Favorite Team Sport Pennant Tutorial

* I have an updated version of this tutorial, if you are interested, check it out here.

For the past 8 years I've been making these fun Super Bowl decorations out of felt. However, the idea can certainly be used for any sports team, theme (including your child's team) or to show your school pride. This year I made the football field and the Cardinals. I already had the Steelers. Here's a little tutorial on how to create a banner for your favorite team.

This is my felt pile. I always by the 8 1/2 x 11 sheets when they are on sale.

Step 1: Fold the felt in half and mark the center.Step 2: Make your background shape. Using a ruler or piece of paper, mark and cut from each of the top corners to your center line.
For the field, cut a staight piece and glue it down the center. Don't worry about the bottom part hanging off the sides of your triangle. Just flip it over and trim.
Step 3: Make a template: Print out and cut out your shape. I find images on the internet or make numbers in Word.Step 4: Lay your image on your felt and cut around the outside of your template. If you are using an image with multiple layers (like my Cardinal), then cut the largest piece of felt first, cut the template down to the next color and continue cutting until all of your layers are cut.
Step 5: Glue it down. I like Tacky Glue but I'm sure any fabric or Elmers glue would work.Some of the penants have a top strip. For the field I made it in 2 pieces so it would be flat and added a couple field lines. Here they are hanging in my living room. You can email me with questions. Thanks for visiting. Happy Super Bowl Sunday! If you make a pennant, please share the link with me. I'd love to see it.

Spice it Up Challenge

How old are the spices in your pantry? If you have little tin cans they are at least 15 years old. McCormick has a handy device to test your spice's age. Dry spices are only fresh for 2-3 years. Got old spices? Well, dump 'em and get crafty.

The challenge:

1. leave a comment here telling me you want to play.

2. put the Spice it Up blinkie on your blog. (I'm still working on the hyperlink)
3. make something out of your old spice tin or jar.
4. upload it to your blog by February 23rd.

All entries will be judged by an unbiased panel. One winner will recieve the Love book I shared yesterday.
Winner will be announced on my blog on March 1st. I'll also post all the other entries for everyone to be inspired by. If you don't have old spices (good for you), then I can send you one of my tins. I have 5 up for grabs. Email me your address please.

An Early Valentine Treat

I made this fun little journal out of big, red envelopes that were left over from Christmas cards and a bunch of little knick knacks I had around the craft space.

This is the front page. Lots of ribbon, Making Memories words, Cosmo Cricket punch outs, Creative Imaginations paper, vintage sheet music and a sparkly heart. Another 2 pages. More Creative Imaginations paper, sheet music, Prima flowers, Cosmo Cricket Punch out, other papers, and metal word.

More pages. Daisy D's words, Cosmo Cricket punch out, paper from France, Cardboard and sparkly hearts.

Back page. Prima flowers, another metal phrase, patterned papers and sheet music.

Here it is all stretched out. There are lots of pockets to hold photos or other memorabilia. I tried to keep it from getting too busy so someone could add photos, journaling, or other memorabilia.

Thanks for stopping by. I am posting a fun challenge tomorrow.

I have a lot of projects to share with you but so far they are parked inside the camera. So, to update how I'm doing on my goals, I have:

1. Spiced up my blog. For those of you on feeds, my blog has a new look thanks to Michelle at Shabby Creations.

It's exactly what I wanted.2. I signed up for the Camp Pendleton Mud run. It's a 10k run/obstacle course. I've been "training" for the past week. Check outthe map to see what I'm crazy enough to do.
I'm most nervous about the climbing walls. I'm secretly hoping some hot Marine guy with just throw me over. :)

Below is a fun little thing. There are 10 people named Heather Grow in the U.S. Try out your own name.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are 10 people with my name in the U.S.A. http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=

Hello Baby

My bff and her hubby just welcomed the most precious baby girl into their family. I wanted to make something special for her so I dusted off the sewing machine and made her a bunting (pennant banner) for her Beatrice Potter themed room.

I found some great goodies at Joann's Fabrics: a Fiskars 3 piece quilting set (on sale!) and lots of cute fabric. I had a hard time choosing a color scheme until I found the Heidi Grace fabrics (serendipity!). The rest of the fabrics were chosen to coordinate with those three fabrics.
I followed a great tutorial from Joyful Abode. The pictures were taken in my bathroom because it's the same color as the baby room.

New Year, New Me

I'm not into "resolutions" that start on January 1st and seem to end around January 10th. For the past 5 years I've come up with a one word theme for the new year. I let the theme guide me as I make daily choices. My theme for 2009 is "courage."

I do have a few goals that I'm working on this year too. No pictures but if you're interested, here they are:

1. Walk the dogs at least once a week.
2. Eat more vegetables (this may sound funny coming from a vegetarian but I don't really eat a lot of veggies.)
3. Keep an exercise journal.
4. Run in a race. (5k, 10k, whatever)
5. Find (or create) places to put all the stuff in my room.
6. Spice up the blog and Etsy store.
7. Sew more (pictures of projects I'm working on coming soon.)
8. Submit cards for publication.

I'll be doing a little contest on my blog soon. Stay tuned.