Cool Coffe Cozy from Lynden, Washington

This fabulous coffee cozy is sure to help your coffee stand out from the rest while being friendly to earth.

This is made from upcycled wool and is available from

http://www.trishabrinkdesign.etsy.com/
Supporting my local neighbors here in Whatcom County, Washington.

Sweel Little Birdies Shop Local Recycle

These fab coasters can be found at WesleyAsher's shop. They are made from a recycled wool sweater felt and then hand needle felted. I love the simplicity of the design, the blue brown combo and that they are made from recycled material. How many others great things can you combine to come up with a wonderful creation. I just think it is so great when something that is not being used anymore becomes someones new useful creation. Saves it from finding a landfill and gives it a whole new life. This is also one of my fellow crafters her the the great Northwest. Support your local community.

Shop Local and Support Your Community!

I have decided to feature some local crafters here in my hometown area of Whatcom County, Washington. The talent is just oozing out all over and here is my first fun find of handcrafted items

MAX THE SWEATER BEAR

He can be found at http://www.dangercrafts.etsy.com/

based out of Bellingham, WA. I just love all of Max's fun colors and the shop also has the pattern for sale if you want to make your own adorable Teddy Bear. Please swing by her shop and check out all the other adorable items she has for sale.

Natural Functions

This incredible table can be found at

http://www.branchinoutartistree.etsy.com/

I am very impressed with the way he has used the natural shapes of the wood to create such a functional piece of furniture. I am continuously in awe of the natural beauty of wood and just love this piece.

Easy to Make Valentines for School Kids

We got the LIST for school of all the kids we needed Valentines for and it came to 47 children between both of my kids classes. I always enjoy having the kids make their own Valentines but I try to make it very simple because they tend to get tired of writing every ones name and their own. So this year we created candy bar wrappers that they addressed and signed. It was really quite easy. All you need is:

Hersey's Snack Size Candy Bars

Blank Paper of any color

Tape

Any program that lets you design business cards

I have Print Artist and that works really well

I created business cards with the writing vertical instead of the traditional horizontal. I added the To: and From: and also Happy Valentines Day

Then the kids filled in all of the names and we cut them out. Next we took our "wrapper" and wrapped it around the candy bar and secured it with tape.

We ended up with the Happy Valentine's on one side and the To and From on the other. It was really easy and inexpensive. I thought it might also be fun to secure it with heart stickers or to use bright red or pink paper. I also think it would work with other snack size flat candy bar but I personally love just straight chocolate.

The Bean Chant that we Missed

My son and I found a contest where they were looking for a new "Bean Chant" that said it was a vegetable not a fruit. The prize was $5000. So we did up this little diddy and went to put it on and the contest and it had closed already. I know in his head he had bought a whole bunch more Pokemon cards with our winnings. He was pretty bummed we had missed so we agreed if we were going to enter another contest we would look up the rules first. Anyhow... I thought he did a great job and wanted to share. I hope it makes you smile