Author Archives: amysolovay

Craft Ideas for the Month of April

Happy April, crafty friends!


Are you interested in finding creative, fun, useful, unique, interesting and engaging craft ideas for the month of April?


Whether you enjoy needlecrafts, paper crafts, or some other sorts of crafts, you’ll find many possibilities for lovely things you could be creating. I’ve rounded up a bunch of project ideas and suggestions for April craft ideas you can use this month. If you have other suggestions to add to this list, I invite you to post a comment at the end letting me and the other readers here know about them.

April Holiday Crafts

Earth Day Crafts

Fabric Crochet Tote Bag: Free Crochet Pattern

Fabric Crochet Tote Bag: Free Crochet Pattern


Earth Day is coming up soon. This year, Earth Day will happen on Tuesday, April 22, 2025.


I have a huge list of recycled crafts and upcycled crafts you might want to check out if you’re interested in making crafting a part of your Earth Day (or everyday!) celebrations.


One possible idea is to upcycle old sheets or garments and transform them into useful projects like the fabric crochet tote bag pictured above. If you’d like to make a bag like this one for yourself, you’re welcome to use the free pattern posted here at this website. I also have bunches of other rag crochet patterns available for you to use.

See Also: How to Upcycle Clothes for Use in Quilts, Sewing Projects or Crochet Projects: 3 Methods

April Planner Crafts

April Garden Journal Pages

April Garden Journal Pages

If you maintain a physical planner, junk journal, scrapbook, or art journal, you might want to decorate your April calendar pages, journal pages or scrapbooking layouts with seasonal stamped images or embellishments. I invite you to check out the following pages for ideas:

Spring Craft Ideas

Get Your Spring Cleaning On! You Can Make Yourself a Puff Lace Crochet Dishcloth or Washcloth With This Free Crochet Pattern.

Get Your Spring Cleaning On! You Can Make Yourself a Puff Lace Crochet Dishcloth or Washcloth With This Free Crochet Pattern.


Spring has already sprung; the first day of spring this year was Thursday, March 20, 2025. I hope your spring got off to an enjoyable start.


Are you ready to get your spring cleaning on? If so, I offer you bunches of free patterns to use for making your cleaning supplies. Check out earth-friendly upcycled scrubbies HERE, and make yourself some irresistibly pretty spring dishcloths with these crochet dishcloth patterns.


The projects posted above are just a small sampling of the ideas posted on this website. I’ve put together a list of spring crafts that are seasonally appropriate for April crafting in many regions of the Western hemisphere. Of course, if the weather in your neighborhood is still wintery, please feel free to continue using this list of winter craft ideas instead.


For even more ideas, you’re invited to check out our main index of craft project ideas. Happy crafting!!

If you found this page helpful, I invite you to return to this site often for more craft tutorials, project ideas and inspiration! You can make sure you keep this site on your radar by signing up for my newsletter and community at Substack. .



Basic subscriptions are free; I send out regular newsletters to let my subscribers know about new craft articles and tutorials as they are posted. I also share details about the craft projects I’m working on, and invite my readers to share their projects, too. So there is no need to feel like it’s just you, crafting all alone at home. I’d love to have you join us! You’re invited!!

By Amy Solovay

Please Visit My Ko-Fi Shop HERE to Find My Sample Sale, Destash Sale and Digital PDF Pattern Downloads for Sale.

Please Visit My Ravelry Store HERE to Find Digital PDF Pattern Downloads for Sale.

About the Author:

Amy Solovay

Amy Solovay


Amy Solovay is a real, live, human content creator and educator who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics from Sweet Briar College; she has also earned a separate Associate of Arts degree in textile design from FIDM LA (The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, Los Angeles). She is NOT a robot and does not use artificial intelligence (AI) to write book reviews or articles for this website.


Amy learned to craft, and she still enjoys crafting techniques all these years later.


I'm excited about this book, Delicate Crochet by Sharon Hernes Silverman! I am super proud of the 2 patterns I contributed to this pattern collection. I hope you'll check out the fingerless gloves and the beaded necklace I designed for this book. Thanks for taking a look at them!

I’m excited about this book, Delicate Crochet by Sharon Hernes Silverman! ! I am super proud of the 2 patterns I contributed to this pattern collection. I hope you’ll check out the fingerless gloves and the beaded necklace I designed for this book. Thanks for taking a look at them!


As an educator, Amy Solovay used to teach in-person college courses in trend forecasting, marketing and surface design at California Design College in Los Angeles. Nowadays she uses online platforms for sharing her knowledge about textiles, crafts, current color trends and current design trends.

April Monthly Happy Planner Layout Featuring Graphic 45 Papers from the “Time to Flourish” Collection

Here’s a Low-Tech Idea for Creating Your Own Planner Layout for Discbound Planners Such as the Happy Planner, Maggie Holmes Freestyle Planner, Martha Stewart Planner, Arc Planner, Tul Planner, ETC. No Die Cutter Is Needed for Creating This Page Layout.

April Happy Planner Layout Featuring Graphic 45 Papers From the Time to Flourish Paper Pad

April Happy Planner Layout Featuring Graphic 45 Papers From the Time to Flourish Paper Pad

Hello crafty friends!


I originally made this April planner layout in 2022, but I still think it’s pretty and relevant in April of 2025. You can also feel free to use this idea for any month; it’s a totally versatile design.

I took what was supposed to be a daily planner page layout and hacked it to use for monthly tracking.


If you use a Happy Planner, and you want to make a page similar to this one for your own planning and tracking purposes, the logical spot to place it would be right before the tab for April, beside the April monthly overview page that comes stock with most dated Happy Planners.


I made pages like these for multiple months in 2022 and loved them, but found that they didn’t really work as intended for me. This is actually more a problem with Happy Planner’s overall setup than it is with the page itself. This is because I suffer from “Out of sight, out of mind” syndrome, and having this page before the month’s tab meant I forgot to use it. I would also forget to use them monthly overview page, too.


When I was actively using these pages, I found that they worked better if tracked the things I wanted to using weekly pages and then used this page at the end of the month to summarize. This was time consuming to do but gave me a really clear picture of how I did and what I needed to work on.


Although I love Happy Planner, I haven’t found a way to fix the things about it that aren’t working for me. So I’m trying out some different planners right now to see if I can find an option that will work even better for me than Happy Planner did. But if the Happy Planner layout generally works for you, please feel free to adapt this habit tracker layout for your own planner.

Craft Supplies You’ll Need for Making This Planner Layout

  • Graphic 45 Time to Flourish 8×8 Pad — For this particular planner layout, I used the papers for the month of April. The papers in this pad follow the same basic format, so you can make a similar planner layout for any month of the year using the current month’s patterned papers from the Time to Flourish pad.
  • The tracker stamps are from the P13 Tracker Stamp Set.
  • I stamped “2022” using number stamps by Hampton Arts, but you can use any number stamps you happen to have stashed.
  • Page from the classic sized Papillon undated planner or from the Papillon undated extension pack
  • The round sticker is from a Happy Planner sticker book.
  • I have my planner pages on gold metal expander discs, because I really hate the smaller plastic discs that most Happy Planners come with. I think the gold metal discs are a lot prettier, and they are also much sturdier.
  • You can use the paper-friendly adhesive of your choice to put this planner layout together. I used Cherry Tape adhesive, but there are zillions of possible choices that would work well for this project.
  • You’ll also need scissors and a paper cutter, but not a die cutter; you can easily cut everything you’ll need for this layout using either your scissors or a paper cutter.

Thanks for looking!

March Garden Journal Pages for Discbound Planners Like Happy Planner, Martha Stewart or Tul

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March Garden Journal Pages for Discbound Planners Like the Happy Planner, Martha Stewart Planner, Arc or Tul

March Garden Journal Pages for Discbound Planners Like the Happy Planner, Martha Stewart Planner, Arc or Tul


By Amy Solovay

Happy March, Creative Friends!


Are you planting a garden this spring? If so, what are you planning to plant, and how are you preparing your property for the growing season? Are you starting your own seeds or relying on a nursery to supply starts?


To those of you who are busy gardening this spring, I wish you much success this growing season with whatever it is you have planned. I’m hoping to join in the gardening fun with a modest container garden this year.


Do you plan to maintain a garden journal for recording your gardening successes and failures? If you haven’t created a garden journal, now is the ideal time to get one started. You might want to map out any garden beds you’re building, make a note of the seeds you’re starting, and keep records of what you’re planting, when you’re planting it, and all the other details you want to keep on top of.


I’m gardening in a new-to-me location this year. However, this location’s weather and climate are similar to a place where I’ve gardened before. I kept a garden journal in those days. So, instead of spending hours plotting out companion plants for my planters, I’m simply going to re-use the ideas I worked out last time I was container gardening in that similar locale. That way, I feel as if I already have a head start on what I need to do.

I also have bunches of notes about what NOT to do, because I already tried things that ended up not working. Mind you, I don’t remember any of them because it has been a few years since I did any gardening of any kind. But I don’t need to remember; I took such careful notes that I can just follow them and pick up right where I left off.


If garden journaling is of interest to you, I invite you to check out more of my garden journal pages and read more about my process for making them.


If you maintain a garden journal, I’d love to know more about what you record in it and how it has helped you achieve your gardening goals. What do your garden journal pages look like? The floor is open for comments, so please feel free to ask questions or share insights in the comments area below.


Thanks so much for visiting! I truly appreciate your presence here.


By Amy Solovay


About the Author: Amy Solovay is a longtime paper journaler who started recording her thoughts on paper on a daily basis sometime when she was in middle school. She was born into a family of “green thumb” gardeners; her mom worked for the US Department of Agriculture, and her grandparents grew most of their own food on their expansive farm. Despite those experiences, Amy still has a lot to learn about gardening. She invites your comments on any topics related to gardening, journaling, garden journaling, knitting, crochet or crafts.

This page was last updated on 3-12-2024.

Embellished Crochet Heart Shape for Making a Love Note Keeper

Free Crochet Heart Pouch Pattern

Free Crochet Heart Pouch Pattern

Update 2-15-2024: I originally shared this blog post on February 24, 2010. I hadn’t thought about it in years, but I am thinking about it today because I just received some new Valentines that need a “home”. I thought I’d bump up this post and remind y’all about this pattern in case it would be useful for you to make some of these for storing your own Valentines this year.

Valentine’s Day was fun, and I enjoyed receiving letters, cards and notes from my loved ones. Now that February is drawing to a close, it’s time for me to figure out what to do with all these treasures — they’ve been proudly displayed on my fridge, but I can’t keep them there indefinitely.

Enter the “love note keeper.”

I’ve been working on some ideas for making love note keepers using decorated crocheted hearts. The plan is to stitch two hearts together, leaving an opening up one side for inserting the notes. I’ll be adding a button and button loop for a closure. The top heart will be decorated and embellished, and I might also add some sort of pretty strap for hanging.

I haven’t actually finished my love note keeper quite yet, because I got sort of distracted by all the possibilities for decorating it. I came up with so many ideas I like that I am thinking I might end up making several of them.

The photo you see above is just one idea; I’ve posted a couple more, and I have even more photos that haven’t been uploaded yet. So, please check back soon to see even more ideas!

Update: Love Note Keeper Completed!

A Crocheted Flower and Heart Design for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day to You! Here’s wishing you a lovely, romantic day filled with friends, fun, flowers, candy and beautiful moments.

Abstract Crocheted Flower Motif Embellished With a Heart Pin

Abstract Crocheted Flower Motif Embellished With a Heart Pin

If you’re hoping to welcome more flowers into your life this Valentine’s Day, you can crochet this pretty flower and then embellish it with a heart pinback. The pinback is a quick way to add detail and visual interest to a flower or other crochet project without going to a lot of additional effort.

I’ve shared several more ideas for decorating crocheted flowers with pinbacks. I hope they’ll inspire you! Be sure to grab the free flower pattern too.

Check Out More Valentine-Friendly Crochet Patterns: