Watercolor Therapy

I have turned into a craft-aholic lately.  Its tons of fun and easy to do while taking care of a 19 month old.  You can start a project, go change a diaper and come back to the project easily.  But I miss making actual fine art.  Fine art requires a big chunk of time with no interruptions.  That's harder to do.  So the other night after the baby was in bed, I pulled out my trusty old watercolors.  It was therapeutic really.  Making art can be sooooo relaxing.

Even if nothing you paint is realistic, just slop some watercolors on the paper and watch them mix.  This never fails to make me happy!

Pinwheel Appliques

I saw these cute little things on a quilt once and thought they would be good for livening up some of my shirts!  I really don't know what these things are called, so I'm calling them pinwheels because that's what they remind me of.  Since I didn't know how to make these either, I did a little experimenting and figured it out on my own.  They are sooooo easy to make.  All you need is some fabric scraps, thread, and a needle!

If you want to make some of these for yourself, I'm posting a tutorial below.  These look good on clothes and could be used to decorate lots of other things too: bags, blankets, etc.

Step 1:  Trace and cut out circles from fabric.  I just used a cup and a pen to trace them.  And the best thing about these are that it doesn't matter if your circles are perfect- they still turn out great!

 Step 2:  Sew around the edge of the circle with a simple up-and-down stitch ( I really don't know the technical name for that stitch).

Step 3:  Carefully pull thread to gather the fabric into a small bunch and tie off thread.

Step 4:  Flatten out into a circle shape and sew it onto whatever you want!  Easy!

Photo of the week

I'm starting a new weekly post for my favorite photo I take or find as a motivation for me to get out and take more pictures. This one I took this morning at the playground by my apartment.  I love spring flowers!

Birthday Cards

It's birthday season again, at least for my family.  There are 5 birthdays in the month of June alone! Time for some serious card making.  Here are some B-day cards I made last year.  I'll post more ideas when I get more cards for this year made.

This is my most favorite card design ever!  I made lots of these last year.

 It's amazing what a pen and some watercolors can do for a card.  I just need to work on the hand writing.