Flower Tutorial

I'm not very creative when it comes to finding names for things.  So Flower tutorial will have to do for now.  This is a very simple tutorial and the finishing results is pretty fast and pretty cute.  You can use any fabric you want for this.  I tried two different kinds and I used two different ways.  The first time I tried just using a glue gun.  That was almost harder to do then a straight sewing machine.  Here is what the finish product looks like.

First I took a 37 in by 3 in strip of fabric

Take your strip of fabric and make a long string of glue down one of the long sides...gotta be fast so the glue doesn't dry.

Then fold the fabric in half and press the sides down together so the glue sticks

Next take the new strip and cut on the folded side alllllll the way down to make petals for the flower

Make these whatever size you want.  Try different sizes for different looks.   Then you need to start your flower.  Add a little glue to the end piece and then roll.

Now work your magic the rest of the way down with the gun and then roll.  Glue.  Roll.  Until you get to the end.

You can make the roll really tight for a fuller flower or make the roll kind lose for a less full flower.

I love the way the end roll looks!

And there you have it!  I think it looks really cute by itself or you could add a pretty button or some ribbon in the center

Next I tried it with sewing instead of glue for the first step.  I think it actually went faster and was less messy.  YOu can do it by hand by with a machine.  I'm lazy so I used my machine.

For this flower instead of doing one long strip I decided to do a bunch of shorter strips with different coordinating fabrics.  Mess around with the lengths and don't worry about making then too long.  You can always cut them if they are too long when you roll them!

I love how colorful it is!

Then I added something to the middle.  This is actually a brad for scrap booking but it had great color!

I then decided to make a wider one.  I took a piece of thick interfacing and started with the OUTSIDE circle and sewed it down using my machine.  You could use the glue too because that would have been just as easy or you could sew it down by hand.   Once I was done with one color ( if there was extra I just cut it off ) I just grabbed a new color and started sewing/gluing again!

The center I took the part of the green one I had cut off because it was too long and rolled it and glued it in the center.  Again it looks good by itself or with a colorful button in the center!

These are SUPER easy and can look really elegant or really fun depending on the fabric and button you use for the middle!  I haven't had time since I made these last week to try new ones with different fabrics.  I also want to make some more with a much wider petal.  The wider the petal the more the flower kind of looks like a flower you would buy in the wrapping paper section!  I love them.  Oh how I wish my daughter would let me put things in her hair!  Now I either need to gift these or put them in the shop.  Someone please convince my daughter to leave something in her hair!  Pretty please?!

Baby Quilt

If I don't get to write an actual blog soon I might scream.  I have had several written in my head but haven't had the time. Then this weekend and yesterday I TOTALLY had the time but my internet wasn't working. Figures.  So today I am backup and running only I have people coming over for dinner and my house is a mess.  Also, my son got some kind of a bug and is home sick today from school.  He was SO sad to have to miss a day of school already!  So was I!  Yesterday I was planning on running to JoAnn's for their labor day sale.  I actually needed some material for something I need to make for a birthday present.  My son woke up with a fever.  Then he started to feel better and BEGGED me to take him shopping.  We got to JoAnn's at 10:30 or so and the whole parking lot was packed!  BOOOOO So I didn't go in.  I wasn't going to do that to my kids, especially when one wasn't feeling well.  I took them to the dollar store and then to get lunch.  AFTER I already forked up the money for lunch Tyler starts getting the chills and of course doesn't really feel like eating.  We get home I BEGGED him to TRY REALLY HARD to take a nap.  He of course doesn't nap.  But he at least rest on his bed for over an hour.

I start dinner and my husband comes home.  He felt bad I didn't get to JoAnn's.  He tells me to go ahead and go now.  We eat dinner and I get a shopping list ready.  I figure if I am going into town I better get groceries too.  ( It takes 30 minutes or so to get into town. )  I kiss everyone good bye, I get about 5 minutes from JoAnn's and I get a tex telling me my son just puked every where!  REALLY?  I FINALLY get out of the house by myself with my husband's blessing and he throws up?  I went straight to the store and bought groceries and went home.  No JoAnn's for me again.  Oh well.  I got home and found this on the couch

He fell asleep at like 8:30 with the throw up bowl in one hand and the ipod so he could play angry birds, in the other!  haha  He is SOOOOOO sad he had to miss a day of school already.

Before all of the sickness happened and the internet stopped working, I got something new in the etsy shop listed.  It is a baby quilt that my mom mad and I LOVE it!  It is SOOOO cute.

Isn't it cute?  I wish I had the need for a baby girl quilt because this one is so sweet.

Cross your fingers for me that tomorrow I can get my tutorial from LAST week up and running.  I'm dying to get it on here.

Something OTHER Then Hair Clip

I swear I still do crafty things other then hair clips.  It doesn't seem like it but I swear I do.  Most of the time I do not end up finishing things which is why they don't get blogged about.  While I was in Utah I bought a baby shoe pattern and I finally got around to doing it.  The patter was way easy to follow and it didn't take too long to make these.  It was a change from things being a trial run the first time.  You have to remember I have been sewing for less then two years and everything I have learn has pretty much been from the internet.  Sometimes that means messing things up while I try to figure them out.  I am also stubborn so I often just try and make things without a pattern.  Sometimes I have great success, and sometimes I fall flat on my face.  The important thing is that I enjoy sewing and it makes me feel good to create things.

Anyways.  Here are the shoes

The hardest part of the pattern was after they were done and I was trying to figure out how to decorate them.  I finally settled on these flowers I bought a million years ago and never used.  I almost put a red flower on top which I LOVE with the black and white but I decided the these flowers because I figured it would make it easier to go with most out fits.  Hopefully they fit!

I have another project up my sleeve.  It isn't done yet s just to give you a sneak peak it involves water colors, recycling and modge podge.  You can't go wrong there right?!

Until then...I need to go finishing making my home made wheat bread for our grill cheese we are having for dinner!  MMMMMMMM  We LOVE making grill cheese on home made wheat bread around here.

A Few Projects

I have had some sewing projects this week.  Sometime I have crazy weeks for no reason.  Sometimes I have a lot of sewing I have to do.  Sometimes the house is a MESS and someone is coming and I have to clean.  This week my house wasn't too dirty but we were having people over for dinner Tuesday so I did need to clean some.  Mainly the kitchen.  I HATE doing the dishes so often they pile up.  Ours were piled up.

I got our house cleaned and a couple of small projects done early in the week.  I FINALLY got my other flowers sewn on the purse I made myself.  I had decided on the three  flowers a while ago but then just kept putting off actually sewing them on.  I like to sew the flowers and not glue them.  Especially when it was going on a purse I sewed.  It takes longer but sometimes it is worth it.

I'm babbling, I know.  Here are some of the things I can show you that I worked on.

First I got a custom order for someone on etsy again.  She wanted a garter set for her wedding.  She wanted them really simple and she wanted her future husband's name on a charm hanging from it.  Here is what I made

Then I had been asked from someone at church to make her daughter a scripture case.  Not sure if you remember the auction I talked about having at church a couple of months ago.  I had made a scripture case for it and two different girls tried to win it.  The one who didn't win asked me to make her one EXACTLY like the one the other girl won.  I know how girls can be, especially young girls.  I didn't want to do it exactly the same just in case the other girl got upset.  SOOOO  I made the case the same but changed the flower on it.

I made the flower so it can come off and I put an alligator clip on it so she could put it in her hair if she wanted!

Do you see the perfect pink felt circle on the back of the flower pin?  I found them on etsy and I LOVE them.  YOu get 10 of the circles and they are self adhesive for only $1.99.  The store is called Bitsy Bands.  Click on the link if you want to check out their store.  LOTS of good supplies for really cheap there.  I bought like 5 or 6 things from them and with shipping I only spent 11 dollars!  Score.

The other thing I can actually show you is this bow tie I made someone at church.

I LOVE this bow tie.  I bought a fat quarter at JoAnn's when they were on sale and I KNEW I wanted to make a bow tie.  There is this cute boy at church who is 7 to 9 months old.  Not sure exactly and I don't even know his name.  I know his mom and in a couple of weeks I am going to be taking pictures of her kids.  I seriously CAN'T wait!

The other things I sewed this week were for my home made gift exchange.  I can't wait to send her stuff on Monday and for her to get them so I can show you the fun stuff I am sending her.  It was fun making stuff for someone you don't know.

Happy Sunday everyone.  I hope you had time for all of your projects.  I have a list a mile long and I am leaving Thursday for Utah so I have limited time to do it.  Let's hope I can manage my time good!

Sometimes

When I get asked to do something for a family member I try REALLY hard to pull through and make it happen.  Sometimes, it may not be on a time line that is quick but I TRY.  Needless to say, when I pull through I try and do a good job.  My sister wanted some bow ties and well, she got four of them.  They were free too and for the most part, they were free for me as well!  ( we used my moms fabric.  hee hee ) I already showed you one of them and here are the other 3.

I am LOVING them!  And I love how quick they are.  It's 30 minutes tops and that includes cutting out and hand sewing some of it.  Can't beat that!

Bow Ties

My sister had her first mother's day with her son today!  Ironically, her husband is out of town and it is her first time as a single mother as well.  She REALLY wanted her boy to look super handsome for church so she asked me to make him a bow tie.  Her and her husband are being sealed to him in the St. George Temple later this month and she wanted me to make him a bow tie for that as well.  SOOOOO after I was done with my sister's purse on Wednesday I made Jacob a bow tie with some of the left over fabric.  MAN are these fake bow ties easy!  I think I may make a couple this week for my etsy shop.  Check out how cute it turned out

My sister sent me a picture of him wearing and so I was going to attach it but apparently I am not smart enough to figure out how to forward it to my email!  Ha  Oh well.  I'll get her to send it to my email and get it up here later.  Back in February or March I made my other nephew a tie for his birthday and his mommy sent me a picture too!  It was also so cute and I TOTALLY forgot to post it so I'll post the two together.

So how was everyone's Mother's day?  I got awoken at 7 in the morning by a lovely text from one of my friends.  Then we went down stairs and ate breakfast at the hotel we were staying at.  We were in Las Vegas on our way back to Cali.  Our girl was fussy and didn't want to eat anything but she drank a bunch of apple juice.  We were kinda annoyed but we needed to get going.  We got on the freeway and about two exits later she pukes ALL Over herself and her car seat!  BOOOOOO  I guess it was a reminder for me what being a mother was all about!  :)  We made it home in one piece and no more throw up.  We stopped at the store on the way home to get some groceries sine we knew we didn't have any at the house and it was packed!  TONS of people barely buying flowers and cards at 2pm!  Come on people.  SO glad we don't normally shop on Sundays because it was a mad house.  We got home and unpacked the cars which quickly destroyed my almost clean house.  I was going to make pizza but I decided we should just order it instead.  I hopped in the shower while my husband got on line to order pizza but the place here where we lived was closed for Mother's day.  I told my husband, "Don't they know Mother's day it should be opened because we all want a break from cooking!"  I mean, come on.  So I made pizza instead and it was very good.  I found a recipe that is very interesting and yummy.  YOu use a mix of white wheat and regular flour and you add dry basil, dry oregano and some cayenne pepper!   It was very interesting but in a good way.  If you make pizza as much a sI do you should give this a try.

Tonight I am going to attempt to start the south beach diet again.  It's time.  It seems every couple of months I get off track and need to start fresh and this is certainly that time!  So maybe I'll have a new recipe to share this week.  We shall see.  Happy Monday Y'all!

Baby Girl Gift Set

Well, this is the baby girl gift set I just sent my friend from Jr. High.

Onesie and headband for baby

Here is the one for the big Sister ( kinda BIG so I hope it's okay!  haha )

And everything all together.  The beanie was the first thing I posted during repurposing week.  I made it out of a way too big shirt my MIL gave me.

I hope she gets it and enjoys it soon!  :)

Necklace Onesie

I know you guys have seen them.  The fake necklace onesies that are going around.  Who ever did that first was so smart!  I know I said I don't like being trendy but this one was too cute to pass up on.  As you saw in the last post, I bought a tank top with the fake necklace on it and turned it into a dress for my girl.  Well, I had a baby shower I missed a month ago and so I had made my friend some stuff for her baby.  One of the things I did was bought a plain onesie.  I didn't know what I wanted to do with it and the baby is due soon.  I FINALLY decided to try the fake necklace.  I looked up a couple of tutorials but none I found had step by step instructions.  Most just gave advice.  SO I decided to try it and take pictures along the way.

The first thing I did was fold the onesie in half so you know where the center of it is.  Then I unfolded it and decided where I wanted to start the necklace from.  BEFORE I started painting I practice with various things around the house to get the right size of circles.  I tried a pencil eraser, a pen and a golf tee.  I ended up liking the pencil eraser and the golf tee for the different sizes.  Before I did any painting on the shirt I took a pencil I knew would wash off in the washer and marked where I wanted my necklace to be.

Here are my utensils

Here are my first couple of circles.

I didn't want my circles to connect on the big ones.  I thought it looked cuter with a space.  I would dab my eraser in the paint and then dab it on a paper towel softly to get a lot of the paint off.  Then I would go ahead and dab it on the onesie.

So here is the first row all done.  I decided to do two big necklaces and one small one so I did the big ones first!

Then I decided that I DID want my small circles to connect so I did that row by connecting all of the small circles.

Now all you have to do is figure out how you want to embellish it.  I REALLY wanted to do a detachable flower.  I decided to use a snap.  That way you can have lots of flowers for every out fit.

WELLLLLL that ended up not going over so well.  When I went to attach the snap to the onesie ( I don't have a snap press so I was using a hammer ) I hit the snap too  hard and put a hole in the onesie!  DOH!

BOOOOOOOO!  I also wanted to do it with the snap because I didn't think the faker flowers could be washed.  SOOO  I ended up making a flower with fabric.  Then I sewed it down and put fabric on the inside of the onesie too.  This covered up the hole nicely.

I think it turned out really cute!  I also made a matching hair bow for her and for her big sister.  I will post pictures later because those photos aren't on my lap top yet.   Are y'all sick of seeing this pink and white polka dot material yet?  Yeah, me too but I still have TONS of it.  It was a sheet set I bought at a thrift store for 4 bucks!  It was the fitted sheet, the flat sheet AND the pillow case.  I have yet to make Kayla a pillow case dress with it but since summer is around the corner I think one should be in the works.