Today’s guest post comes from Amber! My favorite pop culture crafter, she’s lately been into an old school craft that she’s trying to bring back as a new trend. Will she succeed?

Remember when you were little and your parents tried to get you to give them some peace by sitting you at the kitchen table with some crafts? Did they ever get you Perler beads? You know, those little fusion beads you put on a pin board and melted together with an iron? If you’re like me, you used every bead until they were gone, making hearts, stars, happy faces and whatever else you could think of as a kid. As an adult, it becomes an art.

My favorite thing to make now are 8-bit Nintendo characters. Each bit becomes an individual bead, and once melted, they look amazing! There are patterns all over the Internet for the most creative ideas.

My newest Perler endeavor is creating portraits. There are some amazing apps that you can use to pixelate photos. Each pixel becomes a bead. You can count each one and assign them a color. Check out my Louis Tomlinson from One Direction (top right).

You can pick up Perler beads at any craft store, but if you happen to see bags of black beads, pick up extra. You’ll go through black much faster than you think.

Have fun!

I forgot to write about this momentous occasion, but I now have a Facebook page for yarn over cleveland that you can like! Please go here and like my page! I promise, more posts here soon. I’ve been dealing with quite a few illnesses this month that have just knocked out my productivity!

It’s snowing like crazy, as usual, here in Cleveland. Why would I chose to leave the warmth of my apartment and an afghan to be blown around and bitterly cold? No, thank you! I’m at my parents house tonight and considering my plans for tomorrow. They definitely include some crocheting, and hopefully some sewing. I have a brand new sewing machine from Christmas that I’ve hardly touched. I’ll be honest, I’m a little afraid of it! I know I’m not that old or anything, but it gets harder to learn new things. I’m anxious to try it out. I have an adorable owl fabric I’d love to create with, but  I don’t want everything to go terribly wrong!

Upcoming craft projects for me include a beautiful purple scarf I’m making for myself. I’m crocheting a Ravelry pattern with Ella Rae Latte yarn I bought ages ago from WEBS. It’s amazingly soft, and somehow made from milk (I’m not even bothering to figure that out). Unfortunately, as I found that link from WEBS, I realized the yarn was on sale, and I’m not sure I’ll have enough for my scarf… yes, I have a yarn addiction.

The next thing I’d like to finish is a great scarf I’m making for my friend Brittany with this pattern. I really adore it, but it is time consuming! I promise, someday I’ll finish it.

The next project I’ll likely work on is a donation for an event my friend is having with one of our church groups. It’s to help raise funds to combat human trafficking, and I’m excited to contribute! I’m not sure yet what I’ll make, possibly an afghan, or maybe a bag. Who knows? I have enough yarn to last me until the end of the world, so I have many options.

Happy crafting!

I’ve been crocheting like a fiend this winter, and I wanted to share some of my latest completed projects. I’ve been excited that I’ve been able to move onto more complex projects recently, including hats. If I had the time, I’d love to get started making more items, so I could sell them, but I’m so super busy these days that I don’t see that happening! Maybe someday, but for now this will remain a hobby!

Adorable Baby Baseball Hat

This was surprisingly easy and only took a few days.

Purple Beret/Hat

Also easy, and in a great yarn that changed texture/color.

I also made several other hats and scarves for friends, which I’ve been posting to my Instagram/Tumblr pages to share!

Don’t forget to check out my Ravelry page for more photos (link on bottom right side of page)!

This is my first recipe of my own creation (liberally stolen from many, many other recipes!) so of course I’m going to name it after myself!

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef or ground turkey
• 1 can tomato sauce (1 lb, 13 oz size) (add more if you like soupier chili)
• 4.25 oz can green chiles
• 10 oz can Rotel
• 1 can pinto beans
• 1 can black beans
• 1 can mexicorn
• 1 tsp ground pepper
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1 package taco seasoning

Brown ground beef and season with half the package of taco seasoning. Add to crockpot with all other ingredients and mix well. Cook on low 4-6 hours in crockpot, and enjoy!

Today I hosted my first ladies craft day at my apartment! Several friends from my church came over and we had snacks, chatted, and talked crafts. I worked on a few crochet projects that I inevitably ripped out. I’m working on a new scarf now for a friend (and a thousand other things).

I’m excited about next year. I’m planning on crocheting and crafting even more. I’d like to start selling at craft shows and maybe even on Etsy! My craft room at my apartment is coming together, and I’m just missing a sewing machine.

Here’s a few fun ornaments my friend made today. Mickey and Minnie!

After quite the long break from blogging, I’m back! I moved at the end of June, and this summer has been crazy. I haven’t had much time to devote to crocheting, but I have been crafting up a storm! Out of the desire to keep things cheap, while also sprucing up my apartment, I’ve been hounding local craft stores for deals, as well as scanning Pinterest for inspiration. Here’s some of my favorites from the past 2 months!

Easy Scrapbook Wall Art

Can’t afford those cute, modern wall designs from Target? Here’s an easy solution: buy a few pieces of scrapbook paper from your local craft store, canvas of the same size, Mod Podge, and you have art under $10! I bought 4 pieces of paper from Pat Catan’s that fit within a color scheme that I was looking for in my dining area. I “mod-podged” a 20×20 canvas, stuck the paper on, let them dry, and my room was instantly brightened!

Wood Plaques turned Wall Painting

For this project, I again used scrapbook paper (so cheap and cute!) but also 2 wooden plaques ($1 each), acrylic paint, Mod Podge, and a few stickers that matched the paper. I painted the wood, mod-podged the scrapbook paper and stickers (as well as on the top to give it the painted look), and had a few more pieces for my wall! (The square pieces are more scrapbook paper sheets on canvas.)

Revitalize Cheap Art

One of my favorite new stores is Old Time Pottery! Have you been there? It’s a heaven of cheap home goods, including great art pieces. I’m not too picky – I like certain colors and styles, but otherwise I enjoy any good deal. When I saw the flower painting below, I had to have it! It went perfectly with the colors for my living room (purple and green) and was so cheap – $9.88! The painting is almost 4 feet high, but the frame was hideous – a coppery color that wouldn’t work at all. Unfortunately, given the cheapness of the art, I couldn’t separate the frame from the painting, so I had to paint the frame. I tucked some scrapbook paper under the frame and went at it!

Before

After

Look for more crafty home decor ideas later this month!

Earlier this month, I was fortunate enough to travel to Italy with 2 of my good friends. I had been to Italy in 2004, with a trip for college, but this was to be a whirlwind week of the main cities (Rome, Florence, Venice) and everything in between, traveling with a tour group of 50 people. I was nervous, yet excited for the opportunity to meet new people while also returning to my favorite travel destination.

My travels are really told best through the photographs I took. Of course, we managed to find a yarn shop in Italy (photo right)! It was in Venice, and surprisingly easy to find, despite the haphazardness of Venice’s canals, bridges, and general layout. It was small, quaint, and filled with yarn I had never seen before. Since my yarn collection is overflowing, I didn’t pick up anything for myself, but grabbed a few skeins for my mother (especially as I had been in Italy for mother’s day).

It was an amazing week, beautiful skies, wonderful food, old-world charm, and comforting in the out-of-the-box feeling of travel. Click here to view my Facebook album!

I found this great opportunity over at Eskimami Makes – Knitting & Crocheting blog week 2012! You can see the graphic in the sidebar to the left, and I’m going to try to participate every day this week. It’s a great chance for yarn bloggers all over the globe to weigh in and chat about a variety of topics, and I hope it will also help clear up this writer’s block I’ve had for a few weeks!

Colour Lovers: Colour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with. Have a look through your stash and see if there is a predominance of one colour. Do the same with your finished projects – do they match? Do you love a rainbow of bright hues, or more subdued tones. How much attention do you pay to the original colour that a garment is knit in when you see a pattern? Tell readers about your love or confusion over colour.

This is probably an obvious answer to most people who know me – I absolute love the color purple. I’d say at least 75% of my yarn is purple, if not more. Most of my finished projects are in purple as well, although I am working on an orange (YES!) flower bag. I’m totally branching out and loving it!

Look below for a few examples of completed projects! I think the consensus is quite clear – purple! But I can also see myself using earthy tones, and I don’t mind branching out when creating something for someone else (like the teal wrist warmers I made for a friend). To be honest, I bought a lot of purple at the beginning of my crocheting career, and I’ve been getting braver lately, going for colors like yellow, orange, and green. My horizons are expanding as I delve into tougher projects, like the bag I’m making. I’m trying to develop my skill, as well as my color palette!

As we already know, Amber loves The Hunger Games. I went with her to the midnight show a few weeks ago, and we saw a wide array of custom t-shirts. Another passion of Amber’s is creating t-shirts using all sorts of television shows, characters, and slogans.

The only thing my husband ever wants for gifts are R/C car parts and t-shirts. Since I have no idea what I’m doing when shopping for R/C supplies, I stick with the t-shirts.

I’ve looked at CafePress and Zazzle for fun shirts, but some of those can get pricey. I decided to design some myself and save some money. I’ve used CustomizedGirl before to design a shirt for my brother with a logo for his band on it. It’s a better deal and I’ve recommended it to friends who have used it too.

About a year ago, I got a Groupon for VistaPrint. If you’ve never heard of it before, you can design anything there from t-shirts to wedding invitations at an amazing price. Living Social offers great deals for the site too. You can pay $15 and get $70 worth of items you design.

I’ve made my husband multiple shirts with themes from The Big Bang Theory, his favorite show. Also I’ve done themes from other shows including Community, Parks and Recreation, and Chuck. I recently made a shirt for the midnight opening of The Hunger Games. It was a big hit at the theater among the fans. “My patronus is a mockingjay!” Cheers Harry Potter fans!

I love designing t-shirts. Right now I have credit of $120 for VistaPrint. That’s enough for a whole new wardrobe!