Whip It Up This Weekend

If you're a little bored this weekend, the fog and cold weather has you down, why not try a couple of these little crafty ideas to brighten up the dark days of January.

Whip-Up had an excellent link to some free digital downloads this weekend for making valentines. From creatingkeepsakes.com, these not too countrified swirls and backgrounds are created by the people from twopeasinabucket.com. If you have access to Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator software, it can be quite easy to place these .png files into Illustrator or Photoshop and then add your personal words or images. The font used in this package is called Porcelain. It can be downloaded from misprintedtype.com along with some other amazing free fonts and brushes.

I also love this idea from womansday.com, turning old sweaters into totes by felting. When you toss the wool garment into a washing machine to felt (we used to call this shrinking), and then you cut the sleeves to create handles. Just a few little added stitches and "voila" a la shrunk sweater bag!

If you're the baking type, I've always loved the idea of making these hostess twinkie type sushi cakes from not martha. While you're at her site, apparantly, these marble magnets are extraordinarily easy and rather satisfying to make as well.

Now this last one, I have no idea what I'd make or why, but the idea of sewing led lights into clothing somehow just sounds like a whole lotta fun when you're stuck inside.