Category: Craft

Postcard mobile

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A mobile made of postcards clipped to a wreath form

When I participated in the Disney College Program, I made some lifelong friends. After we went our separate ways, scattering across the country, we decided we would exchange postcards. Sometimes we send them when we’re in the places we visit, and sometimes we send giant envelopes collecting a year or five’s worth of missives.

This year, I decided that it was a shame these postcards and the cards I’ve received from other friends lived in a box where I never looked at them. Postcards are tiny art pieces that can carry someone’s love across a great distance. They deserve to be seen.

In an attempt to make these postcards come to life, I found a way to suspend them from the ceiling in my office. I used a wreath form and with some assistance, wired three hoops together. Then I took some wire and twisted it to clips on either end. Clip one end to the hoop and the other end to a card, and voila!

T. Swift gift

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Canvas tote bag quoting Taylor Swift’s “All Too Well” surrounded by a red scarf, a “Fuck the patriarchy” keychain, and playlists attached to pens.

I am the best Secret Santa and I will hear no argument to the contrary. When I pulled one of my closest work friends’ name for our work Secret Santa, I knew I wanted to put together something special. I nixed a bunch of ideas before coming up with a bag themed around her favorite Taylor Swift song, “All Too Well.”

The biggest project was knitting a red scarf. While it knit up pretty quickly, in comparison to everything else, it took the longest. Specially for this project, I learned how to soften acrylic yarn by soaking the finished product in a mix of water and hair conditioner. It turned out well and is definitely softer than other acrylic-based projects I’ve made.

The keychain is a shrinky dink I made by tracing a design I put together on Canva. Thank goodness for Canva and its ability to make designs neat and crisp. I also used Canva and a Cricut for the tote bag‘s lyric, “Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it (all too well).” The final Canva project was the Spotify playlist cards for each of T. Swift’s pen style songs. I grabbed her quotes talking about gel pen, fountain pen, and quill pen songs and made them pretty. And of course, the pens to go along with them.

Baby blanket 2.0

yellow and white blanket draped on a couch in front of a brick wall
crochet baby blanket
detail of yellow and white crochet blanket
crochet detail
yellow and white blanket draped on a couch in front of a brick wall
two baby blankets
detail of knit yellow and white blanket
knit detail

Another one of my best friends had a baby recently, so I’m an aunt! During The Pandemic Times, I taught myself how to crochet in an effort to crochet enough snowflakes to fill a flat rate USPS shipping box for my grandmother’s Christmas present. Alas, the winter holiday flurried past and no snowflakes were shipped.

The unintended consequence of learning how to crochet meant that I now had another method of making a baby blanket for the new arrival. I found some of the softest yarn I could in the most cheerful colors, and these two beauties resulted.

I used this pattern from Mama in a Stitch for the crochet blanket.

I used this pattern from Leelee Knits for the knit blanket.

Baby blanket

Folded striped blanket on a wooden chair

My first friend to have a baby was my roommate from Disney. I was so excited to hear she was expecting a baby, I immediately started knitting. I knew I wanted gray in the blanket and this green was the best color in this yarn, so it accidentally became a pseudo-Slytherin color scheme.

I used this pattern from Purls & Pixels for the rice stitch baby blanket.