, so I know the amount of effort that went into these gorgeous pieces.

AngelRox – this shop sells the coolest wrap around convertible tops/dresses/skirts/shawls.  I can’t even do them justice by trying to explain them — check out the site.  My sister-in-law bought one and spent the rest of the weekend giving us a fashion show with a new look every 15 minutes!

Regina and Rebecca (me) At Out Booth

Some More icebluberries Jewelry, Clips, and Cozies

When I first started this blog, I wanted to make sure I gave plenty of ‘air time’ to some of those people out there doing some really creative and fun things (and there are so many of you!).

Ballerinas In A Line

This post features the work of Regina Hamilton a.k.a Woolycat Designs. For those of you don’t know me personally, Regina is my mom, so I grew up with her creativity. She even showed me how to make my first mini doll quilt when I was 5 years old. In fact, I think she recently found it when my daughter was playing over at her house.

Poseable Ballerina Doll

In addition to her beautiful quilts and felted knit handbags, Regina has recently begun making a line of the sweetest little ballerina dolls. These are original designs and each doll is a little bit different. Some have flowers on their toes, others have flower necklaces, some have bangs, some have poseable arms and legs, but they are all charming!

When asked why she decided to try her hand at doll-making, Regina said that she always enjoyed playing with dolls as a child, and by making them, she can continue to enjoy them as an adult. Her favorite parts of the creative process are matching fabrics, trying to decide on hairdos, and embroidering different expressions for faces. For her, its like playing, and she loves that, every doll comes out a little different.

Pretty In Pink

She also enjoys making things for her 3 grandchildren. “It is most rewarding when I make something for one of my grandchildren, because no matter how it comes out they always love it, and it is always made with love.”

I also couldn’t resist including this lovely little doll family in my article. Take a look at the dolls and then look at the family below. (yep, my family!). My mom even used some of our old clothes to make their outfits. Talk about cool customization!

If you like these dolls, check out Regina’s other items at her shop, WoolyCatDesigns on Etsy. Her dolls aren’t yet listed for sale, but if you like them, please convo her!

"The Stockdills" Doll Family

"The Stockdills" The Real Thing

Usually, when I start a project, I have every intention to finish it.   That doesn’t mean that I don’t have a whole slew of partially finished project stashed away on the shelves.

Princess Petunia Attacks The Gown

I totally intend to finish them — someday.   However, once in a great while, I just hit a brick wall and say “no more!”.    That happened to me today.  By way of background, my family and I will be attending a charity event in memory of my cousin Karyn next week.  (check out this wonderful article about Karyn in the Billerica Green Newspaper). The theme of the event is “Prom Night”.  When I found out that all attendees were encouraged to wear real prom attire, I got really excited.  My brain was racing with great ideas — maybe an early Madonna-inspired dress with lots of tulle and long lace gloves; or perhaps something in the vein of “Pretty in Pink”.  I finally decided that I was going to make matching purple taffeta dresses for my daughter and me, and matching bow ties for my husband and son.  Who can deny the kitsch appeal?  C’mon, it would be the ultimate in prom cheese!

Spreading Out The Fabric

Well, here we are – less than a week before the event, and I realized I have committed myself to make 2 gowns and 2 bow ties in 4 days.  Not to mention, I am trying to get my act together for a craft fair for which I am totally unprepared, unpacking from an impromptu trip to NYC, and dealing with 2 very cranky, over-tired kids.  But, I was determined to give it my best shot.  I managed to get the bodice out and stitched together.  (My daughter took a photo of me laying out a burgundy dress to use as a pattern for the bodice of my purple gown).

Measuring the Gown

No sooner did I start sewing the bodice, the kids took the rest of the fabric and decided to make a tent out of it.  During the tent venture, my son managed to close the top to the storage ottoman on my daughter arm.  While dealing with arm-in-the-ottoman incident the cats decided to get into a fight in the middle of my fabric.  For the icing on the cake, my gathering thread broke on the skirt, and I was faced with starting the gathering process again.  Then, the light came on.  “Do I really need to do this?  Am I really this crazy?”  And, the answer was, no, I didn’t need to do this!  We will have just as much fun wearing something out of our closets.  So, I balled up the fabric, half-finished dress and all, put away the sewing machine, and called it a day.  It was cheap taffeta anyway, and I can always use it for a kid’s project.

It made me think a bit about how much of our day to day stress is really necessary and how much is self-induced.  Sometimes it feels really good to just say “no”.  And guess what I’ll be wearing to the event?  Yep, the same burgundy dress in the photo that I was using for a pattern.  Go figure!

Princess Petunia Sleeps on My Half-Finished Gown

A few months ago, my husband asked me to make him a felted sleeve for his new laptop.   So, of course, I started peppering him with questions like ‘what color?’, ‘knit?’, ‘crochet?’, ‘recycled?’, ’size?’.  Half jokingly, he said he didn’t care, but it just needed to have flames going down the side of it.  I had just bought a bunch of second hand wool sweaters to use for felting projects, and I found a dark olive one that would be perfect for a laptop cover.   Lucky for me, I also had a bright red sweater that just screamed ‘flames!’.   Thus, was born the “Greased Lightning” Laptop Sleeve!   He’s gotten a number of compliments on it (or so he told me — maybe he was just trying to make me feel good), so I thought I would post some instructions on how to make your own.

Tongues of Flame Fingerless Gloves

I also used the leftover pieces from the sweater sleeves to make a cool pair of fingerless gloves.  You can see more pictures of the gloves at my Etsy Shop.

I’m not a Photoshop genius, so please be kind with my diagrams!  Here goes — First step, select a sweater to use as the base of the bag.  In order to felt properly, it should be 100% wool.   If you are going to add an applique, select a sweater in a contrasting color.  The sweater used for the applique should also be 100% wool, but should be thinner than the sweater used for the base of the bag.  Felt both sweaters by putting them through at least one cycle in the washing machine (hot wash/cold rinse); dry in the dryer.  Using the diagram below, cut out the central piece of the laptop bag.

Template - How to Cut Sweater for Laptop Bag

If you are adding an applique, cut out the applique and sew it to the outside of the bag using whip stitch or ladder stitch. (you do not need to hem or turn under the edges of the applique; the felting process will keep it from unraveling) The sides of the bag will be partially open (where you remove the sleeves).  Sew the open part of the sides shut.  The bottom edge of the sweater (will probably have some ribbing) will be the top of the bag.   Attach a zipper.  You can also add buttons, if you prefer.  The last step is to turn the bag inside out and stitch the bottom shut.  Although I added the tongues of flame by hand, I did all the other stitching by machine.

Template - Sewing the Laptop Bag

You can use the sleeves to make a pair of fingerless gloves.  Cut according to the diagram above.  The cuff edge of sleeve will be the wrist side of the glove; the raw edge will be the finger side of the glove. Turn the glove inside out and mark where the thumb opening should be.  Machine stitch as indicated in diagram.  Snip the ‘triangle’ that is created with the stitching.  Turn the glove right-side out.  You can now stitch on an applique, embroider flowers, or embellish however you like!

Template - Stitching for Gloves

OK, what did you guess?  I bet you didn’t guess baby wipes!  That’s right, these flowers are actually made from dried out (unused) diaper wipes.

Kanzashi Flower Bouquet

Kind of neat, huh?  Basically, these are baby wipes, dried, cut into squares, folded, and sewn together to make a flower.  The finished flower was then painted with food coloring and water.  The design is based on Kanzashi, the Japanese art of folding paper or fabric into intricate flowers, oftentimes to be used a hair jewelry.  As much as I’d love to, I can’t take credit for this adaptation.  My daughter wanted to make something herself to give to my mom for her birthday, and the Crafty Crow directed me to the instructions for these flowers on Filth Wizardry (a fun blog with lot’s of ideas to share with kids).  If you and your kids are interested in making your own flowers, you should check it out.  Filth Wizardry has very detailed instructions with great photos.  If we make these again, I think I’ll use more food coloring in our ‘paint’ to give a more intense color.

If you are interested in taking a more traditional approach and making fabric flowers, I found this tutorial on Instructibles which seems very straightforward.  If you are ready for the advanced session, you might want to check out this site by Jen Minnis.   She has alot of information and a picture of a gorgeous hairpiece she made.

Our Bouquet

Along with Valentine’s Day, myriads of people around the world will be celebrating Chinese New Year on February 14th.  This year, the Chinese Calendar will be entering the Year of the Tiger.

Chinese Inspired Felted Bag

When I lived in New York, I always looked forward to the huge Chinese New Year celebration that took place downtown every year.  We would bundle up in our warmest coats and hats, take the subway in from Brooklyn, watch the spectacular parade, and hit our favorite restaurant for dim sum.  I even have a packet of red money envelopes left over from a few years ago.  They are really quite pretty, with a picture of a girl embossed in gold leaf.   I am the first to admit that I don’t know much about the traditions that lie beneath the celebration, but I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to experience the festivities.  Now that I live in Rhode Island, I won’t be able to go to the parade this year, but I thought I would show a parade of items from Etsy artists that have a Chinese or Tiger inspiration.  Enjoy!