By Lisa Gutierrez on 05/10/2012 
Mother’s Day is this Sunday! I’m going to plant a rose bush (or 3) for my mom, but every year I also get the grandmas a photo book (standard 8″x11″ from Snapfish) filled with photos of their grandsons. Because who do moms love more than their own kids? Their GRANDKIDS. It’s true.
Anyway, I’ve had the books for a few days and I’ve been trying to think of how to wrap them. I’ve done wrapping paper, decorated kraft paper, and even scrap fabric in the past. This year, I went with vintage silk scarves. I had two sizes. One was a big 36″x36″ square and the other (this one!) was a bit smaller, at 21″x21″. Here’s how I wrapped it:
1. Place the book face down on the scarf with the edges of the book facing the corners of the scarf. Tie a knot with the 2 corners on the short side of the book.
2. Flip the whole thing over and a tie a knot with the adjacent corners. This is the “front.” Optionally, you can tuck in the little flaps on the back knot. If your scarf is little, like mine, you’ll be able to see some of the book poking through, like this. I rather like the texturing coming through from the linen book cover.
Finish it off with a pretty tag. I wrote out the word mom on a piece of cardstock, poked holes with my embroidery needle, then used two strands of floss to trace my letters. It took 10 minutes tops!
Are you doing anything special for your mom or mom-like figure in your life this weekend?
Pin It
By Lisa Gutierrez on 04/30/2012 
Cordi was always an after-thought pattern of Lace Love. It was more like a bonus. Since Mother’s Day is this weekend, I thought it would be a nice to time to share the pattern with everyone. They’re lovely little brooches that you can make to adorn gifts or cards.
There are two mistakes in the original pattern, but I’ve changed them, so this should be smooth sailing!
You need: approximately 8 yards of crochet thread (I use DMC Perle Cotton 8), 1.75mm crochet hook, and a needle to weave in your ends.
Finished size is approximately 2” in diameter. The piece should be about 0.75” after round 2.
Special Stitches:
Beg-POP (beginning popcorn): Ch 3, work 3 DC into the same stitch. Drop the loop from your hook and insert it from front to back into the top
of the beg Ch-3. Grab the dropped loop with your hook and pull it through the stitch to complete.
POP (popcorn): Work 4 DC into the same stitch. Drop the loop from your hook and insert it from front to back into the first DC of the group. Grab the dropped loop with your hook and pull it through the stitch to complete.
PATTERN (US terminology)
Ch 5, slst to first ch to make ring.
Round 1: Ch 1, 8 SC into ring, slst to first sc. (8 SC)
Round 2: Beg-POP into first SC, Ch 3, *POP into next st, Ch 3; Rep from * around. Slst into top of Beg-POP. (8 POP + 8 ch-3 sp)
Round 3: Ch 1, SC into first ch-3 sp, Ch 3, SC into same sp, *SC into next ch-3 sp, Ch 3, SC into same sp; rep from * around, slst into first SC.
Round 4: Slst into first ch-3 sp, ch 4, DC in same sp, [Ch 1, DC, in same sp] 3 times, *DC in next sp, [Ch 1, DC in same sp] 4 times; Repeat from * around, slst into third ch of beg ch-4.
Round 5: Ch 1, SC in first ch-1 sp, [Ch 3, SC in next ch-1 sp] 3 times, *SC in next ch-1 sp, [Ch 3, SC in next ch-1 sp] 3 times; Rep from * around, slst into first sc.
Fasten off. Weave in ends and attach pin in center back.
Enjoy!
If you make any, be sure to add them to the Ravelry page!
If you can’t crochet, but would still like a doily brooch, see my shop!
Pin It
By Lisa Gutierrez on 05/08/2011 I’ll be spending it with these dudes:
Nathan woke me up before 8 by throwing his card at me and yelling, “Happy Mother’s day!” I got up and made a quiche and sliced some strawberries. We’ll be visiting my MIL later this afternoon for dinner & dessert (I’m making a lemon berry trifle complete with homemade lemon curd! yum).
Have a good one!
By Lisa Gutierrez on 05/02/2008 
I watched the demonstration by Anna Maria Horner on Martha Stewart about making painted fabric silhouettes and was inspired to make some as Mother’s Day gifts (and also one for myself!). However, I decided to tweak her process a little.
Materials (specifics I used):
fabric (some fat quarters I had)
canvases (one 12″x12″, two 10″x10″)
mod podge (gloss-lustre)
x-acto knife
freezer paper
iron
foam brushes
staple gun
First, I searched through the hundreds of photos of my son for a good profile shot. Since all my photos are digital, I used Photoshop to make the silhouette/outline. I used the vector tool and basically just traced his profile. I printed it out and set it aside.
I stapled my fabric to the canvases, as in the demo on Martha. Make sure you get the fabric nice and tight, to avoid any puckering from painting. there are a few air bubbles in mine, but I kind of like them.
Since I did these a little differently, I didn’t go straight to mod-podging the fabric. Instead, I grabbed my printouts and used my x-acto knife to cut out stencils with freezer paper (just tape the printout to freezer paper and cut out carefully). OR you can just print to the backside of the freezer paper. I should have thought of that first!
I kept both parts of the stencil, the shape and the “outline.” I then layed the stencil, waxy side down, and ironed it to my fabric using a hot [DRY] iron. Once I was certain all parts were stuck down, I started painting until I was happy with the evenness of the color and whatnot. After it had a little time to dry, I gently unstuck the stencil and voila! I had my silhouette on the canvas. For the blue and brown silhouette, I ironed down the “outside” of the stencil, and for the other two, I ironed down just the actual face and painted around it. you can do whichever you like.
After the paint completely dried, I used Mod Podge to “seal” it and give it a nice sheen. that’s it! the longest part of it all was cutting out my stencils. Also, I had to put quite a few coats of the lime green paint onto the brown fabric. you can still see some un-evenness, but my husband says that makes it look “awesome.” How nice.
|
Disclosure You may find affiliate links and banners throughout my blog. I earn a small commission from purchases made through these links. It helps pay for keeping this blog running! All reviews and products are items I have personally used and loved. |
