Hello everyone! Today we have a hefty blog taking you through three different attempts I had recently at making crocheted bags with fabric linings. As most of you may know, I went on quite a crochet journey last year and am proud of how my skills have improved. I also received a sewing machine as a gift last year and have been working to get more comfortable using it. Crocheted bags with fabric linings seemed to be the perfect way to combine the two!

The first bag I attempted was back before Christmas. I had a bunch of small, crocheted squares that I made a while ago to use up some little ends of yarn and thought that they could be turned into a colorful bag. 

I used some green yarn to crochet all the squares together, making sure all of the thicker seams were facing one way. 

I then connected the two panels I had made with the same switch, making sure to only crochet on 3 sides so that there was an opening. 

I then used the same green yarn to crochet a strap across the top of the bag. Since the bag had some thicker seams on the inside from where I attached the squares, I thought that it would be a good idea to create a fabric lining for the bag to cover up these seams. I (somewhat) followed the Youtube tutorial below, but ended up not making the lining big enough to be able to sew it in inside-out and ended up just hand-sewing it into the bag as you will see in the photos.

This bag was by no means perfect, but once I got the strap and lining all set, I thought it was pretty cute for my first try! I ended up giving this bag to my bestie for Christmas so here's hoping she likes it still!

My second attempt at a bag was to use two colors of yarn and do alternating stripes of color. For this bag, instead of making two panels, I just made a larger rectangle that I could fold over onto itself and just attach on the two sides. One side of the panel had small knots from where I changed yarn for each stripe.

I then started the strap of the bag on each side so that it was already an inch or so away from the top of the bag before I started on the lining. 

Then it was time to line this bag. This time, I followed the YouTube tutorial much more closely and used pins to keep everything secure as I was sewing. The lining came out much better than my first attempt, but I still managed to make it slightly too small so had to sew it from inside the bag. I did, however, do my first attempt at using my sewing machine to sew crochet and fabric together and it went very well!

And that is just about where I left that bag. I sewed the lining in, and the strap is started, but I have not yet finished crocheting it. I will get to it eventually!

My final and most recent bag just also happens to be my favorite! I wanted to try a fun pattern with yarn changes but really got sick of having to cut and change my yarn when doing the pattern with the stripes above. I found a tutorial of how to do a checkered pattern that crocheted in the yarn that was not being used which I much preferred to cutting off and changing color with each square. Below is the YouTube tutorial that I used; I didn't follow the tutorial exactly in terms of making the same bag, but did follow the approach to get the checkered pattern. 

I decided to make each side of the bag a different checkered pattern with two colors; I made one side red and pink and the other blue and green. I also used a fun light purple yarn to connect the two panels and to create a cohesive edge at the top opening of the bag.

I didn't take pictures of how I made the fabric lining as I did it much the same as the other two times, taking special care to measure correctly. I used a light purple fabric that matched the accent yarn I had used to attach the panels. This third time I finally made it the correct size so was able to slide it onto the bag and sew it on inside out and then flip the bag onto itself. 

I hand-sewed on some snaps as well and this is how the bag turned out! I have been using this as my purse for a week or so now and am really proud of this one! I still have some areas I could perfect, but I'm happy with how far I have come.

Thank you for reading this longer blog! I hope you enjoyed seeing how my skills improved as I kept working on this idea. Let me know which bag is your favorite in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Avni Jain:
www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photography-of-colorful-yarns-635002/

Hi Friends!  Happy New Year!  It’s Suzanne, Rebecca’s mama, happy to be back with you on the Patterned Paper Plate. 
​
Now that the holiday season is winding down and all the reds and greens are being put away, I wanted to make something for our front door that was a little more neutral in color and that would work through Valentine’s Day.  You know that we love recycled/repurposed crafts here on the PPP and I have officially put myself into a no-spend January (maybe even February and March!) when it comes to crafting supplies, so when we received a large box padded with packing paper, I knew I had the raw materials for a fun DIY wreath.

First, I traced two concentric circles onto the body of the box to begin making my wreath form.  Using a craft knife, I cut out both the inner and outer circles and then traced and cut out another circular piece. I placed the two circles together and traced the inner circle onto the second piece so that the inner circles would line up exactly. 

Thinking ahead about how I was going to decorate the wreath, I cut a few more small pieces of the box and carefully removed the top layer of paper to expose the corrugation underneath. It was very easy to remove the top layer of paper on this box but a good technique to use if the paper is a bit more resistant to being pulled apart is to lay a warm and damp paper towel onto one side of your corrugated cardboard piece.  The warmth and moisture will activate the glue holding the corrugated cardboard together and allow you to pull up one layer of paper very easily.  This is something that needs to be done quickly so that the moisture does not release the corrugated piece of paper as well.

​Since my intention for this wreath was to decorate for Valentine's Day, I decided to paint one piece of this exposed corrugated cardboard white and a second piece red. Again, applying paint needs to be done quickly and with a light hand because we do not want the moisture of the paint to release the corrugated cardboard from its backing layer. Chalk paint, because it is thick and can cover most surfaces in just one coat, is an ideal paint to use for an application like this. 

While the paint was drying on my pieces, it was time to figure out how to cover my newly created wreath form. I took the packing paper and cut it into long strips approximately 1 1/2 inches wide. I then began to crumple and twist the paper strips gently to make a raffia/jute type of paper yarn.  My plan was to use these long strips wrapped around the base wreath form to cover it completely. You'll need to do this crumple/twisting job somewhat gently so that you do not tear the strips apart completely.

Once I had a pile of paper yarn, I fired up my glue gun and began wrapping my wreath form. I made sure to begin and end each strip on the back side of the wreath. I also made sure that the paper yarn showing on the front of the wreath was tucked in tight as it was being wrapped and that no edges were visible. I used packing paper for this step, but you could also use thin brown paper grocery bags. The paper that you use should be thin enough to easily manipulate but also strong enough to withstand the crumpling and twisting.  My first try with Trader Joe’s bags was unsuccessful because the bags are so darn sturdy!

After having crumpled and twisted what felt like miles of paper yarn, my wreath form was completely covered. To make a hanger, I made a loop of the paper yarn and glued it to the back of the wreath. Because this is simply corrugated cardboard and paper it is relatively light, so this small hanger was sufficient.

I decided that given the natural and imperfect nature of this wreath, the hearts I would use to decorate it should be wonky and a bit grubby. To make them, I turned my painted corrugated cardboard pieces over and drew on some elongated and asymmetrical heart shapes and tried to use the same craft knife to cut them out. Unfortunately, the knife really tore up the exposed corrugation, so I pivoted to regular scissors to much success. After the hearts were cut out, I used a bit of antiquing wax to knock down the brightness of the color.  I made a small grouping of three hearts on the lower left-hand side of the wreath, using more bits of corrugated cardboard to glue the hearts on at various depths. As a finishing touch I added some jute bows to the hearts to add some dimension.

​Was this a tedious project?  It was!  I am pleased with the resulting wreath though, and I like the very natural and raw look of it.  My first craft project of the year is in the books and my total yearly craft expenditures is still at $0.

Thank you to my mother for the crafty project! - Rebecca

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Ylanite Koppens:
www.pexels.com/photo/mini-red-hearts-wallpaper-776635/

Hello everyone!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday season if you celebrate and are feeling refreshed for the New Year. Thank you all for your patience as I took a break from blogs during the craft fair and holiday season. I am ready to bring some more crafty projects your way in 2025!

Today I just thought I would do a quick blog talking about some projects I would like to focus on next year so that you all have an idea of what is coming. As you all know, I have been on quite a crochet journey this year and am really proud of how far I've come and how my skills have improved. I think I would like to try my hand at crocheting garments next year, specifically shirts, socks and sweaters. I am not always the best at following patterns exactly so I think working on something that really needs to be the correct sizing would help me improve on my pattern-following skills as well. 

Something else I would like to improve on a lot next year is my sewing skills. I got a sewing machine for my birthday this year and have gotten comfortable using it for simple stitches and small fixes on clothes, but I have a lot to learn. I don't expect to be some crazy seamstress by the end of 2025, but I would like to try out some fun projects. I would love to attempt upcycling clothes and fabrics from the thrift store into new clothes or blankets. We will see where the sewing journey takes us!

And finally, I've been feeling very inspired lately to try some more clay projects. I have been seeing lots of videos of people using air dry clay but then sealing the projects with UV resin, so they are very well-protected. This process really intrigues me, and I have a few ideas in mind of cute things I could make for the Etsy shop and craft fairs. 

Obviously, I will be crafting away at more than just those things next year, but these some ideas that are inspiring me and I hope to explore more. If there are any crafty things you would like me to try out next year as well, please feel free to comment below!

Thank you all for reading the blog and being supportive of my projects this year. The Etsy shop should be back up before Monday, January 6th and I'll be sure to share when it is up and running again. Here's to a great 2025!

 - Rebecca 

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Oleksandr P:
www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-two-flute-glasses-filled-with-sparkling-wine-wuth-ribbons-and-christmas-decor-3036525/

Hello everyone! The bulk of craft fair season is over so I'm back with a little craft blog. It's been a minute, but I'm happy to be chatting with you all again!

​Here are all the supplies I used for this fun and relatively simple project: some mushroom earrings! I've been on a bit of a mushroom kick lately and was inspired to make some more mushroom things after the cork ornaments I made a few weeks ago.

The small wooden mushrooms were from Dollar Tree; I had bought them a while ago and wasn't quite sure what I would turn them into, but earrings seemed as good an idea as any! Although they are made of wood, they are extremely light so would not be too heavy as earrings. The first step was to drill a very small hole in the top of the mushrooms; I would later use this to attach the mushrooms to the earring hardware.

I then painted the mushrooms with the classic colors: red for the top, white for the stem and white dots on the red top. I also sealed the mushrooms with a coat of varnish.

I wanted a small, beaded detail to hang off of the earrings as well so I used some glass beads I had as well as flat head beading pins. These pins have one flat end that stops beads from sliding off and then an "open" end that you can slide beads onto. They are flexible enough that you can cut them and bend the "open" end into a loop for hanging.

I then used some jump rings to attach the beaded piece to the hanging earring piece. I also took another beading pin, bent one end into a loop and snipped off the head so that it was just a straight pin and attached that to the earring based with a jump ring as well. I used some strong glue with a very thin tip and filled the hole that I had previously made in the mushrooms with glue. I then pushed the straight pin into the hole and allowed the glue to dry. 

Once these were dry, they were ready to go! I packaged them up and brought them to my last craft fair. After fair season is officially over, I will probably be adding them to the Etsy shop as well.

Hello everyone! My mother and I just started our string of in-person craft fairs for the season so I wanted to share the upcoming fairs we will be at. 

Friday, November 1st from 5-8 PM and Saturday, November 2nd from 9 AM to 3 PM at the Mastricola Upper Elementary School in Merrimack, NH

Saturday, November 9th from 9 AM to 3 PM at St. Elizabeth Seton church in Bedford, NH

Saturday, November 16th from 9 AM to 3 PM at St. Catherine of Siena church in Manchester, NH

Friday, December 6th from 4-7 PM and Saturday, December 7th from 1-5 PM (as part of the Bedford Women's Club Festival of Trees) ​at Bedford Presbyterian Church in Bedford, NH

If you are in the New Hampshire area and interested in coming to any of our fairs, we would love to see you there!

 - Rebecca and Suzanne

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Ylanite Koppens:
www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-two-brown-wrapped-gifts-on-wooden-table-1693650/

Hello everyone! Today I am here with a cute DIY using some wine/liquor bottle corks that I acquired from my mother. I liked these in particular as they had distinct shapes:

I started off by drilling a small hole in the tops of all of my corks. I did not go all the way through, but just wanted to make a small indent that I could later use for some kind of hanging hardware as the intention was for these to be ornaments.

I then used some acrylic craft paint directly onto the cork. For the more bulbous corks, I had the vision of them being little mushrooms, so I painted the round top red and the base white. The less round ones I decided to make into little snowman heads with hats, so I painted the tops black and the bottoms white as well. 

Once the mushroom corks were dry, I used the end of a paintbrush to dab on some white dots of paint to give them the classic red mushroom look.

For the snowmen, I did a dot of black and then a smaller dot of white on the faces to give them some eyes.

For the snowmen, I also painted the pointy tips of some wooden sticks that I had cut orange to be their three-dimensional noses. When it was time to glue on the noses, I scratched away the paint in the area I was going to glue to ensure maximum adhesion and then attached the noses using some strong multipurpose glue.

I also gave all of the ornaments a coat of clear sealer once the paint had dried. Using the same glue I had used to attach the snowman noses, I filled the holes that I had drilled earlier so they were completely full of glue. I then took some thin twine and cut lengths of it, folded it in half and stuck the folded ended into the hole as far as I could. The glue then dried around the twine and left me with some long strings that I could tie off.

Once I tie these off, they will be ready to go! These were so easy to make, and I think they are a great use of corks. I have acquired some additional corks since I finished these out and can't wait to come up with some new ornament ideas!

What do you guys think about these ornaments? Let me know in the comments below!

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Isabella Mendes:
www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-brown-cork-wood-lot-928250/

Hello everyone! We are taking a break from the crochet crafts this week so that I can share a cute magnet project with you all. I'm not exactly sure where the inspiration for these came from, but I had it in my head recently that I wanted to make something with tiny little frames. I found these cute resin dollhouse-sized frames on Amazon:

Once I had the frames in hand, the idea morphed into making tiny little frames with famous paintings in them. I printed out 2 well-known paintings each from 5 painters, once I had shrunk them down to the proper scale. The 5 artists were Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Salvador Dali, Edvard Munch and Pablo Picasso. I am going to be honest with you that I'm not really sure this is "legal" per say. Some of the paintings are public domain and are available for download via museum websites. Others, however, I could not find this way, so I did just copy the image from a good old Google search. That is why I will only be selling these at craft fairs, not on Etsy juuuuuuust in case :)

I cut out the paintings and then glued them down to the cardboard of a seltzer box to make them a little sturdier. I did leave a small border of white around the paintings so that I could have an edge around for gluing into the frames later.

Once the paintings were on the cardboard, I used a Ziploc bag to give a shiny "glass" look and to protect the paintings a bit. I glued this down to the front, being sure to only use glue around the edges so that it wouldn't get in the way of the picture.

I then covered the back of the cardboard with some fun shiny gold paper to finish it off.

I then used a bead of clear Gorilla Glue on the back of the frames and glued the paintings on, with the shiny side down so you could see the paintings through the front of the frames.

At this point, I was thinking that maybe these might work well as ornaments, but I felt like there wasn't a good way to attach a hook for hanging that wouldn't damage the frames. I had the perfect number of tiny magnets leftover from other projects to allow 3 on each frame so I decided they would be very cute as "fridge frames." I will be honest that attaching these magnets was kind of a pain. Since the frames were so small, I couldn't attach all of the magnets at once without them all snapping together so I had to glue each magnet down separately and use a pair of scissors to weigh each down while it was drying.

Once that was all done, these were ready to go! Here are all 5 pairs:

I think these are adorable! I am going to get them packaged up as pairs for craft fairs and here's hoping other people think they are cute too. Let me know what you think in the comments below!

 - Rebecca 

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Alex Qian:
www.pexels.com/photo/stainless-steel-refrigerator-beside-white-kitchen-cabinet-2343467/

Happy Sunday everyone! I am back with some updates on the crochet projects I shared with you all last time. If you need a refresh, you can read Part 1 here: crochet-catch-up.html

As I had shown, I was making a big bunch of squares using a flat granny stitch to use up my thinner yarn scraps. Once I had them completed, I laid them all out to get a pattern that I liked. I ended up making a few more squares after taking the picture below so the finished product will have slightly more than this:

I then used up another type of yarn I had to stitch all the squares together using a single crochet stitch. I didn't quite crack the code on how to put these all together perfectly as some of the seams bunch up a bit more than the others, but not bad for my first attempt! This made a lovely little lap blanket that I use at my desk when I'm working. 

We now move on to the blue/green and purple/pink squares that I had made out of the thicker yarn scraps. Where I last left you with those, I had followed a tutorial that showed how to crochet a fabric lining onto the back of a crocheted piece. This did work and the tutorial I followed was very helpful, but I wanted to try some other options as well.

I had a meeting with my creative consultant yesterday (also known as my mother) and we brought out her sewing machine to see if we could find an easier way to line the crocheted squares. We tried many a test and none felt quite right to us. We had issues with the yarn being too thick, the stitches getting bunched up on one side and the fact that it was hard to get a clean finished look. Here are some of our attempts:

After much consultation, we came to the conclusion that I was trying to make the fabric lining work with these and it simply just wasn't working! The new plan for these is to crochet two of the chunky squares together with the unfinished sides in to make a thick fully crocheted potholder. When I crochet the edges together, I can add a little loop for hanging as well. Don't worry, you'll see an update on those when I try out that idea! Seems as though we will have a Crochet Catch-Up Part 3 sometime in the future!

We did, however, come to the conclusion that a fabric lining would work well for some thinner squares I had made. The thinner yarn and my skills just generally improving the more I crochet allowed me to give these squares some sharper corners so it will be easier to attach a square fabric piece to it.

We looked up another helpful video that showed us how to make mitered corners on a sewn piece so that the fabric square would have crisp, finished edges as well:

Once we had the fabric square complete, we could then sew it onto the crocheted square. As this crocheted piece used a thinner yarn it was much easier to sew through. This was actually my first time using a sewing machine so please ignore how terribly crooked my stitches are. The good corner is the one my mother did, the crazy corner is mine ....

There is obviously room for improvement, but we think this is the general idea for these! They make a cute little oversized coaster or "mug rug" as some people call it.

And that's where I'm at for right now! I will be sure to share how everything turns out when it's completed and thanks for following along this crochet journey with me!

 - Rebecca

​P.S. Today's photo on the homepage comes from Pexels user Castorly Stock:
www.pexels.com/photo/brown-and-white-knit-textile-3614132/

Hello and happy Sunday everyone! I hope everyone had a lovely week. I am here today with a blog to share what crochet projects I have in the works at the moment.

In a recent blog I shared that I was taking some of my thicker yarn scraps and making my own variegated balls of yarn like so:

I also ended making one with some blue/green scraps:

Now that I had these balls of yarn ready to go, I had to decide what I wanted to crochet. Without a real plan in mind, I started making some small squares using just a single crochet stitch and border like this:

I went to town on both the blue/green and pink/purple yarn and ended up making a whole bunch of squares like the one above.

Because these balls of yarn were made by tying together separate strands there were quite a few loose ends and knots that I made sure to pull through to one side of each square. I then used fabric glue to secure down the loose strands and ensure the knots would not come undone.

Once I had my many squares, it was time to decide what to do with them. I wanted to try my hand at lining one side of the crocheted square with fabric. I thought this would be a good idea as it would hide the knots and strands that were glued down on one side and would also add some stability to the piece. I did have some spare thin cotton fabric pieces and I prewashed, dried and ironed them.

I then followed this really amazing tutorial that I found on YouTube which explained how to sew a fabric square, create loops around the edges of the square and then crochet into those loops to attach the pieces together. This video explains this process far better than I ever could so I would highly recommend giving it a watch!

This is what my first attempt at this process looked like:

It's not perfect but I'm proud of my first attempt at this process! I did learn that I had made my square of fabric a little too big so it bunched up a little more than it should have.

​I am going to work on perfecting this process and am even thinking of purchasing myself a small sewing machine to make projects like this easier in the future. Once I get the process perfected, I think with an added hanging loop these would work really well as potholders!

As I mentioned, the variegated yarn balls I had made for these potholders in progress were using my chunkier yarn scraps. However, I also had quite a variety of thinner yarn scraps in all sorts of colors. Instead of putting these together into one ball, I decided to start crocheting them into larger squares that I plan on making into a chaotic and colorful blanket just for myself. 

I wanted to learn a new stitch for this project and taught myself the flat granny stitch using a few tutorials. I have tried and failed a few times at granny squares, so this stitch was a nice homage to the look of the granny square but with an easier process. I am still in the process of using up all of my thinner yarn but have quite a few squares ready to go already. 

Once I have used up all the yarn of this weight, I will work on attaching them all into a blanket. I have actually only made blankets before that are continuous stitches back and forth so this will be my first time connecting smaller squares together in this way. I know that some people crochet the pieces together and others prefer to sew them so I will see what ends up working well for me!

And finally, I have another amigurumi project that I need to get started on. My father is a lover of Sasquatch/Bigfoot lore, so I found this adorable pattern for a Bigfoot plushie on Etsy.

www.etsy.com/listing/1557551244/bigfoot-cryptid-amigurumi-pattern

I have the brown yarn ready to go so I think I will tackle that next once I'm done making all these squares! I'll be sure to do another blog once all these projects are completed so you can see how they all turned out. Thanks for catching up on my crochet journey with me and I hope that you all have a wonderful week!

 - Rebecca

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Anete Lusina:
www.pexels.com/photo/knitted-piece-and-yarn-with-hook-4792079/

Hi friends!  It's Suzanne, happy to be back on the Patterned Paper Plate.  The Patterned Paper Dad and I are part of a committee at our church that plans a fundraising Christmas Fair.  One of the stations at that fair is a Christmas tree filled with handmade ornaments that people can purchase for a small donation.  I started crafting some ornaments for that tree so I thought I would share with you what I'm making to celebrate Christmas in July and add a little chill to these dog days of summer.

​For the first one, I use a small piece of wood, three white buttons and the tiniest scraps of fleece material.  A little bit of paint and my trusty glue gun are also needed.  I'm starting with a piece of wood that is 3 inches long and about 1.5 inches wide.  This is a piece of a wooden mini blind slat that was salvaged when my brother and sister-in-law changed out the blinds in their house.  To start, I paint the wood with a light wash of red paint. ​

I hope you enjoyed taking a little detour into the Christmas season for our blog post today.  It's never too early to think about Christmas and while we're sweltering today, cooler weather will be here before we know it.

Rebecca here: Thank you to my mother for the fun Christmas in July blog! The puzzle wreaths are very nostalgic to me as I remember making some of those when I was little! Is everyone enjoying the heat or ready for winter? Let me know in the comments below!

P.S. Today's photo on the homepage is from Pexels user Gary Spears:
www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-of-christmas-decoration-hanging-on-tree-250177/