Beachy bottle

Here's a covered wine bottle that I made by tying knots in twine to make a diamond pattern.  I was inspired by this example.  Full instructions can be found here.

I think these would look great filled with sand or pebbles with a candle, on the patio table this summer.

And, the finished bottom:

Tissue Paper Bowls

I was playing with colored tissue paper and decoupaging them on to styrofoam bowls (with Mod Podge).  With several layers of color, I think they look great.

This one is embellished with punched leaves:

And this one, with beads from my stash; it reminds me just a bit of an agate:

I think we'll be doing this as a project in next week's evening class.

Lots of crocheted blankets

While I was still at OfficeMax, there was a group of ladies who would meet once a week at lunchtime to make blankets for Project Linus, an organization that gives blankets to children in hospitals or who are otherwise in trauma and in need of comfort.  Usually they used patterned fleece and put pretty crocheted edges on them.  Even though I had never crocheted, they taught me a few simple stitches and I took off from there.

Most of the blankets that I have made and donated have child's patterns on them.  I like to do blankets for toddler boys, as they say they receive more for girls and always need boy or unisex patterns, like these that I donated earlier this year:

 

During the recent bitter cold spell in early January, I did some baby blankets with some smaller remnants that I found.  The close up shows a sample edging, although I do use a variety of edges on the blankets.

I would say I've probably donated about a dozen blankets so far.  For Christmas, I also did some in less childlike patterns and had people choose one, to use as couch throws, dog blankets, picnic throws, or emergency car blankets.  Here's a sampling of those.  

What's leftover I'll donate.  I can't thank the lunchtime group enough for teaching me this craft!

Gelli prints and stencils

Over the holidays, my sister and I played with my gelli plate, acrylic paint and stencils.  Gelli plate prints seem to be a bit trial and error...for every decent one, you get four that are really ugly.  I guess we just need a lot more practice!  For those who haven't used one, it is basically monoprinting without a press.

Anyway, here are a few of mine that possibly could be used for something :-).  These prints were pulled on 12x12 deli paper, so they will be very flexible for collage.