Happy House

Day #201
Heart #210

Yesterday, I heard from one of the fob winners; Beth said her fob arrived, and she was surprized at how small it is!  I know it can be hard to get an accurate feel for the scale of something in a photograph--sometimes I put a quarter in the picture for that reason.  I thought I would show you today's fob with a couple of other ways to help convey an idea of the small size.

Interestingly enough, Beth also gave me the inspiration for today's "happy house" wool felt scissors fob, and it had nothing to do with her message to me.  I happened to be looking through the "New Swap Theme Ideas" on Craftster, and Beth (who is StickerChic there) had proposed a "tiny house" swap, with this link to her house board on Pinterest.  One look at that board, and I knew what my fob for today would be!  Here it is, with regular 8 1/2" sewing scissors:

In the palm of my hand:

All by itself:

This is a happy town where the sky is pink and every house has an apple tree in the yard.

Chickens and Number 200

Day #191
Hearts #199-200

I've reached another milestone in this heart-a-day challenge--my 200th heart!  Wow, that's a lot of hearts!  And it just happens to be my favorite heart so far--I guess "practice makes perfect" applies to this situation!

My Craftster friend waggonswest requested that I make her a chicken scissors fob for a personal swap.  Since I LOVE chickens, I was glad to comply!  Last night I made these two; which one will she choose?

The one below is based on a felt badge I just finished for a swap.  (I haven't sent it yet, so I don't want to show it here in case it spoils the surprise for my partner!)

The one below is my favorite.  It too is a miniature version of a felt badge I made for a swap; you can see the original at the bottom of this post.  These scissors fobs are just under 1 1/2" across, and the felt badges are about 3" across, so it's a huge difference in scale.

Here's the felt badge:

Both the fobs and the badge are entirely hand-sewn using wool felt, embroidery floss, sewing thread, and a bead for the eye; the fobs are stuffed with polyfil.  One reader asked how long do I cut the twine?  It's 9"; I knot the ends together, hide the knot inside the fob, and sew through the twine so it won't EVER pull out!

Felt Badge Heart

Day #171
Heart #154

This is a heart I made recently for a personal swap on Craftster.  It is made of wool felt and embroidery floss, and glass beads.  It is a copy of one I saw on my partner's Pinterest, and as with all my felt hearts, it is entirely hand sewn.  It is just under 3" in width.

Happy Clouds

Day #156
Hearts #128-129

Two more scissors fobs!

I wanted to try an image-transfer technique I heard about on Craftster:  using a rubber stamp, stamp the image on the WRONG side of the felt, and use that as your guide as you emberoider.  That's how I did the cloud on the left.  It worked okay, but wasn't as precise as I would like, so for the fob on the right, I cut felt into the cloud shape and sewed that to the heart.  I like that much more!

Pincushion Hearts

Day #57
Hearts #62-83

Yesterday I posted my entry in the Random Acts of Crafty Kindness Challenge at Craftster, so now I can show you all the hearts I made for that!  I actually only sent out 17 of these heart-shaped, tie-on pincushions for the challenge, but I finished an additional 5, so I'm adding 22 hearts to my total today!  Yippee! 

Here they are, all together.  I purposely made each one with a different color combination, so I could count each of them as a different heart for this 365 Hearts blog challenge!  (I'm always thinking!)

The picture below shows how I prepared the pincushions for mailing.  You can read more details of my Random Act of Kindness at the link above, or on my other blog (Leslie's Art and Sew).

I hope you have a happy day too!

Heart Bombing

Day #28
Hearts #44-45

After posting 15 new hearts yesterday, you would think I would take a little break from hearts...but no! 

Rebecca (aka CraftyMamaBee) on Craftster recently found out that a close relative has been diagnosed with cancer.  Rebecca decided to do something similar to the "hope" hearts for Amanda that we did on my other blog (Leslie's Art and Sew) a few months ago--she started crafting a jar of hearts to express her love and hope for healing for her cousin.  I wasn't sure if she wanted help, so I didn't jump in until I heard that Wendie (aka wendiek on Craftster) had sent her some hearts!  At that point I couldn't sit by any longer--I HAD to make her some hearts!  Here they are:

 While reading some posts on Craftster yesterday, I came across another person who said her swap group had sent hearts to two people who needed encouragement; she called it a "heart bombing".  I LOVE that term so much!  I wish I had made it up!!  Having a term like that to apply to this activity makes it seem so...official... in a grass-roots kind of way. 

I'm very happy to be able to add to Rebecca's jar of hearts, and I'm sending good thoughts and prayers to her cousin; I hope she is healthy again soon.

More Good Word Hearts

Day #27
Hearts #29-#43

I have FIFTEEN new hearts to show you today!!  Wow--I'm excited about that!  These are the rest of the series of Good Word Hearts I started last week.

I started by choosing appealing fabrics from my scrap bags.  I was hoping to stay with a tight color palette, but I found that if I wanted to use only scraps, my choices were limited.  So I chose fabrics I liked, and then tried to match the words with the feeling the fabrics gave me...the best match in this group is "joyful"--it really fits that fabric!

Of these three stronger colors, I like the fabric on "forgiving" the best; but I think "industrious" is the best match for its fabric.

Here, I put "soft" words with soft fabrics:

and here, things are kind of random!  I like "hopeful" the best.

I was fortunate to have onegroovyday for my wonderful partner in a recent swap on Craftster.  She made this amazing coiled fabric bowl for me (hi Mindy!).  It's the perfect place to store and display these hearts.  Don't they look awesome all together like this?

Heart Garland

A reader left a comment on the previous post about making a garland out of my hearts at the end of the year; I love that idea, and I'm not the only one who does!  Amanda on Craftster posted this picture of the garland she made with the "hope" hearts some of us Craftster friends made for her:

You can read more about the heart project at my other blog, Leslie's Art and Sew. 

You can read Amanda's post on Craftster by clicking HERE.  It has gotten a LOT of comments, and will lift your spirits!

Heart Challenge 2012

My friend Susan didn't exactly challenge me to see if I could make 365 new and different hearts in a year; she just strongly encouraged me to, and gave me the name for this blog...she is very persuasive, and although I have serious doubts about my ability to do this and still keep juggling all the other balls that make up my life, what the heck, I'll give it a try.

So here it is, November 29, 2011, and starting on January 1st I will begin this challenge.  The good news is that I have a month to get a head start on it!  It also gives me time to think about what to do with all those hearts at the end of the year.  My first thought:  make some heart wreaths, like this plushie wreath I made with some plushies I made and received in Craftster swaps this year:

At JoAnn's today I saw some nice grapevine wreaths that would be great throughout the year.  I could make them in different colors, or themes...this is sounding more fun, the more I think about it!  If you have any great ideas for hearts you would like to see me make, or things to do with the hearts at the end of the year, please leave a comment below.  I love comments!  They keep me going!  Please--leave a comment!