Valentine’s Day is less than a month away. I love Valentine’s Day and I think it is a lot because I am a hopeless romantic. So everything about this holiday is great. This year, I wanted to try something new and I love origami and wanted to see if there was a way to combine Valentine’s Day and origami. I was lucky to stumble upon a great tutorial that shows you how to make the origami hearts, like pictured. The tutorial makes it easy to understand what you have to do in each folding step. I went through just the step tutorial and was able to make these easily. The great thing about this tutorial is that there is a video that will walk you through the steps. These make both great decorations for Valentine’s Day and make unique cards.

Doormat are great to have because they can keep the dirt outside and off of your floors in the house. They are also nice to look at. I found this one and fell in love with it. I can’t wait to try this (going to this weekend) and add this to our cottage. There is a great tutorial that shows some of the steps that need to be done in pictures, which is always very helpful. You could even try dying the rope to make it match the color of your house or cottage.

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.