A Shop a Week

Crochet is fun. Crochet is addictive. Crochet can take time... Sometimes it can take a lot of time (like the crochet rug I'm working on for the last week or so. Crocheting, unstitching, crocheting, unstitching...). And I don't have much time to spare. So when I find a shop selling beautiful crochet items for reasonable prices, I immediately drop my needle and come to tell you all about it :)

Galit is the owner of Goolgool , a shop specialized in unique crochet items. She creates crochet jewelry, headbands, tiaras, home accessories and my favorite line - gift labels with crochet edging.

Crochet gift lables. I want these for my birthday!

Flowery headbands

Crochet pendant. Love it!

Roly Poly owl

And if you know a great online shop, or if you own one, let me know!

Day 2 - Let's Talk About Me For a Minute

Second Day to the Ultimate Blog Challenge. What was I thinking when I signed up?... Argggg... Take a deep breath... OK, let's continue.
I've been wanting to write an "About Me" section for a while now, but other things kept on coming up instead. So a-post-a-day challenge is definitely a good excuse for that.

I'm Tal, 30+ years old if you check my ID, a lot less if you ask me. A mother to three little (and cute!) ones, ages 1-7. We live in a small village not far from Tel Aviv, Israel's cultural capital (and one of my favorite cities in the world!). We moved here about 3 years ago, after 8 years in the Far East (Taiwan & China).

I always loved art and crafts, but never tried to do anything related, and to be honest, I never thought I was good at it.
Things started to change 7 years ago, when The Boy was born and I found myself spending hours at home, getting BORED. Somehow, I'm still not sure exactly how, I began working with polymer clay (aka Fimo). I wrote a post about it a couple of years ago, when I was writing a post a month and not a post a day...

That was also when I realized that I can make some money out of it, when I participated in a charity fair and to my surprise sold most of the items I brought with me.
Fast forward a few years, I just love all kind of crafts. The Man can't look anymore at the piles of cardboard boxes / two-legs-tables / old and torn t-shirts and other things that I hoard almost obsessively. But ever since I started, I just can't stop...

Old cupboard turns play kitchen

A big cardboard box turns puppet theater

Or a castle for princes and princesses birthday party

And a plastic bag upcycles a simple tank top

Except that, I also enjoy sewing, crocheting, working with clay, cooking, felting and have some fun with the kids, of course.

So I'd love you to join me on this one month challenge (I'd be happy if you stick around after that as well, of course!). Comments, notes, suggestions etc. are always greatly appreciated. You can also join me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest (don't forget to pin your images to the group board!), Google+, Instagram, Bloglovin' and soon on Etsy as well.

Piggies & Flowers

When I began crocheting, my favorites were crocheted flowers - they're relatively simple and quick. I emphasize the quick part, because I usually tend to begin projects and then finish them years later. But even someone like me can finish a crocheted flower in half an hour. So I made a crocheted necklace with a flower and also added a crocheted flower to a boring tank top, and then I began making more and more flowers. And more. Lots of them. Different colors, different styles and different sizes. At some point I even managed to crochet without a pattern and began improvising. And from these flowers I made headband, like this one, that was shipped all the way to Sweden, to my sister in law's daughter (my model refused to cooperate and handed me over this doll instead...).

Then, at some point, I decided to try and crochet something a bit more complicated, so I googled and googled, and when I saw these sumo piggies, I immediately knew I want them. And I know, mine is not as pretty as the original one and I only had the patience to crochet one, but I love it so much! It's tiny (its height is approx 6-7 cm, with the hair!) and super cute.

Anyway, I think I'm going back to crochet flowers...

Onesies for babies

I know I promised a felt food tutorial, but I couldn't find the time for it yet. Soon, I promise.

Meanwhile, something else that I've made for friends that gave birth to lovely twins a few months ago. Each baby got an onesie with his name sewn to it and I also added a felt flower for the girl and a car for the boy.

I wanted to add knitted shoes for the girl and a hat for the boy. I used wool that I ordered from Taobao for the shoes, but ran out of wool in the middle of the second shoe... Time passed and I just couldn't find the same wool anywhere, and my brother isn't coming for a visit from China anytime soon, and the babies kept growing... So... I decided just to give the gift as it is. They will get the shoes and hat for their first birthday...

Here's the one shoe I did manage to finish:

A Few Words on Time Managment and an Easy Crochet Necklace

I'm writing this post part by part. Every morning I promise to myself that today I'll finish writing it, and every evening I decide that it's not the end of the world if I wait with it till the next day. The thing is, I'm missing a few hours a day. An addition of, let's say, 10-12 hours a day could definitely help.  Because - how am I expected to clean, cook, work, play with the kids, prepare a gift for the LO, take care of sick kids (including my husband), sleep 2-3 hours a night (my demands are pretty low), stare a bit in front of the TV (on bad days I'll even take the wall instead), craft, think about costumes for Purim (Jewish Halloween) and write a post?!?!?! So that's it, I'm taking it slowly. I wonder how long it'll take me to actually finish it and post it.

OK, now to the post... At the moment I'm working on something like 15 different projects. But don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining! I actually like it this way. Usually I get bored easily if I have to work on the same project for a few days, so this way I can work on any project I like (when I suddenly have 5 minutes free, of course).
On my list are:
Cardboard puppet theater (almost done, only a few small details to take care of. The kids are playing with it already)
A rug made of plastic bags
A quilt (done with one side! Now I just need to buy stuffing and fabric for the other side, a matter of 2-3 weeks tops)
Crocheted doll (finished a leg and a half)
A cardboard cabinet for the kids' play room (framework done)
Repairing and painting a table I found in my grandma's yard (yesterday I finally began painting it)
Extra items for the felt picnic basket that I've made for my girl's birthday (I'll post pictures sometime...)
Ceramic matryoshka dolls with magnets
Ceramic chess board
And I'm sure there are more that have slipped my mind. But somehow I managed to finish something simple - a crocheted necklace with a flower. I found the super simple tutorial here. It took me about half an hour to crochet it, and 15 minutes to finish all sewing (and I'm slow). You can change the length of the necklace and the flowers, of course. Google "crochet flower" and you'll find hundreds of tutorials to different kinds of crochet flowers, like this one, that one or this one (fake crochet) and also this one, here on The Crafeteria.

I chose to make a necklace very similar to the one on the tutorial - I love the color and simplicity. I made it a bit longer and changed the flower, but I'm the first one to admit - my necklace looks almost like a copy of the original one. Here's mine:

Upgrading a Tank Top

In the beginning of the summer I bought myself a simple tank top. I really liked its shape and color, but for some reason every time I wore it, I felt a bit pale. Something was missing. So after a lot of thinking, I finally decided what I want to do with it (and I don't care that summer is practically over and I won't be able to wear it this year). I dug in my pile of plastic bags waiting for recycling and found one with a beautiful picture of three women looking like they just emerged from the 50's. I cut the picture and decided to try and use a technique I've never tried before, only read about it a while ago. In this technique you use the iron to press plastic bags (the thicker kind, not the super simple ones) on clothes. So the minute I saw my dear husband ironing his shirts, I went to get the bag and tried it. I put the plastic bag picture on the tank top, then parchment paper on it and pressed hard with the iron.  If you're trying it, be careful not to move the iron and the picture. After pressing down for 30 seconds or so, I let it cool for 10 seconds and removed the parchment paper carefully, because the plastic sticks to it too. And the result:

Then I added a crocheted flower. The instructions are in Hebrew only, but you can find lots of tutorials for crocheted flowers in English as well (roll down here for a similar crocheted rose).

And here's the final result -