Craft Projects: Paper Snowflakes

Here's a simple little project I did as a free way to decorate for Christmas.  True, it's a little late to be sharing Christmas ideas, but consider it a celebration of seeing a few rare snowflakes in Montpellier today! There's nothing revolutionary about paper snowflakes, but I think these turned out pretty well!  A couple years ago, a friend taught me to fold the paper into sixths, not fourths, which makes all the difference.  There's plenty of good tutorials out there that a simple Google search should find you, but if you do have questions about how I made these, feel free to comment!

New Craft: Drop-spindle Spinning

Recently I've picked up a new craft - spinning yarn using a drop spindle. After learning what a drop spindle is from a blog I follow, last Christmas I asked for and received a kit to start spinning.  There's a lot to learn - both in technique and in terminology - but it's been so interesting to tackle a new project.

I started with a top-whorl spindle, some commercially-prepared roving (dyed wool that has been combed into a long thick strand, ready for spinning), and this YouTube video.

Since then I have been learning a lot, and my mom has joined this adventure too, so we've had a lot of fun learning together.  I'll share more later about what else I'm working on with spinning, but for now here are some photos of my first skein of yarn!

If you're thinking of endeavoring into this craft, feel free to ask any questions and perhaps I'll be able to offer some advice from the little knowledge I've gained so far.

 More photos below...

Craft Projects: Map Wall Art and Fabric Flower Necklace

So I'm a new member on Pinterest, a very addicting site where people collect and show interesting things they've found on the Internet.  I'm mostly looking at craft ideas and recipes, and there's a lot of cool ideas out there!

The problem with Pinterest is that I've amassed a bunch of creative ideas for projects, but it's so hard to pull away from the computer and actually ACCOMPLISH any of them!  Two weeks ago, though, I was able to finish two Pinterest projects in one day.  Here they are: