March 27, 2011
Spoonflower–a company that allows you to design, upload and print your own fabric–has a weekly design contest with a specific theme for people to design. I’ve always enjoyed following and voting for fabrics each week. I also toyed with the idea of trying some fabric designs myself. The SYTYC competition ended and I figured I was pretty much done with competitions for a bit.
Then I got an email saying Spoonflower teamed up with Michael Miller Fabrics to have a special design competition. It’s titled Project Selvage. To enter the contest people could design a fabric with a baby boy theme. So I decided to toss my hat into the ring and design boy fabric. It looks like I wasn’t the only one trying my hand at this fabric design idea. They got over 1000 entries.
The judges now have the difficult task of narrowing down the entries to 75. On Thursday, they will post the 75 semifinalists and allow the public to vote for their favorite. The top 10 go to the finals and design 5 additional fabrics.
This was my Project Selvage contest entry:
If I make the semifinals, I’ll be over the moon excited.
We just got back today from our girls weekend trip to NYC and had a blast. I have pictures and all to share, but first I need some sleep!
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March 23, 2011
This weekend my mom, my sister, and I are going to NYC for a girls weekend. We are so excited. We have all been there before so this time we aren’t doing to typical touristy stuff. We are planning to head over to The American Folk Art Museum’s quilt show at the Park Avenue Armory. It’s an exhibit of 650 red and white quilts on loan from one private collector. Can you imagine?
We also plan to head over to Mood. Melissa went there before, but I think it would be fun to go. If you watch Project Runway, you know Mood.
We will also head to SoHo for a trip to Purl Bee.
I’ve left room in my suitcase for fabric shopping. I also love little thrifty places.
Where else should we go? Any suggestions?
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March 21, 2011
These butterfly hair clips are easy to make and are so cute to wear. I made these on a snap barrette, but with some modifications, you can make them into pins or place them on a headband.
You can also change up the design by changing the shape of the butterfly and how you choose to stitch the edges. On the one above, I stitched near the edge with a straight stitch.
With this red one, I did a zigzag around the edge with the sewing machine. With the yellow butterfly below, I hand stitched near the edge.
This tutorial gives you the basics and you make them the way you want.
Here’s a pattern I drew to make the butterflies. Butterfly template Clicking on the link will open a pdf that you can print.
To make a butterfly hair accessory, you will need scrap fabric, felt, thread, DMC floss, a needle and a hair clip. I used Heat’n Bond Lite, but it’s optional.
Cut out your butterfly template pieces. Use a piece of Heat’n Bond Lite and iron it to your piece of felt. Make sure the felt and Heat’n Bond Lite are big enough for your butterfly template piece.
Remove the paper from the Heat’n Bond Lite and place the wrong side of your fabric to the Heat’n Bond side of the felt and iron again.
Cut the butterfly shape and the body piece out of the fabric/felt piece. Cut the body out of felt or felt with the fabric to add thickness to the piece. You can have the fabric decorate the top or the bottom of the butterfly depending on the look you want.
Stitch the edges as desired and add any additional stitching or decorations to the wings before moving to the next step.
Fold the butterfly in half so the wings rest together. Stitch near the bottom of the fold. I leave about a 1/4 inch or so from the fold to the stitching.
Open the wings back up and place the body along the fold on the top of the butterfly. Use two strands of DMC floss or thick thread to stitch the body to the wings.
Cut 2 pieces of felt slightly larger than your hair clip.
Make a small slit in the bottom layer to allow the clip to slide through. Set this piece aside.
Fold the wings in half again and fold the piece of felt over the fold of the butterfly and stitch the felt to the butterfly.
Place the two pieces of felt together with the clip sandwiched in the middle. Pay attention to the direction you place the clip opening so it goes in the hair toe correct direction. Hand stitch the felt together and trim the excessive fabric.
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March 17, 2011
Today Emily was assigned snacks for her kindergarten class and I signed up in Madison’s preschool class to bring cookies for today. So I decided to take cookies to both classes. I found this wonderful blog that is full of fun cookie ideas. I followed her tutorial on making these cookies. Callye’s cookies look much better than mine, but I’m tickled with how my turned out anyway. Four and 5 year olds are going to be eating them and I’m pretty sure they will like them. I still need to learn better technique on how to do the icing and all, but that’s going to take more practice.
Callye also encourages everyone to think outside the box when they are needing a cookie cutter they don’t have. She used a squished flower and a cauldron to make her cookies. I used a pumpkin. It worked!
We also have a special leprechaun that visits the house during the night and makes our milk green. The girls think that’s fun too!
Enjoy you St Patty’s Day!
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March 15, 2011
This is one of my favorite gifts from Christmas last year. My brother made everyone portable wine holders. I loved this idea! As more family rolled in, we opened more gifts and more people got these travel wine holders along with a bottle of wine. It was fun to show each new person how the holder worked. We decided it may be a good sobriety test…if you can’t balance the bottle of wine, you’ve had too much to drink.
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March 10, 2011
It’s down to Melissa and Amy competing for the title of SYTYC Season 6 winner. They both made cute projects. I like the room Amy did for her kids. It looks like a fun space, but of course, I’m supporting my sister in her efforts to win with her playhouse.
Doesn’t it look like so much fun? So head over and vote in the finale. The site has been cranky the last 2 days, so if it’s down, please try again later.
Congratulations to you both, Amy and Melissa. It was a fun season competing with you both!
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March 9, 2011
We are so excited about spring being just around the corner. The flowers are blooming, the trees are beautiful and the warmer weather is wonderful.
I thought a few butterfly hair accessories would help make spring feel even closer.
Hopefully our butterfly bush will bloom soon too so that this won’t be the only butterfly hanging around the backyard.
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March 7, 2011
You can customize this fabric basket to make it any size or shape you want. I’m going to give you the instructions for how I made this one, which is about 5″ x 5″ and is 8.5″ tall.
What you will need
If you are purchasing fabric for this project, each 1/8 yard of fabric will give you 2 strips so you need a total of 1 and 1/4 yards of fabric. The amount of fabric you need for each strip depends on how many different fabric you choose to use. I decided to use lots of different fabric for this project, but it can also be done using only 1 or 2 different fabric choices.
Fusible interfacing – you will need and equal amount of interfacing.
2 buttons
Making the strips
Start by making your strips for weaving the basket. Cut fabric 2.25″ wide and at least 24″ long. You will need 20 strips total for this pail. Place each strip on a piece of fusible interfacing and iron them down. I lined them up and did as many as possible at once and cut them apart later.
Once you cut the strips, fold one in half lengthwise and stitch along the side using a 1/4″ seam allowance to form a tube. Leave the ends open. Repeat for 18 more strips.Leave one strip alone for now. It will be the edge piece for the top of the pail later.
Turn each strip right side out. This may take a bit of time. I sat down with a cold drink and some trash tv to help pass the time. After turning each strip, iron flat. Now you should have 18 strips ready for making the basket and 1 strip ready for the handle.
Weaving the pail
Take the 5 strips you want to use for the basket and place them next to each other, going the same direction. Take the other 5 strips and start weaving them back and forth between the first 5 strips, one at a time. They will look like this. Get the weaving as close to the center as possible because this is the bottom of your basket.
Place an object on the part you just weaved to begin weaving sides of the basket. I used a box of saltines because it was the perfect size for what I wanted. Bring all the strips up the sides of the cracker box and use a rubber band to secure the strips.
Begin weaving strips to form the sides of the pail. Sorry these pictures aren’t the best, but I made this in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep well. So this is the best you get.
Keep the strips as close together as possible to make a tight weave. Overlap the ends and tuck them behind one of the vertical pieces. At the end you may need to wiggle some of them around, tighten them, etc.
Continue adding strips, until you get to the top. This one took 8 strips to complete the sides. (I think I mentioned that before, but I tend to repeat myself often…it’s a result of raising kids). Once you get to your last strip, fold the vertical ends over the top horizontal piece and pin into place.
Wiggle your strips until they are pulled tight enough and are even all the way around the basket. Hand stitch the ends of the horizontal strips to hold them in place. Run a zigzag stitch around the top of the pail. Trim the flappy pieces.
Finishing the pail
Take the remaining strip you didn’t sew into a strip. Fold the strip in half lengthwise with wrong sides together. Press flat. Open the strip and fold the raw edges back towards the center fold and press. Fold the ends in and press them also.
Place the strip along the top of the pail so the pail is sandwiched between the two sides of the strip. Overlap the ends and stitch near the open edge.
Take your remaining strip and fold the ends up a couple of times and stitch across to finish the end. Make a buttonhole on each side. Attaching the handle with button and buttonhole will allow you to put the handle up and down. Sew on a button to each side and you are finished.
These would make cute Easter baskets or Trick or Treat buckets too!
As usual, if something doesn’t make sense with this tutorial, please let me know!
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March 3, 2011
If you take your husband to the airport for a 2 week business trip, he’ll want you to pick him up when he gets home.
You will realize the morning that he’s coming home that the house looks like he has been gone for 2 weeks, so you will decide to start cleaning.
If you start vacuuming, you will see 5 socks stuck in random places around the house because your kids lost them on the way to the dirty clothes basket.
When you stop vacuuming to pick up the socks, you will realize you also need to strip the sheets off your bed and wash them.
On you way to the laundry room, you will notice the laundry basket full of clean clothes you haven’t put away.
You will forget about the vacuum in the middle of the living room and grab the laundry basket.
On your way through the kitchen you will notice the time on the clock and realize you have 30 minutes before your youngest child needs to go to preschool. You will then ditch the laundry because you realize you have not taken a shower and you cannot skip showering because your husband is coming home and would appreciate a clean wife.
When you hop into the shower, you will also have to shave your legs and other hairy areas of your body.
If you lather, rinse and repeat as quickly as you can and are agile with a razor, you will think you have plenty of time to finish getting ready before you head out the door.
When you are dried off, you will have to head to the closet and try on several different outfits to find the one that is just right for the exciting day.
Once the outfit is on your body, you think back and realize you took your preschooler to drop off your other kids at school while she in her pajamas. She is still wearing those said pajamas.
If you head back to that same pile of laundry to find something for her to wear, she will want to wear something different and you will have to dig again.
If you get her dressed in the outfit she wants, she will then complain that she didn’t want to stop playing her game to get dressed and that she doesn’t like the taste of the toothpaste when you try to brush her teeth.
When you ignore her complaining and brush her teeth anyway, you catch a peek of yourself in the mirror and realize your hair is still wet and you have no make up on.
If you head back to your bathroom to dry your hair the best you can in 1 minute, you will flip your head over to start drying and notice the nail polish on your toes looks terrible.
When you look back in the mirror, you will see that your hair is drier, but not looking good. You check the time and realize it’s time for school to start so you figure you can finish your hair when you get back home. You quickly decide to throw on some blush and mascara and leave the toe nails until you return home to finish your hair.
If you take your child to school a few minutes late, you will not notice that you parked next to the news crew van there shooting a special about the school.
If you hold your child’s hand and quickly walk through the parking lot, you will avoid walking directly in the path of the reporter woman, but you will not notice the camera man is actually filming you and your child as you enter the school.
As you see the camera, you will curse yourself for not finishing your hair, but praise yourself for at least getting on some blush and mascara.
If you spend too much time thinking about how you are looking on camera, you will miss that the camera man is actually filming your child and not you. Your child is close to the ground and you realize you should have opted for the toenail polish instead.
If you hurry back home to finish getting the house and yourself ready, you will have to head to the airport.
If you pick your husband up at the airport, he will want you to take him again in a few weeks.
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February 26, 2011
Whew! That was a busy 8 weeks! I’m so proud of myself finishing in 3rd place. I wish Amy and Melissa all the best as they head into the final competition. I can’t wait to see their projects.
Thank you to my family and friends for all the support, love and encouragement I received during this competition!
This last weeks was “Scraps Only” and I made this fabric pail. I wove strips of fabric to make the shape and I love the bright colors. Here’s my entry for the contest, in case you missed it.
For scraps week, I decided to make a fabric basket. I wove strips into this form to make a rectangular pail shape. Then I added a handle to carry it around easier. The button on the side makes it easy to move the handle up and down.
I can think of so many uses for this fabric container, but I decided to make it into our “Positive Attitude Pail.”
I filled the pail with note cards and wrote positive messages on them. Some are inspirational quotes, others are personal affirmations and some are words of inspiration and encouragement for the kids. Each day we draw a card from the pail so we can read and talk about it.
So now we can start each day with a positive thought from the scrap fabric pail.
I think I will be making several more of these fabric containers in several different shapes and sizes. I have lots more scrap fabric just sitting around waiting.
Click here for the tutorial.
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