Three Zombies and a Robot

I love this picture. I love it when my kids unknowingly settle themselves in order by height. They do this quite often, usually in age order. It's quite easy for them since there's 5+ years between each child. Their ages aren't relevant in this case, though, but somehow they've managed to stair step themselves into another perfectly posed position... a great opportunity for a photo, even if it is of mindlessly basking in the glow of a television.

And here's a little guy I've been working on. He's not quite finished, but I'm growing fond of him, so I had to share. I bought some old Bingo cards from my favorite store, Cherry Tree Creative, and I've been searching for an opportunity to use them in my paintings. He was one such opportunity.

I think I'll call him Bingo, Original, I know.

He'll be available for sale soon, so if you're interested in him, leave me a comment.

Have a great weekend!

xo

nessa dee

Crafty Friday: Yarnaments

What better way to spend a cold, blustery day than in the studio, crafting, [and wrangling a busy baby]!

 Today's Crafty Friday project is a simple, cute, yarnament [yarn ornament]. The idea started with these:

If you have a little one, you might recognize these as lids to baby food pouches such as these:

I've always liked the bright colors and interesting design of these lids, and thought they would be great for future craft projects, so I saved them...all of them. 

[Hello, my name is Vanessa, and I'm a craft supply hoarder.]

For today's craft, though, the color and design don't really matter. But, I'm upcycling, which is always a good thing. 

I've been wanting to create yarn covered ball ornaments for a while now, but Styrofoam balls are expensive, and I'm cheap, and I have about 75 of these plastic lids, so I decided to use them as the base. 

To start, I threaded the yarn through the opening and tied a knot, making sure I left a few inches of yarn at the end, like so:

Next, I started wrapping the lid with the yarn, leaving the extra string exposed:

 Because these are plastic, the thread tends to slide off easily unless I held it down with my thumb as I wrapped. You can also secure it with a bit of glue periodically. I kept wrapping until the lid was completely covered. Just a note, I used the same color lid as the yarn I was wrapping it with, so if there were gaps, they were less noticeable. Once the lid was completely covered, I knotted the end with the excess yarn from the beginning knot:

 Then, I made a loop, secured it with another knot, and cut off any excess strings:

Finally, I glued a button to the center of the ornament: 

I continued with the steps above and made a variety of ornaments:

Once the tree was decorated, I showed my sweet Gus, who absolutely loved...

                                                                      his dresser knobs.

Oh well, I like the yarnaments.

Happy crafting!

xo

nessa dee