I had another 11 x 14 canvas from the pack of 2 I bought to make the tree canvas. The Gnome likes animals stacked on top of animals so I figured I could do something along those lines. I started by painting the canvas with tan acrylic paint. Then, I searched my Cricut Give a Hoot cartridge for animals I could use. I cut some shapes out of patterned cardstock, but it looked too busy. So I decided to stick with solid, textured cardstock for our forest friends. I used some dimensional adhesives to pop the animals up off the canvas a bit. After adding some coordinating buttons from my grandmother's collection, I called it done!
Yes, that is Mr. Prickles again :)
I'm still working on the baby hoodie. I'm on the second sleeve though so I should be finishing it pretty soon. I just have to knit up the front bands for the buttons and buttonholes, and then I'll be finished with my very first sweater. Hooray!
Leaf out.
The mobile is complete! Let's meet the characters...
This is Gnomar:
Meet Owliver's mini me:
This is Mr. Prickles:
Hello Toadd Stool:
And finally, Tweet:
We found a relatively straight branch in the backyard so I cut it down and attached the two 14 inch pieces with some green yarn.
Then, I used embroidery thread to string up the woodland critters so they would be facing slightly downwards. They hang about 7-8 inches from the mobile "arms." I added some coordinating felt circles and some stitched felt leaves to tie the whole thing together.
That is the Gnome's hand holding the mobile as still as possible for the picture. I don't know how long the thread to hang the mobile needs to be to hang it from the ceiling so I don't have anything attached to the top yet. And to be quite honest, I'm not really sure how I'm going to do that. Oops. I'm sure the Gnome will help me figure out some method of hanging.
I'm still working on the baby sweater. Hood's done so now I'm working on one of the sleeves.
The nursery is painted. The changing table and crib are assembled. We have a mattress. And childbirth classes start on Monday. We're gettin' ready!
In related baby news, we had an u/s today, and Baby G was not cooperating for pictures. Probably some foreshadowing there. Whenever the u/s techs would try to get me to roll over to get the shot they wanted, Baby G would roll right along with me. Synchronized rolling! And the u/s techs exclaimed at one point and pointed at the screen to show us that Baby G was sucking on the umbilical cord. My response: "stop that!"
Leaf out.
So it seems like all I want to do these days is work on things for the baby's room. In related news, I have been through 7 paint samples...all blues and greens. I think it's between the last 2 that I tried so at least there's progress. The nursery theme is forest friends...you know, woodland creatures and such. We got this Carter's crib set. Although the Gnome loves squirrels, there are no squirrels featured in this crib set. To make up for this slight against squirrels, I decided to feature them in one of my crafty projects for the room.
I saw a project in a magazine a while ago that involved cutting out a shape multiple times in different patterned papers or fabrics and then placing them in a framed grid. The project I saw had a grid of teapots with a teacup in the bottom right corner. Enter my Cricut Expression and Give a Hoot cartridge. There are actually several squirrel shapes in this cartridge. I chose some patterned papers from my stash and swiftly ordered my Cricut to cut some squirrels. I got a little squirrel-happy and cut too many out, but that left me with more of a selection so it's okay. There's also an acorn shape on the cartridge so I cut out one of those too for the bottom right corner.
For the grid, I used my Martha Stewart 12 x 12 cutting mat and some scrap yarn. The frame I bought was a 12 x 12 frame so I used a 12 x 12 piece of textured cardstock for the background. I taped down pieces of yarn to outline exactly where each squirrel would be placed. Here's what the grid looked like:
I got out my adhesive roller and started positioning those squirrels. Here's what the page looked like after gluing and grid removal:
And here is the completed project:
Last week, I ended my post with a peep of a project that was still in progress. Well, it's still in progress, but here is a pic of the next step:
I used my Cricut and Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) software to cut out the tree. LollyChops made the tree .svg file, which you can find here (the tutorial for her original project is also in that post). I cut the leaves out of different colors of felt and cardstock. The buttons are from my grandmother's stash. I haven't glued the tree down yet (in fact, the buttons aren't even attached). I can't figure out what to do next. LollyChops put some strips of felt along the bottom with the word "home." Any suggestions?
That's all for now! See you next Friday!
Leaf out.
