Catching Up

Sorry it has been so long since I've posted. I have been enjoying the birth of my niece, grading essays for my English classes and slaving over putting Halloween costumes together.  First thing's first. I saw a great little writing practice tool on Pinterest and had to make one for my nephew. The original blog can be found here. The blog suggested putting a contrasting color underneath the bag so that the writing is easier to see. I used 2 bottles of gel and discovered that there was too much. My suggestion is to just use one.

Materials you will need:
1 bottle hair gel (I got one at the dollar store)
1 gallon size ziplock bag
1-2 small package(s) glitter of your choice. I used a plain glitter and one that had little stars.
Enough food coloring to make the gel the shade you want.
Duct tape to make sure the bag stays shut.

And voila! Something for the little nippers to practice writing letters with.

Another thing I tried in the past week, was twisting my hair in order to make curls. I don't know about you, but I'm not a fan of putzing with the curling iron and sleeping in is better than hot rollers. All I did was take a shower in the evening about 1/2 hour before I went to bed. 

 And next time..... my Guinevere dress that I made out of one piece of fabric AND my Spirit Week/Halloween costumes.

The Boy Wants Owls

Original Owls

I have the pleasure of watching my nephew, Gabriel, while we wait for his sister to be born today. Since I do all sorts of craft projects with my nieces, I thought that it would be fitting to do at least one with him. While we were surfing my pinterest.com boards for the breakfast recipe I wanted, he saw the owls I pinned and started hooting. I figured this would be an easy project to do "with" him.  

Breakfast Frittatas

We did make the breakfast first, which turned out to be very good. I liked that I could make a different one for each of us. I wound up putting ham, cheese and broccoli in the adult frittatas and just ham and cheese for Gabriel. The other great thing about these is that I can freeze them and eat them for breakfast this next week.

On to the owls!

I looked through my stash of fabric for fat quarters that were bright and slightly obnoxious. Here's what I did.

Materials:

3 fat quarters of fun fabric

thread to match or coordinate with the fat quarters

1 sheet of felt (or big scraps) in each color: white, black and orange

fiber fill

nylon fill beads (optional)

First I found some bowls that were about the size that I wanted the owls to be and traced them onto printer paper.

Then I cut out 2 of each size for each owl.

I used my salt shaker to trace the whites of the eyes and guessed (and got lucky) with cutting the blacks.

The beaks I cut by folding a rectangle in half and cut the corners off of the open side.

I sewed the whites on, then the blacks. I added the beaks.

Next, I sewed the fronts and backs together with right sides together. I almost forgot to leave a space so that I could turn it back right-side-out.

I turned them right side out, using the point of my large crafting scissors to make sure the ears were entirely turned. I used the large scissors because I didn't want my points to poke through the fabric.




I filled the top half of the owls with fiber fill, taking care to shove some up into the ears. Then, I used a funnel to fill the rest of the owl with the nylon beads. I made sure not to fill them too full.

Here are the finished owls.

Gabriel with his owls. Hoot! Hoot!



The next time that I make some of these (and I most definitely will), I will probably add some rick-rack or maybe some ribbons coming out of the ears. I might even add some of the fun new stones with the cool bedazzler tool I got for my birthday.








For dinner tonight: brown sugar and balsamic glazed pork loin that I'm cooking in the crock pot. Another fabulous find on pintrest.com.

Beginnings

I was sitting here, wresting my dogs off the blanket I was piecing together on the floor, and thinking about how to get my name onto the hippo blanket I'm giving my niece. I was trying to come up with a company name for my creations that wasn't too cheesy and yet still fit my style and personality. This is where Dragonfly Imaginings begins.

This is going to be such a hodgepodge blog due to the wide variety of crafts and projects that I do as well as all the work I do with the Schnauzer Rescue of MN. While the dogs aren't dragons or dragonflies, I love them just as much. I think it just looks more than the average creepy when people go around with breed specific clothes on. Nobody blinks at dragons or dragonflies. lol