New Belts

When I first opened up my etsy store back in March I made a ribbon belt out of white satin ribbon and a white flower that I put a little fake diamond in the center.  It was one of the first things I sold.  I think they are really cute but I never made any more.  Lately I have been noticing them a lot of pinterest ( which I am completely addicted to by the way! )   My friend Katrina is a very fun and out going person.  She loves wearing feathers and fun outfits.  She has a birthday this week and I was looking for something to make her.  I decided to make some belts for her.  Here is how it started.


I started with about 3 yards or so of satin ribbon ( I get mine from the Dollar General and its REALLY nice for only being a dollar! )

Then I decided what I wanted to put on it.  I went with some shabby chic flowers I bought off of etsy about 6 months ago and still haven't used all of them.  They were a little plain though so I added a pearl in the center of both of them

I added them to the ribbon right in the center.  The put just a TINY bit of glue in the center to attach them but I knew I wanted to add some feathers!

I busted out my guinea feathers and started glueing away until I was happy.  The pictures turned out HORRIBLE because it was black on silver and I could not get my lighting right ( did I mention this was at midnight and everyone else in my house was fast asleep? )

I love the way it turned out!  I decided she needed two!  I busted out some new ribbon in a lighter color and decided to do something pretty instead of funky.  I LOVED how this one turned out

So what you think?  I think I need to make some for me for church to wear over some plain dresses.  I don't know if with kids it would stay tied on my back though!  haha

So my lack of posting lately has been due to a number of things.

I had two hard drives crash and thought I lost everything on them ( which was mainly pictures! )  I cried...a LOT!

We are in the process of buying a house.

Our house in Texas hasn't sold yet.

My boy started school which I thought was going to do WONDERS for me.  It has done the opposite.  I haven't had time to do ANYTHING!  I haven't gotten hardly anything done.  My house is a mess and my poor daughters nap schedule is SOOOOO messed up that mainly she just doesn't nap which is also killing me.  She is super cranky and I don't have time to work out or blog.  Boooooo

I am trying.

Here's hoping I can figure out a better schedule for me and my daughter.

good news is the house we are buying is wonderful and we are just waiting to make sure the appraisal goes well and we get the loan from the bank.  Also, my son LOVESSSSS school.

I'll try and blog more soon.  TRY being the key word.  But I promise I will TRY!

Making Garters

I love garters because they are SO easy to make and the possibilities are endless when making them!  I mean really, you can do or use anything for them!   Weddings, bridal gifts, bachelorette parties, Valentine's day; they are good for many occasion's.   I thought I'd give you a quick tutorial on how I usually make them.  Again, you can make them differently but this is how I usually go about making them.

Okay first thing I do is find some satin ribbon.  What size you use depends on how big you want the garter to be.  I usually like smaller ones but the one I am showing you in the tutorial was one I made for a client recently and so I'm using that.  I took satin ribbon ( that I found at the Dollar tree! )  and if you can measure the recipients leg, then do so.  I have HUGE thighs so I usually measure a smaller part of my leg.  You want to cut your ribbon longer then your measurement so we can gather it.  Again, how much you want it to gather is up to you too.  Generally speaking if you cut the ribbon at around 25 or 26 inches long, you should be good. The ribbon I used was wide so I knew I was going to have a border coming off of both sides.  YOu don't have to do this but this is what I did for this one.  I'm goign to show you pictures of some other ones I have made at the end.

Here is a picture of my supplies!  Lace, ribbon and some measuring tape.


I measure out 26 inches of ribbon and cut TWO pieces.  You need one for the back and one for the front.    I also had to cut down my lace because this is a sheet on lace and not lace used for trimming.  If you have lace that is already cut down for you then you have one less step!

Here you can see that the ribbon is centered with the lace.  If you only want lace coming off of ONE side, then make sure to pin it that way.

Make sure your second ribbon is also pin to the back.  Usually when sewing everything is right sides together.  This time you want the right sides facing OUT because we are not going to be turning any thing.

Find where you want the elastic to be and we are going to create the casing for it.  I wanted the center to be about 1/2 inch or so.

See?!  Basically I am doing a 1/4 inch on both sides!  Turn the ribbon around and do a 1/4 seem on down the other side now.

Don't worry too much about the satin puckering up or gathering where you don't want it to.  Remember we are going to add elastic and it will be gather any ways so it will not be noticeable.

I don't have a picture of this next step but you need to feed your elastic through your casing.  I use a safety pin on one end of the elastic and then feed it through.  When you get to where the elastic on the end without the safety pin is at the end, pin it in place so you don't lose your elastic inside of the casing and have to start over.   Then I get it to the other end ( the side WITH the safety pin ) and pin that in place too

Next I put my sewing machine on a zig zag stitch and I sew the ends closed.

They don't need to line up perfect because I trim the excess off and now you have a garter ready to be embellished!  Isn't it pretty.  If you get your ribbon at the dollar store these are SO cheap!  They are pretty fast and easy to do as well.  I like to take mine and embellish them for weddings with a personalized stamped charm!  Most brides want to have their future husbands names on the charm and have the wedding date on the "toss" garter.  It makes for a fun and personal thing for your wedding day. I bought my garter and I kinda wish I had been crafty enough to make it back then.

So here is the finished product after I added the charm and the embellishments.

This one was a little bigger then I usually make them but I think it's cute!  Here are some others I have made

So be creative and have fun!  I have one in my shop in animal print with a charm on it that says, "Take me"    I made it with fabric.  When making the garters with fabric you want to put the two pieces of fabric together and stitch along both long sides with right sides faces.  THEN, you want to turn it right side out and THEN make your casing for the elastic.  That way you don't have any raw edges.

Any questions let me know!  OH!  I just realized I didn't tell you what size to make your elastic.  YOu want to make it an inch or so SMALLER then your thigh measurement.  So if you are 20 inches around your thigh make it 19 or 18 inches long.  You want it to stretch a little but not TOO much!  The first time I sold a garter on line on etsy, I made it too small because I didn't ask the bride to be what your thigh measurement was.  She had to send it back to me and I had to re make it so that it would fit.  Opps!  You never want to make something twice.  So be careful but most importantly have fun!  These are supposed to be pretty, sexy and fun!  Go to town

A Few More Projects

My son owns a Leapster Explorer.  He loves it.  He has to earn games by trying to new foods ( which pretty much NEVER happens! or by doing things around the house. ) Basically we bribe him which I am TOTALLY okay with.  You do what you gotta do sometimes.  He really needed a case for it but I REALLY wanted his case to be able to hold the games as well.  All of the manufactured kind in the store only hold the actual leapster.  BOOOOO  I finally got around to making him my own.  I even did a tutorial for it!  However, after just a couple of hours of using it I found it's not very practically.  It would be an easy fix but I haven't had time to fix it yet.  Here's what it looks like.

The Leapster goes in the main pocket to the left and the little pockets to the right are for the tiny games.  There are 9 pockets and right now we only have 3 games so we have room to grow.  The part where I messed up is that I didn't close off the pockets with velcro.  this means that when my kid goes to close it, the games slide out very easily.  Not good.  I will fix it one of these days but for now we are just happy we have a case for everything.

The only thing I have worked on this last week was some wedding accessories.  I get request for wedding garters on etsy a lot.  Here is the latest

I made a tutorial for garters too!  Hopefully sometime this week I can post it.  Garters are actually SUPER easy to make.  I usually use satin ribbon and then it makes it even easier.

Then I made two hair clips for weddings. These aren't for anyone specific, I made them just because I thought they were cute and they have been getting a lot of people in the shop I am selling hair clips in looking for wedding stuff.  Not a single one of my hair clips has sold so I figured I'd better change my strategy.  I dropped them off today and the owner thought they were SO cute!  Hopefully that means someone will buy them.

So we'll see what happens.  I HATE not having time to do things.  I have so many hair clips in my head that I want to try to do but I am having a hard time managing my new time schedule with my son in school and my daughter needed mommy time.  I have also been trying to work out everyday which is proving to be difficult.  I know this isn't new.   Every mother struggles with time management and I know it's just a matter of time before I get into a good groove.  I am telling you that I am ADDICTED to pinterest!  I know this isn't knew to anyone yet either but I have been finding the GREATEST stuff on there.  Since we are going to be moving into a new home in 2 plus months I have been trying to find good decorating ideas and things.  Here's hoping everything goes well with the house.  The bank did not choose to foreclose since we had already gone into escrow.  Now we are going to do the inspection and hope things go well with that!  Cross your fingers for us.

Is anyone thinking about Christmas already?  I am NOT one of those people who start playing Christmas music at home or getting out my decoration before December 1st.  In fact, I don't listen to Christmas music at home at all.  I get enough of it when I go out.  I am annoyed that stores are already stocking up on Christmas stuff.  I DO however, start thinking about what I am going to MAKE people for Christmas.  I am hoping to make a lot of fun "green" things for people this year.  We shall see what happens.

Getting Crafty

I have been not the craftiest person ever, but I have had projects going non-stop it seems through out the last week.  I was asked to do some hair clips for someone's wedding.  They wanted some different colors then usual weddings which made it slightly harder to get the stuff to make them. They wanted black and red flowers, with feathers and netting.  I bet this wedding is going to be styling!  Here is what I made

The black flower is for the bride and the red flowers are for the bridesmaids.  You have NO idea how hard it was to find black flowers that were NOT roses.  I finally found a "bush"that was black leaves and I took those apart and glued them all together to form a flower.  Then the red flowers I had bought were bigger then the black flower.  I couldn't have that seeing as how it was the brides hair things, so I call ALL of the petals off and then glues those all together to form smaller flowers. It was a lot of work!  But I think they turned out great.  I also did a garter and some other wedding hair things this week.  I'll post later.

I had some drama when on Thursday my husband got out my external hard drive to get a picture off of it that someone had ordered on canvas from my etsy store only to find out that the hard drive was not responding.  It was the back up to my lap top which fried about e month ago.  So my back up to my lap top and the lap top were both gone.  This means I probably lost 10,000 pictures and most were from pregnancy with my daughter on.  So pretty much all of her baby pictures.  I was CRUSHED!  I balled myself to sleep.  We are hopeful that we are going to be able to retrieve them.  I'll let you know how that goes.  I'm crossing my fingers and SO GLAD, I was a good blogger on my family blog during those years so I know I have a lot of those pictures SOMEWHERE.  I am still pretty depressed but we'll see what happens.  I gotta run for now but I'll be back soon with more projects to show you !  Hope evryone is having a great Monday!!!

Chocolate Milk

My kids love chocolate milk.  Let me rephrase that.  My GIRL loves chocolate milk and my boy has kinda grown out of it.  Most of the time he wants regular milk now.  My girl on the other hand won't even drink regular milk any more.  First thing in the morning she has a sippy of chocolate milk for breakfast.  Can you blame her?!  I love having some nesquik milk for breakfast half of the time too.  Any ways.  If I had never of tried doing the South BEach diet I would have never thought to try less sugar.  I KNOW sugar is bad for you but I just had never really been concerned about stuff like that.  Do you know what?  I see the two of these in the store ALL of the time.

I would have assumed before trying the South BEach diet that 25 % less sugar would be LESS sugar.  Hmmmm  If you are a South Beach dieter you know that things that say NO SUGAR ADDED are usually allowed.  Like no sugar added fudgesicles are a yes when doing South Beach.  I always buy the no sugar added nesquik because it is also allowed.  Before that I always bought the 25% less sugar.  Well, the other day we were OUT OF CHOCOLATE MIX! Seriously OUT!  I knew that was an emergency for my daughter because she wouldn't drink plain milk.  I ran to the little market where we live and they only had the 25% less sugar and since it was an emergency I bought it.  A couple of days later I found the NO SUGAR ADDED.  When I got home I compared the two and was shocked!

25 %  less sugar has
60 calories
0.5 g Total fat
30 g sodium
14 g total carbs
13 g sugar

Sheesh

NO sugar added
35 calories
1 g total fat
70 g sodium
7 g total carb
3 g sugar

Man!   What a difference huh?!  I was shocked it was that much and I HONESTLY think the no sugar added taste much better, it however doesn't mix as well but that's okay.  Obviously the sodium is higher but I don't take in much sodium and neither do my kids so I'm okay with that.
So is this news to anyone else or am I the only dummy who didn't realize this?!   I mean really when you see "no sugar added" verses "25% less sugar"  I just thought LESS SUGAR meant it would have LESS sugar.  That's what I get for assuming right?

Hope this helped even one person.  :)

Yikes!

Any one else a total slob like me?  I am especially so when it comes to my sewing and craft stuff.  I think it is due to the frequency at which I use them.  You know what I mean?!   I can't wait until we get a new house and I have a creative space that is mine that I don't have to clean if I don't want to.  For now I am stuck with the kitchen and my crap is every where!  Here is what I decided to do to help the clutter.

Click here

The blog the Little Green Bean takes foam board ( which you can get at the dollar store for...well, a dollar! haha ) and cuts them up into 8 pieces and then wraps the fabric around it to store.  Um hello awesome!  I am in the process and my material already looks SOOOOOOOOOO much better.  I'll post pictures when I get more done but trust me if you have tons of fabric and you hate digging through it every time you need to make something check out the above blog post and consider doing yourself a favor!  It's super easy, super cheap ( which you gotta love ) and totally doable in a reasonable amount of time.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Thomas the Train

Here are the pictures of the Thomas the train hat I made for my friends boy last week.

I am sure it looks cuter on and I am crossing my fingers it actually fits him!  :)

This is with the Jack and Jill pattern from izzy and ivy. Very easy pattern and it gets easier every time you try it.

9-11

I remember this day like it was yesterday...

What do you remember from this day?  I am STILL kicking myself that I didn't save any newspapers from this day or any of the days after.  My husband was in Brazil on a mission for our church when this happened and he saved a Brazilian newspaper from this week!  He said it was really crazy being in another country. He said someone came up to him and asked if he was American and then said his country was under attack.  He didn't really believe him.  I'm glad he kept the newspaper!

Never forget all those who lost their lives that day.  Some willing and some not.  I am blessed to be an American!

HATS!

I got to sew on Friday and let me tell you it was SO nice!  My friend Sarah has a boy turning 3 who LOVES trains.  I made him a kind of conductor hat with Thomas the train on it.  I like how it turned out and now I am just crossing my fingers it fits!  They live in Texas so I can't just measure his head and make sure it fits.  Cross your fingers for me.  I'll post some pictures of it later.

While I was making the train hat Kayla grabbed it half made and said, "Oh mom I love it!"  So I told her it was not for her but that mommy can make her a new hat too.  She has been carrying around some Dora fabric like it was a blanket and I have been wanting to make her a new dress with it.  Instead I decided to make her a Dora hat!  I LOVE how it came out.

She was NOT into having her pictures taken with it on though.  I gave her my phone because she wanted to do a puzzle and I told her if I let her do a puzzle she needed to let mommy take her pictures.  Can I call a two year old a liar?!  haha  This is what I got

I got great pictures of the top of it!  So I said, "Kayla can you look up at mommy?"  So she did, however she brought the phone up over her face!

I got ONE good one

And then I got the look of death....

Well so much for awesome pictures of the hat but you get the point any ways right!  Oh yeah and I used the Jack and Jill pattern by Izzy and Ivy.  It's a great pattern and now that I have made it 6 or 7 times it gets better every time I make one!

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?!