Christmas Craftiness - Gift Edition

Yesterday I posted some of the decorations around the church so today I thought I would post some of the gifts that I made for Christmas this year.  I'm only going to post the ones for kids since I know they won't see this post and ruin the surprise.

This past year I finished two needlepoint stockings.  One for my youngest niece:

And one for my oldest godson:

Last year I found online a tutorial to make a felted potato person (though a different name was used).  Due to copyright infringement, that post has been deleted but a few pictures are still out there and I was able to figure out how to make them.  I made three potato people, for my two youngest nephews and a friend's daughter.

My tutorial in a nutshell:

• Make a lump shape on a piece tan/brown felt, cut it out and sew pieces of Velcro in the appropriate places.  
• On a second lump shape of tan felt, make a pouch
• Take two rectangles (one twice as tall as the other) of the same color felt and attach a piece of Velcro to the center edge of each piece
• Sew three sides of the large rectangle to lump shape felt (you can fold in the sides to make a pleated pouch) with velcro facing out
• Sew the top of the smaller rectangle to the lump above the large rectangle where the Velcro meets.
• Put good sides of lump together, sew around edges leaving a two inch opening.  Flip right side out, stuff and close.
• Using scrapes of felt, cut hats, eyes, arms, mouths, noses and ears as you like.  
• Sew piece of Velcro to back of the back. 
• Sew any embellishments to front before sewing the front and back pieces together. (i.e. for the eyes, sew the pupils on the front white piece before sewing front white and back white piece together)
• Sew front and back pieces together by sewing around the edges with right sides out.  Leave a small opening to stuff, then sew shut.  
• One hint I will pass on is Velcro now makes a version of it's product were the hook and latches are on the same piece so everything attaches to everything else.  If you go with the traditional two piece Velcro, sew all the latches onto the lump and all the hooks onto the accessories.  

I also made two other large gifts for people and some ornaments.  I will post pictures after Christmas as to keep the surprise for any friends or relatives who might read this post.  

Church Craftiness - Christmas Edition

Yesterday some wonderful volunteers came to help decorate the sanctuary for Christmas worship and I wanted to share some new things with you.

A few months ago the worship committee decided that we would do all white and gold decorations for Christmas this year.  Since then Becky, one of my many church mouses, has been going wild figuring out what that would look like and getting decorations.

One thing that we did was add some Chrismons (ornaments that are white and gold and are symbols of Jesus) to the ones we already had on the tree.  Back in November, we had an Advent Festival and using the patterns from this webiste, the kids cut out the pattern, pasted them on poster board and decorated with glitter, markers and other decorations. Here are close ups of one of the decorations:

Now the tree is full of Chrismons:

We also needed a new banner as the Christmas banner we had was red and green.  I found a piece of fabric in the church basement that once had "Glory to God" on it but at one point the lettering came off and was never put back on, though you could still see the outline of the letters on the fabric.  So off to the fabric store I went for gold and white satin, interfacing and glitter paint.  I used the old banner to cut out the letters as a pattern, ironed the interfacing on the white satin, cut out the letters and ironed the letters onto the gold satin and outlined in glitter glue.  Not a single stitch on the entire thing (though I think once it comes down this year I will sew the top loop that the pole goes through.)

In the midst of all the decoration ideas, Becky got into bow making for the wreaths.  With the help of a bow maker it didn't take that long.  But they were also remarkably simpler to make than I thought.  But my camera batteries died yesterday so it didn't store the picture that I took, so I will add one later.

There are still a few more things that need to be done (wrapping the fake red candles in white or gold, putting out the poinsettias and put fake candles in the windows).  But the church is starting to look beautiful!

Church-y Craftiness

This coming Sunday is Pentecost, when the church celebrates the Holy Spirit coming to the disciples.  It is also the birthday of the church universal as it is often seen as the day the followers of Jesus moved from being a small group to a movement. 

Pentecost is celebrated in many ways, the most basic way is with people wearing red, the color of the day and having bright red paraments (the cloth covering the altar and the pulpit and the stole (aka scarf) the pastor wears).  Often the readings or a portion of them are read in a variety of languages since the Holy Spirit gave the disciples the ability to speak in other languages. 

Bethlehem will do these things but also the church will be DECORATED!  A bunch of geraniums are ordered to go behind the altar, around the pulpit and in the window sills.  Balloons will float at the end of the pews and outside the doors.  And two new things are happening, hence my church-y craftiness. 

The first is ribbon poles.  During the procession of the cross, two of our youth will follow the cross, waving poles of red ribbons.  A member of the congregation and myself saw this at another church when we went to the Book of Faith Festival the other week.  My internship congregation discussed making these while I was there (though I cannot remember them being used).  So here is what I did.  I got to 1/2 inch pvc pipe, some white spray paint for plastic, some binder clips (can be found at any office supply store) and a bunch of red ribbons (satin mainly since it flows well) of varying widths and shades.

I went with 7 foot pipes since Bethlehem's ceiling is sort of low and chandeliers hang in the aisle (both the processional cross and the cross that we used on Good Friday have been hit on a chandelier before).  My first step was to drill a small hole about a 1/2 inch down from the top of the pipe.  I then went to town spray painting the pipes. 

Next I used my sewing machine and just a needle and thread to sew the top 1/4 to 1/2 inch of fabric over to make little loops in the ribbons.  The ribbons were between 4 and 6 feet in length.  And then I threaded the loops through the binder clip. And then attached the binder clip to the pole through the hole that I drilled in it. 

The finished product:  

They don't look like much now, but waving in the sanctuary they will look beautiful! 

The other project I enlisted the help of the Sunday School kids.  This last Sunday I taught a brief lesson on the Holy Spirit and we made origami doves made from dollies.  (Click here to find out how to make them)   The dove is one of the symbols of the Holy Spirit.  At Jesus' baptism the Holy Spirit came in the form of a dove.  All total they kids made 60 of them.  So yesterday I spent a good portion of the day putting thread through them so we can hang them from the chandeliers or other parts of the ceiling.  Right now I have a flock of origami doves in my dining room. 

I'm decorating the sanctuary on Saturday morning with some parishioners.  I'm excited to see how great the place will look on Sunday with flowers, balloons, doves, and streamers.  But I'm more excited for Sunday worship when people will read John 3:16 in Swedish, Russian, Spanish, French, German, Akkadian, Sumerian, Ukrainian, Japanese, and Polish.

Oh and did I mention yet that both my parents and in-laws will be there?  Bob is graduating this weekend, convocation on Sunday and commencement and degree ceremony on Monday.  He has translated John 3:16 into both Akkadian and Sumerian and I think it is appropriate and exciting that he gets to use both on his graduation day in front of his parents.  More about graduation weekend coming soon.

Crafting fairies

My house, well the dining and living rooms more specifically, looks like it has been taken over by the craft fairies. I've been working away making gifts for Christmas presents for some friends and family. Unfortunately some of the recipients of these gifts read this blog so I won't post pictures but since Friday I have:

Sewn together two Christmas stockings that I needlepointed earlier this year.

Made 9 cute little felt ornaments.

Traced/drew a picture of someone in a well know cartoon setting. This is a similar picture that I made last year of Bob with Peter and Stewie from Family Guy.

Made a whole lot of yarn into pompoms for a tacky yet cool wreath.

Made a felt jungle play mat.

Cut out felt (not sewn yet) for a car/roadway play mat.

Still up:

Make Bob's gift - not even going to hint about what it is.

Make another personalize cartoon picture.

Sew some skirts.

And if I have time, and only if I have time make an Advent calendar