We have a winner!

I decided since there were two ornaments I would give them to two winners! I used the random number generator to get the winner and the first winner was commenter number 1!

Andreanna said...

Those are cute. I made something like that as a kid.

November 16, 2008 11:47 PM

and the winner of our next ornament is:

I Am Nacho Mama said...

These are so cute. What a neat idea.

November 20, 2008 6:12 AM

who was commenter #12!

Congrats girls! Email me at thehandmadeparade@gmail.com and
I'll get your prizes to you right away!

Tutorial: Yarn Wrapped Christmas Ornaments and Giveaway

Here are the supplies you will need:

Tacky Glue
Yarn or ribbon
A metal cookie cutter
Buttons

Wrap your yarn or ribbon completely around the cookie cutter.

If your yarn is a bit thick take a safety pin or needle threader (I couldn't kind mine!) and push the yarn through the button you want on your ornament.

Glue the button in place with tacky glue and hold it tightly in place until the glue sets up a bit. Tie a piece of yarn or ribbon to make a hanger and you have a very simple, very cute ornament!


If you like these ornaments post a comment because we are giving them away again! Comments will close on Tuesday and I'll choose a winner Wednesday. Good Luck!

Party Favor Pack Winner!

Finally! I have had a terrible time with my computers lately - three (yes THREE) have died on us in the last couple weeks. So because of ridiculous technological issues I haven't been able to post much, but we are good to go now! As you may recall I posted these little notebooks and cupcake picks and now I am finally picking the winner for the set of eight picks and books.


Through the oh-so-official pick a paper from a bowl method, Amy is our winner! Yay Amy! Email me at thehandmadeparade@gmaildotcom with your address and your prize will be on its merry way!

Dollar Store Crafts Sushi Clock

My new favorite craft site is quickly becoming Croqzine's Dollarstore Crafts site. Who could blame me when they post awesomeness such as this Sushi clock?

Sweet Jessie is offering these adorable bookplates for download (hey she is sweet!). For $5 she'll even personalise them for you! Sweet deal!

Hankie Journals by Little Pink Studio

Mine
Originally uploaded by littlepinkstudio

I was thrilled to sign into Flickr and see these little creations by Cerri of Little Pink Studio (who is also featured in this month's Artful Blogging magazine).Cerri, her mother and grandmother made these delightful journals as a celebration of her Gram's birthday! I couldn't possibly think of a better way to celebrate a birthday.

Check out her amazing blog (and don't forget to go shopping, too)

Notebook Party Favor or Stocking Stuffer Tutorial (and a giveaway to boot!)

Cute, huh? Wanna know how to make 'em? Thought you did!















You'll need:

A notecard
two sheets of paper
paper cutter
corner rounder
crayons
and not shown, but you still need...
sewing machine
ribbon















Cut two sheets of paper in half















Trim your paper to fit the card you are using to make the notebooks














flod your cut sheets of paper in half and place into the card. Sew along the fold to make a binding.














Round the corners of the notebook and attach the box of crayons with ribbon.




















And now you have yourself a super cute party favor that took all of 5 minutes to make! They impressed both kids and moms alike at the birthday party and each one cost probably less than 50 cents to make. No lie, my friends, no lie.

Hopefully this next tidbit will make your day! We are going to be giving away a little party pack to one lucky commenter! It will include 8 notebooks and eight cupcake picks (and maybe some extra treats, too!) . We'll make them in gender neutral primary colors so you can use them for a boy or girl (or maybe just for fun for yourself!).

So comment on this post by Tuesday and I'll pick a winner! If you want an extra chance to win just blog about the contest on your own blog (let me know in your comment that you blogged about it or intend to!) and I'll throw your name into the hat twice!

Cupcake Pick Tutorial

October is the beginning of hardcore cupcake season for us. My older daughter's birthday is in October, husband's is November, holiday parties in December followed by my son's birthday in January. That's a lot of cupcakes! For my daughter's third birthday last week I came up with these super easy cupcake picks using a few simple office supplies I had on hand. Office supplies for cupcakes? Read on, my friend, read on!
















First, gather these supplies:

toothpicks (preferable the flat kind)
tacky glue
Office supply dots (labels) in two sizes; mine are 1 inch and 3/4 inch
stamps and ink pads
super fine glitter















Stamp images onto your office supply dots. Make sure the stamps you use take up as much space on the dot as possible.















Take the bigger of the two dots and place the toothpick on the sticky side and dab with a dot of glue (your dots may be sticky enough not to need the glue, so don't use it if you don't need to).














Next stick the smaller sticker on top of the bigger one sandwiching the toothpick in between.














Here's the cool part: Because the larger sticker shows behind the smaller one, we have the perfect canvas for putting the glitter on! Glitter that baby up and there you have it! Glittered cupcake picks!

Dollarstore Crafts Blog

i just stumbled upon a fabulous blog by Heather of Croqzine (another wonderful blog and zine in and of itself!) called Dollarstore Blog. As a mum to three kids I find myself frequenting the local dollar store for billions of things, craft items included. I was just there a few days ago and actually thought how my next Handmade Parade challenge (after He:Craft, that is) should be dollar store crafts! Hmm do I smell a collaboration mayhaps?

Wow! Where have YOU been all summer?

You might be wondering where I was all summer long...one minute I was posting away and one minute, poof! She's gone!

Well...I have been busy crafting up a new baby! Our third baby, Charlotte Faith was born August 22 and since my last post I was on bedrest making sure she was healthy and safe and not born before she was done.

Not much computering was done during that time, but I am back and ready to kick off an awesome fall and holiday season! I am cooking up another challenge and Holiday Gift Guide and even thinking there might be a first HP sponsored swap in there somewhere.

I was told that life with three kiddos would be nuts, but so far it has been great and I have even been able to be productive!

I know! Crazy, huh?? Nothing is ready to be shared yet, but know this: big things are coming!! When I have some more details I will fill you all in, but for now you'll have to be content with me teasing you.

Next week I will be sharing what our next Handmade Parade Challenge will be, so get your creative brains ready!

It's here!

Handmade Parade has it's very own website for you to buy really awesome handmade goods from all over the world. Here is some info from the site itself:

"Handmade Parade began as a craft show in Sacramento, California, organized by Claire Bone. While the craft fairs were fun, family demands and difficulty finding large enough venues in the area drove Claire to seek other avenues for getting awesome handmade crafts to the masses. Etsy and Ebay are great places to find handmade goods, but their sheer size make it difficult to navigate and Claire knew she wanted to do something on a much smaller scale.

After working for several months on the Glitter and Grunge artists co-op, Claire decided to branch out and introduce Handmade Parade as a similar group, offering a more modern interpretation of vintage crafts, while also providing a place for members to sell kits and patterns along with their finished pieces. "

You can check out all the crafty goodness being offered at www.handmade-parade.com! There will be new artists added all the time, so check back often!

sara bangles

sara bangles, originally uploaded by saltandpaper.

Check out these awesome bangles from Salt and Paper!! I will definitely be putties these pretties om my holiday list!

Hands off!

Ever gone to work and come breaktime found that your coworkers raided your snack or come home from a long day and your roommate ate the last of your cereal? Well Dippylulu has the solution in these punchy snack clips. Each set comes with two clips and there are five designs to choose from.

Side one--------------------Flip side
#1 I’ve spat in this...-----...so don’t even think about it.
#2 Hands off...-------------...this is mine
#3 If you eat this...-------...you’ll regret it
#4 Buy your own ------------you *@^$#%&
#5 Ask nicely...------------...and I’ll still say no

They will even customise them if you want to be even wittier than they are. How nice.

Meet Shannon!

Shannon Udell comes to us from Roseville, CA and is an amazing fiber artist.

***

"I'm always searching out bits of folklore and fable to incorporate into my work and working hard to bring out some imaginative original items. Finding a place for the old fashioned or nostalgic in our lives can give us a moment to breathe.When I'm not sewing my fingers off in the living room, I'm reading, or I'm homeschooling the newly-immortalized Muki and Bubb. I love my husband, girls and dogs, God, my garden, the ocean and all the thousands of little things that swirl around to make my life! You'll see it all pop up in the things I sew.I grew up in the 1970's, when Sacramento was a small town with a growing culture of young artists and cool blues bands. My mother is a textile artist and my dad is a photographer. My love and vision for art and all things handmade grew quietly in my hideaway beneath a large oval quilting frame with my very own needle and what scraps I could salvage. The blocky forms in my work derived from the homespun items that I wore and played with and ate from and lived off of in my childhood home and garden."

On the web, I am:

http://mukibubb.etsy.com

http://myspace.com/mrsudell

http://mukibubb.vox.com

http://mukibubb.blogspot.com/

http://flickr.com/photos/mukibubb

Meet Carolyn!

Carolyn is a crafter and pastry chef from Berkeley, California. She tells us why she crafts and what inspires her today.

***

Why I craft...I'm a pastry chef by trade falling into baking after college as an art form I could get paid to do. After 25+ year I made a conscious decision to l move out of the kitchen for a while. I love to sew, embroider, knit, crochet, fold paper, cut, embellish glue, bead, you name it I'm never idle. I love all things vintage having a collection of 200+ eggbeaters not to mention all the egg cups and beaded purses-- it's all crazy, I know...So in my hunt vintage things I also look for fabrics that I have turned into handbags, eyeglass cases, coin purses and now embellishing tea towels with it too. I love stitching and use it as an excuse to watch movies and then there's the scraps of paper I play with--cards, collage, boxes. Connecting with other crafters and artists is inspiring.

Visit my crafty blog:

Laughing Duck

And shop Laughing Duck!

Meet Jenn!

Our next crafter profile is Jenn from A Girl Named Rosebud. *Pictures will follow, Blogger is not letting me upload tonight, Boo Hiss!

***
Why do I craft?

Because craft opens up a whole world of possibilites.
Because craft keeps me sane.
Because craft is a whole lot of fun, don't you know?

I have always considered myself to be a creative person. I'm pretty hands-on. I like to make make things. Craft appealed to all those pieces of me. It's fun to look at a piece of paper or a ball of yarn or some large pile of wool in my closet and think, "Well, I'm going to turn it into x, y, or z." Or sometimes it becomes more like a, b, and c. You don't always know how something is going to turn out, and a lot of times, I'm pleasantly surprised.

I started out by doodling and making crazy things out of construction paper as a kid, moved on to making things out clay -- I made a pig for my eighth-grade teacher once -- and then started wielding crochet hooks and knitting needles. I enjoy all craft and am always open to learning something new.

Craft also opened me up to the world of indie crafters, and it has been amazing to see all this talent from all over the world! I'm proud to be part of a diverse and dynamic community and really believe in shopping handmade and indie. And so I try to spread the word as much as possible.

You can find my handmade goodies at my shop, Rosebud Designs (http://www.agirlnamedrosebud.com/), and you can read my indie shopping blog, indie*galore (http://www.indiegalore.com/), where I try to do my part to spread the word about other fantastic crafters and their shops.

Meet Melissa!

Handmade Parade is happy to have the very talented Melissa Valeriote on board with us! We asked Melissa why she was a crafter and she shared these words with us:

Why I craft...

We all have it. That little voice inside us that's always been there. It begins as a whisper, a tugging, a what if. Over time the whisper becomes a calling. If we listen long enough and trust in our talents we no longer have a choice but to take action. Next thing you know your dog is covered in glitter, your floors are splattered with paints, ribbons, and fluff and your fingers have been glued together on more than one occasion. Your destiny is revealed... you are a "Crafter".

After surrendering to the call, I began tapping into my love of holidays by sketching, sculpting, assembling and creating holiday pieces in my studio. I can't help but have fun when I begin each day surrounded by glitter, paper clay, wire, ribbons and small colorful bits of silliness that have accumulated through the natural course of my life.

This journey has brought me exciting opportunities in the retail market and the chance to participate with fellow artists in local folk art shows. Being part of this community of artisans and collectors is truly refreshing, bringing me great joy with endless sources of inspiration. I am grateful to have a career that is an extension of who I am and to be surrounded with things and people that truly inspire me.

You can see Melissa's work at her website Holiday Queen and two online marketplaces, Glitter and Grunge and American Folk Art (which will go live April 1st).