Fridge frames

I saw this post on Pinterest a while back and when I got the school pictures from my nephews and nieces, decided this was the best way to put them on display on my fridge.

I didn’t use the exact method Leah, from The Way We Are, showed in her post. I simply got cheap plastic frames and sheets of magnet from the dollar store and put them together. Here’s a simple tutorial if you want to do it at home too.

You will need:
A cheap photo frame
One (or more, if you have a bigger frame) sheet of magnet
Popsicle sticks
A flathead screwdriver and/or a pair of longnose pliers
A hot glue gun
Scissors (not on picture)
A ruler (not on picture)
A pencil (not on picture)

1) Take out the back of the frame.

Flip it over. If you have the cheapest kind of frame you can get, like I did, there should be metal grommets attaching the stand to the back of the frame.

Use the flathead screwdriver or the pliers to raise the “arms” of the grommets and then to push them out of the holes.

The back of the frame should now be flat.

2) With the hot glue gun, glue popsicle sticks to the back of the frame. I used five. Just make sure it covers a big part of the back.

3) Measure the area occupied by the popsicle sticks. For me it was 5 x 4 1/2 inches. Cut the sheet of magnet down to the right size. Peel off the adhesive backing and glue it on the popsicle sticks.

And there you have it! Just put your picture in the frame and enjoy a nice and clean fridge door!

Way Back(log) project: Knitted flowers hair things

I made these more than a year and a half ago for a personal swap that never took place. The girl wanted hair things and I wanted to knit, so there you have it: Knitted flowers hair things! I had made her a set of four hair clips (snap type) and one bigger classic barrette.

I’ve been living with these next to my computer. I moved them to my new place. I never knew what to do with them. So I started wearing them (anyway, knitted things are all the rage right now!).

The pattern for the flowers is here. I added beads and pearls while knitting the flowers and then hot-glued them to the clips or barrettes.

The flower pattern is relatively easy and great for practising increases. This is a really easy project and can be used for making practically anything – brooches, hair clips, hat or hair band decorations, etc. Just glue or sew the flower to the accessory.  It’s also a great project for leftover yarn of any kind (I used cotton and acrylic).

Pink Flower Hair Clip (there were two of these in the bundle)

Red Flower Barrette

Blue Flower Hair Clip

Green Flower Hair Clip

Oversized Harry Potter Scarf

I recently participated in the “Libre de lire” project (Free to read), an initiative by Montreal librarians for Freedom to Read week. Each participant (anyone can be a participant) chooses a banned book and tells the world why they want to be free to read that book. As a Harry Potter fan and children’s librarian, I chose my favourite instalment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (because it features my favourite character Remus Lupin, the tortured, melancholic professor/werewolf). Harry Potter has been one of the most contested series of books in the last decade (no.1 in ALA’s top 100 for the 2000-2009 decade), and most probably the most contested children’s series because it . Despite that, it has been widely read all over the world and translated in 69 languages. Teachers and librarians who worked in children’s libraries at that time will tell you that it made reluctant readers read 600-page books.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I dug up my Gryffindor scarf that my mother knitted for me back in 2002. It’s a huge thing: it’s over 7½ feet long (without the tassels) by 9½ inches wide. It’s knitted in the round as to look nice (stockinette) any side you look at it. So that makes it extra thick too. Great for Quebec winters! (And maybe scottish winters too, I’d have to go to check! : ) )

Free to read Harry Potter and the Prisonner of Azkaban

You can’t see much of it in the picture, but I’m sure you get what it looks like.

My boyfriend took the picture and I got to experiment with GIMP for the editing. I found a great tutorial on selective colourization. For the rest I had to try all the options until I found the one I wanted!

For other Harry Potter goodness, check out the items I made for a dog in a dog-themed swap.

Mini “Shrinky Dinks” Notebook

This is a project I did a gazillion years ago (okay, maybe two, or something like that). I didn’t think I had any pictures of it on my computer. I didn’t have my camera at the time and took pictures with my phone. I was looking through old picture today and lo! there they were!

Shrinky Dinks Notebook

I made the notebook for a craft swap on Craftster called “OTT [One tiny thing] Shrinky Dinks”. It was one of the first times I’d played with Shrinky Dinks. For those who’ve never heard of the stuff, Shrinky Dinks is a brand of shrinking plastic. It comes in thin, flexible sheets of about 8″ x 10″, with one rough side and one smooth side. You color on the rough side and cut it to the shape you want. You then put in a few seconds in the oven and it shrinks to about a quarter of the size and become very rigid. It’s really amazing to watch! It becomes all wrinkly and almost spastic and then it becomes smooth again and really tiny! It’s sold in department stores and craft stores in the kids section.

The roses on the cover come from an Art Nouveau permission-free pattern book. The book I bought didn’t come with a CD-ROM though, so I photocopied, enlarged and traced the pattern to transfer it onto the shrink plastic.

I used the “fusible” method to add dimension to the cover. To do this, I drew the roses on two different sheets. One I left whole, and I cut up all the petal of the second sheet. I shrunk all the pieces individually and then baked the whole thing again, this time stacking the single petals on the whole sheet.

The pages are made with scrapbooking paper and the book is binded with the method described on this site.

Inside the mini notebook

Purple wristwarmers

I’m in a purple mood lately… I also wanted something wearable to work (my pink wristwarmers are getting a bit frayed and the colour doesn’t fit with everything).

I learned how to knit an afterthought thumb with this pattern. But didn’t enjoy it… I also thought the pattern was a bit weird because the arm really flares out after the wrist. Worn on bare arms they look like superhero gloves! But they look nice worn over vest or hoodie sleeves like in the photo.

These were knitted with the same yarn as the hat and scarf my mom made me last year (she gave me the rest!). Purple acrylic yarn.

 

Purple wristwarmers (notice the purple nail polish! Purple mood )

The pattern is Silmu Arms by Marianne Heikkonen. It’s available for download on Ravelry.

 

Double-knit hat

I made this last year (I don’t know why I didn’t post it at the time…). I wanted a really warm hat for winter. The wind here tends to find its way through knitted stitches easily. So I tried double-knitting. Double-knitting is a method where you knit two strands at a time (usually one with your left and one with your right hand) to make a double, reversible fabric. It’s a bit hard to get the tension right when double-knitting (for me, at least, because I’m not used to knitting with my left hand), that’s why one side looks a bit funky.

I knitted it in acrylic yarn, in burnt orange and brown mix. The orange yarn is the same I used for Bella’s mittens.

Both sides of the reversible hat

The pattern is “Not-your-grandma’s-double-knit Hat” by Jenanne Hassler over at Knitty.

 

Bella’s mittens

I needed a pair of mittens and really liked the pattern worn by Bella in the movie Twilight. I love doing cables and these mittens are long so they cover the arms high up and protect from any snow that could trickle in (I remember very well the burn of snow on my wrists when I was little, playing outside!).

They are in burnt orange acrylic yarn, the same I used for my hat. I’m working on a flannel lining to make them even warmer (especially against the wind).

Bella's mittens

The pattern is available on Subliminal Rabbit’s blog. I had a bit of a hard time counting the pattern’s rows, but at least, both my mittens are done with the same mistakes, and so are the same length!

Autumn Neck Warmer

This is a neck warmer I knitted for my sister-in-law’s birthday in November.

Neck Warmer

The pattern is “Café au Laine” Available for free at The AntiCraft!

Car organizer (Simplicity #2553A)

This is a project I picked for a sewing class to master my fear of bias tape. It’s a car organizer that hangs on the head rest of the passenger seat, and can be hung either on the front or the back of the seat.

The bias tape wasn’t so bad when sewn in a straight line, but I still need to work on the curving!

Car Organizer

BBQ stuffed peppers

This is the most delicious stuffed peppers recipe I’ve tasted!

"On the Barbie"

The recipe is from the British magazine “Good Food”: Stuffed Peppers on the Barbie

I suggest cutting the top off of the peppers and stuffing them vertically. It’s much easier and you can really tie them closed, whereas if you cut a slit on the side of the peppers and stuff them horizontally, it’s really hard to tie them together. Also, be careful not to over-stuff the peppers. It’s better to do more peppers with less stuffing (the recipe suggests 6 peppers).

I passed on the tomatoes, since I don’t like them very much, but it was delicious anyway!

Yum!