Wrist Pin Cushion

Anyone who has ever seen me in my craft room has usually seen me wearing one of  these. There are versions on the market, but most have hard plastic wrist bracelets. I wanted something soft, that could stay on my arm for hours comfortably. After searching around for some time, I decided to make my own. This pattern is simple and is a good use of scrap cloth. If you can’t find chipboard, use matt board. You need something to hold the shape and to protect your arm from pins. Wrist Pincushion (536 KB)

Easy to Make Simple Bear

I am the adoptive mother of three special needs boys. All three of my boys have needed extensive therapy throughout their lives–and will continue to need it. One day, I was talking with my youngest son’s attachment therapist and she mentioned how much teddy bears can help her with some of her patients and how she wished she had a simple pattern to make teddy bears. She was not big on sewing, but wanted a way to make something personal for some of the children she dealt with.

I’m sure there are patterns out there like mine, but this was specifically developed for her. I wanted something that wouldn’t take cutting out more than two pieces and that needed little instruction.

Here is the pattern for this bear simple bear pattern (161 KB)  Here are the instructions simple bear directions (903 KB)

I also created an outfit pattern for added fun. Here is the pattern simple bear outfit pattern (83 KB) and here are the instructions simple bear outfit directions

Paper Mini Boxes

This is a fun little pattern for a paper trinket box. These are small (about 2″ square by 1 and 5/8″ high. Great for jewelry and little items like that. You can print it off on to pretty paper and then spray mount it to a thicker paper stock, or pick up some light card stock made for desktop printers and print directly on to it.

I like to add personalization–but you have to have access to some good graphics software to do that so I’ve made a PDF pattern that you can simply print out ( Mini gift box  308KB) AND, I’ve made a Word Doc file (  Mini Gift Box 70 KB)  that allows you to make some changes and customize. Create your own custom trinket boxes with this pattern.

Easy to Make Gift Bags

Last year I decided to “go green” and wrap ALL of my holiday gifts in re-usable gift bags. I took advantage of after-holiday fabric sales and “Christmas in July” sales to amass a bunch of holiday fabric.

It was a lot of work, but not as much as I thought it would be. For me, sewing is fun and I can do some things pretty quickly so it really wasn’t much more time consuming than traditional paper wrapping (especially since I like to decorate every package).

Friends and extended family members got a kick out of opening their beautifully decorated bags and my Christmas tree looked particularly festive with all the beautiful fabric covered gifts and decorative ribbons. So, even though my kids thought it a bit odd at first, it turned out to be a real success (and I have all the bags I used for the family to use again this year). So, if you want to download a PDF of how I made my bags, just click here gift bag1

Doll Patterns:

Cloth Doll Connection
Runo has some interesting patterns
Crarft Freebies
Doll Maker's Journey
Dollstreetdreamers.com
SNS Dolls

Fleece mittens:

Free mitten pattern
Sewing fleece mittens
Fleece mittens

Fleece hats:

Fleece Hat
Fleece Hat pattern from the UK
A family crafts hat pattern

General Pattern Sites:

www.Freepatterns.com
Free Quilting patterns

Other Crafts

Styrofoam crafts

Free Teddy Bear Patterns