ETSY CRAFT PARTY

Hi Everyone!

Last night Marc and I went to an ETSY Craft Party!! There were a bunch of free craft projects and food, including some amazing hummus. Some of the projects we didn't get to included making your own leather keychain (yeah, not very vegan friendly), cupcake decorating, painting, and bracelet making. However, we did make these:

For the first time ever I did embroidery! I LOVED IT!!! It was so much fun and not too hard at all. I've been wanting to do embroidery/cross stitch/etc. and was so excited when this was one of the projects :D

It's actually really easy to do. Basically, just get the fabric onto something that will pull it taut. I've always seen those adjustable circles used but she simply glued the fabric between popsicle sticks to make a frame for this simple craft. Then, you start one stitch. After that initial stitch, you will come up from the bottom of the fabric in front of the stitch and then go back through the end hole of the first stitch. Does that make sense? It's called a "backstitch!" You can find tons of stitching tutorials here.

Then I made one of these button necklaces! I've seen them a few times and always thought they were interesting. You pick however many strands you want and double the strings. So if you want three rows of buttons, you would take three long strings but then fold them in half to make six. Take two strings at a time. Feed a button through one string and then tie a knot with about an inch of slack so the button can slide. Continue doing this until you get to the end of a string and then start on the next two! This necklace is five strands which is a lot but I still think it's really neat.

Marc made a dreamcatcher! Luckily that string wasn't authentic because it's originally made out of animal intestines! EEK! The bad dreams get caught in the web and the good dreams go through the hole and down the string/feathers to the sleeper. You want your hole big enough for the good dreams to get through but not too big or some of the bad dreams will make their way through as well! I'm not sure where you get sticks that are this bendable but these were! You just wrap the ends of the stick with the string, called "sinew," go about two inches out, make a wrap, and keep going!

Let me know if you try out any of these crafts, I'd love to see!

P.S. Afterwards, we went to see this:

I truly am a closet X-Men fan. I used to read the comics when I was in elementary school, believe it or not. I didn't keep reading them afterwards so I can't detail the story lines of all of the characters (except maybe my childhood favorite Jubilee) but I do enjoy the films!

Kristi(E)