If you knit at all, or would like to know how, you’ll want to get in on Craftsy’s brand new free online knitting workshop, and make yourself a cute and cosy shrug.

Shrug — you know — one of those little sweaters that forgot to grow past the shoulder blades?

Don’t snort!

Honestly, if you don’t own a shrug, you’re missing out on a very useful bit of wardrobe gear. It’s the perfect little cover-up for a dressy outfit (think, cool eveing breeze at a wedding reception) or just to snuggle up in when the cold winter nights roll on, but you aren’t quite ready to bundle up in the full-fledged woolies.

One-Skein Knit Shrug Online Workshop

Knit designer Stefanie Japel leads the workshop, providing both the pattern and easy-to-follow instructions. One little skein of yarn, two circular needles, and a few really basic knitting skills — plus a free Craftsy membership — are all you’ll need to get going.

What better way to learn, if you’re new to knitting?

You get the company of other yarn fanatics, albeit through the magic of the intertubes, and a chance to showcase photos of your finished product when you’re done. Or browse the showcase to see how other knitters have interpreted the same pattern, and get inspired to actually finish your own!

There are online courses at Craftsy, too, in all manner of handicraft skills from crochet to quilting, but I really like the new workshops for their social aspects. “Workshop” means you never have to knit alone — there’s a whole bunch of other knitters, all working on the same pattern, to tap for tips and advice!

After all, sharing your work and talking about the challenges you’ve had to, er, unravel… that’s one of the great joys of making stuff, no?

And if you’re like me — a rank beginner in the yarn department, still, after all these years! — the talented yarn-wranglers at Ravelry can make your needles clatter with nerves. I’m feeling that Craftsy (“Learn It. Make It”) classes and workshops may be a more comfy fit…

Take Craftsy’s one-skein shrug workshop for a test drive and see what you think. It’s a free for a limited time only, I believe, so don’t dilly-dally!

Have you seen those fantasy faux-glass flowers made from recycled pop bottles?

I mean the delicate fragile-looking twisty looking ones, like those the US-based artist Laura Astor) used to make.

Like this.

(Note: these aren’t the Anthropologie-style of flowers that use the ends of the bottles. But there’s a great tutorial from Sonia at Kosmic Chai, if you’re looking for a how-to on making that type.)

These more delicate PET flowers would make gorgeous Christmas-tree decorations, I think, if you coloured the flowers red like a poinsettia — or put together a whole bunch of the clear plastic flowers would make a fun sun-catcher mobile for your garden or a little girl’s bedroom — or tie them into a good thick evergreen wreath to add a little frosty glitter. The possibilities are endless!

Here, Leanne of Luvlee Scrappin gives a little video tutorial to walk you through how she makes her pop bottle flowers. You’ll find a number of YouTube videos that show a similar how-to techniques, but Leanne’s tutorial has the clearest instructions and best quality sound and pictures of any I’ve looked at.

Instructions for Pop Bottle Flowers

Here’s a quick outline of how Leanne shows how to make pop bottle flowers, just to give you an idea of what’s involved, but do watch the video (it runs about 10 minutes) for full instructions:

From the side of a plastic pop bottle, cut:

• 2 squares, 2.25″ x 2.25″ each
• 1 square, 1.75″ x 1.75″

Cut each square into four petals that are joined together at the middle. Leanne likes to cut curves from corner into the center like a windmill, then turn the plastic piece the other up and cut the other direction to complete the petals.

You can draw out the petals with a Sharpie first, if you like, but just be sure to cut all the pen marks off so they don’t show up on the finished flower. (My suggestion, if you’re not confident of your freehand scissor work: draw out a pattern on paper, lay the plastic down on top of the paper, and follow along the lines with a stylus or pencil point, then cut the plastic along the scored lines.)

If you want a coloured flower, use a coloured plastic pop bottle or colour the petals with Sharpie pens or alcohol (not water-based) inks.

Next, you’re going to want to melt the edges of the petals to get a bit of a natural curve or twist look. For this, Leanne suggests a tea light candle. You could use a heat gun can be used, but Leanne says it doesn’t give the nice ripple effect on the edges that you’re looking for here. I suspect that the heat from a heat gun is spread out evenly over too large an area, not as concentrated as a candle flame and not as unpredictable.

So, light you little candle (keep water or a fire extinguisher nearby, as always when working with an open flame) and grab a pair of metal tweezers you don’t mind using for craft projects.

Gently heat the edges of petal (holding it about inch and a half away from the candle flame, Leanne suggests) until the edge of plastic starts to melt and curl. This will happen quite fast, so be careful not to melt it too much! Then give the petal a twist with your tweezers. Try to keep the centre as flat as possible as this is where you’ll glue the layers together to form your flower.

Repeat with other petals.

Cut a couple of leaves from a green pop bottle (or cut from a clear bottle, if that’s all you have, and colour it with a Sharpie or alcohol inks). Use the same heat-and-shape technique to give a little ripple to the leaves.

Assemble — very carefully! — using a hot glue gun, positioning the petals and leaves in whatever way looks good to you. Add a bead, pearl, or other embellishment of your choice to make the centre of the flower.

And there you have it, a faux glass flower made from an old pop bottle!

Visit www.zibbet.com/LuvLeeScrappin and luvleescrappin.blogspot.com to enjoy more of Leanne’s crafty creations.

Remember when hankies were made of fabric — for every day use, not just “for show” or for special occasions like weddings? When I discovered the handkerchief craft tutorials at Bumblebee Linens, it was an instant trip down Memory Lane…

As a small child, I learned to iron (a skill I seldom practice these days!) on Dad’s big cotton handkerchiefs. More interesting, however, were the hankie dolls and animals that my mother showed me how to make when I was confined to bed with chicken pox (or possibly mumps, one of those childhood illnesses, anyway) for what seemed like weeks…

The handkerchief-craft tutorials at Bumblebee Linens include a mouse, an angel and the cutest little Easter bunny you could ever imagine making from a rolled-up and folded piece of embroidered linen.

I distinctly remember making a handkerchief mouse from one of my father’s big plaid hankies, and feeling slightly outraged that he didn’t have any that were more appropriately mouse-coloured. There was a doll, too — just big enough to fit in the palm of my young hand — but I’ve long since forgotten how to make it, and haven’t yet found the instructions anywhere…

At the moment, though, hankering for spring, I’m all about this handkerchief bunny –

All you need is a hanky (or a hanky-sized piece of lightweight fabric), a length of ribbon, a handful of cotton balls, and a needle and thread — but don’t worry about the needle and thread, if sewing’s not your thing or you want to create an Easter Bunny as a project with your kids, because that’s just to fasten on the little cotton-ball tail. (The instructions say to pin the tail on the rabbit, actually, but you might as well take a couple of quick in-and-out stitches with thread and not worry about having a stray pin falling out on the carpet — not that this is something that would ever have happened to us!)

Full instructions for making a handkerchief bunny — with step-by-step photographs — are at Bumblebeelinens.com Hankie Bunny tutorial.

Enjoy!

Drawers collect junk. Small junk gets messy. Before you know it, you can’t find a thing. Dresser drawers seem to be the worst for this (except maybe for those kitchen drawers that catch all the bits and pieces of your life), for many of us. It’s a constant struggle against chaos.

I’ve used cut-down milk cartons to make drawer dividers, and Kleenex boxes with the top cut out. Any kind of square or rectangular box that can be made to fit snugly into your drawer — that’s a big help in getting organized. No one’s going to see them, but you can always line with fabric or sticky-backed vinyl shelf paper or such, if you want to pretty it up.

Storables has a nice simple 32-compartment diamond drawer organizer on clearance sale right now for $7.95, plus shipping. It measures 18.5″ L x 14.25″ W x 2.75″ H and can be trimmed down to fit smaller drawers.

But if you’re feeling particularly crafty, you can make your own “diamond” drawer divider.
(The name refers to the shape of each cubby, but there’s no reason you can’t use it to keep your pieces of shiny-shiny away from the rest of your personal gear.)

Have you seen the cardboard inserts for wine boxes or boxes that are used for shipping glassware? That’s the kind of thing we need to create here… just like the store-bought drawer dividers, only made of sturdy cardboard.

Cut strips of cardboard that are just a little bit less than the height of the sides of your drawer, and as long as they’d need to be to fit your particular size of drawer. For the longest pieces, measure your drawer on the diagonal, inside, and cut two pieces of that length. (You can figure out how long the other pieces need to be quite easily as you go along, once you’ve got these first two cut and assembled.) Look back at the picture of the Storables unit, above, to see what pieces you’ll need.

At the mid-point of one of your longest cardboard strips, make a cut that goes from one edge straight in to the centre. If your cardboard divider will be 2 inches high, for example, this cut will be about one inch long — maybe just a bit more. Do that on both of them, then fit the two cuts together. Beginning to see how this works? Repeat with more strips of cardboard, spacing out the cuts to match the size of drawer compartment you’ll need and fitting one piece of cardboard into another.

Voila! A diamond-shaped drawer organizer!

And if plain brown cardboard isn’t doing it for your decor, you can always cover the strips with sticky-backed vinyl shelf paper (Mac Tac or that sort of thing) before you make the cuts and fit them together.

Crafter whateverjames loves Star Wars. Loooooves it. He’s got the Star Wars requisite tattooes, sure — but we’re talking, like, name-your-kid-after-a-movie-character level of fandom.

Yet, so great and earth-shaking is his love for his fiancee — James actually sold off most of his Star Wars action figures to buy her an engagement ring.

That be T.R.U.E. L.O.V.E., right there, people!

Now, as you might suppose, True Love (geek style) calls for a truly awesome, hands-on personal, knock-her-socks-off Valentine, not just some mass-produced store-bought card or last-minute long-stem bouquet.

“I decided to make her a valentine that would be simple, with the most powerful and honest statement I could give her,” James told the admiring crowd over at Craftster, showing his heart-felt orginal cross-stitch pattern: I love you more than Star Wars says it all.

“Plus,” he says, “once I came up with the idea for little lightsabers bent into hearts there was no going back!”

Allow me to introduce the lovely and talented Ching Ya, a dear friend and social media geek with a delighthful creative streak. Today, she’ll teach us how to fold our own paper stars in this photo tutorial. Enjoy! ~ Jen

The Cute Little Stars

Twinkle twinkle little stars
How colorful and adorable you are…

I’ve always loved them, it’s my dream to hold the stars in my hands and admire their beauty.

Guess what? My dream came true after all!

Cute isn’t it?

I sprinkle these little ones around my Christmas corner, along with the tree of course.

So, do you want to spice up your Christmas decorations with these little ones? I can assure you, by the time you finished reading these instructions, you’re gonna shout out, “OMG!! It’s THAT simple??”

How To Fold Your Little Paper Stars

What do you need?

A half-used colored/wrapping paper (I prefer recycled ones, you could use brand new if you like), a ruler and scissors. That’s it.

Are you ready to rumble?
Here goes:

Step 1.
Measure and cut a strip approximately 1cm width and 20-25cm in length (depends on your liking).

Step 2.
Do it as if you are making a perfect knot.

Step 3.
Make sure ‘A’ is on top of the tail. Then continue to tuck ‘A’ inside the hole.

Step 4.
Pull ‘A’ through gently and flatten the knot.

Reminder – Make sure ‘A’ is neither too long nor short. A considerable length as shown in the picture will be just right.

Step 5.
Bend the excessive end to the back. (Cut it off if too long.) Now a pentagon is formed.

Step 6.
Bend the long tail according to the sides of the pentagon. That is, go up from underneath the pentagon as illustrated, following the direction of the blue dotted line.

Continue the ‘pentagon-wrapping’ method (see next 4 photographs) until it almost reaches the end.

Here’s what your star will look like at this point:

Step 7.
Slip the tail into the body of the pentagon. Cut off the excessive part if necessary.

Step 8.
Hold your pentagon as shown in the next photograph. Press in hard until the pointed ends are formed.

Continue pinching with other sides until the star becomes “puffy”…

… and VOILA!!

Now you can carry on with as many of them as you wish. Even fill up a jar with stars, and give it as a present to your loved ones. Now they’ll never running out of wishing stars for Christmas!

Ching Ya loves traveling, photography, and acoustic guitar! She owns a blog It’s My Life ~ It’s Now Or Never where she talks about her interests in movies, music, events & occasions, fun sites, personal thoughts as well. It’s her passion to write and share the fun with her readers. That’s why she has a Christmas theme on-going right as we speak!It’s All About Christmas so why not check it out and get into the groove? Or visit Ching Ya at Drama Sum It Up, where she follows her favourite TV drama -– currently, that’s “Prison Break.”

Heirlooms to treasure, or just plain creative family fun — either way, there’s a special magic to Christmas decorations that you make yourself at home, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Here’s a round-up of patterns and how-to tutorials for frugal holiday decorations that you can make yourself:

Cardboard, glue, tiny pine cones, and scraps of birchbark — topped off with a sprinkle of glitter, the only special craft item you’ll need to do this — create a rustic miniature Christmas village! Kristin Nicholas –”Getting Stitched on the Farm” — gives a clear step-by-step tutorial for making your own.

Snuggle the houses on a landscape of poly fibrefill or quilt batting snow, if you’ve got some on hand, or just drape a white cloth over crumbled balls of newspaper to make a winter landscape to showcase the minature village.

Squawkfox makes soft stuffies in the shape of tiny trees from leftover scraps of fabric. Quick and easy to sew, it’s a great project for anyone just learning to sew — and you can have amazing fun in embellishing the simple stuffed trees with buttons and bows and fabric paints, whatever you have on hand! Download her printable 2-piece pattern and make yourself a whole forest of stuffies!

Popcorn garlands were always a part of Christmas when I was a child, for example. Sometimes we’d have a bag of those big burgundy-red cranberries to string along with the popcorn — beauty! And sometimes the family dog would sneak a snack from the Christmas tree. I still smile at the memories…

Becca spreads the seasonal joy (and festive decorations) outdoors, with molded bird seed treats — pretty wreaths to feed the birds while they decorate the trees in your yard. (These would make a terrific frugal gift for a birdlover, too!)

Tiny pieces of felt, a little stuffing, and a couple of paperclips — that’s all it takes to make these cute ice skates mini-ornaments from a tutorial by Not Quite Vintage (inspired by her grandmother). Add sequins or seed beads for buttons, or whip a bit of colourful embroidery floss up the front edge to look like laces.

Another favourite do-it-yourself Christmas decoration around our place, growing up, was salt dough modelling clay we’d shape like Play-do into stars and trees and angels, bake in the oven until they dried, then add a touch of craft paint and a ribbon for hanging… My salt dough modelling clay recipe is here, if you want to give it a try for yourself.

Maybe paper crafts are more your style?

Design Sponge has the DIY on this clever paper ball ornament — make a whole lot of them from those tag-ends of gift wrapping paper that are too small to use for much else, and dangle from a swagged evergreen garland, or hang them in a window or on your tree.

Want more Christmas paper crafts? You can find instructions for making the best ever 3-d paper snowflake at Cut Out and Keep . (I tell you, forget those paper snowflakes you might have made in kindergarten — this is in a whole other class!)

And if you’re short on time and/or patience, but you still want the snowflake bling, you can always go for this pretty blue snowflake, from the collection of free printables at Canon.

At the price of printer ink, though, I’d be inclined to print out one copy of the pattern and use it as a template for making snowflakes from plain white paper. I’ve done something similar with lightweight cardstock (empty cereal boxes, actually), then used a little thinned-down white glue and glitter to make them into stars…

This year, the holidays are going to be especially tough for a lot of families — so what better time to rediscover the true meaning of the season, sitting down with the kids to create new traditions that have more to do with sharing the moment than with spending hard-earned money at the mall?

Jude Hill is the guiding hand behind the What If… Quilting Collaborative, an online group of about 40 keen quilters (and counting!) that has just one mission:

… to revisit the Crazy Quilting style and share our results. We are asking questions about technique and rules and style using the traditional Crazy Quilt framework as a jumping off point.

There’s a pledge to keep an open mind and to challenge each other to new heights of creativity, and a Flickr group to share the results of “what-if” in every colour of the rainbow and every technique you might imagine. It’s textile art, and cooperative creativity that goes to the heart of the quilting tradition — in a very nontraditional way!

Jackie is a medical technologist in Upstate New York. Her full-time day job is working in a hospital lab, but that’s not where her heart is — she’s hiking in the Adirondacks.

And she’s turning the inspirations of nature into jewellery, twisting wire around beautiful stones and pearls and beads to create striking bracelets, necklaces, earrings.

You can find them for sale on Etsy and get a peek at projects in progress at Jackie’s blog, A Keeper’s Jackpot.

Like most beaders — like most craftspeople, in fact — once Jackie started creating her own jewellery and found that others love the pieces too, she starting exploring new ideas and new materials. From basic beads, she went to wire and stone, then branched out into working with polymer clay, and now she exploring decoupage techniques on some of her pendants…

But you know what? It’s the stone necklaces that really get me.

And I’m not even going to try to explain the emotion effect, the thought process, the “how come” of why I was so immediately taken with Jackie’s work, when her mother-in-law told me about her — I’ll just let the jewellery speak for itself:

Photo: Photos o’ Randomness

As for decorating your place for Halloween on the cheap –

Decorate your home and yard with everyday items and almost-trash, like leftover candle stubs and toilet-paper ghosts, the glossy magazines tell you. Right. Not.

What genius was the first to suggest that lighted candles and paper products could be a safe mix? Now throw in gangs of rambling trick-or-treating kids wearing capes and robes and all manner of flammable costumes? Uh-uh.

Not only that, it has been known to rain on October 31st… So what happens to your elegant glowing lights and drifting ghosts, if it rains? Soggy toilet paper draped over trees. In the dark. Not so chic and clever after all, is it? And you’ll just have to clean it all up the next day…

You can do better, even on a tight budget.

Tips for Frugal Halloween Decorations

Get yourself a pumpkin and make a traditional Jack-o-lantern. If you draw the face on your pumpkin with magic marker, instead of carving into it, you can cook it up later and make a pumpkin pie. How frugal is that?

If the kids want to know why you’re not investing in the latest inflatable three-witches yard art, or strings of flashing ghost lights, just tell them you’re doing your part for the environment. Ninety-nine percent of school-aged kids know more about saving energy than David Susuki does, and they dig it. Get them involved in thinking of other ways to decorate –

• Homemade orange-and-black paper chains looped across the porch railing?
• Watercolour paints to make scarey scenes on the windows?
• Construction paper cut-outs of spooky cats and haunted houses?
• An old white bedsheet pinned up in a shadowy corner of the yard, to spook all your little trick-or-treating visitors when it moves in the slightest breeze?
• …you get the idea.

And if you’re fixed on decorating with Halloween string lights around your home and garden, why not re-purpose the ones you use for Christmas and patio parties? This works especially well if you tend to go with plain white lights (very elegant) — and they’re low-energy, low-heat LED mini-lights, right? Add a few fake spiderwebs (and dangle a few pipe-cleaner spiders, if you’re feeling artsy-crafty)… you’re good to go.

Not quite enough festive Halloween decorating, yet, for your taste?

Decorate your front steps with an over-sized bouquet of dead branches (pick ‘em up when you rake the lawn) in a wide-mouthed container — I like an old stew kettle for this, but use what you’ve got — and tuck in a couple of mini gourds.

Or more of those pipe-cleaner spiders and artifical webs.
Or bits of orange and black ribbon, tied in bows.
Or a photo of your mother-in-law.

Whatever scares you.

Photo: Sylvanfeather

And here’s a bonus idea — you can save time and money, both, if you simply go with more general “seasonal” decorations, and simply add a touch of spooky Halloween goodness for the night itself.

Think of a wreath of colourful autumn leaves, or a harvest-themed display of gourds and pumpkins, or a decorative scarecrow.

Instead of having a box of special Halloween decorations that will be used for a week or so at most, you’ll decorate once — and the decorations will do you for Thanksgiving too!

Why send the kids out to collect Halloween treats in a tacky plastic pumpkin, when there are more attractive treat containers to be found — like these cheerful reusable buckets in felt or painted metal?

Reusable and durable items means that you won’t be shelling out for new treat containers, year after year. And when the kids get too old for trick-or-treating? Get thrifty and recycle!

Re-purpose the buckets as tabletop Halloween decorations, piled high with tiny gourds and autumn leaves, use them to hold the treats that you hand out to neighbourhood ghosties who come to your door, or even put it into play as an ice bucket at a grown-up Halloween party: just slip a plastic container inside to keep everything clean and dry.

These two styles of Halloween buckets are both from The Contemporary Home. Sadly, TCH only serves customers in the UK — but the rest of us can find crafty inspiration in the online shop, even if we can’t shop there!

Make Your Own Halloween Treat Buckets

What about decorating your own bucket with black and orange craft paints and a simple Halloween stencil of a bat or pumpkin or haunted house? Pick up a lightweight metal bucket for just a dollar or two in a discount department store — I see them most often near the vases and artificial flowers — or, for a bit more, your local hardware store or garden centre. Craft paints dry quickly, so you can paint the background first, then take a quick break for a cup of tea — and the bucket will be ready for its decorations.

Want to make your own felt treat buckets, inspired by those Halloween goodies at The Contemporary Home? A bit of trial-and-error with a piece of old newspaper will help you make a simple pattern and get the size of bucket you need. You’ll want to cut one long rectangle of felt to form the sides, a circle for the bottom, and a long skinny strip for the handle. (You might want to use a double layer, if the felt you’re working with is on the thin and flimsy side.) Put the pieces together with fabric glue, then do a quick decorative line of stitching around the seams for strength. Slip in the lid from a plastic container or a couple layers of sturdy cardboard to give shape to the bottom of the bucket.

Another option would be to recycle one of those ice-cream pails that have a handle, and simply cover it with colourful felt or a Halloween-themed fabric. If you use a fabric that will fray at the cut edges, either tuck in the edge and glue it down or leave an extra half-inch and pull out the cross-threads to fray it into a decorative fringe.

Finish off your Halloween treat bucket with seasonal decorations. Cut-out felt shapes of spiders, bats, or a jack-o-lantern bats (as shown), or use stencils and fabric paint. You might even embellish your artwork with bits of string and googley eyes… or customize the treat pails to match the kids’ Halloween costumes… the only limit is your imagination!

The crafter known as Waterrose and I met online fairly recently (over at BenBarden‘s place, I think). The embroidery felt cuffs she sells in her online craft shop grabbed me right away! So of course I roped her in here to tell a bit about how she got started with her unique craft — and to share a few tips with others who may be thinking of starting a craft business.   Enjoy! ~Jen

Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions

A dilemma.
That’s where it began.

I have loved embroidery since I was a little girl. I was taught by my mother, who was a master embroiderer, and I’ve found those moments that I spent with her to be some of my fondest memories. However, while I love embroidery, how many people are going to be interested in embroidered pillowcases or tablecloths covered with swimming swans and flowing, flowery southern belles?

While traveling last fall along the Pacific Coast Highway I stopped in a quilt shop and found the most beautiful wool felt. I had no clue what I was going to do with it, but it spoke to me. (So did a few other things, but we won’t go into that!) A couple of months later it all clicked. Cuffs. I began doodling out some designs, gathered my embroidery floss, and began experimenting.

My inspiration is all around me. It seems I no more than start embroidering my current cuff and an idea pops into my head for the next one. I have a list. I can think them up faster than I can create them!

I began filling my Etsy shop with cuffs and received a lot of nice comments. Those comments led me to blogging. I had resisted blogging for a while since all I could think of was, “Why do I want to share my life with a lot of strangers?”

But I began my Waterrose Handcrafted Obsessions blog and I am having so much fun with it. Initially I thought it would be filled mostly with my creations, but it has turned into a mixture of my life, my thoughts, and my craft.

I just created my website and had great fun working on it. When you visit my website you will see a button named, “Quilt”: I’m also a quilter and have plans to release a quilting book early next year. The “quilt” link will lead to a very special project that I can hardly wait to share…

And I have been fortunate to be one of a few artists to have their creations featured in Quilting Arts “gift” special edition. I was so excited to be asked to share my cuffs with everyone.

The indie arts movement has been a boon to everyone who creates.

To those of you who are on the verge, but are hesitant or ask yourself, “Who would buy my stuff?” — just take the plunge! It isn’t easy and you spend a lot of time not only creating, but also marketing and promoting. Unless you have a product that just grabs people it will take a lot of hard work to get your creations in front of people and become recognized.

Tips on Starting a Craft Business

• Spread your marketing and promoting efforts around. You can’t just open an Etsy shop, or create a website and expect people to find you.
• Spend some time after you figure out what your product is and think about what your goals are. Create a business plan. Write down what you want to implement and by what dates and just start working your plan.
• Get feedback from people about your product. How you can improve it, make it more marketable, what consumers are looking for.
• Have fun!

The world of hand crafts and art is so exciting and people are beginning to appreciate the fact that they can purchase such beautiful, original creations. I believe the world is growing weary of mass produced, cheaply made products. Many of us are going green. We are turning to our past to create items that are something different, something handmade, something cherished.

Waterrose can be found at her lively and colourful blog (waterrosez.blogspot.com) — where she does great crafty interviews, by the way — or you can visit her website (www.waterrosedesign.com) and online shop (waterrose.etsy.com) to share the delightful obsession with handcrafted quilt and embroidery crafts.