This is a wonderful craft project to do with your children or grandchildren. I like that the boxes are large enough for more than one little treat or trinket. With six children, my choices were to either let one child have a treat each day, or to get six calendars… Neither of those options appealed, so I decided to make a calendar that the whole family could enjoy.

First, gather your materials. You’ll need:

25 Angel Images
25 matchboxes (I’m using white, but you could use black or gold - remove and save matches)
1 1/2 yd 1″ wide ribbon (violet is a good choice, but you could use red, or any other ou like)
Mod Podge
Paint Brush
X-acto knife
25 small round (or any shape you like) adhesive backed tags from the scrapbook supply
Scrapbooking Pen (I’m using “le Plume” in black)
String (I’m using linen cord)
Sharp darning needle or drill fitted with small drill bit
25 Decorative brads (I used antique furniture style ones)
beads, flat-back sparkles, glitter (optional)
Thumb tacks or sticky dots for hanging (should be able to hold weight)
Fillers (we used smarties and some other goodies - see end of tutorial)

Step One: Cut out your angels with the X-acto knife:

Step Two: Mod Podge each angel to her own box and let dry.

Step Three: With your pen, marker, or paints (you could even use pre-numbered stickers!), write the numbers 1 through 25 on your tags. Place them on your dry angel boxes in an arrangement that pleases you.

Step Four: Remove inner boxes and poke or drill two holes, about 1/4″ apart. Insert string and tie a square knot. Be sure to trim the tails before pulling up through the top.

Step Five: Re-insert inner boxes and set aside.

Step Six: Mark your ribbon in the centre, then every 7cm. You should have 12 marks either side of the centre mark.

Step Seven: Carefully make a tiny snip in the ribbon at each mark for a brad to pass through.

Step Eight: Insert Brads.

Step Nine: Fill Boxes! For most of the days, we filled the boxes with smarties - one for each child. We didn’t want anything that could melt.

We have several significant feast days during Advent, so we tucked in appropriate surprises for those days, just to add to the excitement!

Silver Coins for St. Nicholas Day (dimes):

Honeybee Stickers for St. Ambrose:

Tiny silver medals of Our Blessed Mother for Immaculate Conception:

Tiny Silver “Precious Feet” pins for Our Lady of Guadalupe:

Tiny Hand-dipped candles for St. Lucia:

We doubled up candies for Christmas Eve, and Papa will put a surprise (as yet unknown to even me!) for Christmas Day!

Step Eleven: Fix your ribbon in a window or along a wall and hang the boxes on the brads. You can go in order left to right, or mix it all up to make searching a bit more adventurous.

I’ve been working on putting the magazine together, so I hadn’t been posting any tutorials. I thought it might be fun to re-visit some oldies but goodies. I’ve got a lovely list of Tutorials planned for you after the magazine is safely off to the printer! But for now, I hope you will enjoy this one:

**This tutorial assumes intermediate sewing ability***

This little stacker would make a nice gift, or addition to your nursery. I whipped this up without a pattern, from scraps, in about 2 hours.

Materials:

1 yd 54″ wide fabric
baby sized hanger
9″x12″ cardboard (back of notepad works great!
thread to co-ordinate

Instructions:

1. Lay out your hanger on a doubled piece of fabric and cut around the ’shoulders’, making a seam allowance of approximately 5/8″. Make sure to leave a small ‘neck’ approximately 5/8″ tall.

2. Cut a length of fabric 22″ long by 54″ wide for the body of your stacker.

3. Cut two pieces of fabric approximately 10″x13″ for the bottom of your stacker.

4. Press down the ‘neck’ of the ’shoulder’ piece and hem on a machine.

5. With right sides facing, sew each side of the shoulder piece, from the bottom edge to the neck edge, pivoting at the corners and leaving neck open. Clip corners. Turn.

6. Turn right side out and press.

7. On body piece, turn each each selvedge edge 2-1/2″. Hem.

8. Take up body piece and make three box pleats as follows: One pleat measuring 5-1/2″ at CB, and 2 pleats measuring 3-1/4″ where the body will join shoulder seam.

9. With right sides facing, attach body to shoulder piece, matching side seams and CB. Trim bulk as necessary. Turn right side out and press.

10. With WRONG SIDES facing, take up bottom pieces and sew around three sides. Insert cardboard, sew fourth side.

11. Matching CB with the center of one long side of bottom, attach body to bottom using 5/8″ seam and clipping corners as you go. Pink seams, or use serger, keeping close to cardboard. Turn out.

12. Front edges will overlap considerably. This will prevent the diapers from falling out the front!

Of course, you might like to add emboidery, appliques, ribbons, etc. Make it your own! Send me photos of your finished stacker and I’ll post it here.

We keep our stacker on the back of the bathroom door - most convenient!

Refashioning thrifted garments is a great way to give them new life. It is also an economical way to add quality, designer outfits to your family’s wardrobe. I am a new devotee to thrifting, I must admit. I am very careful about what I choose when I’m at our local thrift shop. I always check the tags for fibre content and tend to choose natural fibre fabrics. Depending upon the project I’m planning, little stains or holes can be acceptable. The main concern is generally the content and quality of the original garment’s fabric.

Today, I’m going to show you how to make a pair of wool longies and a matching baby sweater for your little love. I found this gorgeous lambswool sweater/jumper at my local thrift shop last year. I was pregnant with Louis at the time and knew that I would want to make some wool soakers, so I snapped it up and tucked it away in my stash. I don’t know how much the garment was originally, but it was marked $4.99 and I picked it up on half-price day for the princely sum of about $2.50.

It looks like I might just get both the longies and a jumper for Louis out of it. Start by cutting off the sleeves:

Now we’re going to need some measurements. I took a waist, rise (through the legs from waist front to waist back), leg (thigh girth), and length (both inseam and outseam).

Using your tape measure and some pins, measure up the outseam, adding about an inch for the elastic casing. Then mark the inseam up from the cuff (sleeve hem), along the seam side:

Next, divide your waist measurement by 4:

and mark that with a pin from the outside edge of the sleeve head:

Now cut the curve from the inseam pin to the waist pin. For a little one, the curve will look very narrow on the fold, but when you flatten the leg out, you’ll see that there is plenty of room:

Double check it’s going to match the rise, remember that you added length to the outseam measurement to account for the casing and adjust the inseam by 3/8″ or so to account for the seam allowance. Trim away excess if you need to.

Turn one sleeve inside out and slide the other sleeve inside, matching seams:

Sew along the curve:

Remember to clip along the curve to ease the fit:

Turn both legs inside out and turn down the casing. Sew casing down, leaving an opening to insert the elastic. I used a 1/2″ non-roll elastic cut to the waist size:

Remember to sew the ends of your elastic together, overlapping the ends. This will make the elastic grip nicely around the waist because it will need to stretch just a little. Sew opening closed:

Voila! Soaker pants!

Now on to the jumper. I’m going to copy one of Louis’ jumpers, which fits him very nicely. First, match up the hems of both jumpers, and fold in the sleeves of the baby jumper to reveal the shape of the main body:

Cut around it, leaving 5/8″ seam allowance all around.

I saved the sleeve caps from the longies portion of the project and I’ll re-use those for my new sleeves. Place the sleeve caps against the jumper sleeves, matching the angles. Overlap 5/8″ for seam allowance. Trim away excess from the under-arm seam leaving 5/8″ seam allowance. As you can see, the sleeve will be a short one. I could add on some of the leftover fabric from the jumper to make it longer… We’ll see. I think… no, I’ll leave the sleeves short. If he needs a little bit of extra warmth, I’ll put a long-sleeved thermal onesie underneath.

Sew the sleeves onto the body, right sides together. Turn the edges under 5/8″ and hem sleeve.

Turn garment inside out, matching seams and sew the underarm and side seams. Clip the underarm to allow for greater movement:

Turn under the neck edge 5/8″ and sew using a long running stitch for better stretch.

Voila! One baby jumper!

EXTRA:

Before sewing up the side seams on Louis’ jumper, I cut scraps from an old shirt of my husband’s and an old pair of pants of Jack’s to make the cute little aspen leaf applique.

Pin the applique together and, using a narrow satin stitch, sew around the outside of the leaf:

Use a pen to mark the vein and satin stitch:

Finally, pin the completed applique to the jumper and sew in place using that same narrow satin stitch. If you are using a light weight fabric, you may want to use a little bit of fusible interfacing to beef up the applique. On this project, the pants fabric I used was hefty enough on its own:

There’s still fabric leftover… I wonder what I can make out of that? Slippers! I won’t even attempt to show you how I made those this time. I just sort of winged it (or its it wung it?).

One happy chappy:

I fell in love with paper art when I was first married. It is an easy and economical way to decorate your home. Making silhouettes of people you love makes the art more special, even an heirloom. This type of home-art is the epitome of Simple Gifts, I think! Below are silhouettes of my three oldest children, done just before Christmas of 1999. Catherine was 7, Andrew “Jack” was 5, and Caroline was all of 3 years old.

Over sixteen years of married life, I’ve made simple birth and baptism certificates and complex pictures. But I love silhouettes because they are so personal. They are portraits, really. The lack of details like color and shading makes the portrait even more intimate. The viewer is drawn to look more closely at the shapes of the subject’s features, the tilt of the head, the chubby roll under a baby’s chin, or the way a stray lock curls.

I’m not a true silhouette artist who can cut silhouettes from life. That is a very high art indeed. I take my studies from photographs. It may take a bit more time and effort, but I think it’s worth every bit.

When I’m going to make silhouette studies, I first take profile photos, trying to eliminate as much shadow under noses and chins as possible. I have found that using a natural light photo with a strong light (like sunlight) shining right on the subject works well. Flash works best when shot at the exact same height as your subject, but sometimes it can be too much, washing out important features. The beauty of digital cameras is that you can take several shots and chose the best. It’s also extremely quick - no waiting for film. You can, of course, use an instant (Kodak type) camera, but you are limited to the image size it puts out. Be sure to maintain the exact same distance from each of your subjects so that they are in perfect proportion should you want to do a group study. A tripod is extremely helpful.

You can scale digital photos in your computer to whatever size you wish. It is helpful to print your scaled photos on card stock or matte photo paper to make the template sturdy. I chose to make all of my silhouettes the same size so that each one will fill its own frame. If I were making a family study, I would need to be careful to respect the relative proportions between subjects so that baby’s head is not larger than big sister’s.

Gather acid-free scrapbooking supplies including a VERY sharp X-acto knife. I like to put a foamy pen grip on my knife for comfort. I have arthritis in my fingers and they become fatigued very quickly without it. Choose whatever papers suit your decor. As a rule, you want to have a dark solid for the image and a lighter pattern or solid for the background. But experiment! It’s fun and you can re-use your template if you aren’t happy with the results.

Here’s what the backside of your silhouettes might look like. Be sure to mark the subject’s name and the date the study was taken. You may want to pack away your template for later use. Maybe you want to make a page with successive years’ studies of the same subject. It’s nice to do baby, toddler, child, teen. You could even make a study of your entire family and place the silhouettes together to form one family portrait. And when you get more skilled, you can use a still-life photo of your family and create and silhouette portrait!

And here is a close up of my study of Louis. Notice that lashes, curls and chubby rolls can be enhanced lending more personality to the study.

Here is another close-up of a study I’ve done of myself (my daughter Cate was the photographer). Notice that the glasses have been carefully cut out and provide some interest.

Next, you will want to trace your template onto the back of your scrapbooking paper. Most scrapbooking papers are colored on one side and white on the other, which makes the tracing very easy to see. For my project, I chose to use a black card stock, which is colored on both sides. I’ve used a light colored pencil to make my tracing. Be sure to trace the mirror image, that is, the opposite, to what you want in the frame. And make sure your pencil is quite sharp for the finest possible lines. See how nice the white templates look on black?

Carefully cut out your image *just inside* the tracing lines, paying special attention to the small bits. In fact, do the smallest bits first. It is extremely important to have a *very sharp* X-acto so that your paper won’t tear. Avoid tugging to separate the silhouette from the paper. Careful cutting will also prevent the white from peeking out from underneath. If you do get “fluff-its”, just go back and nip them off from the right side very carefully.

You will notice that my templates have a flat bottom. Your silhouettes will be much more attractive if you trace out the contour of the near shoulder and cut it away, sloping elegantly towards the chest and back.

Mount your image onto your background paper (which you will have cut to fit in your chosen frame), being careful to position it so that the effect through the glass is pleasingly even. Another rule of thumb is to leave more head-space than at the bottom. This grounds the image nicely. You can use a glue stick or mounting tape. Please do not use liquid glue of any kind, you will surely be disappointed in the results. Tip: Leaving the edges of the image free gives more dimension to your image after framing. It appears to float.

Finally, you can embellish your compositions with journaling, or elements as desired. Be sure, at the very least, to sign and date your work. It is a good idea to mark your subject’s name on the finished piece somewhere, even on the back of the frame.

If you are going to mat your work, be sure your silhouettes will fit comfortably inside and that the mat is a good compliment to the overall composition. You can also embellish your mat-board if it’s plain white or cream. My recommendation is to let the piece live in the frame for a little while first to allow the piece to speak to you. Then you will know just what to do with the mat. Of course, you may already have a clear, complete vision. In which case, zhuzh away! In the event that your mat board and backing board are not acid free, you can purchase a spray-on product to neutralise the acid.

It’s also fun to mount the silhouettes on a letter, copywork, or essay hand-written by your child or spouse. Use a copy, of course! You could use the silhouettes to decorate scrapbooks, photo albums, notebooks. They can be used to make unique name signs for children’s bedrooms, or to assign a coat hook or cubby. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Silhouettes are a beautiful way to preserve a precious moment in time. Have fun, and send me pictures of your projects!