Category Archives arts and crafts

Baby Blanket Envy

When my nephew was born, I gave him my first ever baby blanket that I knitted. Sure, I had started many afghans over the years, but had never actually finished one. Here is little BA sleeping under my blanket:

Baby B with Blanket

When my life long friend H found out in January that she was having a little boy, I told her that I wanted to knit him a blanket. That evening, I went to the craft store and bought yarn. I picked out a new pattern to try and knew the supplies that were needed. I opted to try a new adventure. A knitting buddy finally convinced me to try a diagonal blanket using circular needles. I quickly fell in love. Before I knew it, the baby blanket was complete and ready long before the baby shower.

Baby Blanket

Much to my surprise, my two young boys were quite jealous of this soft blanket and wanted me to knit something for them. Once again, I went to get supplies to make a family blanket. I knew the yarn I wanted, but they did not have nearly enough in the dye lot. I got a little more creative and opted to try the diagonal pattern using stripes. So every 25 rows, I switched from the Sunny Days yarn to dark blue. Here are some photos from the last 3 months. Thanks to trips to Disney, business, illness, school hoopla, and more – it took 3 months to knit the entire family sized blanket.

Family Diagonal Blanket

Now the blanket is knitted and I need to weave in the ends. I was shocked to see that the blanket almost fits across my entire queen sized bed. Next up, I am going to use the yarn that I had bought for a Log Cabin blanket to make another lighter and larger diagonal blanket.

If you knit or crochet, be sure to catch me on Ravelry:

Ravelry TheAngelForever

Be sure to let me know what project you are working on right now. I’m always looking for more ideas to add to my list.

TheAngelForever

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Artist Appreciation

Growing up, I loved art class. I may not have been the best at drawing, but it was fun and helped me to relax. In elementary school, I would stress over my art work looking like my classmates. Middle school was a blur for a lot of reasons. High school changed things. My freshman Studio Art teacher was an amazing woman. She inspired me to be myself in my art. She told me not to worry about what others thought and enjoy.

Thanks to Ms. W, I continued on with art every year in high school. I took several classes that were on painting and, in my last year of high school, art, pottery, and sculpture filled the end of my day. Art classes were something that was a perk for me. I was lucky to go to a school that had a variety of options in high school. Then, in college, while working on my teaching degree, I took an Art & Learning course. This course was a lot of work, but oh so rewarding.

I remember studying different artists over the years during classes. My bedroom was decorated with Monet’s Water Lilies and I adored it. Art appreciation continues to be part of my life. JSL’s nursery school class recently completed a unit on artists. They studied Seurat (one of my favorites thanks to his dots) and here is JSL’s version of Mondrian:

Mondrian by JSL

So my question to you this week is inspired by my love of art:

Who is your favorite artist and why?

TheAngelForever

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Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An<br<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
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Island<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
Life

Aloha #150

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Yarn Art Fun

It is no secret that I have a lot of yarn scraps in storage from my knitting. I often wonder what to do with them and how to let the boys have some fun. Over February break, the boys and I were stuck at home thanks to a storm. The boys wanted to do an art project.

Thanks to their request, I started to look around the house for ideas. I found some construction paper and noticed my yarn. I quickly thought of something, so I went and gathered Elmer’s glue, scissors, and my scraps of cotton yarn. I had a mission and the boys were ready to be creative. First I cut lots of yarn into smaller pieces for all of us to use with our project.

Lots of Yarn

Everyone picked out a sheet of construction paper. Then the boys made squiggles of the glue on the paper.

Ready to create

After this, it was time to create our masterpieces. Here are some photos of the boys with their work in progress:

Creating Yarn Art

I watched as the boys picked their yarn and placed them into the glue. Then I got an idea to make something for TechyDad. Here are our creations below. JSL’s is the top, NHL’s is in the middle, and mine on the bottom.

Our First Projects

The boys really enjoyed this, but got sticky from the glue and eventually lost interest. Of course, I had an idea and wanted to do another picture. As I started working on it, NHL came over to help me get colors to use within my work.

My Rainbow Picture

The papers looked really great after they dried. The white glue disappeared and we were able to hang them up. I know that we will definitely be doing this again, and I have another item that I hope to try with yarn art soon.

Do you have any ideas on how to use scrap yarn with kids for crafts? If you do, I would love to hear about your projects. Please be sure to share them below in the comments.

TheAngelForever

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