We religiously meet in January, March, May, July, September, and November.  Except, of course, when all hell breaks loose and we can’t meet and then we try really hard to be flexible.  So, it’s April and we’re having Crafty Chix.  Hey, whatever works!

Sadly, Lee couldn’t make it this time.  She’s waiting shoulder surgery and couldn’t make the drive.  We’ll have to work something out for this stuff because she’s going to be struggling with recovery for quite a little while and we can’t be without her!

The essential tools for needlefelting (because I’m all about the tools) are roving (ie. unspun wool), an exceptionally sharp needle or ten, a big, thick piece of foam, and a steady hand!  Oh, a supply of bandaids isn’t a bad idea, either.  You can see the corner of the band-aid box in the picture above!

Hummingbird in progress.  There are different kinds of needles — individual and group ones.  This one has two that are set in a wooden handle.  I recommend you get good at needlefelting before you switch to the handled ones — it’s easier to stab yourself when you are using multiple needles!

Jennifer, hard at work on a felted coaster.  Notice the careful placement of her fingers . . . accidental?  I think not!  Look in the lower right corner of the picture, see the adorable cat toy?  She put bells inside it.  Too cute!

Jody is working on an adorable bird!  So incredibly cute!

Jerryne is working on another coaster.  These were from an earlier crafty chix project (felting!).  She got an old wool sweater at a thrift store and felted it.  Then she stitched the blanket stitch around the edges.  For some reason, they have always made us laugh but Jerryne stuck by her guns and used them anyway.  Today, she and Jennifer needlefelted them and WOW!  They are gorgeous!

Ruby wants me to tell you that it was HOT today!  94 degrees!  Whew!  But we had ac and cool drinks and we didn’t mind it at all!

Two of the updated coasters!  Stunning, huh?

updates as they become available!

Jody has discovered the beauty and joy of crochet and she shared it with us this month. We all learned to make a One-Skein Scarf. Jody is an awesome teacher — which we already knew because she had taught us to do wire wrapped jewelry before quite successfully. We all got the crochet work down although for some of us who had been dedicated knitters, old habits were hard to break.

We were celebrating Jerryne’s birthday this month. We had a great lunch — as always — and amazing frosted brownies for dessert — chocolate is a necessity! We did an odd field trip this time. Liza had to run back home and get her allergy meds (visiting dog that was bugging my allergies) and everyone else went out and got yarn at a local yarn/fabric shop.

A great project. I think we’ll be revisiting crochet again.

Jerryne

Jennifer

Lee

Jody

Liza’s WIP

The Crafty Chix are planning our events for 2008.  Here are some inspirational links that I sent out to the group to get us going.  Maybe you’ll see more of these . . . maybe not! 

Crochet Project

Needle Felting:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolenzo/111625908/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolenzo/12776982/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurenalane/811393866/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/karent/66708920/ ** My suggestion for a project for the day **
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22687338@N00/1544864324/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/doodlebugdezines/485790445/

Freezer Paper Stencil Inspiration:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=freezer+paper+stencils&s=int

Sewing Project Ideas:
http://whipup.net/2007/12/18/tutorial-bunting-flags/ (A hot item in crafting lately)
http://melissagoodsell.typepad.com/day_to_day/2007/11/day-2—christm.html
http://www.lazygirldesigns.com/blog/?p=913
http://moonstitches.typepad.com/photos/tutowlrial/index.html
http://prettylittlethings.typepad.com/lori_marie/2007/08/doggie-cozy.html  (We can all make doggy sweaters to torment Ruby!)

Christmas Project Ideas:
http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=211686.0
http://www.designspongeonline.com/2007/11/diy-wednesdays-modern-paper-ornaments.html
http://belladia.typepad.com/bella_dia/2007/12/little-miss-pin.html

Someone on my other blog asked so I’m posting the directions for what we did.

Materials: lots and lots of buttons, a base circle, some gorgeous ribbon, hot melt glue gun and hot melt glue sticks.

1. Start with a base — we used different bases and they all worked pretty well. Some of us used cardboard cut into rough circle shapes. Lee used fabric (and some cardboard). Jody used a styrofoam circle. They all had their pros and cons. The cardboard is easy to work with but it’s hard to cut out the circles unless you have super sharp knives. The fabric takes some work ahead of time but gives you a very pleasing rounded shape. The styrofoam looked good but caused some angst as it needed to be painted (and took a LONG time to dry) and was too thick and needed to be cut into thirds. Still, once the bases are done, you are ready to start gluing.
2. Start gluing your buttons in place — you want to overlap the edges of your base so that you don’t see the form underneath. Once you get one layer on you start layering the buttons on top of each other, filling in gaps and holes, and looking for a slightly raised shape in the center.
3. Once it is all dried and cooled, you pick off all the excess glue and strings — this is a long process that may never be completely over — hot melt glue is weird stuff!
4. Then choose your ribbon, create a loop or bow or whatever you are doing, glue it securely onto the back and voila!

This really is a fun project that you can crank through and create several in one day — provided you have enough buttons! I’m sure some will chime in to point out any goofs I’ve made in my directions!

We met today at Jerryne’s house — as usual. Our project was button wreaths. What a wildly successful event!  Button wreaths are easy and fun.  We were all pleased with our efforts — even with our wildly differing styles.  We had a few burns — one bad one — from the hot melt glue but they were well worth it.  One of the things that we learned with this project was that you can never have too many buttons (well, we sort of knew that already!).  Liza ordered a 5 lb box from a seller on eBay and that was a huge hit.  we dug through them and really had a blast making these wreaths.  We all raided each other’s buttons — totally fun!  I love the way our personalities show in all the different wreaths.

On the menu was Jerryne’s Chile Relleno Casserole, fresh fruit, and an amazing bread.  Awesome meal!

Our field trip was to the Scotts Valley Craft Fair — so much fun!  Liza was the big spender — I bought a beautiful table runner and a spectacular beaded Christmas ornament.

Yippee! Skippee! We look forward to these days for two months.

We did beading this time.

Jody always has to teach us how to do the wire wrapping technique. She did this cool bracelet.
Note the knit bow pin on her skeleton head.

Lee, my mom, did wire wrapped earrings for a friend of hers. Gorgeous! She is still riding high from selling her beaded piece of Setna the Alaskan Mermaid last week. Go Mom!

My gorgeous mother-in-law turned 75 last week which gave us a chance to celebrate. She made some Christmas ornament hangers too.

My sister-in-law, Jennifer, did some beadwork in preparation for next time’s embellishment project. She also got in some mending! She was also the hostess and served up our delectable lunch! Yum!

And me, I did beaded Christmas Ornament holders. I was pleased with them. I even recycled an old bolo tie decoration from the 80’s into an ornament.

Add to that our cake in honor of Jerryne’s birthday and the trip to Goodwill and a consignment furniture shop (that ended with my having a new piece of furniture for my house!) and it was a fantastic day!

I baked the cake. It’s a Pink Loves Brown cake. I just made that up. It’s a simple box chocolate cake that I iced pink and then covered with chocolate jimmies and pink sprinkling sugar. YUM! Pretty cute, huh?