Birthday Boy Ribbon (Tutorial)

This post has been a while in the making. I kept sitting down to do it but I’ve been so busy with VBS at our church. Now that things have settled down I’m excited to show this little craft that brought much joy to my little one.

This year we didn’t do much for his 4th but I wanted him to have something special to wear so I made this. It’s a very easy craft but he was extremely excited about it and was happy to tell everybody that I made it.

What you need:

• Button
• Fabric scraps for center
• Fabric scraps for  ruffle
• Embroidery floss, hoop, and needle
• Mod Podge
• Hot glue gun
• Sewing Machine (Optional)

First I Traced the button on my center fabric. I used a pencil but an disappearing ink pen may work better for this. Then I wrote own my letters so I would have a guide to stitch over.

I backstitched over the letters in blue, came out pretty nice as my first time embroidering. You may remembered my review of the book Doodle Stitching where I told you I was going to try it. Yes, I waited this long to try.

I painted my button with white paint because you could see the image through the white fabric, but you may not need to.

I used pinking sheers to cut out my circle just big enough to cover the button in the back. You can see where I tried to erase the lines, which is why I said disappearing ink would work better. Then I just Mod Podged it to the back of my button.

This is the part where you make the ruffle edging. I first want to give credit where credit is due. I learned to do ruffles from a “Make it and Love it” tute found here.
Using a strip of fabric that is 1.5 by 13 with the long size against the fold. Make the strip longer if your button is bigger or if you want a larger ruffle effect.

Use the Make it and Love it method of making a ruffle or you can even hand sew a running stitch since its such a small piece. But I use any excuse to use my machine. then sew the two ends together to form the medallion.






ignore the fabric scraps in the pic. I had some trial and error with the size.
To finish I hot glued the ruffle medallion to the back of my button opening it some to go around the pin part. Then to give it a finished look I hot glued a felt circle to the back, cutting a slot to fit the clasp and just sticking the pin through on the other side.

See, Told-ya it was easy! I just love last minute project ideas that come out nicely (that doesn’t always happen)


Linking Up:

Happy Birthday!

...to me!

Yesterday was my 23rd birthday. It was a good day despite the rain that comes every year. We went to church and after a friend cooked us dinner that was delish. Spent some wonderful time with the hubs. It was a good day. My favorite part was when I came home and ate my microwave birthday cake. I first found the idea on pinterest. You can find it here.

Instead of a mug I used a little 2 cup Pyrex dish so I changed the portions to 4 tablespoons of mix to 3 tablespoons of water. I also got the Pillsbury icing in a can so I can keep it on the shelf with the cake mix.

This came out perfect. In only a minute I had a nice single serve cake. I thought it would lack the strawberry flavor since its mixed with the angel food mix but it didn't. I let it cool done before adding icing but still ate it warm.

I have to say this will be my new guilty pleasure since it makes a lot of mix to have on hand. Perfect for late night cravings!

If you try it in any other flavor leave a comment telling me how it was, would love to hear it.

Picture Frame Pin Cushion

I first want to say I am posting this using my new blogger app for iPhone so I have no clue how this is going to look when published but I thought it would be fun to use. It's like sending a text to the blogging world lol. Now on to my project.

This was one of those spur of the moment projects that was done last minute so no tutorial. But it's so easy it really doesn't need one.

I usually keep my pins on a teeny little box that came with one of those starter sewing kits and always said to myself I need to make a pin cushion and never did. When I knocked over the little box on the floor when my daughter was playing across the room I saw it as a hazard and stopped what I was doing and made this little cutie.

All you need us a small frame, some scrap fabric, hot glue, and a little bit of stuffing. For my stuffing I dissected an old cheap stuffed animal of my sons that had a hole in it. Don't worry. It was a cheap one out of the claw machine from Walmart. Not much if a loss and he didn't even know.

Take out the glass of the frame because you don't need it.

Cut your fabric scrap a little bigger than the inside space in the back

Hot glue your corners down first. Then as even as possible glue in the rest

Add the stuffing in and replace back.

Yeah, it's that easy. I finished two in about 10 minutes. Now I don't have to worry about spilled pins on the floor AND I have some added color to my craft table.

Flossed Out Earbuds

For Valentine's day this year my hubby was the greatest and I got an iPhone. YAY! I Instantly wanted to try two things that I saw on pinterest. First being embroidery floss/yarn wrapped headphones. The second was scrapbook paper inserts for a clear iPhone case.

pic taken with my phone, sorry about quality

I used the tute found here, but used embroidery thread that I already had instead of sock weight yarn. I really liked how it turned out, and I love that there are no more tangles, I HATE reaching in my purse for headphones that are imposable to untangle.

When I got to the button part I knotted above, then one below, then one above it again to have floss on all sides. I suggest buying the craft floss that does not split for this because I have an issue with splitting here

When I got to the split I just went back up the other way, and then for the bottom half started a new floss. It took about two spools of floss and came out pretty good.

I think the only thing I would have done again would be to have some self patterning floss for a bit of color change.


I also did the scrapbook paper thing but I'll post later on that when I have a pic to show you.

Baby's 1st Birthday Party

This weekend we celebrated Nana's first birthday. Boy does time fly! It seems just like yesterday I was bringing this teeny little creature home from the hospital. Now she's into everything chasing around her big brother.

I had originally pinned tons of fun little ideas with a pink cupcake theme, but reality set in and we did something very simple but I think it turned out really beautiful and I was so happy with the results.

This banner was done with simple paper plates and letters cut out of card stock. So simple yet pretty. (I did not notice that this was crooked until looking at this picture, maybe no one else did either).
The tissue paper pom poms were made using a Martha Stewart tutorial found here. I strung them to the ceiling with yarn from my stash and command hooks. I had everything on hand so I thought it would save on balloons.

 Close up of pom pom

Cupcake tower was from Michael's (wrapped in pink tulle), amazingly cute with pink polka dot cupcake wrappers. That was her little party hat I made to go with the rest of her outfit. If you look in the back at her highchair that matches too. It originally was a brown and teal, which nice, was an eyesore with the decor, so  safety pinned some extra fabric to the front and it matched.

Look at her! Tutu was made by me using the satin wrap tutorial found here. On this page she also has a few links on how to make the tutu itself. I Made her onesie applique using some fabric and Heat N Bond ultra hold. Cupcake clip art is from here. The number one and flame was using a regular font and a shape in Microsoft word. Here are some close up shots

Hat was made using a cereal box and a template found here. I added an inch to the bottom to make it a little taller, covered in fabric, added ribbon trim to hide seam, hot glued a tulle pom pom to the top. After I hot glued it to the headband, I also hot glued a felt circle to secure it on.

 Here she is with the hat on her head. It was a rare picture. She liked it, but only for short periods at a time.

In the end, it was a great day and I think she had fun. She was wore out by the time everyone left and slept good that night.

Linked up at Made By You Monday

Printable Calender!

I told you guys in a previous post about my new half sized binder in an attempt to get organized. I love this thing. so easy to take with me and keep track of stuff and I am no longer looking a bunch of places for the notes that I took somewhere and I even keep my coupons in there.( I plan to get some business card holders to keep those organized better rather than just stuffing them in a pocket)

My only problem was that I wanted to add a monthly calender in there so I can keep track of all the important dates. Before I bought it I thought it would be easy to find a free printable online to use......its not.  There were all kinds, but to find exactly what I was looking for....something simple, includes basic holidays, and was a half sized sheet of paper....was hard. I found some nice ones but the problem was that I pre-cut and punched my paper and the printable were to print first, and then cut the paper after, and I couldn't print front to back. I know, I'm picky, but when I want something, I want it.

Today after another search, I sucked it up and made one myself. I couldn't figure out how to do the automatic formula thing so I typed each date in, no biggie. But since I spent all that time working on it I figured there has to be someone else who might need this so I wanted to offer it to you guys

download the half sized (5.5 x 8.5), 2-page per month, 2012 calender. here (PDF)

I wanted to save it as a word file for you guys to edit with your important dates. BUT every time I uploaded it to something it distorted my file. If you need to edit file leave your e-mail in a comment and I will get it to you as soon as I can.

If link does not work please let me know. I'm new to this whole making download able files thing. If you have any other question please feel free to ask and I will help.

My New Friend

I know, I did it again. I stopped blogging. BUT I have a good reason. I have been working on the logo and branding for my husbands photography business which has taken up all my internet time. I am so excited about it! I can't wait until the big reveal to show you guys.

Yesterday was the first day that I really sat down and brought all the ideas in my head to life. It was amazing and so much fun, and doing so I have made a new friend. Photoshop! I remember using it as a freshman in high school when taking a graphic imaging class, but because I never kept up with it I had never used it since, until yesterday.

I'm a learn as you go type of girl so YouTube an Google have been a big help. I'm excited to use my newly found skill in something crafty for myself that I can actually show you guys. Maybe after i finish all of this I'll think of something.

So until later,
happy crafting!

Sparkle Clutch

I follow some really awesome blogs but its nice that I have a couple from people I actually know. Stephanie is someone I went to high school with and is an amazing photographer. Seriously, I would really like to do a family / couple session with her, she has a good eye. She also has a blog called My Sketchbook where she features her wonderful work. Recently she posted about this adorable sparkle clutch that she made. Isn't it darling?

The best thing about it is, she offers a well illustrated tutorial so you can make your own! So what are you waiting for? You know you want to make one so get the tute here. Oh, and while you are there, check out the rest of her blog and follow it because I'm sure there are more great and creative things to come. You don't want to miss out.

Gettin' A Little Organized

I've been MIA for a little while, sorry. My 2012 promise to myself was to blog more and have more projects (I figure, if I don't call it a resolution it will get done haha). I have a couple of things to post a bout and I'm working on a crochet project I am very excited about that I hope to have done soon.

Going through my daily news feed everybody is getting organized for 2012, I'm hoping to hop on that bandwagon too. I have already started with a new way to get rid of my many notebooks of randomness where I write down creative ideas and such. I had a few spiral notebooks where I wrote down stuff, nothing was in order, there were notes on random pages and I had to flip through everything and each book if I needed to locate something. The sad thing is, I never realized it was a problem until I was looking for a sewing pattern that I had wrote down a few months back to make more flags for church.

The first idea I had to this problem was to go to staples and get the ARC system notebooks. I LOVE this system. The paper is nice and thick, you can remove it and place it back, there are lots of accessories such as dividers and folders and pockets. I liked that if I wrote something on the first available page (like I always do) I can move it to where it belongs and stay ORGANIZED. But alas, it was out of my budget. There was no actual blank paper (just graph paper) so I would need the 30 dollar punch to insert my own.

So what did I get instead? A simple binder! I know right, why didn't I think of that first. I got the half letter sized (5.5 x 8.5), some filler paper and folder dividers all from Staples. The binder was like 7 bucks and both the paper and the folders for a few dollars each. I've only had it for a few days and I love it. Everything has its own place. I have a section for my crochet and my sewing. I printed out some PDF patterns to size and rigged my regular 3 hole punch to size also. It fits in my bag with my yarn (and my new yarn holder I will tell you about later) and other purse stuff nicely. I really like this size, I think I want to buy binders in this size for everything.

It does look a little plain. I hate the "pretty paper" in the front look, so I'm thinking of sewing up a binder cover for it. Maybe a tute to come in the near future too?

Painted Wine Glasses

Finishing up with my Christmas posts, I wanted to show you guys the wine glass I painted for my cousin, BUT I forgot to take a pic. I know, blogger fail. Although I don't have a pic of hers I do have a pic of the one I painted for myself as a test run.

To make this I used a contact paper stencil that I cut with my x-acto knife an painted the stars with Folkart Enamels paint in a silver. For the one I made for my cousin I put a J on the front for her initial, and sponged the bottom of the glass for a fun detail.

Crochet - One Skein Wrap

First off I wanted to say HAPPY NEW YEAR!! So excited for 2012 it's going to be great

Moving on with my "what everybody got for christmas series". I made my aunt this beautiful crochet shawl. The pattern for it I got from the Caron International Yarns website, you can get it here. This wrap only takes one pound of yarn, with a little to spare. I made my wrap a little longer, and left off the frindge and still had a decent amount left over to do something else with.

Sorry about the pic, I forgot to take one, the "Christmas Day" pic was the only one I had.

I don't know if this makes a difference though but I used Lion Brand's Pound of Love because that was all they had at Wal-Mart at the time.

My picture really does not show the drape well so here is the picture from the pattern to give you the idea

Win A Silhouette Cameo!

I just wanted to take a quick second to tell you the amazing thing that is going on today.
Little Miss Momma is giving away a Silhouette Cameo!!! I'm super excited. Those of you who are my facebook friend can tell because I have been entering giveaway's all morning. Go over there and check it out, There are also some more giveaways, check my blog roll to enter more.

Craft Clay Ornaments

Keeping with my "what everybody got for Christmas" series of posts, this next one was also for my husband but from the kids. We made craft clay ornaments and I had the little one paint them for his daddy. I even painted one myself with baby girl's hand print, as a baby's first christmas kind of thing. Sorry I don't have any pictures of him working with the dough cutting out the ornaments. We were having so much fun I totally forgot to take pictures.

Normally I like to use salt dough, but I wanted to try something different and actually make something that I have pinned on pinterest. So I used this Easy Craft Clay recipe I had found. You use baking soda and corn starch (that's where your box of  baking soda went honey haha) and cook it on the stove, which was really cool to watch. It also comes out a bright white color which was nice.

Noah LOVED playing  with the dough, he rolled it and smashed it, after we cut out all the ornaments we needed (using a glass, and a straw for the hole) he played with the left over dough for a few hours, it took forever to get him to stop.

One thing I did not like was that the bigger ones we made cracked. You were supposed to let this air dry, which takes a few days, and over those days the craking starts. I would have much rather used a salt dough next time and baked it so that it came out right. But who knows, it could have been something I had done wrong. If you try it let me know how it turns out.

It took a while to get nana's handprint right, the internet makes it seem easy, but it's not, she did not like it. I even tried her foot, which i realized was too big to actually hang. When I first painted it, it didn't look christmas enough, so I added glitter with Mod Podge. I recommend if you do, add Mod Podge to top to seal it in. I just added the words with a fine tip sharpie.

He also had fun painting them, I was a little nervous about letting him use my acrylic paints because I never painted with him before but he was very good and we both had a blast. I tried to coax him into using more christmas colors,  but then I figured he was having fun let him do what he wants. But next time I think I may draw designs on a few for him to work on painting in the lines.

Stenciled Apron

Hope everybody had a wonderful Holiday. I know that I did! Christmas being over always makes me a little sad because I love it so much, but I am excited I get to share with you all the fun projects I made as gifts this year.

This first one was for my husband. A stenciled apron I made using freezer paper. Now this was my first time using freezer paper stencils and I am VERY happy with the results and have to use this technique more.

The technique is pretty easy and doesn't really need a tutorial but for the newbies to this I'll just tell you how I did it. First thing I did was cut my paper to 8 1/2 X 11  and printed off my design (on the matte side). After I had already printed it out, I had the idea to next time just set the font to an outline to save computer ink.

I taped my paper to the back of my cutting mat and cut the shapes out with an x-acto knife. Clumsy / accident prone people shouldn't have sharp objects, so the whole time I kept saying to myself go slowly and carefully. Once my hand started to get a little shaky I stopped and finished again later.

Once all cut out place on your fabric (don't forget to put the little pieces back inside, like in the D and the A) shiny side down. Iron down the paper with your iron setting to a medium to high setting. DO NOT over iron! After it sticks and looks good, stop. I think I started to over iron a bit and it started to picker up and not stick anymore in some places. Once attached take out our paint and paint away!

 Here it is all painted before I removed paper. Removing the paper is easy it just pulls right off any doesn't leave anything sticky. There were a few spots around the edges where it sort of bled through but that was where I over ironed, I think it adds character and over all I am happy how it turned out, and the hubs loved it!

Last Minute Gifts - Crochet Cowel

Today I wanted to show you one of my (very) last minute Christmas gifts that I made. Last Thursday my husband comes home and asks me to make something for his supervisor at work to give to her tomorrow. Freaking out on what to make with only having one skein of yarn and only a few hours I browsed raverly on a good and quick pattern. This cowl is super cute and only took about 5 hours of continuous work to complete ( I went to bed about 2am that night). I was super exhausted when I was done but was so proud I had created something so cute in such little time. You can find the pattern for this here and create one for yourself or as a last minute gift for someone else.

Lady A's Knits

Today I wanted to share with you a wonderful website called Lady A's Knits. This site is owned by my friend Andrea who makes WONDERFUL crochet scarves.

Everything is made by her from her original designs which are totally fab, and an even bigger plus is that each creation is a one of a kind so you will be the only one wearing it.

Here is just a sample of some of her creations

See that super cute dress on the mannequin.....it's made of wrapping paper....yeah, she's that amazing.

Check out her page now, place an order for a scarf or two (or a dozen). She also does custom work so she can supply all your warm and cozy crochet needs.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Today I thought I would share with you the hub's Christmas gift from last year. This adorable little crochet Christmas tree with matching tree skirt and even little yarn covered presents to put under.

This was such an easy project to do, it was my first "amigurumi" type project that wasn't a hat or a scarf, and although a very last minute idea (made on Christmas eve) I was very pleased with the outcome. Honestly it took only a couple hours for the tree itself, would have been shorter if I didn't have to keep pulling it out and starting over.

I found the pattern for it online, you can see it here, for my tree, however, I used a regular green worsted weight yarn (Lion Brand's Vanna's Choice) and the size hook it said on the label. Also I used some brown yarn and made a circle the same diameter as the bottom, stuffed, and sewed it on. This is stuffed with an old t-shirt because at the time its all I had, but I'm sure you would get a much fuller tree with some poly-fill.

For the skirt I just made a circle with a double crochet stitch until I liked the size,then added a scalloped edge. The yarn I used for this was Lion Brand's Homespun. I don't know if this is the correct way to do the edging, but the way I did it was: {single crochet in first double crochet, chain 4, skip next double crochet, single crochet in next}repeat around.

The boxes are just paper origami boxes. Here is the tute I used. I'm not quite sure how I made the smaller box, but it was made with paper also, after that I just used glue to wrap with yarn, used some yarn scraps to make a bow, and sat under the tree.

I have been wanting to make little ornaments to go on the tree, or at least a tree topper but I'm not quite sure how I wanted to make it. I felt that a topper should be made with yarn too, so if you have any ideas please leave them in a comment below ( I love stars, so if you know a pattern for a little 3D star that would be nice). I was thinking that for ornaments I would do pretty round beads on ear ring findings as bulbs, but I wasn't quite sure if it would look right since the tree "branches" are so close together. For right now, the simplistic look is just perfect.

I may make some garland from embroidery thread and beads.....when I ever find them in my boxes of stuff haha.