fun with pinecones, poms, and pipe cleaners

I made this little owl ornament for Robyn (don't look, Robyn! haha) from stuff you might have laying around your house and yard, if you are like me: An acorn cap, large and small poms, chenille stems, wool felt, a small pinecone, touches of white acrylic paint, some metallic thread, and a stick. All held together with blobs of hot glue. 

I have a love/hate relationship with hot glue, and after an evening of burning my fingers, taking a chunk out of my work surface from a hot glue leak, and getting hair-thin snarly hot glue strings all over my clothes and in my hair, I asked folks on my Facebook page to recommend a good mini hot glue gun that won't be out to get me. I am 100% sure hot glue is not supposed to be this hard to use. 

I'm going to check this one out, as Surebonder was the brand recommended by several different commenters! Thanks, guys.

Welp, it's the last week before Christmas. Y'all ready? I'm not! I'm fine this is fine

another set of literal quilt blocks

This time the set is for my friendy friend, Robyn, and the third color is coral instead of blue green. 

I packaged up this block set to her along with a paper HST birthday card and a guide sheet showing many of the possible combinations for the blocks. 

(If you are wondering about that excellent acorn/squirrel ribbon, it's designed by the ever willowy and affable  Jessica Jones  for  Renaissance Ribbons.)

The blocks are very relaxing to make, if you enjoy repetitive preciseness. You can totally zone out while painting and binge watching Gilmore Girls. (Unfortunately I've found I can't watch a Korean drama while painting – too hard to keep looking up at the subtitles.)

Beware: These just-for-fun quilty display pieces are real time suckers. It's addictive. 

And, as I mentioned before, if you are careful to paint each block the same way you will get two designs each time, one on the front and a different one on the back side. I like flipping the set over to see what I got. It's a surprise!

If you'd like to try making your own Literal Quilt Blocks I've included construction tips with the earlier post.