EKO's Crafty Life

I finished another Christmas gift last night for my grandma, a scrap book page family tree with pictures of all of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A family tree - the colours show up more in real light I found this idea on the Crafting a Green World Blog  I had been wanting to make one of these for a little while but it was not until I found some frames at my local dollar store that I finally got my act together to do this. To show how inexpensive this was here is a breakdown. Frame : 2 $ Scape paper : 2$ Circle cutter : already owned Leaf shapes : 3$ from ebay  (cheaper than buying a punch and I have tones left I could more than I would ever want with all the leaves I got) Photos : I printed from my own printer it only took 3 4x6 sheets and since my ink is inexpensive ( under 30 for colour and black) the total cost is probably way under 2$ my total out of pocket cost was 7$  and for 2$ each I could ma...

Yesterday the little one and I made nearly 100 apple cinnamon ornaments and 8 jars of S'mores in a jar as gifts. Once they have tags and ribbons I will post each individually with more info.

A few years ago,  I saw a book called The Elf on the Shelf and instantly loved the idea, but did not want to pay for something that I could do myself.  This year I went found a tutorial for an elf over at the  Make Baby Stuff   blog and then a letter all ready to print off from Santa over a  Organized Christmas for the elf to arrive at our house with. The basic of the idea is that Santa sends an elf to the family to watch over the little ones and report back to Santa on Christmas eve and let him know how naughty or nice the little ones were this holiday season, after reporting on Christmas eve Santa leaves his gifts and takes the elf back to the north pole with him..  The one problem is that the elf is a mischief-maker and likes to roam the house in the evenings and is therefore always found in interesting places every morning... think flower pots, sock dr...

so I grew up with glass ceramic top stoves and it was always a chore to keep it clean.  Now I have a brand new stove that also has a glass ceramic top and while it definitely beats taking the elements apart and mopping up spills that fall underneath it is still hard to get the last little bit of baked on grunge off the element, well the other night I believe I  finally found the trick it is a multi step process but each one is quick and relatively pain less, and the result is a sparkling cook top that looks like new. ( I must admit here while with the rest of my house I avoid store bought cleaners I did use some here) 1. wipe up any lose debris with a damp cloth. 2. whip down the stove top with a kitchen all purpose cleaner (I make my own). 3. apply  Cerama-Bryte or other cream stove top cleaner (this one is biodegradable and does not cost much) a little goes a long way!  and rub in with the smooth sid...

So I was over at  Craft Gossip  before Halloween and saw the cutest little diaper bag made from the babies outgrown overalls and as luck would have it I had a pair sitting at the front door that I loved and was just about to give away so I dragged them down stairs to my machine and pulled up the tutorial over at  Sew and Grow   and shortly their after I had a cute little bag made from a pair of my favourite baby overalls. I love this bag because I attaches to your purse and therefore you only need to throw one bag strap over your shoulder.  it is also great for leaving the little ones at a babysitter, grandma or other spot just unsnap the bag and leave it with them. Finally it can be strapped onto a stroller quickly so you have easy access to the snaks. the only thing I would do different next time and there will be a next time is use a pair of overalls that are not made fro...

A little while back I was in need of a gift for my husband from the the girls so after a quick trip to the dollar store, and then with a few supplies from home we made dad a gift that he is proudly displaying on his desk at work. We picked up a simple wooden frame and then my daughter went to work painting the frame with her favorite colours. the little artist at work. After the paint was dry I took a sharpie added a caption to the bottom of the frame,  and then sprayed a coat of clear spray paint on top of the paint job and then printed a picture of the two girls. Here is the frame on display in Dads office (I forgot to take an after pic)

One Happy Little Ghost. So the other night I was thinking my eldest daughter needed a Halloween top to wear during the day Saturday as we are having company to visit and she only has one Halloween top and it was already dirty.  I remember having seen a cute top something like this on my many web travels however I can not find the one that inspired me at this time.  So late Thursday I took some white satiny fabric I had laying around and quickly sewed up a pillow case dress/top ( this is my first attempt at this style of dress) and then Friday I made a quick freezer paper stencil and painted a ghost face on the dress ( also a first for me... I have been wanting to try this for a while). I only had acrylic paint no I am not sure how color fast this will be but it will last for the weekend which is all that is important.  I will report later once I have washed it about how well it has held up. A clo...

I have been wanting to try my hand at making Cake pops for a while and after seeing some adorable ghost pops at  These Peas are Hallow   I knew I had to give it a try,  so I went and referred to the queen of cake pops over at  Bakerella  and gave the cake pop thing a try. It was definitely fun, unfortunately I burned my first batch of white chocolate so I did not have many ghost pops but I did get a few other Halloween theme ones done.  I think I made them a little to big, next time I will definitely use a cookie scoop to keep the size even and smaller.  Having said that there will definitely be a next time, they were fun and it is great that they can be made ahead of time, for those events when you dont have much time the day of or day before. I still need to put them in a better container for display. the best thing about these is that they can easily be made form boxe...

My eldest daughter asked to learn how to knit today while the baby was sleeping so I got out a thick piece of yarn and a P hook. Mostly she is just wrapped the yarn around the crochet hook. But she did get a few stitches done before she just started wrapping the yarn around her hook. We started of good But lost patients and just started wrapping.

A few weeks ago was my moms Birthday and I wanted to make an extra something for her so I whipped up this lunch bag in about an hour, It is based on this tutorial over at ohfransson . I made it form some heavy material from Ikea instead of vinyl and a pillow case,  I also made a few changes with how the top is attached, along with adding grommets to the top but over all I am very happy with how it turned out and intend on making more perhaps for Christmas presents if anyone would like an explanation of the changes I made to the pattern please ask and I will be happy to document them in my own tutorial.  I also included a few matching cloth napkins to go with the bag, as an added something extra. Thanks for reading, if you like what you see please leave me a comment or better yet become a follower so you don't miss any of my posts and as always please take min to visit one of my sponsors.

Thanksgiving  (or Christmas)  Cranberry Sauce Well yesterday was a day for getting things done before the long weekend here in Canada and I started off with making some cranberry sauce.  I like to make enough to last me the year (so canning a few jars is in order).  While I was at it I took a few pictures and figured I would share my recipe since it is really easy and supper nummy, no need to eat sliced cranberry sauce again. I Ingredients needed  (note directions are for a single batch but I made a double patch so pictures are doubled) 1 Bag 300g fresh or frozen cranberries 1 small orange  1 Cup Sugar Water Brandy Zest The orange and place in large pot. Juice the orange  *or even better juice half the orange and cut up the other half of the orange into little cranberry size pieces and add with the peel. ( my orange was really soft so I just Juiced the whole thing) Add water to the ora...

Making a "Stain Glass" window Start by drawing a picture on a piece of plasticized paper, options are freezer paper mack-tack ( what I used because I had it on hand) or even regular paper covered in plastic wrap,  just use what you have on hand. Use pencil to draw that way if any of the lines transfer you can erase them from the finished project. Sorry it is hard to see the lines but my mack-tack had a fairly bold print. Next make the glue, you could use watered down pvc glue but I jsut make my own: Mix 1 Cup water  1 tablespoon flour and 1 teaspoon salt and bring to a boil  keep at a simmer until thickend, cool and you are ready to go. Also rip up small pieces of tissue paper in the co lours you would like to use for your picture. Now we start the picture.  place a thin layer of glue on your drawing ( you can see the butterfly better here)   Next place pieces...

Faux Stain Glass Window My daughter and I made this last week, I took lots of picture and will post a how to soon.

Make an extra picnic blanket We have a picnic blanket that folds into a bag and I use it all the time, however it often gets left in the car when my husband takes it to work and then I am always dragging different blankets out to the yard to lay out for picnic lunches, lounging around on or just plain trying to keep the baby from eating leaves and acorns ( this was the case yesterday). I've had this piece of fabric for a while now (revived from a generous freecycler) and have been planning to make an extra blanket, the fabric is fairly heavy and yet folds up small to keep by our back door or even leave in the bin with our chair pads.  and this week I finally got around to finishing it up. Here is a quick run-down of how I did it.  I cut the fabric in half (it really was the perfect size and was screaming to be made into a picnic blanket from the start.)  placed the two good sides together and sewed around ...

As promised here  is the tutorial for how I patched my jeans I was inspired by the tutorial over at  Make It Do  I added a few steps to make the patch hold up a little bit better. With out further ado here it is. Collect the materials Needed Pre made patch (purchased from Walmart) Fabric for appliqué Cookie cutter to  use as template Stamp to transfer the pattern embroidery floss Not shown scissors, needle, thimble, embroidery hoop and heat and bond Pick a cookie cutter that will cover the hole you need to cover. Place the cookie cutter on an ink pad with light pressure (you do not want to damage the pad) then press the cutter firmly on the back side of your patch that way if you need to reposition or re stamp to leave a darker mark  it you will not leave a mark that will show on your finished project. Cut out the shaped patch and also create a small patch to cover the back side of the hole you w...