DIY burlap ruffled tree skirt

Slightly off season, but I was going through some old photos and remembered I never posted about our new tree skirt!  I have been wanting to make a ruffled burlap skirt for some time now... and my lovely dogs gave me a reason to go ahead and do so after they chewed a hole in our other tree skirt.

Bummer about the old skirt, but I may make some adjustments to it so it's good as new (they chewed the edges and last time I sewed it up it had a couple "scallops" to it)

Anyways, I started by cutting the largest circle I could with a base layer of white cotton fabric.

DIY tree skirt

Then I cut my burlap into long strips (I believe I had 2-2.5 yards of burlap)  I was SO excited about the burlap, because it had some metallic gold colored threads mixed in with it.

DIY tree skirt

Then I pinned the strips of burlap onto the cotton fabric and sewed each row on to form the ruffled look.  Of course the cat had to "help".  (he had to leave the room when I was using pins)

DIY tree skirt

I used the selvage edge of the burlap for the outer most layer of ruffles and thought it added a cute, slightly different border.

Burlap ruffled tree skirt

After repeating row, after row, after row of placing burlap and stitching it on, the tree skirt was complete!  I really like how it turned out (and the animals do too... they love to lay on it).  If I were to make another one, I would make it larger, by stitching panels of cotton together for the base layer rather than just using the size of the fabric from the bolt.

Also, due to the nature of burlap, it does fray a lot, and with 3 animals that love to roll around under the tree, I don't think this tree skirt will last very long...  I'll probably make a more durable skirt to rotate with this one in the future.

Sea themed Fabric book! (pg 3 & 4)

Check out last weeks post to see page 1 & 2 of this fabric texture book! (and pages 5 & 6 of the cloth book!)

 

 **update: pages 7 & 8 of the book & pages 9 & 10 of the fabric book here**

 

 

Page 3 - Turtle

 

The turtles shell fabric was cut from a scrap of fabric that I made a baby blanket out of for my niece.  The ric-rac is leftover from a quiet book page

 

The turtle was attached to the page with iron on adhesive, and the ric-rac is sewn on. 

fabric texture book - turtle

 

Page 4 - Oyster

This orange & white material was leftover from a tank top type shirt that I made back in college.  The pearl is a layer of pearly white puffy paint, and then a layer of sparkly puffy paint, to give a slightly different texture.

 

The oyster shell & eyes were attached with iron on adhesive.

fabric texture book - oyster

 

Come back next week to see pages 5 & 6!

Sea themed Fabric book! (pg 1 & 2)

Do you have a bunch of little pieces of fabric from old projects that are too big to throw out, but too little to do much with?  Yeah, that big ol' scrap fabric stash that you know you'd have use for in the future...  Well here's a great scrap busting project!  It's so much fun reminiscing on the projects all your scraps are from too :)

 

I made a sea themed fabric texture book for my sweet little niece, and will be sharing 2 pages at a time for the next couple of weeks, so be sure to stop on by again in the next weeks to check it out!

 

I made the cover from fabric leftover from a cut chenille blanket.  The main pages are also made from leftover fabric from that blanket - all the layers of flannel!  Basically the size of the book was determined by the size of those scraps.  I left the edges raw to add more texture.

 

Fabric texture book

 

I've also been super into making Quiet Book pages, so I have tons of pieces of ric-rac, which I thought would add a little pizazz

Page 1: Whale

 

I cut out the shapes of the whale and used iron on adhesive to attach it to the flannel.  The netting is just sewn on in a few places to secure it.

 

The light blue fabric was from this dress that oops... I never finished!  All the pieces are cut...

Oh and that dark blue fabric sure looks familiar.... from Hubby's Prince William Halloween costume

The blue netting was leftover from fixing up an old butterfly net that had holes in it & also made a tutu with I believe (apparently I'm more behind on blogging than I realized!)

Fabric book - whale page

 

I wrote the words and did accents with puffy paint, thinking the texture would be cool.  But, I'm not so crazy about how the lettering came out & next time would use stencils.

 

 

Page 2 - Jellyfish

 

I used iron on adhesive for the purple part of the jellyfish and the eyes.  I stitched a line at the bottom of the purple fabric for added security that the ribbons would stay in place.

fabric book - jellyfish page

 

The purple fabric was leftover from a pair of pajama pants I made on my travel sewing machine while in college (many years ago)!  One day I'll post about that too... it was kind of funny :) 

 

The ribbon sewn on the bottom of the jelly fish was ribbon used for favors at my wedding!

 

**Pages 3 & 4 of this cloth book**
**Pages 5 & 6 of this cloth book**
**Pages 7 & 8 of the book here**
**Pages 9 & 10 of the fabric book **

Crocheted face scrubbies!

I am obsessed with face scrubbies now!  I absolutely hate it when you go to wash your face and the washcloth smells like mildew because it didn't dry out... after only one use. 

 

 

These little crocheted face scrubbies are the best thing ever.  They are about 3 inches in diameter, made from 100% cotton yarn.  They are super quick and easy to crochet, & take up less space than washcloths.  Plus, when you wash these, no folding is required :)

 

Also, they only take about 5 minutes to make one, so it's a perfect little study break craft for me!

 

Old towel = New heating pad

I got some cute scrub tops on sale this weekend, but have yet to sew the tops that I bought fabric for.  Today I cut a pattern (based on a top that fits me well) and fabric for one top.  Here's hoping it goes together nicely :)

 

The weekend went quick, but I did fit a little sewing in... making a rice heating pad for my Mom.  My Grandma has hers right now, and I just thought it'd be crazy to run to the store to buy another one... when they're really easy to make (and MUCH cheaper to DIY).

 

I folded an old hand towel in half lengthwise and stitched it into a tube.  I then added handles on each side, leaving a small opening on one end to add rice into the newly formed pouch.

 

 

 

After the rice was added, I stitched up the hole.  That was that!  I think it turned out kind of cute, especially for recycling old household items :)

 

Started another knitting project since I bought MORE yarn this weekend, lol.

 

Simple, inexpensive DIY key rack

10% off in my ETSY store for a limited time!  Coupon code:  HappyFall

 

We've needed a key rack for a LONG time now.  I just wanted something very simple and plain but never found what I was looking for in the stores (at least not for a reasonable price).

 

After losing my keys for the 1000th time the other day, it was time to head to the hardware store!

 

 

We bought an unfinished strip of wood (it was 2" wide 36" long and 1" thick?) they had several dimensions to choose from.

 

DIY Key Rack in 7 steps:

1) Cut wood to desired length (ours is hanging below an 8X10 picture frame... so we made it the same width of the base of the frame)

 

2) Decide how many hooks you need, and mark their spacing on the wood

 

3) Drill holes (smaller than the screw on the hooks) where you marked your hook locations

 

4)  Sand the edges of the wood

 

5)  Stain the wood & let thoroughly dry

 

6) Add wall mounts (I just drilled 2 holes at an angle in the back of the wood)

 

7) Add hooks on front & hang on the wall!

 

 

The hardest part??  FINDING my keys... to put on the rack :)  hahaha.  Haven't lost them since though!

 

 

SIDE NOTE:  Price out the hooks when bought individually, or in a variety pack!  We saved about $6-8 by getting a variety pack of hooks (we did end up making a couple of key racks) rather than buying the hooks in smaller packs.  Now we have extra too for future projects!  

Also, we used squared off hooks rather than the classic rounded hook for a slightly different look.

Refashioned t-shirt (REVERSIBLE & multi-look)

Hubby & I just went through our house and got rid of TONS of old clothes and other stuff.  Knowing my love for refashioning t-shirts, Hubby pulled a handful of old t's aside for me :)

I think this shirt turned out kind of fun, because it is REVERSIBLE and since it has a ribbon for straps, it can be tied several different ways, giving slightly different looks.

Here's the BEFORE:

The shirt was a bit roomy for me to say the least.  Oh, and I'm not sure I should admit this... but there were holes torn in the armpits of it (that probably explains my slightly creeped out face in this picture).

Anyways, here's how I refashioned this shirt:

1) Lay the shirt flat, and place a shirt that fits you well on top of it.  

2) Using the shirt that fits as a guide, cut the t-shirt (that's being refashioned) width to size. 

*Remember to add enough room for seam allowances*

*If the guide shirt has more or less stretch than the shirt you're refashioning, add/reduce your measurements as well*

3) Cut notches for armholes

4) On one side of the shirt (doesn't matter if it's the front or back piece, since it's reversible) cut a v neck (leaving 3-4 inches for each shoulder)

5) If you want to get rid of the logo  sew the pieces opposite of normal (making the previous "right side" of the fabric the new "wrong side"  the logo should be on the inside of the shirt in the end)

6) Turn the fabric at the armhole under and stitch a seam (remember, to make sure you're sewing on the proper side of the fabric if you're hiding a logo)

7) Repeat step 6 with the "v" shape cut out of one piece

8) Sew sides of shirt together, under the arm holes

9) Sew casings on the top edges of each piece (the straight top edge on the uncut side, and each of the 2 shoulder pieces on the side with the v cut)

10) Thread a long ribbon through the casings and tie it together.  There are tons of ways to thread and tie the straps, here are just a few examples:

Straight front with ribbon threaded twice

Straight front with ribbon threaded once

V-neck in front with bows tied on each shoulder

V-neck in front with ribbon threaded across and tied on one side

V cut out in back with simple bow

V cut out in back with ribbon threaded through and tied in front

Straight back with ribbon tied in front

There are lots of other ways to wear the shirt, or instead of ribbon it can have a more nautical look if you tie thin rope as the straps.

DIY canvas wall art

Don't forget to enter the MyMemories Suite digital scrap booking software GIVEAWAY by Tuesday June 19th 11:59pm central time!

After painting tons of walls and shuffling decor in our house lately, it was time for some new wall art.  I didn't want anything fancy and didn't want to spend much.  So, hubby hesitantly went along with my idea to paint something for the wall.

I was totally into the idea of a bold color with a silhouette of something, and since we were in the middle of taking SCUBA classes at the time I had sharks on my mind.  Here's what came of my super inexpensive DIY canvas art project.

To be honest, I loved the look when I finished painting it... but after its been on the wall for awhile I'm thinking about painting something else :)  Decisions, decisions, lol.


Here's how I transferred my design onto the canvas:

1) Paint the background color on the canvas (on all 3)

 2)  Draw your image on paper (Since my middle canvas was placed vertical and the outer 2 were smaller, and horizontal, I taped computer paper together in that fashion)

3) Cut out your design and determine which parts of it will be on each canvas

4) Trace it on the canvas (I used a pencil) and paint the inside of the image black (take care to make sure that the image lines up from canvas to canvas)

After hanging this on the wall the image didn't line up just right between pieces.  Instead of pounding more nails in the wall, I just got out the black paint and made some adjustments :)

I actually enlarged the drawing I made when transferring it to the canvas, so it looks a little different than the original paper cutout.

Organizing sewing room - AFTER!!

I've been in a mega "home organization" mode for the past few months, and it finally came time to re-organize my cluttered sewing room (check out my BEFORE post).  It's been in order now for over a week (I had problems with my camera, hence my super delayed "after" post) and I have to say I LOVE IT.

This post is wordy.  If you're not interested in the details and reasons behind my organization methods, ignore the writing and just look at the pictures :) 

Short story long... Shortly after I moved into my new home, I posted this post showing how I organized my sewing things.  It worked alright, keeping fabric scraps on the top shelf, and full pieces of fabric and patterns on the bottom shelf of an armoire. 

But, I needed to give that armoire the boot when I got my new sewing/embroidery machines so they could be left out all the time.  So then all my fabrics were separated by type in clear plastic tubs... which then turned into a gigantic opaque tub... which quickly turned into complete chaos. 


Anyways, here are the before and after pictures of my current sewing room storage area:

The logic of this (the before) layout... all the full fabric was stored on the shelves, and the scraps were in the tub on the bottom right of the picture.

The tub of scraps was just NOT working... it was too deep so any order to the fabric was quickly lost whenever a piece from a lower layer was extracted.  Plus it was easy to forget what was inside of this.

 Now here come AFTER pictures and explanations. 

There are tons of ways to store sewing patterns and everyone has a little different method that works best for them. 

You've probably seen it before, because I think it's fairly common, but I take my patterns out of their original envelopes and put them in large clasped envelopes.  Each gets its own large envelope, which is labeled with the company, pattern number, size, style, and any other useful descriptors (just be sure to put the labels in the same order and location on the envelopes and in a place that's easy to see while flipping through them quickly).  Storing patterns in bigger envelopes works well because once you use a pattern, they just never seem to fit back into the original sleeve!

Next, to easily see what patterns you have, I take the original pattern envelopes and put them in clear page protectors which are then organized in a binder.  My binder is organized by style of pattern (ie tops, skirts, dresses, etc.) but there are lots of other great ways that also work.

I store my newly made pattern envelopes in clear plastic tubs, and separate them by pattern company.  Within each company, I order them numerically.  And, of course, I use my trusty label maker to label the outside of the tubs showing which pattern company is inside each tub.

Above you can see my solution for stray ribbon rolls.  I removed the clothes hanging pole from this part of the closet and put a thinner dowel in its place.  Then I strung the ribbon spools onto it and secured the cut ends of ribbon on each roll with tape (so they don't all unroll onto the floor!).

Below is my favorite part, the 9 cubby shelf Hubby assembled for me.  It works perfectly for my fabric collection.  The right hand column of the unit currently holds all my scraps, separated by size and type, I love that they are all visible.

The other cubbies are full pieces of fabric, sorted by color.  Except for the top center cubby, which is dedicated to items for embroidering.

I used plastic shoe box containers to keep my sewing accessories in order and stacked them on top of the shelf.  I have boxes for things like zippers, Velcro, and enclosures.  Plus boxes for felt, scraps from curtains and other home decor, interfacing, and my favorite: a box for my current sewing project.  It keeps all the little pieces in order (extra thread, zipper, buttons, etc.) and all in one place if you have to put the project on hold for awhile.

To keep my sewing machine manuals and books in order I set a plastic magazine holder on the top left of the shelf too. 

Now that I can see and find things, I'm excited to sew some more clothes!

Whew, that was a long post.  If you have other helpful ideas for sewing room organization, let me know :)

DIY pom pom luggage id

We're heading on a trip soon, and I have been procrastinating on packing, big time.  I haven't put much inside the bag, but I have been making pom poms to identify my luggage from the outside!   (the muted toned yarn I have on the suitcase handles needed an upgrade)

Here's a simple DIY tutorial for making luggage pom poms

Supplies:  scissors, thin ribbon, fabric (I used stretchy scraps from a swimsuit I made in the past)



1) Cut long strips of fabric (about 1/2" wide)

2)  Decide how long you want the pom pom strings to be on one side.  Double that width.  Find something of that width to wrap your long strips of fabric around, over and over (see below)

3) Tie a ribbon tightly into a knot around the center of your fabric bundle (in my pic above, the knot went between my ring and middle fingers.  *Leave a long tail of the ribbon so it can later be attached to your bag*

4) Cut the loops (see below)

5) For extra security that the strips of fabric won't loosen and fall out, take 1 strand from each side of the ribbon knot and tie them together.  *Repeat* with all strands, this secures the ball, and fluffs it out better.

Cases for glasses in 4 steps!

Things have been a bit crazy around here, but I finally got a project done that has been bugging me for awhile.  Making cases for our 3D glasses.

I love the basket they're in (it held tissues in handmade cases at our wedding) but storing them this way makes them more susceptible to scratches and fingerprints.

To protect these babies, I made glasses sleeves for each pair.  Super simple, and quick.

4 simple steps to make cases for glasses

1) Size up the glasses & cut 2 rectangles (leaving a seam allowance)

Make sure you cut enough fabric for each pair of glasses!

2) Fold the top (short edge) under and stitch, to form a nice finished edge.  Do this to both pieces before sewing the rectangles together.  * I used decorative stitches to do this, so the cases look a little different *

3) Sew the fabric together (right sides together) by sewing the 3 remaining edges (leaving the top part open)

4) Trim seams, flip right side out, and repeat for all additional glasses cases

I used snaps to keep the glasses from sliding out of their cases, which is optional.

Some of the cases are in zebra print, that's to tell the 2D glasses from the 3D sets.  (the 2D glasses convert a 3D movie back into the regular style, so those who don't do 3D can still enjoy watching.  The 2D glasses were easy to make and way cheaper than buying pre-made)

I may need to make some more of these... my sunglasses sure taking a beating in my purse next to keys and spare change.

3 step Christmas centerpiece

Here's a quick, easy and cheap Christmas centerpiece idea.  Chances are you already have everything you need to make this!

Supplies:
Candle (in a jar) - Mine is evergreen scented
Flat bottomed tray (or bowl with a large flat portion in the center)
Christmas ornaments
Gift wrapping ribbon

I ended up buying a new black tray for my centerpiece.  It was only a few bucks at Hobby Lobby, in the party section.


Directions:

1) Set your candle jar on the center of the tray and make sure it is stable.

 2) Add a few ornaments around the base of the candle jar (I used a package of 6 red glitter ornaments from my collection)

3) Cut long strips of wrapping paper ribbon and drape them over the ornaments.  I didn't curl the ribbons, they had a natural "large curl" just from coming off of the roll.

Halloween 2011 - William & Kate costumes COMPLETE!

Here are some pics of our William and Kate Halloween costumes!



William & Kate Royal Wedding Halloween costumes



Kate Middleton Wedding gown Halloween costume



Ideally I would have had the lace closer together at the buttons but I ran out of time (and trying to fit this on myself would have taken forever), since it's only a Halloween costume, I was OK with leaving this as is.

Check out these posts to see how I made the satin and lace parts of the bodice, the skirt, and how it was sewn together.

I also have a list of key accessories for the costume as well as tutorials on making the bouquet and petticoat.



Prince William Wedding day Halloween costume

Check out this post for details on the pattern I used to make the Prince William costume. (I didn't have time to make the black pants I cut out) You can also see how I sewed the top and bottom part of the coat as well as the details on the sleeves. Later, I sewed some patches onto the uniform and made a sash. Hubby helped make the belt.

Since I messed up my sewing machine before finishing our costumes, there are a few details I didn't get around to adding to the costumes. If we wear them again I'll add them, if not, oh well!

Halloween 2011 - Royal Wedding - Uniform details

Only 1 day left until I need these costumes done!! (Wow, I thought I had more time) Of course I somehow messed up my sewing machines tension and am not sure if I can fix it or not, ugh.

To check out the progress of our William and Kate costumes, click on the "William and Kate" label on the side of my blog.

Anyways, on to the details of Hubby's Prince William costume.

I searched everywhere for little gold buttons that would work for the coat front and sleeves. Unfortunately, I needed around 20 matching buttons and could only find 12 or so. So, I ended up buying some silver buttons in the same style and painting them with metallic gold paint.

To make the details on the sleeves of his uniform, I cut out felt (in the shape below) and added white piping.


Next, I hand sewed black and white cording onto the felt in the pattern shown below.

But wait, the details are supposed to be black and yellow (I couldn't find yellow cording at the store) So, out came my favorite art supplies: the puffy paint. I used a paint brush to carefully paint all of the white cording yellow.

Then, I added some of the buttons that I painted gold. Now it's ready to go onto the costume!

I really hope I can get my machine up and running again. I'm not the quickest at hand sewing...