Harry Potter Cross Stitch

I found the cutest little Harry potter cross stitch on Pinterest, and I was lucky enough to find the completed version and the digital version.

These are the colors I used and their DMC numbers:

Skin: 437

Wands/shoes: brown (on hand, no DMC number)

Dumbledore's clothes: 3835 and 3743

Bottom part of Dumbledore's hat, tassle, and Hermione's hair: 781

Dumbledore's beard: 762

Ron's hair: 720

Ron's shirt and Dobby's shirt: 414

Harry/Hermione's shirts an Voldemort's head and Hagrids belt buckle: 415

Snape's cape and Voldemorts clothes/ Harry, Ron, and Hermione's pants: 413

Snape's Shirt: 823

Hagrid's hair and Dobby's shoes: 938

Harry's scar, words "Harry Potter", and maroon color on gryffindor scarves: Marroon (on hand, no DMC number)

Lighning bolt and yellow color on gryffindor scarves: (on hand, no DMC number)

I used 3 strands of embroidery floss for everything, 2 strands for Harry's scar, and 1 strand for the outline of Harry's glasses

Here is the setup, the cross stitch on my lap, with the pinterest picture in front of me.

I started with the outline, then the skin, and whatever struck my fancy after that.

I thought I was done, but I forgot Harry's scar!

 Finished!! So cute. Now to buy a frame. 

The finished product is approximately 4" x 5". 

And here is all the scrap floss.

Christmas Ornament Cross Stitch

My mother-in-law's Christmas tree is covered in homemade ornaments and she really wanted me to make one to go on it. She knows I cross stitch, so I went on Etsy in search of a Christmas themed 3" hoop I could copy. I narrowed in down to 3-4 designs, then let my mother-in-law pick her favorite. 

I started by finding the center of the 14 squares/inch Aida fabric.

I already had light blue embroidery floss on hand, so I began with the top left corner of the snowflake. And then I ran out of floss and had to go get more. I tried to match the color, but the rest of the snowflake is a slightly darker blue.

 I glued the excess fabric to the inside of the hoop so it doesn't get in the way.

And then I tied some twine around the hoop fastener for hanging purposes.

She loved it!

I love you but you don't know what you're talking about

I saw this cute little embroidery hoop on Etsy that perfectly describes my relationship with David (it's a quote from the movie Moonrise Kingdom). In fact, I'm pretty sure I've said this exact thing to him before.

It is a 4" hoop that someone is selling for $15. Outrageous! I could make this for free minus the cost of the hoop itself. 

So I went out and bought a 4" hoop. When I held the hoop up to my computer screen, it was obvious that the cross stitch fabric this Etsy seller used had much larger squares than the normal 14 squares/inch fabric I use. I didn't want to go out and buy more, but I happened to have accidentally bought 18 squares/inch fabric one time, and it just so happens that this is almost exactly half the size of the one the seller used. So for every one square in the original pattern, mine has four tiny squares.

 I held up the fabric to the computer screen and started with the word "I" roughly where I thought it should go.

I used pink, blue, green, and black that I already had on hand from other projects. I used two strands of embroidery floss for everything, but looking at the original, I think the seller may have used 3. 

I finished it by folding over the fabric and hot gluing it to the inside of the hoop.

I found a nice little spot for it on my wall.

Bob Ross #2

I did a step-by-step paint tutorial earlier this year (earlier post here), but it wasn't actually a Bob Ross tutorial and it really only used like two colors. Painting a Bob Ross painting was on my bucket list, so I decided to go for it again, with a more colorful pallet.

Here is the video I watched:

The supplies from Michaels (I didn't need to buy anything new, because I still had it all from last time, except the 16" x 20"canvas):

Mid painting sesh:

And the finished product!

Side note: Mountains are so much harder to paint than Bob Ross makes them seem. Also, oil paint ended up EVERYWHERE. Thank goodness it comes out with soap. 

Hair Wrap Tutorial

I was at JoAnns today buying a canvas and had the sudden urge to make a hair wrap for myself. So I bought some embroidery floss and followed this tutorial.

You braid a small chuck of hair, then wrap embroidery floss around it over and over, tying a knot at the start and finish.

Fun fact: These were ALL the rage at my elementary school in 2nd grade (1998).

The colors (plus black)

Update: BEWARE! If your hair is anything like mine, you will end up with a small dreadlock by your scalp.

Pinewood Derby Stair Car Tutorial

Our ward had a pinewood derby race this past weekend, and David and I wanted to make a sweet car. We really like Modern Family, so we decided to re-create the iconic Bluth family stair car from the show.

We started with your basic pinewood derby car kit.

I took some scrap plywood and cut a few layers of it to stack up as the body, and I also cut an angle to the original block of wood we were given.

After gluing those together, I took some popsicle sticks and hot glued them on to be the stairs, I cut out some round pieces of cardboard from a cereal box and glued that on, ang glued on one popsicle stick for the front bumper. Then I painted everything white/red/blue/black/silver (except the logo, which was printed on paper and glued on).

Turned out pretty sweet.

Lace Dress

I bought this dress from a thrift store well over two years ago with the intent to re-furbish it.

 (Sorry for the awful quality of these phone pictures)

The dress was $6 and super ugly, but $6 is way less than the lace alone would cost, so it it was a steal. I wanted to turn it into something like this:

I finally got around to my re-refurbishment a month or two ago.

I ran into a lot of snags, such as there wasn't enough fabric on the dress to use any of the patterns I own, and unpicking the seams of this dress was a nightmare, and it was a v-neck when I didn't want a v-neck. Every step of the way went something like this:
1. "uhhhh, I'll sew it like this, maybe?"
2. "I don't even know if this will work."
3. *sews*
4. *tries on the dress*
5. "Yikes! Okay I need to adjust that"
6. Repeat steps 3-5 a few more times until it finally comes out okay.

Anyways, in the end it actually turned out pretty good.

I added a zipper in the back (which is totally crooked, by the way), and a waistband from some excess material I took off the skirt. The entire lining is made from scratch with fabric from JoAnns and without a pattern. I also took in A LOT of material.

I got more compliments on this dress than any other item of clothing in my closet.