Snowflake Mandala to Color

I hope you enjoy this snowflake mandala to color. Some of you really like circles! You can also use it for other crafty purposes. Click the images for larger versions to print.

Small JPG version-

Large transparent PNG version:

Want more snowflakes? I've got them to color, cross stitch and print.

Snowflakes

Pheels like the Holidays

This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of PHILADELPHIA cream cheese for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I love cream cheese so much. So many of my favorite recipes use Philadelphia cream cheese and I'm always looking for more. 

You can find a lot of simple recipes for meals and entertaining here-> PHILADELPHIA cream cheese

Pin them, save them for later and find something to make for dinner tonight. Plan your next party, or if you're running short on time and have to bring something to a party this week, find the perfect creamy dish that can be made quickly and kept cold until you go!

My favorite recipes are generally savory, and I love salmon, so my favorite recipe is the Smoke Salmon Lemon Pepper Dip, 5 ingredients for a versatile dip that can be served with crostini, turned into tiny sandwiches with cucumber, or just eaten with sourdough toast.

For leftover turkey or a very classy, light appetizer version of a traditional turkey dinner, the Roasted Turkey Cranberry Bites. If you've never had cranberries and cream cheese with turkey, you're missing out. This is all the best stuff of one of my favorite sandwiches. 

My daughter, the chocolate fanatic, wants to make the featured recipes, Ultimate Turtle Cheesecake. Combine chocolate with cheesecake and she's always happy. Add caramel and an Oreo crust, and she's over the moon happy. When you click on the featured recipe, you can pin it, then use the menu at the top of the page to find lots more recipes for every meal of the day and appetizers and desserts as well.

Entertain with style, grace, and really easy to prepare rich, tasty food. PHILADELPHIA cream cheese

Holly Gift Box

I hope you enjoy this simple green and red holly Christmas gift box. If you like it, let me know and I'll do more things with this design.
Click on the image for a larger version to print. In PNG format to keep the colors very clear.

There are 2 holly mandalas from last year. One is a wreath shape. Holly mandalas

Sewing Cubes and Tetrahedrons

Yay for Platonic solids! Platonic solids are polyhedral shapes made of regular, symmetrical shapes, and there are only 5 of them. If you play or love someone who plays tabletop RPGs, you're very familiar with them. They make up the dice for those games. Cubes and tetrahedrons are very easy to sew, especially if you start with a fabric that has tessellating squares or triangles. The above models were sewn using swatches from a new collection I have up at Spoonflower. Any square or triangle fabric will work, or you could do them in patchwork shapes pretty easily too with a few more seams.

I did these with hand stitching because of their size.
Sewing the tetrahedron- 
A tetrahedron is the shape you might know as a 4 sided die, 4 equilateral triangles that form an almost pyramid like shape. It's the shape used in pyramid tea bags as well.

If you're making a large one with various fabrics, you'll cut 4 triangles at the right size plus seam allowances. If you're handstitching a little one like me, you'll cut out your fabric like this-

First, find your 4 triangles, you want a multi-directional design if there is a design in them, and you'll be cutting out a strip with 60 degree angles on the sides.

Add your seam allowance. For me, it was about 1/3 of an inch since they are hand stitched. Chalk in that line, or use a permanent marker, they will be inside the seam so it won't show.

Cut out including seam allowance, trim the corners to reduce bulk.

See the arrow? That's where you start stitching. But you'll need to pin it first because the second seam can be kind of a pain. With the right sides facing each other, pin A to be, C to F and E to D on the corners and in the middle. It's going to look a bit screwy because of that odd direction seam, it will work though. Starting at the arrow, stitch the A-B seam, then the F-C seam, take out all the pins and turn it right side out. Stuff it as firmly as you prefer. I used polyfil to stuff mine. Then slip stitch that last seam to close. 

If you're using separate triangles, you'll make a strip as shown above, then stitch that final seam as described, leaving a gap for turning, then slip stitching that closed after stuffing. Tie knot in thread, and bury the thread end in the finished shape.

Sewing the Cube-

This is a lot easier, especially for anyone who is a regular reader of my blog! Because it goes together a lot like a box but with closed seams.

In my fabric, the knotwork squares are set up on a diagonal, so finding my base shape looked kind of like this-

Add seam allowances, cut out including seam allowances and clip corners.

Now it's time to stitch it. This will be done in a couple stages because you'll need to knot off the thread and start sewing from a different place.

So starting on the inside corner: A-B, C-J, D-E, which brings you to the bottom corner of D-E. Knot off thread and cut. Then from the inside corner, G-H, I-F, knot off thread and cut. From the inside corner, L-M- turn right side out and stuff, then slip stitch K-N to close. 

These can be used as ornaments, toys, a little bigger than my models, juggling balls.