The Softest Fire Engine 🚒

              I had a plan to stitch together this fire engine tissue box cover a while ago, but just now had the opportunity to get to work. My friend's son was turning 2 years old, and I saw the opportunity to create the perfect birthday gift for him. Usually toddlers are not my perfect clientele, but this boy loves fire trucks, and his momma can also use this as a tissue holder! I think that I turned a few heads at his birthday party, because I insisted that he open my gift while I was there. I can be an attention hog at times! This is something that I hope he can appreciate when he is older, and might even remember me for making it. This lovely design is from the fantastic Christina Laws.

Close-up of fire engine.

Close-up of fire engine.

                 I'm serious about the presentation of my art, so I did not want to give the fire engine gift in, like, a plastic bag. I decided to turn an empty shoe box into a cloth tissue box holder holder. Yes, you read that right. I used fabric that I had lying around the house to cover every exposed inch of the box and cover. A problem was that the head lights on the fire engine were sticking too far up. So, I cut a hole where the lights go, and just covered cloth where the hole was. I think that was a bit ingenious of me - maybe, maybe not.

The underside of the cover.

My littlest client!

        His mother took the initiative to send me a picture of her son with his brand new fire engine! I'm so proud of him for loving what I created. Yay!

Tissue for Your Alligator Tears 🐊

Alligator in my backyard!

         I started this gorgeous tissue box cover about one year ago. It was designed by the amazing Joanne Wetzel. I had the idea in my head that I would finish it up in a few weeks at the most. But the responsibility of my college semesters proved more intense than I had planned for. So, my alligator tissue box cover project fell to the side. A year later, I found time to finally complete it, in the summer. I have never felt so happy to complete a project! In my past, I have left many needlepoint projects unfinished. This will never be on that list.
        I usually don't exert much effort when I choose a background for taking photographs of my art, but this seemed like an obvious exception to me. Behind where I live, there is a lot of grass. I decided to put all this land to good use and show where my alligator usually lurks. Needless to say, I got a few strange looks from my neighbors. Oh, well.

Close-up of the alligator tissue box cover.

Close-up of the alligator tissue box cover.

I just love that toothy smile!

How'd you like to find this guy in your living room??

The alligator tissue box cover serving as a nice windowsill companion.

The Rose Lattice Blues 💙 💙 💙

         One of my clients came to me to request that I make a square tissue box cover for her friend's birthday. Her only request was that it be a square tissue box cover (rather than the rectangle one) and that it be as blue as possible, because her friend loves blue. So I got to work to find the perfect tissue box cover design that I had in my collection. I came across this design by the talented Nancy Marshall. This is not exactly how it appears in the pattern book, "101 Tissue Toppers in Plastic Canvas", but it appears that they don't make the same craft roses anymore. In the business of plastic canvas pattern books, many suggested materials are outdated. So I used what I could find, and I decided to make it a little different. I determined that having roses on ALL sides of the tissue box cover is too much. The roses and flowers are only on two sides of this tissue box cover, and on the top. I think that it's good to give people options, so when this friend displays the tissue box cover, she'll have a choice to show the roses or not -  she can just pick a side. I wanted to keep the symmetry of the original pattern, so I made the flowers into a circle that is even in terms of colors. I wasn't crazy about the yarn colors when I was making this, but many people seem to think it's beautiful, so I'll take it.

✉ George and the Envelope ✉

The late and great Judge George William Crockett, Jr. on an envelope!

             My great-grandfather died when I was two years old, so I did not get to know him. His name was George William Crockett, Jr. and he was a remarkable man. He helped opened the first known interracial law firm, he became a judge, and he eventually became a U.S. Congressman for the state of Michigan. To this day he has a charter school for grades K-8, named after him, in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, Michigan is also the place where Judge Crockett is known to have centered his advocacy for equal rights and civil rights, before, during, and after the Civil Rights Movement. My great-grandfather did many praiseworthy things in his lifetime, which many of them you can read on his Wikipedia page. I am so honored to be a descendant of his.
             The reason for my posting this is that I turned his face into art. My family has taken and kept many photographs over the years, including ones of my great-grandfather, Judge Crockett. It also helps our record-keeping that he was in newspapers so many times. In being the family historian, I had the chance to come across some cool office supplies and a Polaroid picture strip that my great-grandfather must have taken at some point. I think that this long strip of the same repeated photograph is just so artsy. When I told my grandmother that I had come across my great-grandfather's (her father's) things that could still be used today, she right away wanted some keepsakes. So I decided to imprint the image of her father on the envelope that I would use to send her the stuff I found. I used just a home inkjet printer to imprint the photograph onto an envelope. I taught myself this trick when I was working on my "Furry Friend Fright" book recently. This is also how I printed the inked title onto the fabric of the book cover. It just involves taping the envelope onto a piece of regular copy paper, while copying the image from the scanner. You need a printer that has a scanner. I just think it looks so cool. And what better way to honor my great-grandfather than to cement his face onto an envelope. He's never looked better.

The Google results to searching for my great-grandfather, Judge George William Crockett, Jr.