After a manic match of mayhem on the roller derby track, it's nice to come home to some awesome pain and stress relief. As a gift, I made these therapeutic rice bags for my boyfriend's sister, Mistress Miter Saw, a sassy and spunky member of the Fox Cityz Foxz and reigning British World Champion of Pillow Fights. When she's not kicking butt, she's kicking back and using these punkified rice bags to relax those derby-inspired aches and pains away.

Using the same modified pattern I borrowed from Sew, Mama, Sew for the October 2nd, 2009 post Crafting for a Cause: Cool Rice Therapy Bags, I opted rocker chic fabric for this rocker chick and incorporated punk princess pink accents. (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Alert: Notice the scraps from the quilt I made last summer!) I also made a matching soothing eye mask using a soft pink fleece liner whip-stitched with pink embroidery floss. You can find a template pattern for such an eye mask here.

Whether you're recovering from a day of body slams and elbow jabs on the fierce derby track, or you're just struggling with the everyday aches and pains of a life on the go, these therapeutic rice bags offer soothing comfort and make a great gift for the roller derby princess in your life!

Check out the Women's Flat Track Derby Association on how you can locate, join, or support a local derby in your area!

Crafting for a Cause: Cool Rice Therapy Bags

Back in May, I formed a unique collaboration with Heartland Hospice Care. I'm now a volunteer with their organization who gets to spend all of her volunteer time sewing and crafting! What great luck for a craft-a-holic! It's a wonderful way for me to focus my creative energies and as a bonus, patients and volunteers of Heartland Hospice Care benefit from my creativity.

My goal as a "crafter with a cause" is to work with the volunteer coordinator to discover the needs of the hospice patients and volunteers and design a craft project to both fulfill those needs and quench my creative thirst. Thanks to Sew, Mama, Sew, I was able to create these amazing Cool Rice Therapy Bags. I altered the size of the pattern provided by Sew, Mama, Sew and used a medley of fabric scraps and remnants. I tried to achieve a balance of both masculine and feminine color and pattern schemes.

Each Cool Rice Therapy Bag includes a decorative sleeve, a muslin rice-filled pouch, and a tag of directions. The muslin-filled rice pouch contains approximately 1 cup of rice and is to be stored in the freezer. When you're in need of some cool, soothing relief, just slip over the decorative sleeve and rest the therapy bag on your forehead, neck, over your eyes, etc. The flexible rice bag conforms to the shape of your body, providing targeted relief.

For the patients of Heartland Hospice Care I made 10 Cool Rice Therapy Bags, 2 each of 5 designs. Now I can't wait to try my hand at other shapes, sizes, and fabric choices for some Cool Rice Therapy Bags of my very own!

Creative Tip: Free Project Ideas from Joann.com

Even the most crafty and creative person needs a few last minute gift or project ideas. One of my favorite sources for a quick brainstorm or project idea is Joann.com. There you can find a great number of free patterns, free tips, and free project ideas in the Projects and More section of their website. This site should be the first stop for anyone planning bridal or baby showers, summer camp crafts, or even holiday parties or gifts.

I've already started bookmarking some of the projects I'd relish in the chance to try out when I find the time!

• Cherry Tree Pendant
• Baroque Name Cards
• Hand Painted Argyle Pumpkins

Go on and find a new project for you to try this month! I dare you!

Free Recipe Cards!

This recent cooking frenzy got me in the mood to finally try to organize some of the amazing recipes I've come across over the years. I also have the challenge of incorporating two recipe collections into one, my boyfriend's and my own. This is an especially daunting task, considering how very different his palette and penchant for food is from mine. We've been able to muddle through so far, but we came across the problem of storing our recipes in a useful yet pleasing manner. I needed something simple and clean yet striking and adaptable in a small, sometimes very messy kitchen. I'm also pretty particular when it comes to the design aesthetic pretty much everything in our apartment - form and function rule this roost.

Solution: Design my own Recipe Cards and Recipe Book!

Using a 4x6 photo album, I've embellished and crafted my way to a chic yet convenient way to display and store all of our favorite recipes. The album itself used vintage travel labels and vintage postcards as decoration for the cover and blank pages. Keeping true to this vintage feel, I used distressed cardboard as the foundation for my bohemian inspired recipe cards you see picture above. Mixed media was scanned and photoshopped on the computer to give these cards a collage-like look that is most apparent in printed versions of the cards. Fabric, Scrabble tiles, metallic brads, and ribbon create this eclectic effect and are enhanced by layering and detailing done on the computer.

If you simply adore these cards like I do, you can download a pdf file of them for you to use in your fabulous kitchen at home. Look for more recipe card designs in the future!

Download Recipe Card Template Here!

Softie: Martha Had a Little Lamb

Mary isn't the only one with a lamb these days. I made these fluffy sheep by following a pattern from Martha Stewart Living. It's a fabulous site for gift ideas, learning new techniques, or just for gaining fresh inspiration. After seeing some of the patterns and ideas on this site, I challenge myself to embellish and improve on them. I did that with the white lamb here. I used a polyester faux Sherpa Wool I found for ueber cheap in the remnant bin. You can't see it very well from any of these photos, but I used a light pink fleece to line its inner ears. I chose to make the other one out of purple polar fleece also found in the remnant bin for a very reasonably inexpensive price. A girl has got to do what she can to save money these days!

I especially like how the white, fluffy Sherpa Lamb turned out. I think it could make for a great baby shower or christening gift. I can even change the inner ear color to baby blue for a boy. I've also considered embroidering names and dates either on a scarf around the lambs neck or even directly onto the lamb itself if I can make it stand out well enough. These lambs could then become personalized for each child. I'm also looking into making lambs for charities. If any one knows of one that accepts handmade donations, give me a shout out! I'd be happy to craft a donation.

And I'll definitely be getting my fair share of practice on these little baa-baas since my aunt has commissioned me to make her seven of these little lambs for her students.

Stay tuned for photos of that flock coming soon!

Softie: Gone to the Dogs

Anyone with a love of canines will appreciate today's post. Both of these cute little guys were inspired by Japanese Mascot patterns that can be found all over the web and in Japanese books sold on Ebay and Etsy. A while back I fell into the very dangerous habit of purchasing fabric that struck a cord with me but that I didn't necessarily have a use for at the time. The lime and teal hues of these fabrics shout 1970's nostalgia, but there fun and quirky in a modern way. Meet "Bubbles" and "Frankie", two lovable canine companions whose vintage charm is worse than their bite!
Recognize those daisy button eyes on "Bubbles"? They are the same La Mode buttons I used on Pointy Kitty and Squiggles the Kitty. I love the versatility of their shape and the lime green color has been surprisingly versatile as well. This chubby canine was a holiday gift for my aunt. I wanted to experiment with stuffing techniques, so his head uses the bamboo Nature-fil I can't stop raving about, and his body is filled with rice. The rice gives "Bubbles" a bean-bag quality and he can be sculpted to sit in a variety of poses.

Where "Bubbles" the Dog is chubby and stout, "Frankie" the Wiener Dog is long and lean. The lime, teal, and mustard yellow of Frankie's fabric wouldn't work on just any pup. But Frankie's fresh attitude and linear profile really work the vintage color combination. Like "Ries" the Raccoon, I used safety-lock animal eyes and nose to create his face. And to add to the whimsy, I made Frankie a teal collar and used a sterling silver puppy paw charm as a dog tag.

When you're going to the dogs, you have to go all the way!

Softie: Pointy Kitty and Squiggles the Kitty

Thanks to Hillary Lang at Wee Wonderfuls, I was able to make a charming gift for my goddaughter. Following her pattern for the Pointy Kitty, I used a bright and colorful pink calico fabric in a spring theme, with purple felt as accents. Lime green daisy-shaped buttons by La Mode made for whimsical cat eyes and complemented the accent colors of the calico fabric. A scrap of cream felt was used as a nose and embroidery floss in the same color to attach it.

As a variation to the Pointy Kitty pattern, I changed the shape of the accent felt pieces on my second creation. Using a scalloped edge instead of the triangular pointy one, I named this one Squiggles the Kitty (right). For Squiggles, a corduroy fabric (my fav!) in a patchwork theme of pinks, greens, browns, and yellows, made for an ideal choice, while magenta felt made up the scalloped patches on its head and torso. To thematically match Pointy Kitty, I used bright pink daisy-shaped La Mode buttons for the eyes and used a scrap of leftover purple felt for the nose.

Overall, this project proved successful and made for a great gift. I do however need to work on techniques for attaching the head of this frolicing feline. I haven't quite figured out a really clean and sightly way to do that yet. But practice makes perfect!

Ms. Lang's pattern can be found by following this link: Pointy Kitty