Cozy Up Your Coffee Cup

 While camping at the beach we are constantly asking the question "Whose cup is this?" as we inspect one of the many red plastic tumblers with red wine remnants.  After the millionth time, Julie began to run through ideas for Camping Wine Charms, as she called them then.  A few months later we discovered Pinterest and she came across the Coffee Cup Cozy.  Most were knitted and adorable and for purchase on Etsy, but we decided to "Old Yarn" the situation.  We figured that we have piles of felt and vintage buttons from making our flowers so, we took a break from hair doodles and began our new craft with a purpose.

1:  We gathered felt, scissors, a marker, a paper towel, elastic thread and a buttons.  You will need to choose your own form of decorations and gather those supplies as well.

2:  To make your templet you can use a paper coffee sleeve opened and flattened, cut out and flatten the center of a paper cup or place something paper around the cup and trace the approximate band width you want, then cut it out.  Now use this as your pattern for the felt sleeve.

3:  It;s time to decorate your felt.  We used a fancy stitch from the sewing machine, embroidery floss for a blanket stitch around the edges, fabric shapes with fusible interfacing to iron on, and a felting needle and brush to embellish our many cozies.  Be sure to center your main design and if you are using the sewing machine to jazz up the edges, be sure you don't sew on your button until the end.

4:  With your design done, now is the time to sew on the button and the elastic thread making sure your cozy will fit snuggly around your cup.  You don't want the cozy to fit to high toward the lip of the cup because you will then be drinking from the felt and that could be gross,  especially after camping for a few days.  We found the best way to attach the elastic loop was to sandwich it between the cozy and another piece of felt.

5: We were worried about slippage, so on some we ran a bead of hot glue along the back to act as a grip for extra insurance.  Be careful with this idea.  The best place for the glue, ended up being behind the decoration or smearing it flat with the tip of the glue gun because a regular 3d strip of hot glue along the top and bottom made a bump that could be seen once the sleeve was placed on the cup.

   





We made one for each camper and it really did solve the problem.  The entire camping trip we knew who was drinking from what and everyone one "felt" special with their very own AND very campy Coffee Cup Cozy!

From Socks to Fingerless Gloves

So my daughter really wanted a pair of fingerless gloves, but the selection of  gloves is town appeared  limited and the sock selection seemed bountiful, so she asked me to make her some.  Being a very easy project, I knew she could do this one on her own, but being that I do not know how to knit and she does and she is in the middle of making me a painstakingly slow-mustard-yellow scarf, I figured I would let her focus and do this one for her.  I looked it up on Pinterest so you will see the original pin on my "Craftlandia" Board.

Step 1:  Cut off the sock just under the heel so you have only the tube part the covers your leg.

Step 2:  The cut end will become the top of the glove that will sit on your upper arm.  Just fold over the cut edge to hem it sewing it to the inside of the "glove".

Step 3:  about 1 1/2 inches from the other end cut a small hole for your thumb folding the cut edge in and hemming it to the inside.

Step 4:  Put on your new Fingerless Gloves to pep up your ensemble as see above.

Now what do you do with the foot of the sock you have cut off?  Well, you could make some sort of stuffed animal out of it, but I only have so much time on my vacation so I choose something much simpler diy craft.

Cut the other side right below the heel and slip over a tin or jar that you are using to store all of your crafty bobbles.

My Daughter's Mad Hatter Tea Party

Baby Alice

The White Queen and One
of Tweedle Brothers

 My daughter-The White Queen- threw a Mad Hatter Tea Party for some of children we know.  She worked with a friend of ours to make invitations and party decorations for the big day.  The children were all allowed to wear an appropriate outfit if they wished and come together for tea and cookies, croquet and songs.

 They placed red roses from the 99 cent store in the already existing white rose bushes and made large playing cards out of poster board then placed on wire for the game.

Birdencil

Bread and Butterflies

The special characters were made from Crayola Model Magic and craft accessories.

The Mad Hatter himself

We decorated lanterns before the party to hang in the trees with tissue paper, alice pictures, pom poms and craft paper. Of course the table was set for tea.

The  moms were invited for appetizers and sangria and were each given a large hat to wear upon arrival (the sangria helps with the hat wearing).

Alice

We allowed all of the children to dive right into the cake with their bare hands.  It was funny to watch the children's faces as the first one dug in.  They all looked around to see if he was going to get in trouble and when none of the adults said anything, they looked at each other with shocked faces and and slowly put in one finger at first, but by the end were taking large scoops of cake.  Not something I would suggest for any party, but for a Mad Hatter Tea Party, it was perfect.