Disney Magnets

I got back from my RI/ME trip about 2 weeks ago. Then I was crazy busy catching up with work and making some crafts for the Reddit Exchanges I was in. I made these magnets for the Disney Exchange. My sister made some with family pictures for my mom a few years ago and I have wanted to make them ever since. They make a great gift and you can customize them anyway you want!

These are all the tools I started out with. I bought 2 different sizes of clear flat marbles from Michaels. They were only about $3 each (so this is also a relatively cheap gift!). Then I found a bunch of different Disney photos I liked and sized them to fit to the marbles. If you'd like to make the same ones I did here is a pdf of the stills I used. My giftee is also a Doctor Who fan so I made a few magnets with the Karen Hallion Disney mash-ups.

Next I put some glue on the pictures and placed a marble on top. If you're making these - use any clear glue. I bought this Dimensional Magic Mod Podge which I read the label like 10 times and couldn't figure out what "Dimensional Magic" meant. It wasn't until AFTER I had glued all the marbles to the pictures that I realized it's meant to dry on top of things to give it texture and NOT to actually glue things together. Oh well, it still worked thankfully!

You really have to be picky about which marbles you use. A lot of them have cracks or ripples in them and distort the picture. I'd say about 1/3 of each of my packs weren't usable.

I let the glued marbles dry for a day and then used an exacto knife to cut them out.

Once they were all cut out, I placed a magnet behind and tah-dah! Home made magnets!!

Cookie Cutter Chocolates

Last year I made chocolate filled cookie cutters for my coworkers for Christmas. It's a pretty inexpensive present that's easy to make in bulk. I bought a set of 20 cookie cutters from Wal-mart and spread them out on wax paper. I used Wilton chocolate and peppermint candy melts to fill the cutters. I filled them 2/3 of the way with chocolate and then topped them off with peppermint for the "holiday pizzazz."

I let them chill over night then put them in gift bags and wallah! Fun for everyone!

*Top Secret* Project REVEALED!!

The top secret project can finally be revealed as I gifted it this weekend. It was a birth sampler cross stitch for my friend Kim's son.

It's a little wrinkly before I ironed and framed it.

I have a love/hate relationship with cross stitch. It takes such a long time (especially when you're a procrastinator like me - that’s why he got it for his second birthday) but it is so fun to see the progress you've made.

Frog-in-progress

Happily Hopping Frog!

My Aunt who cross-stitches all the time told me to back it on sticky board - which I bought and cut out, but it was too thick and didn't fit in the frame. Must find thinner sticky board for next time. Instead I just stretched it the best I could and taped it to the cardboard that came with the frame. Even that was almost too thick to fit.

If I start now, maybe I can have one ready by the time she has another child.

Wednesday Review: More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts

Time to punch out today's Wednesday Review while I'm still on my sugar high from yesterday. (I think I ate about 239 cupcakes and other sweets and then topped it off with a giant bowl of ice cream and a cocktail...I'm going for HEALTHY here people.) More Last-Minute Knitted Gifts by Joelle Hoverson is the follow up to Last-Minute Knitted Gifts, which I don't own and have never seen. So while I can't compare it to the first book I can say that I really enjoy the sequel.

What I like:

·         The book is divided by the time it should take to make the gift - 2-4 hours, 4-6, 6-8 and longer.

·         When I knit I usually think clothes, but this has other fun things like hot coffee-cup sleeves, ornaments, baskets, bookmarks (not sure I'd ever make a knit bookmark - but good for a beginner)

·         Each pattern tells you the exact yarn that was used in the photographs and has a little intro paragraph that elaborates on the gift.

·         There is a section on wrapping hand knit gifts - great ideas for using yarn to embellish the wrapped present.

·         There is a glossary for techniques and abbreviations as well as a step by step tutorial (with pictures!) for a few of the techniques.  I used this to learn the Kitchener Stitch when I was making socks.

What I don't like:

·         I think the time sections are if you already know how to make the item. The socks I made using the pattern in the 2-4 hours section took me about 3 to make one sock. This is mostly due to the fact that I had to look up a lot of the stitches. Now that I know what I'm doing it'll be interesting to see how long it takes me to make a pair.

·       Like all craft books - it's rare that I like 100% of the ideas in them. This one has a few that I know I'll never make - a plush house, seat covers, and the bookmarks.

I like this book and am excited to time myself when I make something out of it.