It’s not easy trying to find the perfect way to get smaller children involved in the holiday spirit. Boys and girls from ages four through ten are often a little too excited to shop for family and teachers. This craft idea is your solution for younger kids, who need an afternoon to settle down and make a Christmas gift from the heart, especially if you can’t afford full time golf school for the golf lover in your family or friend network! This provides moms, or dads, with an opportunity to take a break from Christmas cooking, decorating, and shopping, to sit down and do something fun and quiet with the kids, like, make a golf bug!

What You Need:

Yarn (Blue, Green, White, and Black)

Mini Golf Club

Pattern for Visor and Hands

Craft Foam

Foam Feet

Foamie Hands

Wiggle Eyes — 20mm

2-1/2″ Styrofoam Ball

Pipe Cleaner (Green or White)

5″ Square of Cardboard

Tacky Glue

Scissors

Instructions:

Start your Christmas project for your family’s golf lover, by making a pompom, –first cut down a piece of cardboard to five inches square, and wrapping your multicolored yarn around it at least one hundred times. Now, cut a length of yarn, six inches, and slide it beneath the layers of wrapped yarn; tie it tight into a double knot, so that it’s gathered and bunched in the middle of the cardboard. Flip the cardboard over to the side without the knot, and cut straight down the middle of the yarn. Now just smoothe out your bundle. Next, press your styrofoam ball onto a hard surface, like a kitchen table or counter, in order to make the bottom side flat. Or you can substitute that piece with a section of egg carton.

Now, take the ball, and cover the sides and the top of the ball with a tacky, sticky glue, –then just separate the strands of the pom-pom so that the styrofoam ball will fit easily inside the strands of your, and be completely covered. Arrange it neatly, then start printing or drawing any of the patterns you may need to finish your little golf bug, then staple them to the pieces of foam for his feet, or hands. Use your pipe cleaners for his arms, and glue his foam hands to the ends. For making arms, just poke pipe cleaners into the foam ball on either side of him.

Now, glue on his eyes, and start gluing on all his other appendages, –then you can glue on his visor, and the little paper golf club. This little golf bug cutie makes a great stocking stuffer for moms and dads, and golf fascinated youngsters, –just be sure the glue is dry before giving the little guy as a gift! Refer to the picture for a better look at what you’re making. The Golf Bug craft was inspired by our friends at MakingFriends.com, where many other fun crafts can be found.

• While drooling over all the beautiful bags in the U-Handbag flickr pool I ran across etsy seller ObscuritiesHotGlass. She has tons of really cute bags and they all look beautifully sewn. The above-pictured crossword puzzle bag is a fave but she also has tons of great boxy bags. Looks like she’s having a killer sale right now too so check it out.

• And speaking of boxy bags, I’ve been searching online for a tutorial for this type of bag and found a great one from Dragoknitfly. She explains everything well and has lots of good photos.

• Wait until you see this amazing Etch-A-Sketch laptop cozy over at Betz White’s blog. She made it as a birthday gift for her brother. Seriously cute. If she was selling them in her shop I’d already own one! ha ha

• For those of you interested in selling your wares at the biggest (and dare I say best?!) holiday craft show in SoCal applications are up for Felt Club! This year’s event is being held on Sunday, November 16th at the Shrine Auditorium. Along with the usual fab offering of crafty workshops we’ll also be including Swap-O-Rama-Rama in the festivities. Applications are being accepted through August 29th.

That’s all I’ve got for now. Have a crafty, productive weekend everyone!
Cheers,
Donna

I haven’t been very creative on my own over the past couple of weeks. I have had family visiting, and just haven’t had the time. So, I thought, for this post, I would share some “other people’s” projects that are on my “gonna make that one day” list. The projects that are safely tucked away in my bookmarks folder.

	I’ve got this great page at Lion Brand for Crochet Monsters, along with another page for every Amigurumi you can imagine.
	I really just MUST make this hand-tied baby quilt at Everything Sewing. I absolutely love it! I had a quilt like it as a child, gotta make them for future grandchildren. (I hope I have plenty of time to get them done. ) Instructions for the fabric memo board are at the same site.
	And then, there’s this amazing example of fun and creativity, and I really WILL be making this. It’s circular crocheting with 3 separate colors at the same time. I think it is fascinating, and even while I am writing this, I am wishing I was giving it a try.The instructions are at Interweave Crochet’s Blog.

I’m going to get started, and I’ll update this post when I have a pic of my effort. In the meantime, any of our readers who give this a shot, send me a pic. I’d love to see other folks ideas for this technique.

I was planning to make one of these great backpacks for my daughter. When it was completed, I asked her to try it on, to check the length of the drawstring. She told me that she would rather have it a bit longer. I laughed at her, as she was asking me to make it so that it hung just about 4 inches below her waist. So, I said, “You mean you want it where it will be banging your butt all day?” (That would drive me crazy!) Thus, the “Butt Banging Backpack” was born!

Whether you are headed to the library or the beach, this lightweight
drawstring backpack is the perfect carry-all.

Don’t want to carry your purse?

Just toss your essentials in this pack,
sling it on your back, and off you go!

(more…)

Even though he’s too nice to admit it, I’m sure my husband has wondered why he ever bought me the sewing machine I begged him for!  I would do an occasional project, but for the most part, it sat unused on my craft table for months at a time.  But not anymore!  I have found a ton of easy summer sewing patterns online.  Plus, I heard through flickr that WalMart is getting rid of their fabric departments so there will be lots of fabric sales this summer.  Anyway, here is a run down of some patterns that should be simple enough for sewing novices like me!

Turn a men’s shirt into a cute fitted cap-sleeve top with the help of this tutorial on craftster.org.  I haven’t tried this one yet, but I raided my husband’s old clothes and have a shirt to use for it.

Another one on Craftster that uses a men’s shirt is this adorable button down shirt into a toddler dress tutorial.  This one I have done, and my daughter loves it!  I was able to do the whole thing during her naptime.  I took a couple of quick photos of her this morning:

Here’s another one that I want to try as soon as I get some grosgrain ribbon to match my fabric…this easy circle skirt tutorial.

This last one might be a little bit more complicated (at least, it will be for me!) but I definitely want to try it.  There is a tutorial for making a shirred top for yourself and a shirred sundress for a little girl.

I think the best part about finding these tutorials online is the fact that so many people leave helpful hints and discussions in the comments.  I am NOT good at sewing, not at all, so these tutorials are much easier to understand than patterns!