Chinese New Year Chopstick Sleeve

When the Chinese New Year begins on February 19th, we'll be in the Year of the Sheep. So if you were born in 1943, 1955, 1967, 1979, 1991, or 2003, this is your year! I was born in the Year of the Tiger, which won't come around again until 2022, but I'm going to celebrate the New Year anyway. Maybe with some homemade fried rice, maybe with some Chinese takeout, but there will definitely be chopsticks involved.

I made this pretty chopstick sleeve in honor of the occasion. It's an easy sewing project that uses felt, gold rickrack and a flower charm from an old piece of jewelry.

To make a chopstick sleeve, cut two 1½-inch-wide strips of red felt--one 9 inches long, the other 11 inches long. Stitch a piece of gold rickrack down the center of the short strip, and then sew a small piece of rickrack to one short edge of each strip. Sew a charm, bead, or even a fancy button over the rickrack on the short felt strip. Pin the two felt strips together so the rickrack is facing up on both pieces and the bottom edges are aligned. Then use red embroidery floss and running stitch to sew the side and bottom edges of the sleeve together. 

That's it. Simple, right? Now you can enjoy your dim sum in style.

Embossed Heart Tags

My favorite heart stamp

More hearts this week . . . this time made with pink paper! When my girls were young, I made little hearts like these as gift tags for Valentine treats. They also make sweet and simple Valentine's Day decorations. 

The stamp I used is from Rubber Stampede (it's about 2" by 2"). I like the airy look of the filigree design, but you can use any heart stamp you like. Embossing--one of my favorite rubber stamping techniques--gives the hearts their shiny finish. You'll need an embossing inkpad, embossing powder (I used silver and iridescent), and a heat embossing tool, which looks like a hair dryer but gets much hotter.

The process is pretty simple. I stamped hearts with the embossing pad onto a sheet of pink card stock, sprinkled on the embossing powder, and then shook off the excess. Now comes the fun part--making the dull-looking embossing powder shine. Apply the heated air from the embossing tool to the "powdered" hearts (following the manufacturer's instructions, of course) and watch the powder melt and turn silvery and sparkly.

Silver embossing powder starts out dull and gray . . .

and turns shiny when it's heated with the embossing tool.

Iridescent powder after its embossing tool treatment.

Embossed hearts cut out and ready for eyelets and ribbons.

To make the embossed hearts into tags, I cut them out, leaving a border of paper around the edges, and added a metal eyelet to the top of each one. You'll need an eyelet tool and small hammer for that, but it's worth the effort and noise. The eyelets really give the tags a professional finish. Just thread ribbon or cord through the eyelets and your heart tags are finished. Now you can hang them around the house or tie them onto a box of chocolates for someone special.

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Heart Charm Bracelet

When I realized how many heart baubles had accumulated in my bead box, I decided it was time to finally do something with them. The result is this cute heart bracelet, which I made just in time for Valentine's Day.

So where are the hearts from? Some are from pieces of broken jewelry, like the sparkly rhinestone and pearl charm. It was part of a pin that was one of my go-to accessories in the '80s. (It was in style then, I think.) Other hearts are leftovers from projects gone by. To get the hearts ready for stringing, I gave them hanging wires and dressed them up with more beads.

And now for the easy part -- crocheting the beads onto a strand of narrow red ribbon. I used a steel crochet hook small enough to fit through the wire loops, chained five chain stitches, and added the first bead by crocheting right through the loop. I attached the remaining beads the same way, making five chain stitches between them. Before I finished the chain I made sure the bracelet fit around my wrist (it's a Valentine present for myself). No fancy jewelry techniques for attaching the clasp and ring; I just tied them to the ends of the chain and wove the extra ribbon into the stitching.