Super Easy Valentine's Day Project

And by super easy, I mean really. super. easy. And free! What more could you want in a project? I was wanting to sew and work on something crafty, but I was missing a few supplies for the other project I was in the middle of. So I decided to do something Valentiney since we don't really have many decorations for that holiday. Here's how it started:

Hand towel we bought when we got our house here before our stuff arrived, part of a shirt that I've been cutting up for various projects, heart cutout (from clipart on the computer), scissors, and totally useless fabric pencil. When I tried to trace the heart onto the shirt with said pencil it wasn't really working, so I tried harder and got a very faint line. After I cut on the line, I got the heart on the right:

Apparently all of that extra trying made me stretch the fabric a lot, so I gave up on the chalk pencil and just held the pattern on the fabric while I cut (not a good idea, I know). I cut out five hearts and then sewed them on. I told you, super easy :)

I made the hearts a little wider than would fit in a straight line, so I staggered and overlapped them a little. I did the bottom row first then added the top hearts. I didn't fold the edges under or anything, just sewed them right on. I kind of like the edges a little unfinished, I think it looks quaint. Here's the final product:

 

(I promise the edges are rounded on the tops of the hearts, since it's fairly thick terry cloth the hearts don't always lay completely flat)

I might still add smaller hearts inside the hearts that I already did, but I haven't decided yet. If you don't have much experience sewing (and really, even if you don't have a sewing machine), you could still do this project. Hand sewing seems tedious and slow now that I use a machine, but this wouldn't require a ton of stitches and you wouldn't have to make the stitches very close together. The first couple hearts were a little challenging around the curves (I'm still a newb on the sewing machine), but definitely doable. I also have a little disadvantage because my machine is about 50 years old and the knee pedal can be a little temperamental. Happy creating everybody :)

Christmas Aftermath

So last night we finally took our Christmas tree down and to the curb. Apparently here they will just pick it up off the curb with your trash. How nice! First, let me address (make excuses) why we are just now doing this. We were out of town for a little over two weeks, so there was definitely no way for us to take it down/throw it away before January 3rd. Then I apparently lost all track of time for the last week two weeks. Yesterday I told Hubs I needed to remember to water our bonsai tree and he got this shocked/horrified look on his face. Here's how it played out:

Hubs: shocked look

Me: What's the big deal, our landlady watered them the day we got back and it's only been a wee.....

Hubs: It's been 2 weeks.

Me: ...... *eyes get wider* ......  I need to water the plants!

Not sure where one of those weeks went, but I'm starting to get way off topic. Back to the tree excuses. This is only the second year I've ever had a real tree and I had NO IDEA how many needles it could/would shed if it died. Last year the tree didn't stick around in our apartment as long because we had Christmas on the 5th, Hubs left for basic training, and I moved in with his parents shortly after that. Ok, I'm done making excuses. We waited forever to get rid of the tree and then witnessed half of our tree leave itself between the tree stand and the front door on its way out. 

And now....my first attempt at making a movie in iMovie!

-sorry it's on YouTube instead of directly on the blog, the blog apparently did not like my video and didn't want to upload it-
 

Hope you enjoyed, it's definitely not perfect but I'm ok with it for a first try. That was the life of our Christmas tree in a nutshell...minus it's life on a tree farm and riding back on top of our car from Home Depot. Sorry I didn't turn more lights on for the video, it was late so I just grabbed my camera and didn't bother setting anything up. We, along with the help of our hand vac and vacuum, probably scooped up at least a grocery bag full of needles. The black areas on the top 2 or 3 stairs, yeah those are needles, not just a shadow!

A word to the wise: don't leave your Christmas tree up for eight weeks. It will not live, and you will have a big mess.

Socktopus

I can't remember now what exactly gave me the idea to make a socktopus for my cousin for Christmas, but at some point I decided it would be the perfect gift. You may still be thinking, "Socktopus...what in the world is that??" That's perfectly normal because I haven't seen a whole lot of socktopi floating around.

A socktopus (plural: socktopi - hey I get to create the plural form if I made it up, right?) is based on the concept of a sock monkey, but it's an octopus instead of a monkey...I'm thinking that last part might have been obvious by now, but there you have it in case you were still wondering.

I wish now I had taken pictures during the process, so I could make sort of a tutorial. Unfortunately, I can be a little overly focused when I'm making something and the fact that I might want to remember how to do it later / blog about how I made it didn't even enter my mind at the time. I started with four new pairs of socks. It was a little tricky trying to find cute knee socks in boyish colors, but it worked out in the end. I used fairly thin socks, and it might work out a little better if you can find thicker socks to use. The socktopus will probably feel sturdier with thicker socks.

Ok, now that I've started writing steps two different times and ended up erasing them I realize it's a little too complicated for a short blog post. Basically I used the tube part of all of the socks for legs - you get 2 legs per tube. For the body, I attached two feet from one pair of socks. I left one of the socks I used for the head completely intact (meaning I didn't cut the tube off, so those two legs were already attached to the body). Then I stuffed everything and attached everything. I used a book on how to make sock monsters that Hubs got me a couple years ago to figure out how to make the mouth.

So there's the very quick and dirty explanation. :) Confused? Well I would be if I hadn't made the thing! If you want to know how to make it, I can give you a more detailed explanation. It really isn't that hard because I had only used my sewing machine a few times before I did this. Hopefully everyone hasn't totally given up on me at this point because now I'll finally get around to pictures!

Just chillin' in my office chair.

Socktopus waiting to be wrapped for Christmas.

Thankfully, the present was a hit. Although I'm not sure who liked it more, my cousin or everybody else. Hard to say since he can't talk yet, but I'll take the slobbering all over socktopus' head as a good sign!