Five Year Blog-A-Thon!

It is hard for me to believe but we have been blogging for five whole years! Way back when I worked at the most wonderful shop with the most amazing people, I was talked into starting a blog. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I in turn talked Jessica into blogging and when You Know Who and I moved back to the states, Jessica and I combined blogs.

Something people may not know, I would never have started working at the craft shop if Jessica hadn't talked me into taking a class. Oh the things I would have missed!

So to celebrate this monumental event several of those awesome people and us are doing a blog-a-thon give away! Please visit each of the blogs and leave a comment for the chance at some really awesome things. 

Jessica and I are offering a $30 certificate to be used in our shop. All you have to do is go over to the shop, look around, come back to this post and tell us what you might choose if you win.

 Here are the links to everyone else's giveaways! Just click on the pictures!

 Comments will  close at 10pm on the 16th of March and winners will be announced on the 17th of March.

Thanks for playing along!

Oh that's right we were having a giveaway...

It's been a week. We'd share, but I'm betting you would rather we not. 

We finally ran our random number/name generator. 

It's very sophisticated, high tech even.

It/he was very excited to be a helper

 He 'Ohhhhed' appropriately as he opened his pick.

So without further ado.... being several days late is enough ado.

Pokey!! Congrats! We hope you love the Holden Shawlette!

&

Welcome spring, how about a giveaway?

Here in Northern California, it is definitely spring weather, it shouldn't be, but it is.  Things are popping out of the ground, blue tulips I cant wait to see, and the trees are getting teeny tiny leaf buds.  It's just a tease but it feels so good.  I asked my sister Corinnea, how 'bout a giveaway on the blog and she said yes! (Corinnea here - I also said I wanted to keep it for myself) So here you go, spring reminds me of purple pansies, and purple tulips, my most favorite flower, and purple iris which remind me of my Mema, and this Holden Shawlette.  Made from Malabrigo sock yarn, the color and feel of it is just so right.

Its just such a "wearable" pretty thing.  Since all of us here at Created Blissfully love all of you out there who follow, we are giving it away to one of you. If you don't follow us yet, would you like to? Either way, just leave a comment on this post about what you love about spring, and my lovely sis will use her magic winner picker generator to see who gets it! Comments will be left open until Saturday morning February 16th and announced on Monday. Please, please make sure you are not a "no reply blogger".

For any knitters out there, you MUST make this, it's the Central Park Hoodie and it is hands down my most fav thing I've made. Such a great pattern, it seriously gets worn all the time.  There is just nothing like a really cool cable sweater....

It has a hood.  Major love.  This one is made from Ella Rae Camelsoft yarn which is super warm and surprisingly soft.  There may be yarn on its way here to make another one for my sis,(Corinnea here - Acck! I can't wait!)(Jess here- AHEM, me too??) and more yarn on my desk for another one for me. My daughter wants one too. She never wants any of my knits, so I know its a keeper.

Now, to wrap up this all yarny post, is this guy, its pretty, but Oh. So. Not. Practical.  Its made from pure alpaca, the center is made of a cria alpaca yarn that I attempted to dye in a range of green, dying yarn is very fun but is also harder than expected, the purple is a pure alpaca that contrasts so well with the green.

It's a crib sized crocheted granny square, and would be so cuddly to wrap a little boo in, you just have to be willing to hand wash and dry flat, which is where the not really practical part comes in. It also reminds me of everything lovely about spring, the colors and the coolness of the air which just begs for a blanket like this.  Now, its time to go see if my tulips leaves have gotten any taller today!

Much Love,

Things to remember..... Comments open until Saturday morning February 16th. One entry per person (any duplicate entry will be removed.) We would love, love, love it if you followed us (click the join this site button on the right side bar) but this is not a requirement. Make sure we have a way to contact you! And PLEASE spread the love and let others know about our giveaway.

Book Winner!

Ashley you are the winner of the book giveaway. 

Please contact me with your address at jessica_m_m@hotmail.com

A redraw will occur if I haven't heard back by next friday. Thank you all for your participation!

Thank You!

First of all, thanks so much for following us over to our new space! We hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Ours was spent with family, friends and food. It was good.

So on to our winners!

For her choice of pouch from Mums shop number--

 Crafterhours - Adrianna


For her choice of garland from the my shop number--

 Sherie Lee

And for the Suprise number--

Kelly's Korner

So what is the surprise? Well Mum and I were feeling festive and I stumbled on this photograph for sale on etsy the other day. (shop here) 

It inspired me because I remembered Mum told me that the Cinnamon ornaments were very popular back at the Patch Craft Shop... (Mum still has the ornaments she bought from Mary) and I thought wouldn't it be awesome to make a cinnamon garland?! (I am not sure what they are made out of in this photo- maybe FIMO? )

So we got to work - and decided it was amazing and we must send it out to someone to enjoy or we'd be fighting over who gets to keep it... which would be messy... mainly because of the glitter but also because we both really want it! (I still think I would have won)

We enjoyed it so much we realized  we should just show everyone how to make their own because it's so easy and fun and it will make your house smell like Christmas.

Cinnamon Ornament Garland Tutorial

We used this recipe with variations (I bolded them below).

Ingredients

• 1 cup ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon ground cloves
• 1 tablespoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon allspice
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 2 tablespoons wood glue

Supplies

ginger bread cookie cutter- we used the Dad from this set which we found at Michaels

Craft hole punch or circle icing decorating tip

Glitter - We used Martha Stewart Glitter in Brownstone

Glue/paint brush - We used Martha Stewart Glitter Glue which includes a brush inside

Ribbon

embroidery needle

Directions

In a medium bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Mix in the applesauce and glue. Work the mixture with your hands 2 to 3 minutes to form a ball. If mixture is too wet, add more cinnamon. If mixture is too dry, add more applesauce.

Lightly dust a clean surface with cinnamon. Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness. Cut out gingerbread men. You can re-roll dough to get as much as possible out of each batch.

Use a hole punch or circle icing tip to make a hole for hanging with a ribbon.

Dry in a slow oven, 200 degrees F (100 degrees C) for several hours, or air dry in a sunny spot for 4 or 5 days. Some people suggest flipping to keep them nice and flat. 

When dry coat top with glue using a paint brush, sprinkle generously with glitter and then knock off  the excess for reuse.

When dry, string on ribbon. We used a continuous piece of ribbon and just went through each arm twice to create a loop, then ran the ribbon along the back to keep each gingerbread man from moving

Enjoy decorating your house with garland or ornaments- these things smell wonderful and with the glitter addition the sparkle like crazy

**Winners** Please contact us with your picks and address information so we can mail your prizes.
(jessica_m_m@hotmaildotcom)


Thanks so much for playing along!

Welcome to Created Blissfully!

Very good, you clicked over to see us- we love you! We know that you're most interested in knowing about the aforementioned bribe so let's get straight to the details. READY?

Follow us! Leave a comment that you did so - and you will be entered - it's that easy!

What are we giving away? Well we thought 3 prizes were better than one SO............ 

Mom's giving away a  pouch from the shop. I'm giving away 2 garlands from the shop.

These will be winner's choice!

We are giving away one addition surprise item that we will show you on the day of the draw.

Commenting will be open through next Sunday evening and we will announce all 3 winners Monday morning.

 Our goal is to try and blog on a more regular basis! We are having so much fun hanging out and doing silly things, sometimes we forget to tell you about all of it. (well, mom's just lazy)

Oh, and most of all we won't have to fight about who gets to post cute pics of  Micah!

Book of Numbers Tutorial

So April's tutorial... 4 tutorials this year can I keep this up?! I'll try to make next months not kid related...

I LOVE this book I think I like it better than the color book. I REALLY enjoyed the process of making this one. Though I am very happy to say I am done with it too! And someone suggested an alphabet book which is a fabulous idea but I am taking a break from books for a while at least especially since that would only be a larger project!

Please do not sell anything made from this tutorial it was provided free to you for personal use only. 

Supplies

1/2 yard linen fabric

1 yard one-sided fusible interfacing

wool felt 

(2) Black and (1) red Embroidery floss 

Fabric Paint (orange, green, blue)

Freezer paper

X-Acto knife

fabric marker

graphite paper/Embroidery tracing paper **helpful note I tried two methods of tracing the DMC embroidery tracing paper was my least favorite. I would recommend getting graphite paper (which I found at Michaels, MonaLisa Art Products by Speedball) It transfered with one firm trace and the transfered image had dark crisp lines.

5" embroidery hoop

Printed book template

Cut

Linen

(10)      8” x 8” – Pages

(1)        16.75 ” x 8” – cover

(1)        8” x 2.5” - inner cover

(4)        8” x 3” – binding

Interfacing

(4)      7.5”x7” - pages

(1)      15.75” x 7” – cover

Directions

1.  Use your preferred method of embroidery tracing and trace the title page wording to the cover making sure to center on the right side of your cover fabric.
**my preferred method is actually this graphite paper I bought mine at Michael's it's what I traced the hands with further in the tutorial. (I would not recommend the DMC Tracing paper.)

To make centering the template easier I trimmed the edges off my template to 1/2" past the line.

Then I was able to lay my template directly over the linen and line up the edges.

2. Use a backstitch over the top of the outline.

3. Using your template trace number, word, and roman numeral onto freezer paper. Make sure to mark the top corners of you page on your freezer paper.

4.Cut out using X-Acto knife. Any letters that have little pieces like an 'e' that will need to be used leave them just slightly attached so you don't have to worry about loosing the pieces

5. Iron a piece of freezer paper to the back of your page to keep paint from bleeding through and then center your cut out word on the front of the linen using the corner markings as a guide, pull off your slightly attached letters and iron on. You will want to do this on a high heat setting so the wax makes a good seal to your linen. Add back in the smaller inside piece and iron in place individually. Repeat for all pages.

6. Paint each word with its corresponding color. Then let dry and heat set per paint bottle instructions.

7. Trace the corresponding hands onto each number page. I cut out pieces of my numbers to help me line up where I should trace the hands

8. Using 3 strands of embroidery floss go over the top of the lines with a backstitch. 

9. Cut out felt circles.

Arrange on page, pin in place and use a backstitch to attach them to the page. 

10. Layout the book in order 

Put pages right side together example 2 and 3, 4 and 5, 6 and 7, 8 and 9. 

 You will only be sewing three sides. The side that will go into the books binding leave unsewn. I laid mine out so I could see which edges should be sewn

Pin the one side that should be sewn. 

And then run your seam around the top side and bottom of the page. I like to double check my measurements before sewing along the bottom- you want you page seams to be 7 inches apart top to bottom and 7.5 inches from sewn to unsewn side edge. 

 Once three sides are sewn clean up you edges and snip the corners

Iron on the interfacing to the inside of the page. It should lay between all of the seams to the edge of the unsewn side

Flip page right side out and press

11. Using the 4 cut binding strips bind the unsewn edge of your 4 pages.

First fold each piece in half and iron, then fold down the top and bottom of each binding piece to make a 7"  strip. Pin to the unsewn side of the page and sew a 3/8" seam allowance. Press seam. Snip page edges and fold in binding corners. Pin in place and sew down. 

14. Sew the Inner cover linen (8"x 2.5") between the 1 page and the 10 page.

15. Put right side together with the cover and sew around the outside leaving a 3" opening for turning.

16. Iron on interfacing

17. Turn right side out, iron, and hand stitch closed. 

18. position 1st and last pages so the cover will cover them when closed.

19. Use a backstitch to attach them to the book. 

20. measure space and evenly divide it between the 2 remaining pages. Draw guidelines to keep your stitches straight. 

21. Sew in remaining pages.

Please add your completed projects to my flickr group!