DIY Pretty Perler Hama Bead Coaster Tutorial

Hi everyone and happy Friday! Hope you're all doing well. I have a cute and fun project for you today that took me back to my youth - how to make Perler (or hama) bead coasters. They're super simple and you don't need many supplies - just beads, a peg board and an iron. There are seriously so many things you can make with Perler beads that if you want to get inspired, search "Perler bead" or "hama bead" on Pinterest for a ton of neat ideas. I personally really like all the Mario-inspired creations. Since I'm on a kick of making things for my desk at work, I decided to make a couple coasters. One for my coffee mug and one for my water bottle.

You can find your supplies at most craft stores in the kids section or check at a nearby thrift store that carries craft supplies (that's where I found mine!). I've also heard that they carry them at Ikea but can't confirm it. There are all different shapes of peg boards but for these I used the big hexagon pictured. 

DIY Embroidered Cat Mousepad

My husband has told me that in order to not be labeled as the crazy cat lady at work, I must limit cat items on my desk to no more than two. This is cat item number one and the second is this totally awesome cat-stronaut mug I bought on Society6. Though I really think that we crazy cat people don't care if people see us as such, so you may see more cat desk items on this blog anyway. :) Here's how you can make a cat mousepad (or a mousepad in any shape, really).

Supplies
- A piece of felt. Mine is stiff felt from the craft store. You want a piece about the size of a piece of paper
- A small piece of leather or other non-skid fabric
- Embroidery floss and needle
- Washout pen or other marker or pencil for tracing on felt
- Scissors
- Computer and printer

Penguin Winter Crochet Pattern

Hey everyone! I wrote a new pattern that I think you'll enjoy.. It's a penguin pattern! Aren't they so cute? I just love them. You can find the pattern on Etsy, Craftsy and Ravelry.

Or, if you're not as crafty, you can buy the finished product in my Etsy shop. Enjoy!

Hoping to have more goodies for you soon!

Ann Arbor Artisan Market

If you live in the Ann Arbor area, the artisan market is a great place to see local artists and crafters every week. I've been setting up the last two Sundays and it's been a really great experience. Not only have all of the artists and customers I've encountered been friendly, but I'm also selling some things and getting to spend time with my sister. The Sunday Artisan Market is every Sunday from April through Christmas from 11 a.m.-4 p.m. in Kerrytown in Ann Arbor (where the farmers market sets up on Saturdays). I won't be there every Sunday, but if you like Harvesting Hart on Facebook, I'll be sure to post when I'll be at the market. I try to have new items there each week I'm there, and there are many items (earrings, bracelets, pins, hair bows, etc) that I don't have listed on Etsy yet. You can also like the artistan market here.

Crochet Cushion from a Twin Sheet - Free Pattern

This project originally came from wanting to make a crocheted floor poof. I thought that a twin size sheet would totally make enough fabric yarn for something that big ... Wrong! It did, however, make enough yarn to make this 12" couch pillow/cushion. See below for instructions on how to cut the sheet and the pattern for you crocheters.

Free Cute U.S. Map Printable Download

I created this map to put pins in where I've made sales in my Etsy shop, but you could use it to mark places you've been, teach children (or adults!) the states, or frame it and use it as decor. Note that Alaska is shown at 50% scale because it's huge!

For printing, I took it to Office Max and had it printed on card stock for $0.70. If you have an inkjet printer, just watch your print margins and try it as "fit to page." Download here on Google Docs and enjoy!

Cross Stitched iPhone Case

My sister bought this case for me as a gift for my birthday back in November, but I just got around to spending some time on it in the last couple days. Isn't it cute? I saw a similar pattern online, and used some thread I bought from a garage sale. The case I have is no longer available on Amazon, but you can find a similar one here.

Friday Findings - Tutorials

anemone magnets :: fabric project baskets :: fake calligraphy :: crochet garland

Make Your Own Coffee Syrups

Here's a super easy way to make your own coffee syrups. These recipes come from A Beautiful Mess, but my recipes below are halved to fit in these 7 oz World Market bottles. See below the recipes for a gift wrapping idea! This is the perfect inexpensive and easy gift.

Vanilla syrup: 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract. Heat water and sugar in a pan over medium low heat, stirring constantly until dissolved. Stir in vanilla extract. Pour into container.

Caramel syrup: 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup caramel. Heat water and sugar in a pan over medium low heat, stirring constantly until dissolved. Stir in caramel until disolved. Pour into container.

For a raspberry syrup recipe, click here. They also have lavender and honey recipes here.

I gift wrapped the bottles in the box they came in. This is the box before decoration. Reusing this box helps so the bottles won't fall over in the gift bag and possibly leak. You can purchase the bottles for $3.99 (for both!) at World Market.

For the next part, all you need is some kraft paper, a pen, double sided tape and a bit of scrapbook paper. For the bottle labels, I just wrote the labels and designs on kraft paper, cut the circles out, and used double sided tape to stick the labels to the bottles. For the box, simply cover the printing on the front with a written label. I gave these to my mom for her birthday this weekend and she didn't know that I made them until my husband told her!

DIY Little Wooden Houses

Here's a cute tutorial that's super quick if you have a compound miter saw. Ours is being loaned to us by my husband's parents while we build our coffee table, and I think I might get one since it's so handy! You can also use a jigsaw (as shown in this tutorial, which was my inspiration), but the compound miter saw will allow you to have exact angles ... just how I like them.

Supplies
1-2x2 piece of lumber
Compound miter saw or jigsaw
Fine sand paper
Paint

1. Measure to the middle and make a mark at each end of the board. Draw a faint pencil line lengthwise down the center of the board.
2. Set your compound miter saw to a 45 degree angle. Place your board pencil line side down on the saw base and cut across the board near one of the ends.
3. Flip the board over. Find where the angle you just cut meets the pencil line on your board. Line up the saw and cut so the pencil line is at the peak of the little house's roof.
4. Set your saw back to a 0 degree angle and cut off the board however tall you'd like your houses (mine are approximately 1.5", 2", and 2.5" tall).
5. Sand sharp corners and pencil marks.
6. Paint the roof.

Anthro Display Hack: Hat Stand

I'm planning on adding hats to my Etsy shop soon, and have been searching online for inspiration and advice for photography. One site somewhat obviously suggested checking out companies whose product photography you like, and I immediately thought Anthropologie. Their product photos are taken on a white background and use few models, which is what I like in my photography. Here's the hat stand I came across that I fell in love with, and is also my model for my copycat stand:

Cute, right? A simple wire hat stand. I found the original source to buy one, but it was almost $25 including shipping. Call me cheap but I'm not willing to pay that, so I made a trip to JoAnn's, picked up some wire, and made it yesterday evening. Here's what I came up with using $2 of wire:

Boom. Mine is shorter and appears larger in this photo but it works. I have to work on getting a few kinks out of the base, but overall, a success. See the quick tutorial below. I wasn't planning on this being a tutorial, so if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments.

Click on photo to enlarge.

1. Get your supplies: Tape measure, 12 gauge wire (two 3 yard rolls), wire cutters, and a bowl that measures approximately 18" around.
2. This is the wire I purchased. It was $1.99 a roll but with two 50% off coupons from JoAnn's, it was $1.99 for two rolls. You don't want any wire much thinner than this or it won't be able to support a hat.
3. Cut four-one yard long sections of wire. Measure to the halfway point (18") of each section. This will be the top of the hat stand. Mold one piece of wire around the overturned bowl until it intersects. Twist to hold in place. Measure 2" down from the circle you just created and bend the wire outward. Using the bowl again, bend the wire down until it forms a half circle. See photo. Repeat until you have four shaped wires.
4. Set your four forms inside each other and fan out until it resembles a sphere. Attach them together at the top with a small piece of wire.
5. Wrap wire around the top and bottom of the straight section to hold in place.
6. Cut a piece of wire approximately 20" and make a circle around your bowl, wrapping the wire ends around each other to hold the circle's shape. Wrap each of the end wires of your stand around the circle and trim.
7. Cut another piece of 20" wire and make another circle around your bowl, wrapping the wire ends around each other to hold in place. Connect around the middle of the sphere in four places.

That's it! I think I'm going to use these at an artisan's market this spring and fall to show off my hats! Might even make some taller and shorter to complete a display. I haven't decided yet if I want to spray paint the stand, leave as is, or do something fun like wrapping strips of fabric around and gluing. Such a fun project!

Make a Light Box for Under $20

Winter makes me lazy. I get out of work and the sun has already set, it's cold, and I just don't feel like doing much of anything. The only free time I had to take photos in natural daylight for my shop is on the weekend (which I never think of doing at the time) or on my lunch break. And the lunch break photo session doesn't happen often. So when I came across this tutorial to make an inexpensive light box, I made it right away. No more excuses, laziness!

Here's what you need and about what it'll cost you:
A big box, the squarer, the better (Free)
A piece of poster board ($1 at Dollar Tree)
White muslin fabric to cover the holes (I already had this but you can buy $2 a yard cheap stuff from JoAnn's)
Two lamps (Standing lamp was $5.99 and clip on lamp above was $9.99 at Target)
Daylight bulbs - 60 watts ($5 for a pack of 4)
Box cutter, tape, scissors

Buy your lamps before getting your bulbs so you can check the maximum wattage your lamps can handle. I bought 100 watt bulbs before finding that the only lamp that could support that bulb would cost $30.

Follow the tutorial here to put it all together!

Here's the first photo I took without any adjustment:

And after a little adjustment in iPhoto to brighten it up:

Not perfect, but it'll get there. I might take the photos into CameraRAW or Photoshop to lighten up the shadows more. But overall, it's a success!

Fabric Love - Pure by Stof House Designer

Modern designs, simple color pallet, large, simple prints .. ahh, this is my kind of fabric! Stof House is a large fabric distributer in Europe based out of Denmark. It was hard to find information on this collection specifically, but I think it was designed by one of their on-staff designers.

I'm working on my first quilt (eek!) and am using the seed heads in grey (bottom right corner) as one of the fabrics. It is beautiful in person .. high quality quilting cotton and just perfect.  I'll fill you in on the quilt soon, but as my mom said, "I've never heard of anyone starting to quilt with hexagons." Should be interesting!

To order some of this collection, which was just released recently, visit Hawthorne Threads. They have more color choices then what I have displayed above. For more on Stof and their fabric collections, click here.

Create Your Own Font for Free!

Seriously .. so excited for this! One of the reasons I've been wanting an iPad is to download all the cool apps, including FontMaker to make a font with my handwriting. Now I have one less reason to get one! On myscriptfont.com, you print and fill out the template, scan it in per the instructions, and download your font! Super cool, right? And free!

The image above was created in Word using the font I made. I just used a regular gel ink pen (I didn't have any medium size felt tip pens) and it worked fine other than a couple of light areas on the U V W and w.

Thanks to The Cheese Thief for posting this!

Crochet Bow Pattern

I've been making bows like crazy! They're really simple to crochet and look super cute with a high bun, as an accessory on a bag or for clipping back your (or your girl's) hair. I'm going to add a whole slew of them to my Etsy shop so if you don't know how to crochet, you can buy some cute bows soon here.  This is my first crochet pattern, so if you have and questions or need clarification, leave it in the comments and I'll respond!

Little Bow Pattern
Worsted weight or cotton yarn, size 4mm hook
American terms: ch=chain, hdc=half double crochet, hk=hook, st=stitch, sc=single crochet, sl st=slip stitch

Main Rectangle:
Ch 20 or desired length of bow.
Row 1: Hdc in 2nd st from hk and each across. Ch 1. Turn.
Row 2: Hdc in each stitch across. Ch 1. Turn.
Rows 3-4: Repeat row 2.
Sc around entire rectangle, with 3 sc in each corner, to create a finished edge. Fasten off.

Small Middle Rectangle:
Ch 10. Work on one side of chain. Sc in 2nd st from hk and each across. 3 sc in last ch. Sc in each st returning (down the other side of the chain), ending with 2 sc in the final chain. Sl st to first st. Fasten off with a long tail.

Pinch the main rectangle together and sew middle rectangle on using the long tail. Fasten off.

Fabric Love - Tsuru by Rashida Coleman-Hale

Rashida Coleman-Hale's next collection, Tsuru, is inspired by her childhood growing up in Japan. Tsuru is Japanese for crane. Just look at these beautifully coordinated oranges, blues, and yellows! The little birds' feet prints are my favorite, followed closely by the flying cranes and the flower print. So pretty!

Source

Rashida Coleman-Hale is already popular for her cute and fun Washi collection.

See more from the designer, see her blog, I Heart Linen. If you'd like to purchase Tsuru, visit Hawthorne Threads, search "tsuru" and you can enter your email to be contacted when it becomes available.

Michigan Football + Picnic/Rainy Football Game Blanket Tutorial

My sister and I got tickets for the UM football game last Saturday in Ann Arbor from her boss. When we looked at the weather, we were trying to decide if we wanted to go (there was a 90% chance of rain the entire time we were there), but decided to tough it out with some rain gear and a cool blanket I made from a tutorial on The Mother Huddle. See the photos below. The tutorial is towards the bottom.

My purdy sister

It rained a lot ..

.. But we were still happy. :)

The blanket in use

I was planning on making this as a picnic blanket over the summer, like it's intended to be, but never made it and with the imminent rain, thought it would be perfect to flip over and use the vinyl side as rain protection. Here's how it's done.

Picnic or Rainy Day Blanket

Supplies
A vinyl tablecloth (mine was purchased at Wal-Mart)
A fleece blanket (I reused an old one from around the house)
Scissors, thread, sewing machine

1. Lay your vinyl tablecloth right side down on the floor. Lay your blanket on top. If any dimensions are significantly bigger than the other, cut it down so there's about a three inch border all the way around your blanket. In the original tutorial, her blanket was larger than her tablecloth so she cut that down to match. My tablecloth was too big for my blanket so I cut it down (see below).

Chopped blanket

2. Fold the extra table cloth over to create a border around the blanket and pin. The nice thing about vinyl tablecloths is they have a finished edge. If you cut your tablecloth like me, you should double fold over the edge of the tablecloth that has been cut to hide the unfinished edge.

3. Add an elastic strap by measuring to the center of one of the short sides and pinning a length of elastic there.

4. Sew all the way around, going back and forth over the elastic a few times.

5. That's it! Enjoy your non-wet-butt picnic and cozy sitting-in-the-rain blanket!

Strong Bad Crochet

Have any of you seen Homestar Runner before? My sister and I used to watch it all the time on the computer growing up and thought it was hil-a-ri-ous! Strong Bad was mine and my sister's favorite character. 

So when she randomly suggested one day that I crochet a Strong Bad and sell it for mad money, I decided to make one for her for her birthday. Given the limited number of Strong Bad crochet patterns on the interwebz, I made this up from scratch. I'm kicking myself now for not writing down the pattern, but I thought it was worth sharing anyway. :)

Doesn't the light in the background look like the backdrop from a 90's school photo? An ode to the 90's popularity of this little guy. I totally did that on purpose ..

Yay for geeky crochet! Hope you're having a great week! 

Crochet Hook Holder

If you've looked at my Etsy shop recently, you probably noticed that I've been doing quite a bit of crocheting. Who doesn't like a cute little octopus? Or some flower coasters? No one, I say, no one. *Side note: Over the weekend I told my senior neighbor that I crochet and she kind of laughed about it. I know it's kind of dorky and something stereotypically for older people, but I love it anyway! My husband would tell you that he experiences the full scope of my crocheting endeavors because they cover (and I mean cover) our coffee table for weeks on end. I've decided recently to get a little more organized, for both of our sakes. All of my crochet hooks were housed in a recycled jar covered in a crocheted cozy, which worked for the time, but the jar was knocked over often, it was noisy (metal in glass..) and I had to transfer all the hooks into my tote to go places. p.s. Check out this tote:

I made this tote almost exactly like I saw one online for knitting. And, obviously, it's just a joke! I had someone concerned about me taking this in public because I might offend people..!

Now THIS was not in the original: I made some nifty slots to put my hooks in on the go.

Moving on. I saw this tutorial online a few days ago to make a clutch for crochet hooks and supplies, and thought it was such a great idea.

I made it the same day. Here's what mine looked like:

Not too shabby, right? It looks super cute, but here are a few issues I had and how I remedied them. The first issue was that my hooks have bamboo handles and are much larger than the ones the author used.

This means wider slots for hooks, which means less hooks in the holder. It also meant that the fabric bunched up a lot more when the hooks were in the holder, making it all ripply. Not cute. The clutch was also really floppy. I decided at this point to make it like this canvas roll up storage for some of my paint brushes. I cut off the button, and rolled the whole mess up to see where to sew the button again. I like it SO much better. It's a good throw and go option too.

If you decide to make this, you can just wait to put the button on until the end and decide if you'd like it as a clutch or roll up. Just make sure to only sew the button on through the first layer of fabric.

Here's another issue I had: You'll notice in the photo above that the inner-most hook slot is empty. That is where the scissors are intended to go. This is clutch not meant to be turned upside down. The scissors fall out. And you wouldn't want to drop scissors on your cat, your foot, or like a knife into the floor, would you? (I did two of these three .. I'm not telling which) Here's my solution.

Velcro it up! I did this after the fact so it was a big pain hand sewing everything on, but if you add the little flap just after you sew on the slots for hooks, it would be super easy! I also added a little patch to hold straight pins, since I use them a lot for temporarily holding on octopus tentacles before I sew them on.

That's it! Easy storage for crochet hooks. It took me around an hour to make from start to finish .. plus a little more for the hand sewing additions after the fact. Check out Little Birdie Secrets' full tutorial here!