Christmas Creations - Saturday Snapshots

My four-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter spent the Wednesday before Thanksgiving at our house, and we had a great time crafting together. (Click on photos to enlarge.) 

Here are the snow globes we created.

You can find detailed instructions for making your own snow globes on quite a few blogs (just do a Google search for "Snow Globes Children's Craft"). Martha Stewart even has a how-to video. We used baby oil for the liquid inside the jars and glitter and sequins for the "snow." One observation: The jar with the gold lid sealed better than the one with the red lid, mainly because it required more twists to close it. I ran a line of hot glue around the rims of the jars before affixing the lids.

My granddaughter also had fun gluing sequins to some painted wooden ornaments I had. We used Elmer's Glue on this one. The center of the ornament is supposed to hold a photo, of course, but she wanted to put sequins in there instead. Who am I to stifle her creative instincts?

We had a great time, and my granddaughter was proud of her special Christmas crafts.

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Quilts - Saturday Snapshots

I enjoy several hobbies, but my favorite pastime in recent years has been quilting. So today I'm sharing a couple of my creations. I've given away most of the quilts I've made, but a few are still draped over the backs of chairs or folded at the foot of beds here at home.

The quilts shown here were mostly made from scraps - leftovers from other projects. I love the jewel tones in both quilts. By the way, if you also like reading, you might enjoy my recent post about The Friendship Star Quilt (HERE), a novel by Patricia Kiyono and Stephanie Michels.

This pattern is called Log Cabin. The squares can be arranged in several 
different ways and different color combinations can be used, all of which change
the look of the finished quilt. The central square of each block is usually 
orange, yellow or red and represents the hearth in a log cabin. 

 

Here are four squares from the lower left-hand corner of the quilt above.
To create a square, you start at the central yellow piece and then
add strips one at a time all around, squaring off the edges as you go.
Since each square is made up of two color families, I drew the layout of
the squares before I started so I wouldn't get lost when assembling them.

This is called a string quilt. 

Each square consists of a bunch of odd-sized strips of fabric
sewn diagonally across a backing square (a "foundation") 
with a black diagonal strip across the middle. When joined together,
the resulting squares look like they're framed in black.

Creativity can be messy (at least the way I do it!)
The white dots on each square are stick-on labels that
I use to keep track of which square goes where.

Saturday Snapshots is hosted by West Metro Mommy Reads.

To enjoy a variety of beautiful pictures from around the world, 

click HERE or on the box below.