Scarlett-Locks and the Three Bears

Financial Investment: $$ ($10 - $25)

Emotional Investment: J (Not too bad)

Worth the Investment: + (Pretty cute)

My good friend Natalie just had her third child; Scarlett Grace.  She brought her over to my house and I fell in love with all six pounds, five ounces of her.  I stared in wonder as Natalie said that she would definitely be into having another child.  Here, I’m thinking we’re going to stick with one, and she’s considering a FOURTH.

Scarlett has an older brother (Noah) and sister (Clara) and both of them have BRIGHT red hair, and it’s gorgeous.  Naturally, one would think that the new baby would be a redhead as well. 

Nope.  She’s a brunette!

Natalie and her husband didn’t know what they were having, so they chose a boy’s name and a girl’s name and when Natalie delivered a girl, they kept the girl’s name of Scarlett.  I think it’s absolutely perfect, because I enjoy irony; pus, it’s a gorgeous name!

Since Natalie has basically everything for a baby, I wanted to do something special, so I chose Martha’s ‘Three Bears Hangers’ project.

I started it before Natalie gave birth, but due to two bulging discs in my back, I haven’t gotten much crafting done.  That, and Peaches McGee has been transitioning to one nap which has been just awesome (that sentence is dripping in sarcasm).  My normal 15-hour a day sleeper, has decided that she doesn’t want to sleep.  Rather, she’d like to either play or have mom (and her bad back) carry her around everywhere.  Awesome.

The project itself was fairly easy and straightforward, but as usual, Martha’s directions could use some improvement.

You start with a youth-sized hanger (I got a pack of 5 at IKEA).

You then take her template, trace the NINE circles of the bear (two are the same size), cut them out and then decoupage them together on the hanger.

I personally was unable to trace the circles because I didn’t have tracing paper and it’s not as though I could see the lines through the scrapbook paper she calls for.  If I had a craft room outfitted with all of Martha Stewart’s products, it would have been much easier because I could use one of her circle hole punches.  But I don’t, so I had to get creative and started looking for other items I could use to trace the circles. 

Watching Peaches play with some buttons gave me the first idea… a button.  Then I started looking around my craft room and figured out the rest.

Here’s a diagram of where I got each circle from:

Martha once again has an error in her directions.  She states that you build the bear on the hanger (decoupaging each piece on top of one another, beginning with the head); however, if you were to follow her directions precisely, you would find out pretty quickly that you can’t put the head down first.  You have to do the ears first since they go BEHIND the head. 

Who edits these books anyway?  I’m thinking they should hire me as a “commoner” to complete the crafts using their directions prior to going to print. 

For the first hanger, I did exactly as she states, I glued each piece on top of each other.  Then I got smart and realized that assembling the bear completely and then attaching it to the hanger, is MUCH easier. 

Here are the three little bears – I tied little ribbons around them to complete the look:

Because I had two hangers left over, I decided to do some monogramming.  I made one for Scarlett, and then one for Peaches McGee (her initials aren’t actually PM – surprise, right?).  

If it's a gift for Scarlett, why did I make one for Peaches?  Well, I’m trying to make sure that I keep at least one sample of my projects so that when I sell the movie rights and become famous, I can sell the items and donate the money to charity. 

Some of the money to charity.

I’ll donate at least $100!  I’m not Mother Teresa, okay?!

On a side note - while doing research for this post, I stumbled across a website of someone who is doing something very similar to me, and probably a lot better… after all, she has her PhD in English Literature (gulp).  Oh well, I shall carry on with this project.