Who's your Secret Santa? Why, all the Crafty Bloggers are!

Alexa Westerfield a.k.a. Swelldesigner
Alexa shares how to create a custom mat frame from journal pages...a perfectly sentimental gift everyone will love!

Cathie Filian
Got wine lovers on your holiday gift list? Cathie Filian has some easy DIY ideas for quick gifts worthy of Napa Valley.

Crafty Princess Diaries
Read the Fine Print When Crafting for Charity - Make what they want and give what they need. 

Cross Stitch at About.com
Try your hand at a traditional embroidery style with this free Candlewicking ornament. 

Layers Upon Layers
It's not too late to make pretty fabric hearts for your tree...or for everyone on your gift list! 

Stefanie Girard's Sweater Surgery
See how easy it is to alter custom game pieces that will have players fighting over them.

The Impatient Crafter™
Commemorate this historical election year with an easy to make festive Obamornament!

About Family Crafts
With just a little bit of time and a few simple supplies, you can give everyone on your shopping list a home-made, personalized calendar.

Aileen's Musings
Aileen goes green for Christmas, and shows you what you can do with all those extra Christmas cards and gift tags we all have hanging around!

 

This photo is just for fun. This is Nutmeg, she is my friend's cat who is pretending she is "ET" and hangin' out with all the stuffed animals, in this case all the stuffed Santas.

Now on to day 9 of our:

15 days of Holiday Goodness Giveaways!

Simply leave your answer to each day's question in each day's comment section and we will randomly pick a winner of a book from each day's commenter. You can enter every day but you are only eligible to win 2 times! (You can go back and answer previous day's questions. We will be drawing the winners after the first of the year.)

9. Please tell us about your biggest craft blooper ever!

My Answer: What comes to mind of my biggest crafting blooper is on more than one occasion I can remember (too many in fact) I have sewn pieces of a project together with the wrong sides together. I tend to be a very fast sewer and only pin when I am working with really stretchy fabric or velvet. So (or sew) there are times when I would pick up the fabric from the cutting table and by the time I would get to the sewing machine they would magically get twisted into a different place. When I would finish the seam and open it up to do the next part I would do the classic Homer Simpson "DOH!" and have to then get comfy on the couch for a bit of "reverse stitching" as I like to call it.

I did once however turn this problem into a design solution. I was sewing a 3 tiered gypsy skirt and I was working with a brocade that happened to look nice from both sides. It turned out to have the opposite side of the fabric facing out in the middle tier. So it was a subtle difference but added a nice touch.

Be sure to read the comments of others, for a good giggle or just to make you feel that you're not the only one to make bloopers!

And be sure to sign up for our Electronic Newsletter, (top right) to get more crafty goodness!

Comments

[Mary]

Last year i finally attempted to knit a sweater. After many scarves and hats it seemed like the right time. I went to a class and started a fabulous green wool sweater. It was so easy. About a week into it i realized there was this odd twist going on. I'd never seen anything like it. I ran to my favorite yarn store and told them i'd cry if i had to rip it all out. Jill (aka Twink) handed me a box of Kleenex. She and the others urged met to dive right in...but i've developed this terrible fear of Mobious and cannot get myself to restart it. I'm not sure I ever will. The beautiful yarns just stares at me from the closet, screaming to be made into something. Urgh

[Sherelyn Nichol]

Wow, thanks for all the great links! A lot of good things there! LOL the ONE booboo? I have made many, but can usualy recover. I will never forget though, when I was in bluebirds and one project we did was to make a felt pin in the shape of a bluebird. It had a snap pocket to carry our 10 cent dues. We learned the blanket stitch and how to sew on a snap. I also learned how to remove stiches. LOL I had sewn my bird to my skirt!

[Gayle Richmond]

I remember a day not too long ago when I was trying to teach my 12 year old granddaughter some crafting techniques and I superglued my fingers together. My daughter had to go to Walgreen's and get me a bottle of nail polish remover and we all laughed so hard and then laughed at each of us laughing. There were many other funny moments in my crafting endevors but none funnier than the glued fingers except maybe that time when I turned on the heat gun without putting the lid on the embossing powder - what a mess.

[Casey]

Last year I made a halloween banner, and decided to cut two of each letter and make it double sided. As I assembled it, I'd put a letter on a flag and then turn it over and put the same letter on the other side. It wasn't until I was all done that I realized the word on the opposite side was backwards!

[Heather]

Not exactly crafting but at school in my metal class we werg a gingerbread man cutter and I sort of forgot to snip the extra off of the end - my man had a HUGE head. My nasty teacher ridiculed me in class and I stood my ground adamant I had cut the piece off - still wonder if he gave me an extra long piece!! I kept that GBM for years - I think I may still have it 20 years later.

[Marjorie]

I wasn't paying attention and cut out a blouse pattern from printed fabric with the design upside down. I couldn't fix this problem but did use the bits of fabric for other things (once I got over it and retrieved them from the trash).

[Josie]

Just this year I tried to needle felt some ornaments. The skateboard for my son looks more like a piece of candy. Of course I've made many boo boo's while cutting and sewing. Many misshapen bags mostly from poor cutting, uneven measuring and careless sewing.

[Lori]

Recently I had the idea to use cardboard letter stencils to make monoprints. I spent several hours in the print-making room at the local junior college and was thrilled with the results, until I realized I'd placed all the stencils right-side-up and all the letters were backwards on the prints!

[BrendaLea]

This happened just a few weeks ago. I was making a plush and not thinking I had the 2 sides of it together sewed around it....when i got ready to turn it right side out...I realized I had sewn the wrong sides together. So I had to take out all the stitches which was very time consuming and re-sew the whole thing! Yikes!

[kathleen m]

I proceeded to cut out all the pieces for a jewel quilt -- to only discover that all the pieces were too small and not correct -- guess I couldn't read. So I saved all the little pieces and a few years later created a window covering to make the most beautiful window treatment.