Cross stitch Christmas ornaments

Made a heap of cross stitch Christmas ornaments, some with pinked edges, some frayed.


And after second consideration, decided I kinda liked the pristine white wide flange and left those as is.

Christmas crack, it's a good thing

This craftster chick posted her recipe for Christmas Crack and dang, it is some good!

Here is my version:
Strange thing, I had less than a full bag of chocolate chips, how does that happen? So I melted some white chocolate bark and poured that atop the melted chocolate chips and swirled it around. Worried that it might then be TOO sweet, I sprinkled some coarse kosher salt on top. LOVE me some sweet and salt combo snacks!
Oh WAIT! I forgot the moment of Zen:
press your nose against the glass window of your oven and watch the saltine crackers rise and fall with bubbling of molten sugar through the cracker holes. It is mesmerizing, I tell ya!



Here is my post to the Christmas Crack enabler:
Hey, why don't you post your recipe for methamphetamine next year because it would be LESS addictive than this stuff!! Thanks for making me a Christmas crackhead!

Looks a lot like Christmas 7

I keep forgetting, remind me,

who is the reason for the season?

Love this tree

with religious icon canvases.

Stitched headlines

Hello Creative Stitchers!

Perused a shelter mag and spied this Brigid Berlin needlepoint pillow stitched with tabloid front page images and text.

Hmmm, might be fun to create a tabloid page from your own life?

People give me stuff, I tell ya!

My good buddy Kay

gave me a stack of

small vintage coloring books.

They are in perfect condition and

ready to trace for

embroidery transfers.

Check out this book cover -

who knew that coloring could be so much fun?

Tea towel swap

Just completed an embroidered tea towel swap with my new craft buddy Anary. She suggested a few random holidays like "Ice Cream Soda Day". I found the perfect image in the vintage coloring books that Kay gave me (People Give Me Stuff!) and made an iron transfer.

Here is the completed ice cream soda in Anary's preferred colors.

I took liberty with her idea of "5 a day food pyramid".
Stitches include couching, backstitch, wrapped backstitch, outline, stem, seed, etc.

Looks a lot like Christmas 6

Non-traditional holiday colors on a tree: why not?

Word of the day

Don't date . . . Craftsterbate!

Looks a lot like Christmas 5

The 11 year old girl in me

LOVES this fluffy pink tree.

Looks a lot like Christmas 4

Got a case of red balls

this holiday season?

Hang 'em up, hang 'em up high!

Let your balls dangle and spin.

Christmas card

Here are my home-made Christmas cards for 2008. Tree card idea was inspired by ribbon tree cards by Martha Stewart. Just looked it up online and am amazed this stuck in my head for 10 years! Holy guacamole, I cannot remember what I ate yesterday but I remember machine sewn Christmas cards? My head is a crafty head!!
Anywho, I have a considerable problem tossing fabric scraps and this card idea helped with the tiny bits left over from the necktie flowers. Those necktie flowers were supposed to help with the bits remaining from the necktie wreath!

Please help me.

Crazy lady ironing tiny pieces of silk,
I am,
SkitzoLeezra

Somebody make me one of these!

Oh, how I would love to have and wear one of these knitted masterpiece/horrors! Should one of you knit or crochet folks out there like to arrange for a personal craft swap, contact me!
Stephan Goldrajch is the artist that dreamt these masks and I am alternately attracted and repulsed by them. If I wear it, I won't be able to see it so problem solved.
THIS is the perfect mask for cold Mardi Gras parades!!

Looks a lot like Christmas 3

Can you put too much on a tree?

Not really.

Allium flower embroidery

Pretty sure I saw this flower idea in the book The new crewel : exquisite designs in contemporary embroidery" by Katherine Shaughnessy. With a water soluble pen, I drew overlapping circles from a stencil then filled with various stitches. Super easy and super fast.

Origami boxes

Looks like a kitty catcher to me.

My buddy Trixie avoids the devil's workshop by using her nimble fingers to fold these numerous origami boxes. She tells me that "Cat Sadie took off one of the boxes but Cat Mojo, bless his heart, isn't smart enough to be curious about much other than what's in his food bowl. I'm his mama so I can say things like that."

Love the origami installation, Trixie!

Something from nothing

Dunno if all the economic doom and gloom stories were working on my subconscious or what, but here is what I did over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Cut three old pillow cases into cleaning cloths (rags).

Cut the legs off tattered pajama pants and worked up a prototype for hanger garment covers.

Covered a freebie promotional tote bag with a fabric sample that I embroidered.


Then pieced a contrasting band to a small cut of fabric for a pillow cover.

Guess I am on a frugal kick but don't fret, I am not yet smoothing out the aluminum foil for a second use.

The mantra of the frugal citizens during World War II:
Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without.

Not sure about that last one.

Looks a lot like Christmas 2

Hey lady, there's a cock

on your Christmas tree!

A peacock, that is.

Another cute skirt for a cute girl

Whipped up this little silk number for a small child of the female persuasion.

100% silk, not machine washable and will probably snag
but DANG, it is some cute!

My favorite color is plaid

If it was plaid, I had to have it:

• Ralph Lauren Black Watch tartan handbag AND wallet


• Plaid Tretorn sneakers


• Madras shorts in plaid


• Burberry headband


• Scottish plaid kilt


• Tartan rainboots

So this wreath I made of plaid neckties should be no surprise.

Elizabeth displays wreath made by me

So, last year when I made a couple vintage ornament wreaths, I gave one to Elizabeth, mind you AFTER Christmas. Then she moved. Yesterday she e-mailed me a photo of said wreath layered atop her dining room mirror. DANG, that is some pretty. And I am so gonna copy her idea and hang mine in the same way. Love her ribbon!

This is what my friends do so well: display my stuff so much better than I could and make me want the very thing I gave them. It is the curse of good taste, I tell ya.

Looks a lot like Christmas 1

Shimmery stuff on a rusted metal column, at Bella Cose.

Craft room organization

Already have embroidery floss organized and wrapped on little cards. So when a friend gave me a huge bag of MORE floss, I had to find a home for it. Being anal retentive and a lover of cool storage, I moved this cool library card drawer unit from the guest room to the craft room and sorted floss. WooHoo! Floss is sorted by DMC numbers. Understand, THIS is the surplus floss! People give me stuff!

Cute wool skirt for a cute girl

After that 16 skirt marathon with Chrysanthemum,

I had a few scraps remaining

and because I am my mom's daughter,

I felt compelled to make a little girl skirt with them.

Appliqued flower petals made from contrasting tweed fabric

and sewed 2 vintage stacked buttons in the center.

Cute, huh?

Go shopping for Christmas tree skirts

So you can make a super easy cute skirt! Last year I posted a small cotton tree skirt that I repurposed to a small little girl skirt. Link, here.
1 seam + elastic = done.
Bigger skirt for bigger girls.
Practically every girl likes a swirly skirt!

Fold over elastic

Found a cool skirt tutorial posted by Angry Chicken (don't you love that name?). She demonstrates how to attach fold over elastic for the waistband. I had never heard of such so went straight to my small town local fabric stores. Guess what? Neither had they. Next stop, eBay. Son of a gun if I didn't find a 50 yard roll for $5 in a gray color. Since I don't tuck in shirts or sweaters inside my skirts, gray would work just fine. I serged the waistline and then applied the fold over elastic with a zig zag stitch. When Angry Chicken tells ya the stretch the elastic, she means it. Stretch that mo' fo' as tightly as possible because if you don't, the elastic will just act as a nice binding but not have much stretch.


This skirt from the craft room hangover skirt assembly line with Chrysanthemum.

Baby feet!

Made a pair of Heather Bailey's Bitty Booties (tutorial HERE) for yet another breeder friend's spawn. It is never too early for a girl to appreciate the color combination of pink and green.
This was my first attempt of baby foot wear so I chose inexpensive felt fabric. The good thing about felt: it is loosely woven so can be stretched slightly if baby's foot is indeed fat.
I attempted a random embroidery stitch look but my mind cannot seem to that. Plus, you kinda need to match it to the other shoe. Should you want to try making a pair of booties, do yourself a favor and look at the unique styles shown over at flickr. Wish I had checked out those before completing mine. I woulda lined these maamajamas with pink and green plaid!

Chandelier for autumn

Stuck a bunch of junk on my foyer chandelier to celebrate the change of season!

Scarf swap

People Make Me Stuff!
My Craftster scarf swap partner sent me not one but two scarves! WooHoo! This black and white number has zippered pockets on each end. What a perfect place to stash my gin flask for Mardi Gras parades!

What to put in the other pocket? Looka, my swap partner filled it with goodies.


Check out the other scarf in pink and black combination, it looks great with two of my coats!

Plus my swap mate sent me more winter care goodies and lots of hot beverage mixes. Thanks, Jloveg!

Embroidery floss, organized

The craftster.org folks were showing their embroidery floss organization or lack of it. Ya already know I am anal retentive so the above should not be much of a surprise.

Kay's shoes

Kay purchased these cute shoes but alas she lost a few jewels and stones (probably from kicking street urchins) so she visited the SkitzoLeezraStudio to partake of my glue gun and jewelry cemetery bounty.
Some of those shiny bits are from broken stuff and one of those silver pins is from my grandmother's costume jewelry stash. People give me stuff and some of it goes to the glitzy shoe hospital!
Looka how fab her shoes are now!

Scarf swap

Just completed another Craftster swap and made this silk scarf for my partner. She likes pastels so hopefully she'll appreciate the different colors in this fabric. Added glass beads to the ends of scarf.

And as I often say, "Presentation is everything". My partner indicated that she liked country stuff so I opted for simple brown paper bags and box, waxed twine and bias tape ribbon.

Shiny Stuff of the Week 5

My magpie eyes spotted this interesting AND SHINY metal mesh jacket in a display window.

Upon closer inspection I realized it is constructed of many aluminum can pull tabs. You heard me.

Would I wear it? Maybe. But I would probably keep singing "Pop a top, again!", an ode to Jim Ed Brown.

Necktie flower

Once again on Craftster.org and spied some cute flowers made from the narrow ends of men's neckties. With a plethora of ties on my dining room table, I started snipping and stitching and gluing. Looka!

Glued petals together with glue gun. Cut out a round disc from a discarded gift card and covered with a silk necktie scrap.

Then topped that with an gold earring from the People Give Me Stuff Stash.


See? I tell you people not to throw stuff away, it is a crafter sin!