Tic Tac Toe, Noughts and Crosses and buttons DIY

One of the things I always remember as a child was my Nans then my Mums button tin.  Such a source of amazement and wonder sorting through and playing with the buttons. Plus they came in handy for when you needed buttons of course. Over the past years I have slowly built up my own tin and it still feels like a wonder going through and discovering the right button for what you need or imagining what they belong on.

Today though, I was on the search for buttons for a game of noughts and crosses as we tend to call Tic Tac Toe here in England.


The idea came about knowing I had a few of these little cotton drawstring bags left over from another project a while ago. Having seen little games in similar bags I set out to make a set of my own for something the granddaughters could possibly play with on a rainy day or when bored.

Went for a rummage through my bag of vinyl and heat transfer vinyl scraps and found a perfect size of silver holographic HTV. It was fairly quick and easy to make up the grid in Cricut design space by manipulating squares into long lines and welding them together when in the right layout.

Pressed the HTV onto the drawstring bag and filled with7 buttons each of 2 colour flower buttons. I know you don't need 7 for a game but a few are probably at some point going to get lost.  If they all do then the girls will just have to discover the delights of a button tin themselves and come and find some new ones.

All in all a quick and easy satisfying project. All things were on hand just laying around my craft area somewhere. I'm really embracing this use what you have challenge I have myself doing.  It's making me look at things a little differently and thinking up new ways to use older supplies.

Thinking about it if you didn't have or can't use HTV you could used fabric paint or markers to make up the grid, It really is quite adaptable. All sorts of things could be used for the counters to.  Obviously needing to be age appropriate due to choking hazard etc.

Music on t-shirt and crochet

My youngest is obsessed with music.  Like most teens, a lot of music resonates with him. He also uses it as an escape when the world around him becomes too much and he needs to control the noise around him.  Often in stressful situations, his headphones will appear and he will use his music to relax and cope with the situation. 

So when I saw this design on Designbundles.com by Caty Catherine I had to make it up for my 16-year-old on a t-shirt for him. He loves it and said it was perfect for him. Hopefully, this will get a lot of wear out of it.

The red vinyl is a true red and not orange like the picture shows, it seems that despite having the darkest and coldest few days the sun decided it had to come and appear in this picture skewing up my colours. Such as life, was good to see some sunshine through the clouds at least

Keeping up with the using what I have on hand to craft with I came across a few hair elastics and decided to crochet around it with a small amount of cotton yarn. It's simply made with closely double crocheting all around the elastic. I have an urge to get hold of some velvety soft yarn now to do this in.  For the amount I need it's not worth buying a ball for it though. 

Wearing this one today and so far it's holding my air better than the elastic alone would and isn't pulling on my hair so I'm happy with it and may make a few more.  Having very thick and full hair it can take quite a bit to find something to hold it back or up and out the way. 

Having not been feeling to brilliant the past couple of days I've spent a little time doing a little crafting and resting.  Seems to be working, I've enjoyed the downtime but think I am ready to rejoin the land of the living and venture outside tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have to decide if unicorns or a flamingo is to keep me busy tonight!

glitter dog and tote bag

While surfing the internet for SVG cutting files the other night I came across this beauty from Wispy Willow designs. It is apparently a dachshund dog.  Which I have no problem with whatsoever. It does, however, strike an amazing resemblance to my DIL dog who is not a dachshund. 

I cut this out on the Cricut and thanked my lucky stars I hadn't decided to go old school with a scalpel and do it by hand like when I used to do papercuts. It took a fair while to cut and as I did I patiently did something else while checking once or twice all was well with the cut.  Then came the fun part the weeding.  Dreading this part as was convinced weeding, or removing the unneeded pieces, was going to take me all day.  It didn't however. Listening to a Terry Pratchett audiobook and a break to chat with my son I had it finished in around 80 minutes.  What I thought was going to be a stressful undertaking turned out to be very calming.  It came out just fine and despite being glitter iron-on by Cricut it behaved remarkably well.

The pile of leftover and weeded pieces give a better idea of how it sparkles.  my DIL got me into glittery things a while back so this particular make had to be glittery and sparkle.

Once pressed onto a tote bag I knew I would be making at least one more at some point soon as love how this came out. 

I really thought this Zentangle style or mandala style of file would be a pain the neck to weed and use but I'm already looking at what else I could do in a similar style soon. 

Using what I have

Been a bit of a theme around here at the moment is using more of what is on hand rather than dashing out and buying more things to make things with.  While looking for bookmark ideas I came across Doodlecrafts foam bookmarks made with the Cricut maker. Given the simplicity of the shape, I don't think you need a Cricut for cutting out the foam but it did make things quicker and more simple.

I got 4 bookmarks out of one A4 sheet of craft foam and probably could have managed another 2 on what was left over.

 

The metallic vinyl was a rose gold colour from Teckwrap. There have been some hit and miss reviews on this product on Amazon. It has a very thin plastic covering on the protect the finish and a lot of people miss taking it off and it causes the machine to not cut it properly.  Again you don't necessarily need to use a Cricut, you could use a die cutting machine or even hand cut out some design. 

Going to hunt out some ribbon or twine for these and start putting them to use. 

All in all, it's a fairly quick project that could be used for a gift for someone or a way of treating yourself with a new bookmark and a way to maybe use up a half sheet of foam or scraps if it is big enough to fit one of these on. The finished measurements at 6 inches tall by 2 inches wide.