Other crafty pursuits

I took a vacation day on Friday and pulled out the materials from one of my pre-knitting crafts -- beading. I whipped out several pairs of stitch markers ... I made all of these in about 90 minutes.


I gave the 2 sets on the left to Crystal, who has to put up with my knitting dilemmas on a daily basis, since we share adjoining cubes. I'm not sure that this is adequate compensation for my incessant need for advice, but I hope she likes them! The 2 sets on the right are going to my mother-in-law for Christmas. The ones with the blue stars are all the same, but the stars are only iridescent on one side. The 3 sets in the middle got sent to another knitblogger to use as gifts for participants in a collaborative afghan making project she is hosting.

And, as if knitting and beading were not enough, I also dabble in some paper crafts. I'm just a rookie compared to hard core scrapbookers and card makers, though. Here is a photo album I made 3 weekends ago. We had our 7 year old niece for the weekend. As part of her visit, we made a photo album together and included all of the photos we took of her over the weekend.

This is the outside. The front and back are the same, except for the placement of the bow.


This is the inside cover. All the paper choices -- the flowers on the cover, the inside page, and the green bookcloth and ribbon on the outside -- were Jane's own choices, although we did steer her towards the green cloth.


And, this is what the pages look like. This is Jane, enjoying a snack at Ben and Jerry's on Newbury St. Note the cows wearing Red Sox hats, and Jane wearing a pink tank top I knit her over a year ago.


I learned to make these albums from my mother, a craft lady in her own right. We bought some of the supplies at the Paper Source store in Porter Square. That's where we got the flowered paper, the ribbon, and a pre-cut kit which contained the book board (cardboard like covers) and interior pages. The rest of the materials -- the pink dot paper, the bookcloth, and the glue/cutting suplies/brushes/photo corners/etc belong to me or my mom, in our stash of other craft supplies. The whole project took us about 2 1/2 hours ... and that was with the help of a 7 year old!

As much as I love to knit, I will always enjoy many other crafty pleasures!