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Handmade Holidays in Atlanta

Happy Holidays! There are a lot of handmade happenings here in Atlanta this month and I thought I’d share a few ideas for your holiday shopping.

First off, I’ll be at Whipstitch this Monday, December 10 from 6:30-9:30 pm for the Whipstitch Customer Appreciation Holiday Potluck! I’ll be there with samples from my Stamped collection (which you can order from Deborah). Rashida Coleman-Hale and Melody Miller will also be on hand to show you their new collections! Pictured above are images from Stamped, Tsuru and Ruby Star Sparkle. And I think Deborah may have copies of her new book, Stitch Savvy, for you to preview!

Also on the west side of town, Seed Factory is having a pop-up event the next two Saturdays with handmade goods, Santa, and a candy counter with gingerbread and hot chocolate from Star Provisions. Check here for more details.

Then in Virginia-Highland, the Indie-pendent is hosting a weekly holiday market on Thursdays in Belly (on the corner of St. Charles and N. Highland). There will be some hands-on activities, plus you can get some shopping done!

Then head down to the Indie Craft Experience’s holiday pop-up shop in Criminal Records in Little Five Points. Handmade goods from some of your favorite local crafters. And if you’re like me, you can also pick up a gift certificate for some vinyl for your husband while you’re in there.

It looks like Beehive has a trunk show this weekend and they’ve had some great things in there the last few times I stopped by. And while you’re out, be sure to run by Youngblood Gallery and pick up some handmade goods before they close! These last four handmade shops are located so conveniently near each other that you should take some friends and make an outing.

Now, if you live near Atlanta and would love to get away from it all, I should tell you about this wonderful creative retreat from Southern Circle Retreats, with Jenni Horne and Tiffin Mills. You should buy that for yourself this year! I think creativity helps bring sanity. The retreat will be at Serenbe, just south of Atlanta, on January 25-27. Check here for more information.

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Ruby Star Wrap-Along

Today I’m excited to be part of the Ruby Star Wrap-Along to celebrate the new book Ruby Star Wrapping from the sweet and talented duo of Melody Miller and Allison Tannery. Melody made the projects and Allison wrote the text, then Melody’s husband took the photos and Allison’s husband did the layout. Those are some seriously talented couples! The book features simple and creative ideas for gift packaging, many projects using re-purposed materials or items you may have on-hand. With 30 project ideas plus variations, this book will inspire you to put that extra time into making a gift look special.

I chose to do the felt ball theme, because I haven’t done any felting in a while, and I wanted to try it again. Now, it’s much easier to buy felt balls. I recently bought some nice ones from this Etsy seller and plan to turn them into garland. But you can also make them!

This is a very good video that will guide you through the wet felting process, but truthfully, it took me about 10 minutes to make each ball and unless you enjoy pruning up your hands in hot soapy water, you might prefer to just buy them! I do think wet felting is a fun project for a craft night or a project to do with kids (wearing rubber gloves). You just need wool roving, hot soapy water and elbow grease. You can see my first couple of attempts over on A Happy Stitch, where I wrote a post for Melissa’s Fail Friday about craft failures, or as I call them — experiments. Anyway, I don’t know how my friend Laura has the patience for felting.

So…now you’ve made (or bought) the felt balls. What to do with them? Melody has some great ideas for garland and gift packaging. I had some medium gauge wire on hand, so I tried the lollipop bouquet (pictured in the two photos from Melody’s book below).

Once I’d made a little grouping of three, I walked around the house looking for something to attach them to and found our wreath. They would look really sweet as “berries” tucked into a wreath.

But then I saw that they looked a bit like balloons too and my older daughter is crazy about doll stuff, so I sneaked a Calico Critter out of her room and took this photo. I tucked the wire under and wrapped tape around it so the ends wouldn’t be sharp. Oh, I wish I could just make miniature doll things all day long.

Be sure to post your own projects from Ruby Star Wrapping in the flickr pool here and if you don’t have the book, go get it! Here’s the full wrap-along tour schedule:

11.7.12 – Anna of noodlehead

11.9.12 Amanda of A Crafty Fox

11.12.12 – Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson!

11.14.12 – Brooke of Pitter Putter Stitch

11.16.12 – Erin of Two More Seconds

11.19.12  – Jennifer of BettyCrockerAss

11.21.12 – Rochelle of Lucky Lucille

11.23.12 – Sukie of Sukie – don’t you know who I am?

11.26.12 – Elizabeth of Don’t Call Me Betsy

11.28.12 – Gina and crew of Bolt Neighborhood

11.30.12 – Ellen of the Long Thread

12.3.12 – Katie of Swim, Bike Quilt

12.5.12 Faith of Fresh Lemon Quilts

12.7.12 Lee of Freshly Pieced

12.10.12 Maureen of Maureen Cracknell Handmade

12.12.12 Sara of Sew Sweetness

12.14.12 Colleen of The Busy Bean

12.17.12 Amy of Diary of a Quilter

12.19.12 Monica of Happy Zombie

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1, 2, 3 Sew in Swedish

What’s more exciting than seeing your book in print? Seeing it printed in Swedish! For those of you in Sweden, I think it will be in stores soon, with mönster medföljer! I think that means “patterns included”. For those in the U.S., you can get the English version at amazon!

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Pleated Tote Tutorial

Should I call this a Make it Monday post? Anyone who has read this blog for a long time might remember that I posted tutorials regularly on Mondays. How did I have time to do that? Anyway, here’s the tutorial for the simple pleated tote that I posted about a couple of weeks ago. Just click on the .pdf file below to print the instructions.

Note that the instructions guide you to sew two rows of topstitching on the bag, which I did the first time around, but not on the bags pictured here. So I’ll leave the topstitching decision up to you. Also, the instructions don’t include any pockets or snaps, but feel free to add whatever you’d like. Here I made the bags with my Stamped collection in the pastel on charcoal cheater print and the purple ginkgo leaves. See my previous post for fabric availability.