"Stick With Me" - Wool Felt Valentine Monster

 I wanted to share this pattern of a little felt monster I made last year for Valentines day.  I didn't get my blog started soon enough to share it last year, so I figured I would put it on here now!  He's really simple to make.  I cut mine out of red wool felt...a front and back of the body.  I sewed around it using a whipstitch, leaving a little opening for the fiberfill.  I also did a stab stitch through the arms, securing them between the body front and back. I know that it says to cut 4 pieces for the eyes...and you can, but another thing I did, was put a small piece of pipe cleaner bent like a V up and out of the eye-sockets. I then coiled the remaining pipe cleaner and glued on the felt eyes (you could also use googly eyes).  Once the monster is done, cut 2 pieces of felt  for the heart, whip stitching around it and filling it with fiberfill.  Bring the monster hands forward, either gluing or stitching them to the heart.
You can make this alien/monster happy or sad...or a combo of  both.  I called it "stick with me", but there's no saying it can't be "stuck with you" as well!☺
Like I said, it's quick to make,  fun and a good gift for a boy!
Here's the pattern.

Feel free to ask any questions or leave comments!
Enjoy! ♥

Build a Fairy House

I have wanted to build a fairy house for forever.  My younger sister Cera loves nature and crafting, so we decided to give it a go!  We collected a few rocks from around my dad's farm and gathered up some branches, moss and anything that we thought looked neat.  We started pretty late at night so, we had a sleepover and one night to think of what we were going to do with all of our new found treasures.  I could not wait until morning to start build this thing.  I had a million ideas going through my head.  I was up at the crack of dawn, equip with my glue gun and some fairy furniture sketches.  We found a huge piece of fools gold and some pieces of bark to make archways over the rocks with.  We started by covering everything in moss and stuck a few fake flowers into it.  It already looked pretty cool.  We put moss on the ground all around the fools gold house, and made stepping stones with some smaller rocks leading up to it.
This house was looking pretty cool, but not quite lived in yet.  It was time to build some furniture.  The night before we had made a couple fake mushrooms, plates, cups, and a cake out of polymer clay.  I knew we were going to need a table and chairs. Cera wanted the fairies to have something fun to do, so she made a swing-set.

The ideas just kept pouring out!  Before, I knew it we had the chop saw out and were cutting up sticks we found lying around the yard.  We made beds, a lamp, a couch, a table and chairs, a swing-set, a sink from a seashell, and some brooms to sweep up the kitchen with. It wasn't even noon yet and the fairies could have moved in already. To top it off we put a door going into the tree with a ladder and some steps leading up to it.  There is a spot behind the main rock with the archway that we put a tea light candle at night (safely!).  The whole house was glowing beautifully! The kids think the tree is now full of fairies!  Who knows, maybe it is! =)

We had a lot of fun making this!  Building a fairy house was a great activity to get the kids working together outdoors, looking at nature in a different perspective.  You don't need to get as crazy as we did with a chop saw...a glue gun, a little nature, and some imagination would be plenty to make your very own fairy house.  This was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be.  I can't wait to make an indoor play version!

Be sure to post your fairy house pictures on the Whim Wham Craft Blog Flickr group.  Help out the homeless fairies in your neighborhood and Build a Fairy House! =)

Did Whim Wham fall off the face of the earth?

No.  I am still here, but my apologies on the lack of posts.  I went on a vacation, and found out there was no internet where I was staying.  (Not so relaxing for me, but probably a break I needed to take.  I just would have prepared better had I known.)  Anyway, lots of fun stuff going on here!
I had a nice vacation.  I still did manage to work a little though.  I got an Etsy order while I was vacationing and  happened to be where the customer lived, so she asked to meet me.  It was really nice to meet a buyer in person.  It was an unexpected and very cool part of my trip.  It's so nice to put a face with a name! =)
I also hit some garage sale's.  Only I would garage sale on vacation!  They were having a neighborhood garage sale where we were staying at my friends house, so I couldn't resist.
My daughter got a pet parrot for $10, that she absolutely loves.  She really lucked out because he costs $350 in the store and Mom would have never spent that much on a toy.  I guess since real parrots cost so much, people pay this????  Anyway, he is pretty cool and almost as annoying as the real thing!

I also lucked out an found a cool vintage sheet and some nice eyelet pillowcases.  Gotta love the vintage fabric finds at garage sales! =)

We also went to a baseball game, a drive in movie, went bowling and made some huge sidewalk chalk drawings.
Overall, we had a really nice time.  Now back to reality and all that I have been neglecting!

Alice in Wonderland Apron

I had a busy weekend that ended with me and my daughter sick, and at the doctors on Monday.  I meant to post this earlier, but as you, know life happens!  So better late then never!

My daughter wants to have an Alice in Wonderland birthday party this year, and has been asking for me to make her a dress and apron.  Well I got on the web to do a little research and look for some ideas, when I landed on Amy Karol's (Angry Chicken) Tie One On blog.  She is having an Alice in Wonderland apron contest.  I of course had to participate.  I was going to be making one anyway, so I might as well, right?!
When I looked at the deadline, it said May 1st.  I originally wasn't going to make this apron until July, but 24 hrs works too!  So, I stayed up all night and frogged my way through an Alice apron.   I made it out of  a king size eyelet pillowcase and pink bias tape.  I had to use the seam ripper more than I cared for but overall it turned out OK.

There is a  funny ending to this story though.  When I went to send my pictures to Amy, I had to go back to the Tie One On website to get her email address.  The first thing I saw when the page opened, was that the contest had been extended to June 1st!  I laughed so hard!  So much for staying up all night!  It was my own stupid fault for not checking the main blog page for updates.  I only read the page I landed on in my search which said May 1st.

So, for once in my life, I am a month early in entering a contest!  Whoo hoo!

Now I can procrastinate on finishing the matching dress! =)

How to Make Glass Gem Marble Magnets

I made a quick craft project tonight with Cora.  I had some iridescent glass gems that Cora loved to play with, so today at the store I picked up some clear ones hoping to make some magnets with her tonight.  The clerk however, did not give me all of the bags from my purchase, causing me to have to drive 25 miles back to the store again to claim them.  So after that adventure, I knew we were definitely going to make these magnets tonight!

Here is what we used to make them:

          
• clear glass gem marbles
• clear silicone sealant
• button magnets
• little pictures or images (from fabric,magazines, stickers, junk mail address labels, photos, etc.)

These were super easy to make and only took us about 10 minutes to make all 10 of them.  Pick out the pictures you want to use and place a glass gem over top of it to make sure it fits.  The gems magnify the image, so just make sure the part you want to show is centered.  The glass gems are all different sizes.  I sort  through them first, to make sure they were big enough to cover the whole magnet.
Once you have your image picked out, use your magnet as a template and draw a circle around the selected image.  Cut out the image and spread a very thin layer of sealant on the magnet to adhere the picture.  Then place a pea sized dot of sealant on the image, and smush a glass gem marble onto it (flat side down of course).  That's it!  Super easy huh?  If you are using stickers or address labels like we did, it's even easier.  Just cut them out, stick them on, and add the sealant and glass gem marble!
Let them dry overnight and give your fridge the ability to hold many more works of art, or useful reminders like this....

I hope you have as much fun making these as we did!

P.S. Just a word warning.  The new labels on all of the button magnets say they contain lead dust.  Make sure to clean up well!

Let Your Little Girl Be Alice in Wonderland for a Day!

My daughter loves Alice in Wonderland!  She has watched the cartoon so many times and is now obsessed with the made for TV movie of it from the 80's.  The littlest things that have to do with the movie make her so happy.  She found a pocket watch of her papa's and suddenly turned into the white rabbit looking for her gloves and fan.  She seemed to love pretend playing Alice so much, that I thought I would help out her imagination!
I bought a frilly dress at the thrift store for $5 and let her wear it out for a nature walk.  We also had to keep her hair down (which for Cora could be a knotted disaster, but it actually combed through relativity well later on).  So dressed and ready to go, off we went for a nature walk looking for rabbit holes!
 I walked along with her pretend playing that we saw the rabbit and the Cheshire cat.  We kept growing, shrinking, and crawling along.  We barley escaped when we had to run away from the Red Queen!
It was a fun time to spend together, making me reconnect with my own childhood.
Nothing beats a walk through the woods and a little imagination! =)