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:

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!

Twitter Inspired Fabric

I was looking around on fabric.com for some fabric to use on a future project and I came across this

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How cute, I don't know what I would use this for but I thought it was too cute not to post about. When I first saw it I thought it was funny, then I wondered was at an actual twitter name. So I did the logical thing, went to twitter and checked it out. Greatest thing ever. Sew to Speak is a little fabric shop in Columbus, Ohio ran by a mother daughter duo. They also have a variety of different sewing classes. Looking around on their website, I now want to take a trip to Ohio just to go to their highly adorable shop and stay long enough to take a few classes. head on over to their website here or check out their blog here

don't forget to check out their twitter @sewtospeak

while your there you can check out mine @LkyStrCreations

(shameless plug I know, but I couldn't resist)

and if you are in the market for some fabric for a project (or to stock your stash, I wont tell) The Raw Feed has some awesome coupons for fabric.com as well as coupons for many other retailers.