My Crafty Resolution, Part Two - Free Basket Pattern Links

Time for basket weaving needs to be factored into my Crafty Resolution for 2010. Below are some links to FREE PATTERNS for some of my favorite "must weave" projects for next year.

Basket Maker's Catalog has a lot of free basket weaving patterns. OK, they're not just patterns, many of them are complete tutorials with very detailed instructions and lots of pictures. Click here for the free pattern for the "Simple Gift Basket" pictured above.

There are tons of FREE patterns for beautiful baskets at Suzanne Moore's NC Basketworks - I love the Summertime Wall Baskets (free pattern here), and will definately be weaving these. Don't you love the colors and embellishments?

These sweet teacups were made by my blog friend, Juliana Deen at "A Handwoven Life". These have a high priority on my weaving list, as I'd really love to give them as Mother's Day gifts to my mothers-in-law and Aunt Judy. (Click here for free pattern.)

I, of course, can't forget to mention some baskets I intended to weave in 2009 that were posted by my "real life" friend, Nancy Jacobs at Basketmaster's Weavings. The first is this awesome and useful Recipe Basket. I'm going to weave two of these... One for "tried and true" recipes, and one for new recipe clippings. (free pattern here)

I also want to weave a collection of Nancy's Kitchen Counter Baskets (free pattern here). I think that if I modify the dimensions a bit, they would be perfect to store my "keeper" magazines like Cook's Illustrated and A Taste of Home.

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Oh... Nancy has a YouTube Channel with amazingly detailed and simple-to-follow video tutorials of how to weave several different baskets, including the recipe basket pictured above. Please visit her here for more weaving inspiration.
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Until next time...

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Hugs and blessings~

~~~Anne

My Crafty Resolution / Linky Love - Part One

2009 is coming to an end, and what an amazing year it has been! I've collected links to a bunch of projects I am going to find time to craft in 2010. (Seriously, I have so many grand ideas that it is not realistic for me to think I'm going to be able to complete them all in a year.)

One of my "resolutions" for the New Year is to find/make time to craft. This can be a challenge, so in my efforts to make this an attainable goal, I am going to commit to completing one new project per month.

I'm excited about sharing some of what might be on my "craft plate" next year... And I will keep you updated on each of my monthly projects.

See below for some fun ideas and tutorials. More links will be posted soon.

Hugs, blessings, and Happy New Year!
~~~Anne



Cute, cute, cute! I have to make this one in several colors... But first I need to figure out how I'm going to make and attach wings :-) Check out Q.D. Patooties for the easy-to-follow tutorial.

These Hedgies were made with car wash mitts from Dollar Tree. I think my Barkley would love playing with them, but I am certain the pom-pom nose would only stay on for a minute :-) Please visit Darling Petunia for the tutorial.

I'm loving these water balloon luminaries from candletech.com. The tutorial they provide makes this look like a fun and affordable project, with tons of possibilities.

Amazing punched tin butterflies from Gingerbread Snowflakes. Yes, Pam provides a full tutorial, and if you browse through her site, you'll see a bunch of other suggestions for punched tin ornaments, as well as a bunch of other fun projects.

Sparkley Sugared Cranberries

SUGARED CRANBERRIES



Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

1 1/2 cups water

1 12oz. bag fresh cranberries

3/4 cup superfine sugar (or grind your own using regular sugar in a food processor)



Directions:



1. Rinse and drain cranberries. Remove any mushy berries and discard.



2. Cook granulated sugar and water in a medium sized pot over low heat. Bring the mixture to a gentle simmer, stirring frequently.



3. Add cranberries to hot liquid and stir. Pour berries and sugar water into a large bowl and refigerate overnight. (Use a small saucer on top of the berries to keep them submerged.

4. Drain cranberries in colander over bowl. Reserve the syrup for later use.

5. Sprinkle half the superfine sugar on a foil-lined baking sheet. Dump the cranberries in the sugar and shake the pan to coat. Continue adding sugar and shaking the pan until all berries are coated.

6. Allow to harden for a few hours and then serve and enjoy. Berries are best within a day or two of preparation... But they're so addicting I've never been able to test out whether they'll last any longer!

Happy Thanksgiving!

~~~Anne

We Whisk You A Merry Kiss-mas!

Are you looking for a simple, inexpensive, and original gift for the ladies in your scrapbooking club, bowling league, or for your children's teachers? Head over to your local dollar store to pick up the supplies for this sweet gift.

Materials:
Cloth kitchen towel
Metal whisk
Hershey's Kisses
Clear plastic sandwich bag
Bow

Directions:
Put a generous handful of Kisses in baggie. Open the loops on the whisk and tuck in the bag of candy. Wrap the towel around the whisk and secure with a bow. Add a little card that reads "WE WHISK YOU A MERRY KISS-MAS!"

What are you doing to prepare for the holidays? Please head over to Basketmaster's Weavings to share your projects and recipes on "What We're Working On Wednesdays". I can't wait to see what everyone is doing :-)

Hugs and blessings~
~~~Anne

How to Make a Ristra

Okay, I’m totally late for Nancy’s “What We’re Working on Wednesdays”, but better late than never, right?

I, once again, had a hard time sleeping last night. I finally decided to get out of bed at around 4:30 this morning. I put on a pot of coffee and cleaned up around the kitchen for a bit (I was already miserable, so why not add to the pain!). Anyway, I noticed that the last huge pile of peppers from our chile harvest were ripening at an alarming rate, right there on the counter in my(now clean) kitchen. “Lazy Anne” thinks they’ll make a good addition to the compost bin. “Crafty Anne” knows she can absolutely do something fun with the chile. “Crafty Anne” thinks a lot faster than “Lazy Anne”. Guess who began making her first-ever RISTRA at 5:00am???

It was actually an easy project. Tying all the knots was strangely relaxing, and knowing I’ll have plenty of dried chile pods to use this winter made the process that much more satisfying.

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Want to make one of your own?

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Ready, set, go!
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Gather your materials:
- Chile peppers
- Twine
- Scissors

- Raffia

Cut a long length of twine (l-o-n-g, about 10 feet or so.) Double the twine and tie a knot at one end. Begin making a series of slipknots with your doubled “rope”, as pictured above. Try to make the knots fairly close together, but don’t worry about the placement too much. You’ll fill in any “holes” later.

Begin poking the stems of your peppers into the slipknots. Tighten each knot as you add more peppers.
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After about every third pepper, weave the twine around the stems several times and knot to make a cluster.

Continue the process until you have a “foundation” for your ristra. The length of your foundation depends more on your personal preference and the number of peppers you have. (I had a lot of peppers! My ristra is about 22 inches long.)

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Cut more pieces of twine in lengths of about 6 inches. Begin attaching more peppers by simply tying double-knots to secure them to your foundation. Snip off the ends of twine to about ¼ inch. ( I have also tied in some raffia in the picture above.)

Hold up your ristra often to check for gaps. Add more peppers as needed, attaching to the foundation AND the stems of already tied-in peppers. (Always include the twine part of your foundation when adding more chile.)

We’re getting there, but you can still see “bald spots”. Add more peppers. As your ristra becomes more fuller, you’ll have to dig around a bit to get the ends of your string through your arrangement. Don’t worry. If your knots are tight, your ristra can withstand quite a bit of manipulation.

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Tie in more raffia for decoration and texture.

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Whew! We’re almost finished. We need to add a loop so we can hang our ristra.

Wrap and tie tightly the remaining end of your doubled twine around the pepper stems at the top of your ristra. Wrap until you are left with a loop about 2-3 inches long. Attach raffia to the top of the loop by knotting. Wrap the raffia around the twine, and finish by tying the raffia into a bow. Add additional raffia or other embellishments, if desired.

Here is my finished ristra. Not bad for a project I finished before the sunrise! Not too bad at all. (Okay, really. I totally LOVE it and am feeling very impressed with myself right now!) I’m thinking I may have to get an earlier start on making ristras next year. They’d make awesome and unusual Christmas gifts for family and friends who don’t live in the Southwest.

Hugs and blessings~
~~~Anne

Recycle a Light Bulb into a Reed Diffuser

My friend Nancy over at Basketmaster's Weavings has started a new meme called "What We're Working On Wednesdays". Just in time for the holidays, it gives us the opportunity to share our current projects and recipes with the blog world. Please visit Nancy for more details on how to participate in this fun project.

OK. On to my Recycled Lightbulb Reed Diffuser...

I'm going to show you how you can get from this:

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To this:

Ready, set, go!

Mix Your Diffuser Fragrance:
In a bowl or jar, mix 20 drops of essential oil or other fragrance with 6oz. high-proof vodka or grain alcohol (100 proof or higher). Add a couple of drops of food coloring if you wish to tint your fragrance. Set the mixture aside. (I used Christmas Forest Fragrance Oil from Bramble Berry and a couple of drops of green food coloring in this project.)

Create Your Diffuser:
***Wear protective eyeware and rubber gloves for the first step.***
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Wrap your lightbulb in a towel. Smack the end of the lightbulb with a hammer to break the seal and release the filament and innards. (You’ll try to be gentle at first. Don’t be. Apparently, lightbulbs are not nearly as delicate as they look!)

Pull out the innards with needle-nosed pliers and rinse out the lightbulb with water.

Attach feet (I used clear glass “vase gems) with glass-friendly adhesive.

Cover the neck of your diffuser to clean-up the look. You can wrap it with raffia, ribbons, fabric, cork… I used a bit of embossing copper on the project pictured.
Glue on embellishments, if desired. Fill with fragrance mixture and insert reeds. Enjoy!

Hugs and blessings~

~~~Anne

Carving a Pumpkin to Look Like My Dog

OK. I was not going to carve a pumpkin this year. But last night, Dave hauls in a good sized pumpkin from the garden, plops it on the table, and trots away. I did my best to ignore this orange beauty, but she's absolutely begging to be carved. "No. Back away from the pumpkin," I tell myself. "Go to bed." I went to bed and both the pumpkin and I survived the night.

What do you know? The very first e-mail I received this morning had a bunch of pictures of dogs posed next to pumpkins that had been carved into their liknesses. The one above is the spitting image of my 4-legged baby! Are you kidding me??? I, of course, have to carve this design into the pumpkin! So I set off to find a chihuahua pattern. Lo and behold, I hit the jackpot of FREE dog themed pumpkin patterns!

Here's one for Nancy and her sweet Cindy:

Here's one for Miyuki's precious Dachshund:

And one for Miss Yo-Yo's little Jack Russell:

Do you want to carve a pumpkin in the image of your own 4-legged family member? The free patterns are available here at BHG. There are many different breeds available and the pictures they have posted are totally sweet. I especially love the pumpkin carved like a pug!

Happy Halloween.

Hugs and blessings~
~~~Anne

Free Berry Basket Pattern from Basketmaster's Weavings!

My friend and "mentor basket weaver" Nancy Jacobs has generously posted another free basket pattern and tutorial on her website, Basketmaster's Weavings. Even better... She has created a video tutorial to guide you in the weaving process! Click here to visit her on YouTube.

I've not had time to weave for a few months! This sweet "beginner" basket might just be the thing to get back into my "weave".

Hugs and blessings~
~~~Anne

How To Make Gift Bows From Old Magazine Pages

How cool is this idea? Making your own gift bows from old magazine pages has got to be one of the best "upcycle" ideas I've seen in a long time. There are so many different scrap materials that could be used for this project, right? (I'm thinking my staff members are going to be receiving Christmas presents decorated with bows made from old Kumon worksheets!)

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Please visit Jessica at How About Orange for her simple tutorial. Be advised that simply viewing the directions for the project might cause you to stop what you're doing and head off to find some glue dots and a stapler!

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Hugs and blessings~

~~~Anne

How to Peel a Peach

It's peach harvesting time at my house, so get ready for a flurry of peach related recipes over the next couple of weeks. To help you prepare for this baking extravaganza, I thought I'd share a simple way to peel peaches. Ready... Set... Go!

1. Fill a large pot with water, maing sure water is deep enough to just about cover your peaches. Bring the water to a boil and gently drop in a few peaches. Leave peaches in water for about 30 seconds (more or less, depending on the ripeness of the fruit). 2. Using tongs, remove peaches from the boiling water and place them in a large bowl filled with ice water. The skin will easily slide from the peach with a bit of gentle encouragement :-)
3. Slice, dice, or bite... Your fruit is fuzz free and ready to enjoy!

Tomorrow's recipe: Peach Muffins with Praline Topping

Hugs and blessings~
~~~Anne

How to Make Origami Paper Dolls - Version One

Aren't these little origami dolls sweet? Want to make some of your own? Follow my step-by-step tutorial and you'll soon have a whole collection of kimono dolls to decorate a scrapbook page, make a pretty greeting card, or attach to a gift package. Have fun!

A couple of things before we begin:
I used "washi" (Japanese paper made of fiber so it has more of a cloth-like texture) for the boy doll. I used a paper pattern I got from Creative Park for the girl doll. I simply printed the pattern on plain old printer paper and cut it to size. It worked great, but if you have access to washi, I would certainly reccommend using it.

An important Japanese cultural note: Please fold the Kimono layers as shown (left side first, then right side). Right side first is funeral attire.

Kneeling Origami Kimono Doll

Assemble your materials:

You will need:

black crepe paper for hair - 1 piece cm x 2.5 cm and 1 piece 4 cm x 3.5 cm

white cardstock for head - a circle about 2.5 cm across (the size of a quarter)

white cardstock for neck - a rectangle about 1/2 cm x 5 cm

paper for collar - three 5 cm x 5 cm squares

paper for kimono - one 10 cm x 10 cm square

paper for underskirt - one 5cm x 5 cm square

Glue

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Step One: Assemble the neck and collar:

1. Fold the three squares in half, into a triangle. Put a tiny bit of glue down the center of two triangles.

2. Layer the triangles as shown above.

3. Flip the layered triangle stack over and glue neck to the center.

4. Begin folding the top left flap across the neck at the angle shown. Repeat with the right side.

5. Repeat until all layers have been folded. You may use a tiny drop of glue to secure your collar layers, if you prefer.
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Step Two: Make the Kimono

1. Fold your 10 x 10 square in half, making a triangle. Fold the top left corner in to meet the center of the right side of the triangle.

2. Repeat with top right corner.

3. Unfold your triangle and position your neck/collar piece. Refold your kimono and adjust the collar as necessary. Secure neck using a tiny drop of glue.

4. Fold bottom flaps up and crease. Unfold and tuck into the "pocket" made by the top kimono layer.

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Step Three: Assemble the underskirt:

1. Fold 5cm x 5cm square into a triangle. Unfold back to square and fold top corner down to center. Unfold to square. Fold bottom corner up to the crease you just made, and fold corners in, as shown above.
2. Fold both bottom corners in and secure with tiny drops of glue.
3. Slide underskirt into kimono pocket, leaving about 1cm showing at the bottom of the kimono.
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Step Four: Create your hairstyle
1. Place cardboard circle on top of 4cm x 3.5cm square, as shown.

2. Wrap hair around circle and secure with tiny drops of glue at the "temples".

3. Flip hair back as shown in picture above.

4. Glue on bangs (the smaller of the crepe paper rectangles.

5. Fold bangs over back of head and glue into place.

Final Step:

Position head on neck, trimming neck if necessary. Glue into place... You've now created your first Origami Kimono Doll! You can use your creativity in making different hairstyles for your dolls, using shorter hair for boys, adding hair ornaments or bows, or even embellishing your dolls with glitter or ribbon. I kept my doll "as is" and attached her to a plain brown greeting card with one tiny dragonfly floating above her. I think the simplicity of this is beautiful.

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Please come back next week for the next version of my origami kimono dolls. Until then...

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Hugs and blessings~

~~~Anne