Robot Mittens

I try to make a lot of the gifts I give out for Christmas and birthdays, it's usually budget friendly and I feel like it's a little better than giving a gift card. Now don't get me wrong, I love getting money for a gift, who doesn't? But I also enjoy gifts that are unique and have had some time put into them.  .

Last year I waited until a month or two before Christmas to start making our gifts and almost didn't finish making everything, I figured it would be smart to start a little early this year. It's no fun when your stressing out a week before Christmas because you have so much to get done. The holidays are more enjoyable when they are stress free, don't ya think?

While looking for things to make Charlie I came across this wonderful mitten pattern and I crochet him some mittens. The pattern is well written and I was able to get the gloves done really quick. The pattern can also be used to make gloves for older kids and adults too. After looking at the mittens I felt like they could use a little more protection. I don't know if you've ever played in the snow with crochet gloves but after a few minutes the snow starts to seep through the gloves and your hands get cold really quick. If there is snow outside it is inevitable that Charlie will be in it. So I needed to come up with a way to keep the snow from getting through right away.

I found some felt in my craft room and came up with a robot that I could sew onto the gloves. It will give Charlie's hands a little more protection from the cold and it looks cute to boot! I made a printable robot pattern and a simple oval pattern that you could put on the gloves instead of the robot if your looking for something quick.

The materials I used where

-Yarn

-Crochet needle

-Scissors

-Needle

-Thread

-Crafting felt sheets in any color you choose

-Craft glue (optional)

Step one! Crochet your gloves. 

Step two! Cut out your Robot!

Step three! Sew the eyes to the Robots head and the hands
 to the robots arms.

Step four! Place both heads on each of the gloves
 and make sure their placement is the same. You need
to also make sure that you are putting the Robot
on to the palm of each glove. Sew them on.

Step five! Do the same thing with the body of the
 robot and sew that puppy onto your mitten.

      Step six! Sew on your arms and your done!

Notes- I used a stitch similar to a blanket stitch for this project. You want to be very careful to not go through both layers of the glove when trying to sew your applique on. 

You can use a craft glue to stick the eyes and hands in place before you start stitching but it isn't necessary.

If you would like to use a different fabric like cotton for your mittens you may want to add fusible interfacing to it so that it isn't so flimsy. It will also keep the fabric from fraying.  Double sided fusible interfacing like Heat and Bond, will not stick well to your mitten and you run the risk of melting your yarn if you try to iron it on. So if you go the interfacing route then iron it on to your fabric only and iron it before you place the pieces on your glove so you don't burn anything.

I hope you really enjoyed this tutorial. Its really simple and lots of fun, you don't even have to use a robot. Make your own applique and put it together and post a picture on the Divine Crafting Facebook Page, I would love to see what you've come up with.

Pacifier Clips!!

Did I ever tell you how much I absolutely love pacifier clips? Its great to not have to worry about the baby dropping her binky on the floor and when I need it its always attached to her.
My son has gotten into the habit of stealing the baby's binkys right out of her mouth and then running off with them. I would bet that I have about 20 binkys floating around my house right now but when I need one I can never find any because my little boy likes to hide them.
I have found them in kitchen drawers and cabinets, under my bed, in the trash can, inside toy trucks and anywhere else an almost two year old can reach. He hides them EVERYWHERE! Its really frustrating when you have a tired screaming baby and you can't find a binky. So I have been keeping her binkys clipped to her for most of the day just to keep her big brother from taking off with them.

These were really easy to make and would have only taken me 10 minutes to make but I have kids so it really took me an hour. It has been a little over a month since I've used my sewing machine and it felt good to sit down and sew something, even if it was only for an hour.

I will make a tutorial for these clips and a few others when I get more time. Thanks for reading!

Ceramic Painting

My little sisters love anime and manga, so for fun my husband and I painted some mugs as a gift for them. Just so you know, I am not a painter or an artists so the mug I painted didn't turn out as nice as I would have liked. I figured I would show them to you anyway.
I bought some ceramic paint for $3.00 at Hobby Lobby, a paint brush set from Wal-Mart for about $4.00 and 2 mugs from the Dollar Tree.
I printed out a few images to use as an outline for my cup, then I practiced drawing them on paper. After practicing for a while I used a pencil to draw out the images onto the mug (this was very hard to do because the pencil kept rubbing off). Then I painted over the pencil outline and let it dry.  It took me a while to finish but that's because I had to paint one layer, let it dry, then paint another one, to get it to look right.

This is my finished product!

My Neighbor Totoro! 

 This is the mug my husband painted, he finished it in about three hours.

Ichigo from Bleach

Naruto!

Vash from Trigun.

I still haven't cooked them to keep the paint from coming off, but I hope to get that done sometime this week. I just hope that I can do it without totally messing up all of our hard work. Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!