Handmade Goods and Giveaway Win!

Right before I went to California, I was in a crafting mood. I got a few things done--here they are in no particular order.

I was a lucky participant in Red Velvet's Summer Camp craft course during the summer of 2010. Leigh-Ann featured a fancy beach blanket in a bag project that I have been working on since then. I finally finished it just in time for winter to come. Yay? I guess? The bag portion is made of a t-shirt from my favorite stand-up comic Keith Stubbs (Sorry, Josh. You're second place). A part of his act from forever ago is that his hip-hop name is Poundcake—I can't wait to show this off and confuse the general public.

I have had these 6x6"American Crafts albums for easily three years (Did you see AC has teamed up with Studio Calico? I am stoked!). When I got a truckload of Love, Elsie products recently, I decided to do something with them. This particular album is called Love Stories, and each page has a photo of two people in my life and a story about their relationship. This particular page is about me and my sister Shelley. Don't you love the shadowy figures in the picture? That's us.

Caleb is a dear and did some scrapbooking early in our marriage. He is more naturally talented at it than I am, but doesn't follow through much on the projects he starts. This Jack album was started either when Jack was about to be born or just had been born. Caleb did the hard parts of painting the chipboard letters and covering the chipboard album. It has since laid dormant in my craft supply until recently, when I added a bunch of photos of Jack, some fabric paper and rub ons, and called it a day. Jack wanted to help model it.

I bought a slouch hat pattern from Inner Hooker last year and have had the PDF staring me in the face since then. I finally got bold enough to make one for my huge head (24", baby!). Now I just need to wear it. Caleb graciously modeled it for me after I made it. Husband of the year, right?

Sara from Arvonia had a fantastic giveaway on her blog awhile ago, and I won! This is a HangaBag backpack and I adore it. If I were a gal about town, I would definitely use it as my go-to bag. Unfortunately, it's a bit too tiny for diaper bag gear. So, it hasn't gone anywhere with me yet. But I dream about it nightly!

And my California trip proffered some fancy memorabilia from my high school trips—ticket stubs, playbills, and public transportation cards from New York and Chicago. I wanted a place that I could look at them instead of having them all boxed up. I grabbed a clearanced Moleskine (for $5!) at Target and got adhesive-crazy.

What have you been working on craft-wise lately?

Link up your crafts in the comments!