I’m very excited to be part of the new Crafty Tree Trimmings ornament-making ebook! I was asked to design something with beads and buttons, so I made a set of Sparkle Ornaments — a super fun way to use some of my favorite glittery bits and pieces.

I made two ornaments, a pink and gold version and an all-blue one. It was fun to bring our little silver tinsel tree out for the photos and listen to some Sufjan Stevens while I made the ornaments — it’s still early, but I’m looking forward to the holidays this year!

The book is a collection of six ornaments to make in all different crafty mediums from some of my favorite designers. The book includes:

* Crocheted Flower Ornament, by Linda Permann
* Felted Gingerbread House Ornament, by Betz White
* Bead and Button Sparkle Ornament, by me
* Vintage Treasure Ornament, by Kayte Terry
* Gossamer Thread Three Ornament, by Diane Gilleland
* Paper Globe Ornament, by Patricia Zapata, who is also the book’s designer

The cover spotlights all the ornaments so nicely, and each how-to has a clearly photographed set of photos and any full-sized templates you need, right in the book’s pages.

Fifteen percent of the book’s sales go directly to Project Linus, an organization we were all eager to support. Here’s a bit more about them:

It is our mission to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children who are seriously ill, traumatized, or otherwise in need through the gifts of new, handmade blankets and afghans, lovingly created by volunteer “blanketeers.”

And Diane and Patricia structured their book in a very innovative way: each contributor receives a portion of the sales as well, so we are shareholders in a sense as well as creative contributors — very cool!

You can find the book here and check out a flickr pool of ornament photos here. I would love to see what you make from the collection!

I’ve been making lots of button hairclips as samples to show at my Powell’s event Friday night, and thought I’d wear these green ones out and about today in honor of St Patrick’s Day…

In other colorful news, a mini-tutorial I wrote for CRAFT’s Mending Month is up! It shows a very simple way to mend a torn [green, what a coincidence] sheet — actually a pillow cover, but this hand-sewing technique will work for any woven fabric piece. Diane did a fantastic (as always) tutorial for mending ripped upholstery that I thought I’d spotlight too. I love the Mending Month posts — so practical and simple. It is very refreshing to me to fix what I have instead of constantly buying new.

And Jenny Ryan has a lovely how-to up today: make a terrarium in a mason jar! I love this one. I adore terrariums — my grandparents had a huge one that I loved when I was a kid — and hers is awesome.

Speaking of Jenny, the review I wrote of her wonderful new book, Sew Darn Cute, is up at CraftStylish. You can win a copy this week — just comment on this post by next Tuesday and you’re in the mix!

I wanted to share this covered button project I did for this week’s CraftStylish post — I used a favorite Denyse Schmidt print from the Katie Jump Rope collection, which always reminds me of making my quilt. Anyway, it was a fun one to do and I hope you like it!

Speaking of CraftStylish, I am happy to announce that my lovely friend Michaela Murphy has a new story, “Eye Spy,” posted on The Moth — it’s available as a free download here. Michaela is such a gifted storyteller and I am saving it for first thing tomorrow morning to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!

I absolutely love wearing necklaces, though they’ve been forced off my heavy rotation lately (since Pearl loves it when I wear necklaces, too, but for a totally different and very predatory reason). But I got to wear one on Friday when Michaela took me, Diane, Jennifer and Lee out to dinner to celebrate Button It Up… and it was so nice to feel like an accessorized grown-up for a couple of hours! Of course when we got home, Pearl’s eyes lit right up and the octopus had to have an early bedtime, but it was a good run.

Then the five of us had a little craft night — well, they all knitted and crocheted pretty things, and I just sorted buttons, which is something I love to do. Two book events coming up that I can only use sew-through buttons for gave me the chance to empty a couple of gallon bags of stash, Etsy and eBay buttons onto trays and endlessly sort the shank style bits and pieces out to a different tray while we talked and listened to music. So relaxing.

The rest of the weekend was nice too. Aside from taxes, losing an hour, and getting a brisk shower of hail on Sunday, that is!

On the plus side: seeing friends, sorting buttons, a lovely dinner, a waffle the next morning, a trip to Knittn Kitten, two basketball games to watch, an ACC championship to celebrate, lots of time to play with Pearl, a quick visit to Crafty Wonderland, homemade soup and cornbread, and a long walk (on the non-hailing day, thankfully).

And I got to do one of my favorite tutorials for CraftStylish so far: button link necklaces three ways. I love craft projects you can truly make your own with your favorite colors or materials or whatever you like, and this is one of those. It’s ultra-simple to make and the real pop is in what buttons you mix in… I did three versions, including one using my black-and-white shrink art buttons from last week, just to show how easy it is to switch it up. My favorite at the moment is the reds, I just love those pretty little ones in a row.

Anyway, it’s up over here if you want to check it out, and I would love to see yours if you make one! Or three.

p.s. CraftStylish has just put together an ongoing archive of all the March button projects, and there are some really awesome tutorials up so far… I especially love this one, this one, this one, this one, this one, and this one. And it’s only the 9th!

I’m getting super excited about some new sewing projects, just in time for some really lovely craft books coming out… so I wanted to give a heads up that I’ll be doing a little review and giveaway at CraftStylish next month for two of my brand-new favorites, Jenny Ryan’s Sew Darn Cute

and Kathy Cano-Murillo’s Crafty Chica’s Guide to Artful Sewing!

They are both fantastic collections — super-inspiring and filled with handy tips and extras along with the very cool projects. I’m looking forward to the interviews!

Speaking of sewing, I’m in the middle of making something for myself to wear (for the first time since before I was pregnant, I think, so that’s 18 months at least… wow). Here’s a sneak peek — I’m hoping to be done and wearing it out and about in the next few days.

I edged it with folded twill tape, and it gave me an idea for some sewing-room organizing. Until this morning, I kept all my bias tape in a huge jar, jammed in there so that I couldn’t really see what I had unless I dragged it all out. I recently did a little upcycling project to convert a plain can to a beaded scissors-holder, so I thought I’d do something similar with my bias tape menagerie…

I divided it into two groups: workhorse (plain/solid colors) and fun (patterns, lacy edges, tiny baby-width for cute projects) and put each set in an industrial-sized tin can like the one I used for the scissors.

Then I cut two lengths of bias tape in colors I had a bunch of and hot-glued it on in horizontal stripes. The whole project took about five minutes, counting the hot glue gun heating up, and now the cans are hanging out with my jars of ribbon and cup of sewing tools, ready to go.

I also reorganized some of my other craft shelves and now (with a few more Orla pieces from Target) I like it all so much more! Much easier to find what I’m looking for and easier on the eyes, too.

Now, I’m waiting out Pearl’s next naptime so I can get back to that tantalizing sewing project…

It’s been a busy weekend, what with crossing county lines and all, so I’ll be quick today and show you a shrink art project I did over at CraftStylish. I don’t know if you also became addicted to shrink art as a kid, but I still love making little things with it. Julian and I have done some cool projects together, and I’m looking forward to the magical time when Pearl can use scissors, markers, toaster oven, and hole punch (not real soon, obviously) for some shrink art collaborations, too!

This time I did a little set of pretty pet tags. And since we don’t actually have a pet to craft for, Caitlin was nice enough to offer her sweet kitty Patches up for modeling duty. I think she looks very nicely accessorized with the floral scallop-edged one on… though the P one sure looks good on her too.

Anyway, if you want to make up a set of your own, I wrote up the super-simple tutorial over here — thanks to Caitlin and Patches for their glamorous contribution!

My tutorial to make a felt fortune cookie and matching ring (the little secret spin-off I hinted about last week) just went up at CraftStylish! If you have a minute to check it out, I’d love to hear what you think. Here’s a look at my set, I do like that little ring…

Speaking of fortune cookies, you can make your own (a glued version like these instead of sewn like mine, play-food-style) at the DIY table at Crafty Wonderland today! Jen of DIY Lounge is leading this cute little make-and-take project with all kinds of fun colors to pick from. Pearl and I are planning on stopping by the sale shortly (I may be only a spectator at the fortune cookie end of things, having recently cranked out several dozen of them) and I can’t wait to see all the cool handmade stuff.

If you go, be sure and stop by Grass Hut across the street to see their Oregon Sesquicentennial art show. It’s awesome. My favorite has to be this portrait by Portland art hero Ryan Berkley!

And speaking of art shows… Kayte mentioned that she’s in a fantastic embroidery show at Gallery Hanahou in New York called Forget-Me-Not, curated by Kristen of Schmancy, one of my favorite Seattle places. I’m hoping to grab a couple of Kayte’s photos to do more of a write-up, the previews I’ve seen look incredible.

Hope you’re having a good Sunday (and that the Blazers do too)!

Are you making your own Valentines this year? If you’re planning crafty surprises for your favorite folks, here are two ideas you might want to try…

I wrote up this tutorial for making a beaded valentine card over at CraftStylish this week – it’s very simple to do, and you can customize it with any design or details you like, if hearts aren’t your thing.

And here’s a peek at next week’s project, it will go up on Sunday (my jewelry and beading projects always post on Sundays, and each of the other six days of the week hosts two other projects from contributors, in all different crafty genres). I made up some sets of felt fortune cookies for a play food swap and thought they’d make fun Valentines too. So I designed a little jewelry spin-off project to match, using the same basic technique, and I’ll reveal all when the tutorial is up!

If you are making some fun things I would love to see them. I’m not always the biggest Valentine’s Day type but I am excited to make a little something for Andrew, Miss Pearl, and my mom. How about you?

I’m in a rush today so I thought I’d post links over to three tutorials I’ve done for CraftStylish recently… they’re all jewelry-making-related but I guess more embellish-y than anything else. Hope you like them!

Yesterday’s how-to is one of my favorites lately: converting broken costume jewelry into a spiraled flower brooch. This is one of my favorites because it rescued two things gathering dust, a broken 50s beaded necklace and a swingy camel-hair coat (after a long everyday grind as my only maternity coat last winter, it has spent an uniterrupted hiatus in the back of the closet). I’ve worn it twice since it’s been fancied up and it feels a little bit new again.

The one before that was craft room-related: adding a beaded “necklace” to a plain aluminum can for storing craft supplies (in my case, scissors, scissors, and more scissors — this is about half of my ridiculous collection).

And to celebrate my birthday a couple of weeks ago, I made up some super-simple wineglass charms with some favorite bits and pieces from Ornamentea.

We’re back in Portland, hooray! Two more bouts of snow really mixed things up but we’re home, settled, and happy to be here. And for once (unlike the many, many years I have vowed to learn to crochet, ahem) I have excelled so far at my New Year’s resolution: keeping my craft room organized! Last year was a blur of move to a new house, new book, new baby, the usual freelance projects, moving the craft room upstairs, and the ensuing craft debris that I never had the time to clean up, plus the mountain of supplies that never really found a home.

Well, December’s snowstorm handed me a few unexpected can’t-leave-the-house days to really tackle my craft room, and with Andrew home to hang out with Pearl, I got so much done. If you are also contending with an unruly bead (or other small-craft-thing) collection, I wrote up a quick and simple how-to project over at CraftStylish: making colorful embellished labels for your bead boxes. Mine reflect the color or type of beads, charms and rhinestones inside, but of course you could adapt this basic idea to label your sewing, knitting, paper, or anything-else supplies too. I also started using a plain white paint palette to corral the loose beads that end up in every corner of my life, and having a place to stash them so I don’t have to put each and every one away as I find it has been a huge help too.

So, here is my newly redone bead shelf! If you ever wondered how a crafty nerd put her endless beading stuff into some sort of order, here’s my first round of organizing:

I put notes on the flickr photo to mention exactly what things were, but the basic idea is tools, seed beads and put-away palette on top, with labeled bead boxes stacked in fives on the shelves below (I still need to label about half my boxes, which aren’t in the photo). My findings, chain, wire, and other jewelry-making things are in my card catalog a few feet away, on top of my fabric shelves.

I made some simple hand-written pink paper labels for those drawers, too, which I’m hoping to fancy up when I have the time.

Anyway, you wouldn’t have wanted to see a picture until now, my workroom was terrible from top to bottom, but I am so happy to have my craft stuff under control at last! I have a big soft spot for January (my birthday month) but it doesn’t always feel like a new year, or anything new at all — and this time around getting things in order has been really nice. I’m excited to work on some fresh new projects without having to shove teetering piles of crafts past to the side.

Speaking of the new year, thanks so much to Shawn for using my black-eyed peas picture for her fantastic New Year’s post on boing boing, that was so cool! Hope 2009 has been good to you so far.