Crafts Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Yearning to Create

Creating at Conference

This is how my “Conference Project” looked at the end of eight hours of stitching through Conference. I’m almost ready to take it out of the ring, so progress is indeed being made – slow progress!!!

Even added a new colour – purple!!! Little purple flowers are in the east south east corner.

This tree part I’m working on is really hard, and I’m going to tell you why (whether you want to know or not!).

Take a look at this pattern (which is actually about double the size of the pattern I’m working off) . . .

. . . do you see all those horizontal three’s and eight’s? They are making me go cross-eyed as I try to follow them and count them. So I’ve done all the easy parts of the tree and now will try to fill in these two colours that are so similar you need good natural light to be able to tell the difference. Which makes me wonder why I’m so concerned with getting it right. Because seriously, who’s going to notice if I mess up some leaves in the tree?

Anyway, I love General Conference. I was wondering though, where Pres. Monson was in the first session. Doesn’t he usually do a welcome address? I was hoping he was okay. And then they announced him as a speaker and I felt so happy. “Oh good! He is here!” were my thoughts. And then he got up to speak with the cheeriest “Hello!” I’ve ever heard. I love our prophet!!!

We moved into our new home two weeks ago, and didn’t have our big screen set up yet (the family room wasn’t finished yet and who wants to get sawdust on their TV and couches). So we had nine people sitting around the computer in the office watching the broadcast on lds.org. Mac would disappear from time to time and it was much easier to watch conference (and cross-stitch) when she wasn’t around trying to climb onto my lap. Anyway, one time she came back into the office and pushed her way past seven people to get over to me by the window (need good light for cross-stitching that tree!). I looked down at her and let out a yell! She had decided to be creative too – using markers and her face, hands and arms as the canvas!

My thoughts were (in this order) “Oh no! I wonder what our new walls look like!”. Followed by “I sure hope that’s washable marker!”. And finally, “We gotta get a picture of that!”

Fortunately the walls were fine, the markers were washable and we got pictures! She cleaned up nicely – all the way to her ears. The worst part was: I can’t remember who was speaking and what they said! Luckily that’s easy to fix: re-watch it or read it!!!

Looking forward to April when the Conference Project continues . . .

My Conference Project

I call this my “Conference Project” because I usually only work on it about twice a year – during General Conference! I think focusing on the Savior is a great thing to do at Conference!!! And I know that I listen better when my hands are busy.

I started this in February 2006 so you can see it’s taking awhile. It’s called “Lost No More” by Greg Olsen. It’s the most intricate cross-stitch I’ve ever done. I’ve never had to mix strands of colour before, and all the shading is very hard to follow so I better get it done before I need bifocals!!! I really love this picture, maybe because I have a fascination with sheep and goats – must be that NewZealand part of me!!!

This is how it looked at the end of last year.

And this is how it looked a few days ago . . .

You can see the little sheep now!!! And a lot of the background is only half stitches so it goes twice as fast – that was exciting to figure out!!!

I’ll post a picture after Conference and we can see if I’ve made any progress after about 8 hours of stitching and listening to the words of the Prophet and Apostles.

I love General Conference!!!

P.S. This is the 181st Annual General Conference.

In My Sister’s House

Went on a trip a few weeks ago and stayed at my sister’s house. While there, I was noticing that there were quite a few crafts in her house that I had made. So I got out my camera and here’s what I found:

So true eh? Laundry is as much a part of life as living. laughing and loving! My sis had asked me to make her something to add a little life to her laundry room, because it’s her guest bathroom too. So this is what I came up with for her. It fits perfectly above the washer and dryer and below the cupboards. Gotta make one for myself one day (my new house will have it’s very own laundry room – clap, clap clap!!!). The sign is actually navy blue with sage green hearts and beige lettering. Sorry about the photo, but I have been working lately on learning to use my camera better – actually figuring out what different settings will do!!! The other saying that I think is cute in a laundry room is: Laundry – loads of fun!

She also requested that I make this saying into a craft for her. I just typed it up and printed it off and mod podged it onto a scrap piece of 2 x 6. And that’s just one of those clamp paper-clip thingy’s glued upside down on top to hold the picture/recipe card/or whatever else you want it to hold.

And on the back side . . .

. . . I added one of my favourite sayings in a more wintery version so she can display it year round.

My sis is a cat lover so I made this for her once, many years ago. I saw it in a Country Sampler magazine decades ago and made up my own version of it. I always thought it was cute – that clever little kitty trying to lure the unsuspecting bird by hanging the bird house from its tail.

I didn’t actually make this one – but I did design it and provide all the materials. We (all the moms in the family) made them at our family reunion in colours to complement our homes. So everyone was able to leave the reunion with a nice message on a craft that looks great hanging over the family pictures that we also took at the reunion. And everyone at the reunion signed the back.

I made a bunch of these for Christmas one year – lots of fun and ya gotta love Heat N Bond. I made them for the ladies I Visit Teach too – fortunately for me, six letters was the longest last name!!! The message in the square on the right is Love At Home in case you couldn’t see the little “at” there!

And another request from sis: please make me a Family Home Evening board. I’d had this board kicking around for years – I’d gotten it at a garage sale for $2. So it worked great for the job. Sis was satisfied once again!!!

Now that looks like a wedding bouquet!!! Yup, I made it for sis for her wedding ten years ago. It was so pretty for her December wedding. My favourite part is the pine cones that came from our old homestead. We gently painted the tips with silver glitter glue and they looked so great in her bouquet.

Makes me excited at the thought of making bouquets for my own seven girls some day!!! (If they want me to, of course!)

And finally, sis has a menu board too!!! In fact, all my sisters do, and many others!!! Obviously we were having trouble spelling the word “Lasagna”!

It gives me a thrill to go places and see things that I have created. I used to have a little craft booth in a mall and it was so exciting to see things sell – people were actually buying things I had made – like, paying real money for them!!! Wow!!! So thanks sis, for keeping my creations up in your home!

Religious Frames

I know frames like these have been around for awhile, but I really love them and wanted to share the idea again.

My sister-in-law made one for me and I copied and made some for others. The Living Christ and The Family Proclamation pages can be picked up or ordered for free from any LDS Distribution Center. I suggest you get that first so you can get the right size frame to fit it all (two of my Apostles names are not showing). Then I used mini Greg Olsen prints of the Savior for around my frame – just glue them on to the matt. Simple, classy and beautiful!

For The Family Proclamation, I used more family typed pictures from Greg Olsen, a few pictures of the Savior, and . . .

. . . our own family picture at the very bottom!

Just imagine the other possibilities too – black and white photos, or sepia around the outside would make a gorgeous frame for anything, like, for instance, your family name or monogram, or family motto. My mind is racing here!!!

Temple Tile

Oh, I love this Temple Tile!!! When another ward was doing it for their Super Saturday, I signed up for one myself. You can’t ever have too many pictures of the temple in your home!!!

It’s just a regular photo enlarged to 12″x 12″ size and mod podged onto a tile (it could be done for any size of tile though). You could put the words onto the actual photo, but we used vinyl lettering. I mod podged over top of the whole thing to protect it. I did kind of a cross hatch pattern with the mod podge and it made the tile look like canvas. Add a stand from the Dollar Store and voila – what a treasure!!!

(A few months later we ended up making them in our own ward!)

Family Home Evening Board

We always need a good way to keep track of Family Home Evening assignments! We made these 12 x 12 tiles at our RS Super Saturday a few years back. The scrapbook paper is mod podged over a piece of sheet metal – so it’s magnetic. We didn’t mod podge over the paper though because we weren’t sure how magnetic it would be through the mod podge.

The magnets are made by cutting your faces out of a photo (circle punch works great!). They are then glued on the back of those clear little buttons (like half a marble) with a clear silicone glue. And then the magnet is glued on the back as well. You could also print names instead of pictures. Works great and is so easy for changing assignments. And when a child leaves home, they can take their magnet with them!!!

My Kitchen Hours

It’s no secret that I really don’t like to cook or spend time in the kitchen. However, I do love to eat!!! If it weren’t for that love of eating, and the fact that my family needs to eat to survive, I’d probably never enter the kitchen! So when my daughter Elle gave me this plaque for Christmas, I was thrilled!!! Now I had an excuse if there was no supper prepared!!! “Oh, sorry, the kitchen was closed today!”

Isn’t that perfect for me? And I especially love the words she wrote on the back: The rest of the box was filled with chocolate covered almonds – yup, she knows me well!!!

So I love the words, but the colours were not going to match the kitchen in the new house we’re building. And I needed to make it a little more “me”. My problem was, all my craft paints were packed in a box somewhere and I didn’t want to buy new paints when I already have a million colours. So finally, I bought a little palette of about 12 colours – you know, the kind you would get if you bought a paint-by-number kit. And I set to work painting. Some things took a couple coats, like covering the red tomatoes.

Ready to see the after picture?

And a little bit of distressing and antiquing the edges and – I love it!!! Much more “me” now!!!

And it matches my future kitchen so much better now! I can’t stop looking at it!!!

Come Unto Christ Write-on Board

The Youth Theme for 2014 is Come Unto Christ (which I love by the way!!!) I’ve been seeing lots of cute boards and things on Pinterest with the theme on it, but I wanted to do something a little different. I’ve already made a Menu board and a Message board, so why not make a Come Unto Christ board?

I like this idea because it’s so much easier to wipe off and change what you need to focus on.

It was super easy to make – I just printed the words out on card stock, chopped them up the way I wanted them, added a little distressing then glued them in place. The frame I bought was certificate size so it fit an

8.5 x 11 piece of paper much better.

I felt a need to create something today! My daughter is a missionary for

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Today was the day she was flying from the Provo Utah Missionary Training Center, where she’s been for the last six weeks, to her mission – the Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission.

So I’ve been watching her flights all day!!! The craft gave me something to do and not be too far away from the computer! Oh, and she safely arrived about half an hour ago. Now she’ll get to see if she actually understands anything in the Spanish she’s been learning for the last six weeks!

Back to my craft . . .

A dry erase marker is all you need now to write the goals you’re working on to help you Come Unto Christ. Write it right on the glass and wipe it off with your finger or a kleenex.

These aren’t my goals – I’m a little old for EFY! We’ll be making these next week in our Laurel class activity. So I wrote possible Young Women goals on here.

Some other ideas include:

Daily: personal prayers morning and night, read my scriptures, write in my journal, attend Seminary, review Scripture Mastery, have family prayers, serve someone in my family

Weekly: attend all my Sunday meetings, worthily partake of the Sacrament, attend all youth activities, participate in Family Home Evening, index 25? names, read Sunday lessons in advance, work on Personal Progress, bless someone through an act of service

Monthly: read the New Era/Ensign/or both, complete a full 24 hour fast, pay a full tithe and fast offering, attend the Temple, index 100? names, write to missionaries, bare your testimony (either verbally or written in your journal or inside a Book of Mormon), read your Patriarchal Blessing

Yearly: watch General Conference in April and October, watch the women’s broadcast, attend YW Camp, attend Standards Night, attend Especially For Youth, read the Book of Mormon or the scriptures that you’re studying in Seminary, attend Tithing settlement.