If you buy one thing this year ...

... it should be a couching foot.

Save your pennies or sell an arm or a leg. This thing is so much fun it should be outlawed!! (And yes this is a non smoker, non drinker, passionate free motion quilter talking - so I have a pretty low base to what 'fun' is!)

I went through my sketch book and tried pattern after pattern.

Valentine Yarn Hearts

I recently discovered a new blog - Aunt Peaches - and her entries really make me laugh. She has some great craft projects and her Yarn Hearts really caught my eye. I have lots of yarn and it seemed something easy that my littles could do with me. Here is another tutorial that uses corn starch for the glue:Spoonful: Warm Hearts, Sticky Hands.

This is so easy. I drew my hearts onto the greaseproof paper freehand. I used some red yarn we had floating around I used Elmers school glue (ratio of 1 part glue 2 parts water).

After we had had our fill of making the hearts we put them in our boiler room (the best place to dry crafts - especially paper mache) on a tray and waited for them to dry. 

Once dry we placed them on some card instead of hanging them up to make valentine cards. 

Wishing you all a Happy Valentines Day.

Pompom Christmas Tree Tutorial

I have very early memories of making pompoms. We would cut out wonky circles of cardboard - make wonky holes in them and then awkwardly ... for what seemed like the longest time ... thread yarn through the hole around the wonky cardboard until we could thread no longer. I had this idea for a Pompom Christmas Tree and I thought that there should be some gadget out there that would make pompoms easier to make. The Clover pompom makers gets good reviews - and I liked them a lot too.

Materials
- green yarn
- wooden skewer
- hemp or Christmas wrapping paper
- pot of old Playdoh
- glue
- cling film/saran wrap
- decorative buttons
- ribbon

Equipment
- pompom makers or previously mentioned wonky circles of cardboard in ascending size
- scissors

• Make your pompoms in ascending size. For my trees I used anywhere between 2-5 pompoms.
• Put pompoms in ascending size onto a skewer - squish them tightly together and trim. Remember to leave some skewer empty on the base and on the top of the tree.

• Put glue on to the top of the skewer and shape pom pom at the top.

• Add any tree topping decoration - I used plastic star shaped buttons.

• Wrap a lump of old Playdoh in cling film/saran wrap (you can use anything that has weight to it and can be speared with a skewer), then again in hemp or wrapping paper. Secure with a bow.
  

• Trim skewer to desired size and put the remaining skewer into the Playdoh. Trim hemp/wrapping paper.