Creative Ways to Dress up your Holiday Gifts

Yeah, hi, you guys. Welcome to our live events. My name is Brenda Kb Anderson and this is kind of a special live event because it is um, kind of celebrating gift giving and finding nice handmade ways to kind of, um, spruce up your gift wrap this year. So we are gonna be doing a little bit of crocheting, but we're also gonna be doing some other things like painting um in this live event. So it's gonna be kind of an interesting one.

We got a lot of things going on here, kind of like my last live event. I don't know how many of you guys were there, um, about half an hour ago, but we were kind of dabbling in a bunch of different projects. Um I just kinda wanted to send you guys off with lots of good holiday ideas, um, things to make and ways to wrap up your gifts for this holiday season. So I'm glad that you guys are here. Um This is a live event, of course.

So if you guys want to, you know, make some comments, say hello. I love that when you guys are active in the chat. Um uh Yeah, or if there's anything you have questions about. Definitely ask me questions. There is a download for today's live event.

This is the wrap it up, creative ways to dress up your holiday gifts packet. So this includes all the instructions on the things that I'm gonna go through today. It also includes two extra patterns at the end because I'm using parts of those patterns or kind of the whole pattern in one of these um to work on some of these projects here. So everything you need is in this packet, it's a free download so you can download it now, you can download it later. Um It'll still be there.

So, all right, you guys, I'm very excited for this live event. This is very different than my norm. So this, it's always kind of fun to switch things up. Um And it was also really fun to wrap all these presents like first time in my life ever wrapped something like long before I needed to. So chalk one up for me there.

Um Hi Kathy. I see you popped in to say hello. Thanks for the for the comment. I appreciate that. Ok, so, all right.

So we're gonna be talking about basically like five different ways of wrapping your gifts, but you can kind of mix and match things and use this as a jumping off point um for other ideas as well. I hope you guys find some inspiration here. All right, let's see. We're gonna start by talking about the snowflake. Let me move over this greenery here.

Um, here is an example of how you can use an ornament or something else that you've crocheted and just use that as a way to dress up your gift. So, this crocheted snowflake. This was a live event that I did about a year ago. Um, and so, and on the Creative Crochet Corner website, you can still watch it. Um You know, you can watch the live event.

It is a full tutorial on how to do this, how to stiffen it. Um And your, the pattern for this is included in your download today. So you can um you know, you'll have reference to that as well, but um I'm not gonna go through how to crochet the snowflake because I've already done that. But I do, I'm gonna be using the snowflake in, in um just to show a couple of examples and how you can kind of spruce up your, your uh packages this year. So this one is so simple.

All you do is you just take that snowflake and then you weave a little bit of ribbon through it and tie it underneath. So I'll just show you that. So let's just say we were gonna wrap this present here and you just find a place to put it on the gift and find ribbon or you could if you don't have ribbon you could certainly use yarn as well like a bright colored yarn or something that kind of goes along with your gift. And in order to attach it the way you can, you know, there are lots of different ways that you can attach it because there was all these little different loops you could attach things from the points. Um But I just wo wove my ribbon through like I, I focused on two points opposite each other and then I put the ribbon in through this point and then down through here and then up through here and down through here, kind of like you're just sewing through and that just holds it very nicely, gives a little, little bit of extra color detail.

And I'm gonna flip this thing over so you guys can see and then you can just tie it in a knot on the bottom. Um You could also wrap it the other way if you wanted to and go through the snowflake again. Um I just thought that it looked kind of nice. A little bit more minimalistic or it interrupted the snowflake a little less to not have the ribbon going through there the second time. So I just tied a little tight knot on the bottom and then just clipped off my ribbon like this.

And that's it. It's so simple, but it looks really pretty. And I would suggest to if you're gonna give this to somebody you could put a little thin cord on here. Um, hang it from or so that you can hang this as, as an ornament or decoration, you know, wherever you would wanna hang it from, but just put like a very fine cord on one of the tips of the snowflake. So that way whoever receives it, they can take it off this ribbon and then they would be able to hang it from, you know, just right away, they could hang it up.

Um They wouldn't have to worry about finding something to go through it. Ok. So there is one option of ways to use this pretty snowflake. Um Another option and this was actually one of my favorite projects. Uh In this, this live event, I actually created a stamp out of that snowflake.

So you can see, I made this gift wrap by just using plain brown paper and white acrylic paint. And I used that stamp uh that snowflake as a stamp. So I'm going to show you guys how to do that. Um Let's see. So you saw the snowflake, I crocheted the snowflake up.

Um The exact yarn like I, I use like a number four dish cloth, cotton dish, dish cloth, cotton, um number four weight, 100% cotton. I think that cotton aspect is pretty important on this. I didn't test it out with acrylic but cotton is a much firmer yarn. And so I thought that would work better for a stamp because it's gonna keep the, the thickness and the body of that, of that shape, it's not gonna get kind of mushed as I think acrylic probably would if that's all you have and you wanna try it by all means, you know, try it out, see if you can use that. But, um, dish cloth, cotton, most a lot of people have that, you know, just scraps of it.

You don't need that much. So I just crocheted out of that and then, um, I glued it onto this wood block. Now, this is something that I already had at my house. Um, it was something that I picked up at Joanne's. I think they probably still have these.

Um, but you, you don't, it doesn't have to be round, it doesn't have to be this, this pretty, you know, finished looking wood block. It could just really be a chunk of wood. It could just has to be something that's sturdy enough that you can use to pick up and then use it as a stamp. Um, so, you know, don't be, don't feel like you have to get something quite this fancy. I just happen to have that.

This, this, I don't think it costs too much. It's probably only a few dollars if you wanted to buy something like that. But, um, a lot of people just have a chunk of wood laying around that you could probably use and the, the glue that I used to fix that. Is that, is this, it's aliens. I'm not sure how you pronounce it.

Aliens, maybe fabric fusion. And this has a sponge tip on the top here. Um, but you don't have to use that kind. You could also use a sponge brush to, to apply it to your snowflake and then glue it onto the wood. And then I would, I would not try to print with this for like 24 hours because you want it to be completely um cured so that it's waterproof because you're gonna have to get this wet eventually.

And you're not gonna want to, you know, you don't want this to kind of peel up from your, from your wood base. So you'll, oh, and I should mention this is important actually, before you glue your snowflake on definitely block your snowflake because you're gonna be printing with this. You want it to look as nice and pretty as possible. And in the live tutorial for making the snowflake, we actually stiffened it, but you don't wanna do that because you want the yarn to be porous. So you're just gonna lay your snowflake out on your ironing board and just, you can put some pins in and steam it at first and then you can just kind of pinch this, move your hand away and steam it and just to get those nice points of the snowflake and you can, because this is cotton, you can actually touch your iron onto the surface of your snowflake.

You just wanna make sure you really take the time to block it and make it look really pretty before you glue it onto your wood block because you know you're gonna be printing with it. You want it to look great. You don't want to bother you every time you make a print. All right. So once you get your snowflake glued on to your wood block, um and it's cured and everything and you're ready to go, then you can go ahead and saturate that with some white acrylic or whatever kind of paint you have that would, that would uh work with the brown paper or whatever you're printing on to.

I have some white acrylic here. So let me see. Hm. Getting kind of low on this one. So I might have to use another container.

Ok. All those joyous sounds of the season, right? Squeezing the paint out of a jar. All right, we'll let that sit upside down. So the key here is that you want this to be saturated but not like dripping all over the place.

You don't want it to be such a, like a difficult to maneuver experience. You don't want it to be dripping um onto your paper. However, I do want to point out that having this does not need to be perfect to look really pretty if you look at I'll and I'll show you this in a minute. But if you look at my prints, they're not all perfect. Some of them are only, you know, like there's areas that didn't print super well.

There's drips of paint, there's a couple of areas where things kind of shifted and got a little blurry. But the overall effect is it, it just looks so beautiful and handmade. And, uh, it just, it really, for me, it didn't detract from it at all. And so I didn't even try to make it perfect. I just kind of did this quickly.

Um, once you get right now I'm really taking time to get the paint into the cotton. But the first time you do this takes the longest. And when you are making, um, your prints later, you just have to kind of add a little bit of paint in between and it's not gonna take quite this long. But, um, I did find though that at first I thought I could use it as a stamp and dip it into the paint that didn't really work very well because some areas were kind of too globby and some areas didn't get enough paint on it. So I found that applying it with a brush or sponge or something like that really is the best method.

Um, maybe you could even use a roller that might even work. I'm not sure. Um, a little bit of experimenting might be good. Another thought that I had, you know, you can certainly change the scale of your print very easily by using a lighter weight yarn or heavier weight yarn, whichever. Um, but just keep in mind that it's nice to have if you're using a number four, like I did, this is nice and thick and it's raised up off the wood by quite a bit.

So you don't have to be quite as careful when you're getting the paint on there because it's going, you know, the parts like here where I got paint on the wood that's not gonna touch my paper. So I'm not too worried about it. So this was a super fun project. It was something that I've had in my head for a while because I've just been thinking like, I like to think outside the box a little and use my crochet to do some kind of experimental thing sometimes. And I had done some interesting bleaching techniques by using um crocheted motifs as a stencil.

And so, and then, so this had occurred to me that you could use it as a stamp as well. And I just had been itching to try this out and it worked so well. I was so excited about it. It is definitely my favorite project of all of these. I think I'm gonna add just a little bit more paint just to make sure it's really gonna work.

It's a little thicker than my paint. Probably. You could thin down a thicker paint a little bit to make it kind of go into the soak into the, the yarn a little bit better. All right. And you just know the first print is usually, you know, a little bit of a learning moment.

Oh, I got some little hairs in my brush coming out. This is not the best quality brush. Um, so, you know, if you do your first print and it isn't perfect, don't stop there, just keep practicing. It's really, it only takes a couple of prints before you kind of realize how you need to position things. And how about how much paint to have on there?

We'll see if this is enough paint. I've got piece of paper here. Oh, and another thing I wanted to mention was that I did not try to arrange my snowflakes just ever so perfectly. I didn't try to equally space them or have them turned a specific way. I just kind of looked at where the snow flakes were and then, you know, vaguely positioned mine near it.

But, uh, you know, you could plan this all out, but I would caution against that because I feel like it's just gonna take a lot of time and energy and I thought it looked so good, just sort of not completely haphazardly but just, you know, not very carefully stamped on there. It just looked really good. And so I don't really think that it's worth taking the time to position everything just perfectly. All right. I'm gonna put another little stamp right here.

I'm gonna flip it over and then when I press it, I press it down all the way around and we'll see if that was enough paint. Hopefully it was, oh, it wasn't quite soaked in here. But that, like I said, the first one, you kinda need to print one as sort of like a tester and then you can really get the paint going in the, the next ones. So I need to get a little more paint in here and probably it would help if you watered it down just a little bit. If you're using a thicker paint like I have here, my second type of acrylic.

I probably would water this down so that it would, um, go into the yarn just a little better. Oh, I've got some water here. Actually, my friend is bringing me water. All right, I'm gonna add a little bit. Thank you.

I'm gonna add just a little bit of water because I think that's gonna help the print just a little bit here. All right. There we go. Now, I can see it's soaking in just a little bit better here. So, this is a fun project also to do with kids.

Um, it's just really fun to make these stamps together. All right, I'm gonna try this again over here. All right. There we go. That one's a little better.

It looks like it's soaking in a little bit. Better. I bet by the third one it would be all soaked in really well and start making some really great prints. Ok. You can see that even these are not perfect, but when you put it all on to your gift here, I'll just show you what it looks like.

None of these are perfect. So you can see the paint is a little more saturated here. None of these are perfect and some, you know, there's some little splashes and globs of paint. But I just really feel like that just kind of adds to the fun. Like here, there's a little glob.

It doesn't bother me. I just think it looks like handmade and I don't know, it's just kind of fun and festive. So that was um yeah, that was a really fun project for me. I really like doing multimedia things and it's just kind of exciting to be able to do something with your crochet that um is just out of the ordinary and people probably wouldn't have guessed that you used a crochet piece to stamp your gift wrap. All right.

So there is that option for you guys. Um Another option, let's see, we're gonna talk about this twine or the string. This is kind of a cute little, this is kind of a little more minimalist wrapping here. But I really like how this kind of looks like a candy cane. It's a really nice looking cord and this is something that you can do.

Um, certainly we know with red and white looks but, you know, green and white, like a dark green and white would look really pretty or blue and white or light blue and a dark blue. Um, or even if you're wrapping things in, like a paper like this, I think it would be really pretty in a brown and like a neutral kind of color, like an ire or something. Um Just to give it that sort of um kind of natural look to it. It just, it's just kind of a fun project. So in order to make this, this is actually crocheted, sort of, it's, I mean, you use a crochet hook.

It isn't what I think of as a normal crochet stitch, but it feels like crochet. I mean, you're using a crochet hook and you're gonna use two colors of yarn and the exact yarn that I used in this, I actually did list that in the download in case you guys are interested because it has some, I don't know if you guys can tell but it's got some glitter and sparkle in it. So I thought maybe people would be wondering about that. Um So in order to start on your um on this cord, you're just going to make a slip knot, holding both strands together. Actually, I am gonna do this over.

I feel like you won't be able to see the white very well. So I'm gonna do this on top of this brown paper so you guys can see a little bit better. OK? So we're gonna grab these two strands holding them together and we're gonna make a slip knot and put that on her hook just like that. Then we're going to take um really either color but in my directions, I say to take the white and just make a change.

So we're gonna yarn over and then pull through those two stitches. Ok? So we've just kind of left the red behind and we pulled the white through. So our next step is to take the white because um, the white is on the hook currently. So we're gonna take the white and we're gonna bring it toward us toward our bodies over the top of the hook and down.

So we're just wrapping it. Then I'm gonna hold that with my finger here and then I'm going to take the other color, the red and we're going to bring it around the bottom of the hook towards the back and up over the top. Oops, let's see. Hold on. Ok.

So then we're gonna bring the red is going to be underneath the white and we're gonna bring it around the back over the top and then we're gonna pull that through the two strands of white right here to make a loop. OK? I'm gonna show you that one more time again because I know that got a little confusing for a second there. So because the white is on our hook, we're gonna start with the white. We're gonna bring it up like toward us up over the top like that.

Then we're gonna take the red. And so, and I'm gonna hold the white with my finger to keep it in place. This gets a little easier when you have a little more. Um, when you've worked a little further into the, into the cord, then we're gonna take the red. So the red is underneath the white.

So the white is right here. The red is gonna come around the back and go up over the top and then we're gonna bring that loop through the two white loops right there like that. Ok? And now red is on our hook. So we're gonna take the red, bring it to the front over the top.

I'm gonna hang on to that. Then we're gonna take the white and bring it around to, we're gonna bring it to the back and up over the front like that and they're gonna bring the white through those two red loops. Ok? So white is on the hook. So we bring it toward us and over the top.

So the red is underneath and we're gonna take that and bring it around the back and then over the top, I'm gonna bring the red through the whites like that. I'll do it a couple more times. The red is on the hook. So we bring it around like this front over the top to the back, the white is underneath. So we're gonna bring it from underneath, over the top of the hook and bring it through those two loops.

Ok. So you are able to go once you kind of start on this a little bit and you've worked a little ways you can hang on to this with your hand and it gets a little easier. Um, and you are able to go a little quicker. So round to the front to the back, pull through to the front to the back. Oops pull through to the front to the back, pull through.

So when in doubt after you've just look at the loop that's on your hook and you're gonna wrap up that one first and then you're gonna wrap the other one second. So to the front to the back and pull through, around the front, around the back, pull through, around the front, around the back, pull through. So you're just gonna keep doing that until your string is the, the length that you want it to be. And just know that the string it gets, it's pretty stretchy, which is nice. Um, because it doesn't have to be exactly perfect, um, like the length of it because look at how stretchy this is quite stretchy, it's very elastic and it kind of bounces back, which is really nice.

Um, even though this yarn is not elastic at all. It's just a very stretchy cord. So when you're finishing here, I'll just do a little bit more here around the front, around the back, pull through, around the front, round the back, pull through, maybe a better way would be up around the front back and then around the front. I don't know, but it gets a little, it gets easier. You're, once you do it for, you know, a couple of inches, your fingers will start to just know what to do.

All right, I'll just do a few more and then I think it'll be long enough to wrap around my box. We'll check it. Yeah. All right. I'm running out of yarn so I might as well just fasten this off.

Um, so when you're, when you think you're about to be done or when you're, when you've made it up enough cord, then you can just take both and then pull them through that last loop like this. And then just for good measure, I just tie a very tight knot. So I just kind of pull on that a little bit and then I just tie a very tight, uh, knot right here on top of that end, just like this. Pull it together and I pull it very tight and then, you know, you could try and weave these ends in if you wanted to. I think you could kind of fit it in there.

I just don't bother I just think it looks kind of cute and rustic. If you just sort of chop it off like that and leave little tiny ends as long as you tie that knot really tight, they're not gonna go anywhere. Um, so that's usually how I finish mine off. I don't bother trying to hide them in there. I just feel like that's, I don't know, but for some of you, you may want to do that because maybe it just bothers you to see the cut ends of the yard, which I understand.

But um you could try, then you could try kind of bearing it in the middle of your court if you like. All right. And that, that's it for that. So you can just go ahead and tie it around, make a little bow. This also makes a cute little trim if you, I don't know if you guys watched my last live event, but I showed how to make this peppermint sugar scrub, um which is a very easy project and it goes along with a different crochet project project that I was teaching.

Um And I just use a little piece of cord to kind of decorate that, that little jar. Make it look a little cuter. All right. So the next thing I wanna talk about is um the star ornament. Let's see.

Bring this guy in here. This is a big, a big present here. Um So this, I used this really cute and simple star shape. And I made a little three dimensional ornament out of it. This is just made out of a nice cotton yarn off white cotton yarn.

And I just thought it looked really like kind of understated. A little farmhouse chic, you know. Um I just thought it was just a nice little addition to just some rustic looking yarn and then a few little evergreen branches here tied on to the gift. So that was kind of my little theme there. Um But you know, like anything, any kind of ornament that you make makes a really cute gift topper.

Like I I um did a live event for a crocheted Cardinal la. I think it was last year might have been two years ago. Now, I can't remember but that that cardinal ornament would be really cute, just tied on to a gift. So even something like this with the evergreens and the cardinal would be very, very cute. Um But yeah, there's lots, there's lots of different kinds of um or little ornaments or little doodads out there for crocheting up and adding to your gift.

It's just a really simple way to kind of make things look fun. So I'm gonna show you how to make this little star. It's very easy and I'm gonna bring this, let's see. I bring this back in here my little background um because I chose to do all this white stuff here, the snowflakes, the stars All right. Um So the star pattern that's actually found in, in your download, it is part of a, I think it was called five shapes, five basic shapes to crochet.

Um People had been asking for, you know, patterns for stars. Like I had gotten like four requests within the space of a couple of months. And I thought, well, this is, I don't know what's going on but people wanna make stars. So I thought, well, maybe it'd be nice to have like a little collection of a bunch of different shapes, you know, for people who wanna kind of design or put together their own, you know, maybe they're working on a blanket and they want some applique and they need some basic shapes to make something on it. Um So that's why I made that little download and that is available.

It's uh it's actually part of this download. We added it into this, we bundled it into this download. So you'll have it if you um download the uh if you get the download from today. But it, it was a separate download on the Creative Crochet corner website just for those um people who are asking for these, you know, directions on how to make different shapes. OK.

So let me pull out a pattern here. I'm gonna grab this. Um So I really love charts and so I'm gonna be teaching from this chart, but the written directions, those are all written out and it's part of your download. So, if you're not a chart reader, that is completely fine. This just helps me to understand how all of the stitches relate to each other.

But we're gonna start in the middle and we're gonna begin with a slip knot and then we're gonna work our way out in a circle and then we're gonna venture out and kind of make these spokes as we go around. Ok. So we're gonna be making two stars that are exactly the same and then we're gonna be putting them together. All right. So, so to start out the star shape, we're gonna start with an adjustable loop.

So we're just gonna draw out a little loop like this. We're gonna flip that over on to the strand that's connected to the ball of yarn and we're gonna place our hook underneath it and then I'm going to chain one. So I'm just gonna yarn over and pull that through and that's gonna anchor our yarn to our loop that we just made. Now, if you have a different way of making an adjustable loop, that's totally fine. You can use any method you like.

Um it doesn't matter. So I'm going to twist my loop a half a turn. I like to do this so that I crochet over two layers um As I'm working my way around, it makes it a little sturdier. So I'm just flipping that loop like this and then I'm gonna start by working single crochets into that loop. Now I'm gonna mention to you, I'm using a number four cotton.

This particular cotton is, this is not a dishcloth cotton. It's a little bit softer. I did buy it at a big box store and II I am almost positive it's a number four. It might possibly be a number three. But to me, the weight feels like it's in between a three and a four.

You know, it, this is just gonna be kind of dependent on how, you know what your gauge is like and what yarn you choose. It might be a little bigger, it might be a little smaller. But if you get something around a number four or number three, if you wanted a smaller star, you could do a number two or even a tiny star would be super cute. You could do a little sack white star. That would be totally adorable.

So, you know, just the, the size of your yarn is going to result in a, a different size star, something to play around with. And I am using an F hook which is a 3.75 millimeter hook. All right. So here we have our adjustable loop and I'm gonna work six sorry, five single crochets into that adjustable loop. So we're gonna insert here an over, pull up loop here, an over and pull through two.

There's our first single crochet we're gonna do four more. Insert an over, pull up the loop and over and pull through two. This loop seems a little big for me to hang on to. So I'm gonna tighten it a little. OK.

Insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two. There's the third one, fourth one and the fifth one. OK. Now we can tighten our loops. So we're gonna pull on that beginning yarn tail, tighten that up and we're gonna begin working in the round.

So I'm gonna start with the very first stitch that I made. And if you're having trouble figuring out where exactly that stitch is, you can always count back. So, 1234 and five. So I'm going to make two single crochets into each stitch around. So here's my first stitch and I didn't do a joint or anything.

I'm just starting my next round by working into that very first stitch. So here's the first single crochet and then I'm gonna do the second single crochet into that very first stitch. So now there's two stitches into that first stitch and I'm going to repeat this all the way around. So one and two, one and two, one and two, one and two. All right.

So we've made it all the way around. We should have 10 stitches in that round. Um And round number three, we're going to do an increase in the first stitch and then we're gonna do one single crochet into the following stitch and then we're gonna repeat that. So here is an increase. That just means we're putting two single crochets into one stitch.

So there's the first one, there's the second one. Now we're gonna put that stitch marker back in. So we keep track of our round. So we did our increase and now we're going to do one single crochet into the next stitch, which is right here and then an increase in the next stitch. One and two and one, single crochet into the following stitch.

And we're gonna repeat that again. So it's two in one stitch, one in the next stitch and then we repeat that four more times. So here's the third of the repeats and here is the fourth and here is the fifth one, two and one. OK. So there should be 15 stitches around and I'm gonna remove my stitch marker and we're going to do one single crochet into each of the first two stitches and then two single crochets into the following stitch.

So one and then one and then two. Yeah, I'm gonna place my stitch marker back into that very first one we made and now we're gonna make repeats of that same sequence. So we'll do one in the next one in the next and then two in the following one and 21 in the next one and the next two into the following one and two. All right. Do that.

Again, one on the next one and the next and two into the following one and the next one and the next and two into the following. And we should have 20 stitches around at this point. And then this completes the inner circle of our star. And now we are gonna start making those spokes. So I'm gonna remove my stitch marker.

We're gonna place a slip stitch into the very first stitch. So here's our slip stitch. Let me just show you where we are in the, in the chart in case you're a chart person. So the beginnings of the rounds have all the numbers on them. We are starting round number five.

So we just did this slip stitch right here and now we're going to chain six chains up to the tip of that star. OK? So we're going to do six chains, then we're gonna work our way back down the chain and then we're gonna do a slip stitch and then we're going to do that again. OK? So this is what that looks like.

So we're, we already did our slip stitch and we're gonna chain six. So And don't forget you're gonna have to work into those chains. So don't make them super tight if you can help it. All right. So now we're gonna work right back down our chain and we're gonna work into the bottom bump.

So if these are all the little vs on our chain. If you roll that over, you can see all the little horizontal dashes. That's where we're gonna be placing all of our stitches. So we're skipping the first one. We're gonna work a single crochet under the second one.

So there's our single crochet. Then we're gonna do a half, double crochet into the next. So we yarn over, insert, yarn over, pull up a loop. Now we have three loops on our hook. Then we yarn over and pull through all three.

Now we're gonna do a double crochet. So we yarn over, insert yarn over, pull up a loop. This looks just like the single or just like the half, double so far, except now we're gonna change things up. We're gonna yarn over and pull through just two yarn over, pull through two. OK.

That's a double crochet. Now we're gonna do three treble crochets or some people call them triple crochets. So we yarn over twice and then we insert yarn over, pull up a loop, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two, yarn over, pull through two. Let's do that again. So we yarn over twice.

Insert, you're an over, pull up a loop, you're over, pull through two, you're an over, pull through two, you're an over, pull through two. Ok. So then we're going to skip all the way over to this ditch. So what we're, we're skipping, let's see. Um How many stitches are we skipping here, 123.

And then we're gonna do a slip stitch into our single crochet. What I look for is I look for the increase because I can spot that and I slip stitch in the, in the stitch after the increase. So here are, here is my increase, 12. So we have a single crochet and then we have two stitches in one and then the next single crochet is where we're going to make our slip stitch. OK?

So we're just going to yarn over, pull that yarn through and pull through the loop on our hook. OK? So there's the first spike of our star, the first leg there. And now we're gonna repeat that whole thing again. So we're gonna change 6123456.

And we're going to skip the first stitch and work a single crochet into the second. So insert, you're an over, pull up a loop, you're an over, pull through two. Then we're gonna do a half double crochet to the next stitch. You're an over and search. You're an over pull up.

Y aren't over looks like I kind of split my yarn there. Insert yarn over, pull up, yarn over, pull through three. There's our half double. Now we're gonna do a double. So we yarn over, insert, you're an over, pull up, you're an over, pull through two, you're an over, pull through two.

Now we're gonna do a trouble. You're over twice. Insert, you're an over pull up, you're an over pull through two. You're an over pull through two. You're an over pull through two.

Now we're gonna do another trouble. You're an over twice insert. You're an over pull of the loop. You're an over pull through two. You're an over pull through two.

You're an over pull through two. Looks like I got a little behind on my comments here. Let me just check here. Oh, see, wolfpack is saying yes, I remember those. I think she's talking about my ornaments or maybe the uh and see wolf pack or they could repurpose that ribbon to hang it.

Yes, that I was thinking about that when I was um so back to when we added the snowflake onto the package, see, this is why I should have been reading my comments earlier. Um Cindy was saying that we could repurpose the ribbon that we used to tie the snowflake onto the package as the ribbon to hang it with. And I think that would work great. Um Let's see. Yes.

Since Sea Wolfe says she has good advice here, it's supposed to be art, not science. If there aren't imperfections, it won't appear to be handmade with love. So true. Exactly. Um And then she also said I gave the Cardinal as a gift to my in laws last year and they loved it.

Grandpa Wolf is an avid birdwatcher. Oh, that's so sweet. Thank you, Cindy. I feel like the reason that I made that Cardinal was because a couple people requested ornaments. And I know Cindy was one of them.

And I'm not, I, I can't remember if she was one of the people who requested the specifically birds, but somebody did. So that was the whole reason I made that Cardinal was partly because of Cindy. OK. So now we're going to be skipping um over to OK. So we skip the next stitch, skip the increase.

So that's where the two stitches are in one. And then we're gonna do a slip stitch in the following stitch. And then we're gonna repeat that whole session one more. Uh Well, we're gonna be doing that three more times. So I'll do it one more time and then I'll skip ahead a little bit here.

OK? So we're gonna chain 6123456, skip the first chain. We're gonna single crochet into the next one half, double crochet into the next one, double crochet into the next one and then Treble crochet into the remaining two chains. OK? And then we skip the next stitch, we skip the increase and we slip stitch into the following stitch.

OK? And then we would just keep repeating that two more times. Let me grab my little sample here. Oh It looks like I left the last one off here. We'll do one more repeat of that just to get us all caught up So we're gonna change And then working in the bottom, we will single crochet half, double and double trouble and rebel.

And this is our very last stitch of this round. And on the next round, we are going to start by working a single crochet into pretty much each stitch around. We're just doing like a border of single crochets. Um You can see we haven't actually even joined this yet. Um You could slip stitch right here if want to, but I usually just skip that step and just go ahead and start by doing my single crochet.

So you're gonna be doing a single crochet into the bottom of that Treble right there and the next treble, double crochet, half, double crochet and single. So you're doing a single crochet into each of those five stitches. So here we are right here. We're just gonna start by making our single crochet into basically the bottom of that trouble cause when you made it, it was facing this way. So there's our single crochet and that brings your piece together and then we're going to fill this side up with single crochets here.

So we're gonna have a total of five along the edge and then we've reached the tip and you're gonna do three single crochets into the tip of your star. Now, if you made those chains kind of tight and it's hard to get your hook in there you know, just try to get it into the tip of that fabric as best as you can. One tip that I do have, uh, tip, one tip that I do have is just to work under the front loop and I'll show you that on the next spoke or on the next arm of the star. Um, when we get there, just because I know that often times we tend to make our chains tight and it might be hard to get your hook into that stitch. OK.

So now we've just worked a single crochet into each stitch down. So there should be five more along that side. Don't worry about that slip stitch. We're gonna skip that and then we're gonna start working single crochets up the next um arm here. So here's the first single crochet.

One, two, three, four, five. Now we're at the tip. Now, if you can't get your hook underneath both strands like this, you can just slide it underneath just the front, which is right here. So one and you're doing three in the tip of each um arm of the star. OK.

So there's three and now we're going to do one single crochet into each stitch down. So one, 234 and five. OK, we're gonna repeat that. So we're skipping that slip stitch and we're gonna work into the, the base of where we put that, that travel crochet, we're gonna do five stitches, five single crochets one, two, And then we're gonna work on uh three single crochets into the tip of the star. One, two, three and then one single crochet into each stitch down.

So 123, four, five, what I mean by down is I think of this as being the tip and then going back down toward the rest of the star. OK. So we're just gonna continue that same stitch pattern, working those single crochets and then doing three on the tip. So five, single crochets here, three on the tip, five single crochets. There, we skip the slip stitch and then we repeat that same thing all the way around our star and let's see where we're at here.

Oh, I have one more repeat to do. So we're skipping the slip stitch and we're gonna do a single crochet into each of the next five stitches. 123, four, five, and then three stitches at the tip, one, two, three and then five on the way back down, 12, three, four and five. OK. So then, um after you finished your first star, you would fasten off and you can weave in your ends at that point and then you're gonna make another star exactly the same.

So let's just imagine we did that. We fastened it off, woven our ends. Here it is. And then here is our second star. So we're gonna just keep this, um, keep this loop here.

So I'm gonna place a stitch marker into that loop so that we don't lose it. We're just gonna leave the yarn attached. I'm gonna weave in this little end here just to get out of the way and then we need to add a little bit of interfacing. So the reason we're adding interfacing is not only does it make our star look really kind of crisp and nice. Um When we stuff it, it just looks really good.

But the main reason is because of the way the star is constructed. So this star is constructed in a very simple way and it doesn't involve, you know, adding a bunch of pieces on and fastening them off. Like sometimes when you make a three dimensional star, um you will have to make all of these little parts individually and you go around and around and around fast and join it over here. This is a really easy way to make a star where you just go around and around and around and around, then you're done, you fasten off, right? And then you make the second one now, then we're gonna sew them together.

So that's the reason I love this star. But the problem with this star and just stuffing it is that you have these very tall stitches here. So the stuffing can just poke right through, it's not gonna look very nice. So to as just sort of a easy way to fix that I interfaced the back of it. I just used a little bit of fusible interfacing and since this is a cotton yarn, it fused right to it and it looks great if you don't have fusible interfacing, but you have some sort of fabric or something like that, you could sew a little star piece of fabric onto the back, like a little lining onto each star and then you can continue with what I'm gonna show you later to fasten everything off and, and join everything together.

You're just gonna need something to keep that stuffing from popping out from between those stitches. Another option that you could use if you don't have any fabric and you still really wanna make it this way is you could weave uh if you look at the back of your star, you could weave some yarn tails back and forth in a couple of places on each leg. Now that is gonna take a little bit of time to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. But you, you don't need any additional materials. You don't need to use any interfacing or anything like that.

What that would do is it would make, you know, strands of yarn that connect through all of these longer stitches and connect it into this fabric. If you do it from the backside, weave it back and forth, then it should be fine. Um I just wanna give you those extra options just in case you don't have something like interfacing or fabric laying around a tr like I do at my house, I have a lot of crafting supplies. I'm lucky like that. Ok.

So now I'm going to be adding this interfacing. So I'm gonna pull my ironing board over here and you wanna do this on what, you know, whatever heat setting the manufacturing, um, you know, the label tells you on your, uh, on your um on your interfacing, but it just needs to be hot enough that it can kind of melt, melt all those little sticky bits on the back of your interfacing. I've already cut these out actually, um I should explain this. So what you you can do is you can lay the star out, you can trace onto a little piece of paper, the same shape and cut that out and then trim off the edge of all the way around because what you ideally want is a star that's going to fit inside. I don't know how well you can see this white on white, but you should be able to see the very last round of your single crochet stitches.

OK? So those need to be accessible because we're gonna be slip, stitching two layers together and you need to be able to put your hook through those stitches like this later without getting stuck on the interfacing. OK? So you just need to trim it away. So that enough, so that it'll fit.

Ok. So now I'm just gonna fuse my interfacing to the back of my crochet piece. Oops, I gotta turn off the steam here. It just needs to be hot enough so that it melts those little sticky bits that can, um, stick to your yarn. So that way it's fused in there.

Ok. And I'm gonna do that to my second piece as well. Both of them need the little star. Yeah. So those stars, they don't need to be perfect.

They don't have to be absolutely the perfect shape. You know, they don't need to be all um completely uniform, but they do, they, they, they do need to go at least past the section where those tall stitches are. So that way they're going to keep all your stuffing in place and make it look really nice. All right, I think that's stuck. Looks like this is needs a little extra help.

It should be pretty good. I will use this chance to catch up on my comments here. Oh, see wolfpack said, I, I think I did request that. When you asked reviewer suggestions. I made an entire series of ornaments customized to each person and gave them as gifts last year.

Oh, that is so nice. Wow. You, your people are very lucky to have you crafting for them, Cindy. Oh, yes. And, and Cindy is also saying using the iron is another good reason to use cotton yarn.

Yes, I should have mentioned that. I am very glad that you brought that up. I do say in the directions or in the um in the write up on this on your, in your download, I do say to use cotton yarn for this reason, but I should have said it here in this live event in case you guys aren't even gonna look at what I wrote there. Um The cotton yarn is very important because if you use acrylic and you have to iron your interfacing to the acrylic, it might melt your acrylic. It might do some weird things to your, your fabric.

Um So I would definitely recommend using cotton uh instead of an acrylic urine there. Or if you end up using acrylic, you can use something else like you could use one of the other techniques that I talked about instead of using the interfacing or you could use a se in interfacing too. I just very seldom use that. OK. So now we've got two stars and we're going to join them together.

So I'm gonna remove my stitch marker, put my hook back in there. I'm gonna flip over my star and it doesn't really matter where we start. Um You know, like which tip because they should all be the same. So I'm gonna go ahead and just do a slip stitch all the way around the star and you can choose if you want to do it through just the loops that are closest to each other or if you want to do it through both layers, which is what I'm gonna do here. So you're just inserting your hook into, you know, both sets, both stars like that.

And then you're gonna grab that yarn, pull through, pull through the loop on your hook and we're going to do that all the way around. So I don't bother stuffing this until I am getting pretty close to the end. And then, um, you know, right before I finish up closing at my star, that's when I stuff it because it's pretty easy to stuff. And I thought that these stars would be really cool if you like, if, if you happen to have any beads or sequins or some kind of glitzy stuff, I thought they would be really pretty if those kind of, if there was an additional ornamentation on them. I mean, I think they look really nice without that, especially with like the little pine branches and stuff tied on to the brown package wrappings.

But um I thought they would also make really nice kind of fancier ornaments with a little bit of some sequins or especially like those sort of brushed sequins and like not super sparkly ones I thought would be really pretty like copper or brass or something like that. All right. So one thing that I always like to mention in my lives as we sort of touched on this before when I was talking with Cindy about who requested the ornaments. Um Is I love it when you guys put suggestions in the comments on things you would like to learn. I am starting to plan out things for next year for live events.

So if you guys have thoughts or ideas about a type of project that you would like to work on or maybe a, a certain technique that you would like to learn um for these live events don't be shy and let me know if there's something that you'd like me to, to present to you guys. Um, I like, I, I, uh, I really like it when people make suggestions because it makes me think outside of my norm, you know, I have lots of ideas for things but it, it just really helps to kind of crowd source those ideas as well. Like, it makes me think of things that I never would have thought of before. All right. So we're about maybe two thirds of the way done.

I'm gonna keep going just a little bit more before I stuff it, then we'll add that stuffing in. Yeah. All right. I think I can still get my, I'm gonna go just a little bit more. If you have larger fingers, you may wanna stuff it before you get through that last point.

But I think I will be able to get into my star. You, you, you know, you do need to get the stuffing into all the tips of the star. And I think I can still do that here. You know, this will just sort of depend on the size of your star as well. All right.

So I'm gonna stop at this point. Make my loop nice and long and I'm gonna stuff into each of the tips of the star first and then stuff the, the center of the star and see when I add my stuffing in there, you can't see between those stitches because they've been, um, fused to that interfacing. And if you don't know what interfacing is, I guess I should have explained this because they are probably those of you who are not sewers. Let me back this up just a little bit here. Um, interfacing is just kind of a lighter weight, usually, um, a non woven fabric that has some, if you buy the fusible kind, it's got these little, little bumps on it that, um, that will kind of become glue when you heat it up and it's just a way to make things stiffer and you can buy it in packages.

Um, you can buy it online. Amazon has it, but you can buy it at the fabric store, local craft store as well. Ok. I've got stuffing in those tips, but I gotta get some in this one. I, here we go.

All right. And we can add a little more stuffing as we get further around here. All right, I think I need just a little bit more in there. And there we are, we made it all the way back to where we started and then we can go ahead and cut our yarn. If I could just figure out where I put my scissors, I got a lot of stuff on the table today.

You guys? Ok. So we'll just pull that through and we can do one of those invisible joins again and then we'll add a little piece of twine. All right, I'll leave that in here. Here we go.

All right. And then we can add our twine to any of the corners and just make a little hanging loop. And it doesn't, you know, you can use another piece of yarn or something else. Um It doesn't have to be a piece of twine. This looks very curly.

So I'm gonna see if I can straighten it a little bit here. I don't think I've ever ironed a piece of duke to wine before. All right. Ok. Let's see.

I'm gonna add my piece through here maybe. And then we'll just tie a little knot. And on my first star, I was able to hide the knot down into the star by pulling it through. I'm not sure if it will always work that way. Unless you know, if your interfacing goes all the way up there, you won't be able to.

But I think I can poke this in there and then you can kind of, um, pre weave in your needle and then thread those little tails onto your needle and pull them into your star. But, or, you know, it really doesn't hurt anything to just have a little knot with a little, with the ends, you know, on top of your loop, that's fine too. There we go. Ok. So I was able to get my knot to disappear and that looks really nice and finished and cute.

And then when you um wrap up your present, let me bring this one back in here. Um When you wrap up your present, you can u I used two strands of the sticker yarn here and I just, you know, wrapped it how you normally would with the ribbon. And when I came around um for this final bow, I just kind of grabbed that greenery and tied the bow around that greenery. Um But I should, oh and I also should mention before I tied this knot, I just made a little loop. Um are sent, sent the loop of my ornament through that knot.

So that, that is what attaches it to the present. It's all tied up here. Actually, I'll just undo this and show you guys how I did that. You know, it takes a little bit of finessing to get everything kind of in the right spot and this greenery is getting pretty dried out because I put this on here weeks ago when I took the photos. But you can see when I tied that knot right there, I incorporated the loop into the knot and then I laid this on top and then I just kind of made my little bow on top of that little collection of greenery there just to make it look kind of pretty like that.

OK. And there's just one more thing I wanted to talk about a little bit and that is this delightful pom pom approach. Now, I it's no secret. I love pom poms. I absolutely adore pom poms.

I wanna put them on like every hat and I'm trying to keep myself from doing that. I'm trying to on purpose design hats that shouldn't have pom poms because I have a pom pom problem. But um I have recently just started putting pom poms on gifts and I just think it's a really fun way to use up, you know, extra yarn that you just happen to have. Um the one thing to think about when you're doing that is to make the string extra long. So there is however a work around if you forget or um if for some reason you can't do that.

So you can see right here on my pom pom, I actually doubled up the strings that I used to tie my pom pom and I made it extremely long. So that way I can wrap it a bunch of times around the, the packaging and it looks super cute. So here, let's put it on, let's put it on this one here. So I've got my, my yarn is doubled. And so all you do, you know, you just cross it over like you would a regular ribbon if you were just wrapping with something other than yarn and then you can kind of bring them up around a couple times and it looks like we might have maybe enough to go around one more time.

This one won't quite reach, but this one can go around a second time and come around to the bottom and you can tie that. You could also tie it under the pom pom if it would reach and that would be kind of hidden. But this is fun, especially if you make it extra long like this, then somebody could, you know, cut this open and still have plenty to wrap it one time around another gift if they wanted to reuse the pom, pom. And these are fun because, you know, those ribbons always end up getting crushed and the pom poms, they just, they might get a little smushed. But then when you get where you're going, then they uh can fluff up a little bit so you can kind of adjust that.

And I thought it would be really fun if we added a bunch of different colors. So like, let's just say, for example, oh this one, I'll put this one away. But let's just say, you know, whatever kind of yarn you have at home. I mean, it would look really cute if you had two other pom poms here. Right?

Like these aren't pom poms yet. They're pom poms in the making. Um, but if you did that here and wrapped more of those yarn tails around here crisscrossing, I just think it would look really, really cute just to add, you know, an extra pop of color and of course you could do this in traditional Christmas colors, but I wanted to show it in something other than traditional colors just so that you could think. Oh, yeah, I can just use whatever I have in my yarn stash. Like you don't have to go to the store.

Part of the reason that I wanted to do this, um, wrappings idea today was because I wanted to be able to show people that they, they have other options that they might even have in their house already. Like you, uh, you know, don't have to spend a lot of money to make a really cool looking gift. All right. Oh, Debbie saying a teapot cozy would be a nice thing to learn how to make. Ok.

I have nev, I have never designed one of those so that's gonna go on my list. Ok. All right. Well, thank you guys so much for being here today. I appreciate you.

Um, it's been a really fun couple of live events today. There's another one earlier in case you missed it about making some kind of quick last minute gifts. Um, and then just to let you know in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna be back with another live tutorial. This is right before Christmas you'll still have like about a week, maybe almost a week or seven days, a few days, at least, um, to make this project if you really wait until the last minute. Um, but I designed this really cute granny striped beanie.

Um, and then a couple of weeks ago I did a live tutorial on making a fleece lining in, in this very hat. So you'll see this hat featured in that if you wanna go ahead and watch that, but it's going to be the hat version of that. And then you can refer back to the lining it with fleece version if you would like your hat to be lined. So if you're interested in this hat, then be sure to make it back in a couple of weeks, um, to check this out. Ok.

Happy holiday. Making everybody. Bye.