Create: Sew a Felt Star Ornament

Boy, it's been a while, hasn't it? I've been here, just busy with life and not taking enough time to document all of it. But! Today I have a simple kids craft to share with you, just in time for Christmas.

For her birthday, Hailey asked for a sewing machine. She is 5 and has never touched a sewing machine, but she has watched me and decided she wanted to try. I was not about to spend money on her own machine without seeing her sew first, to be sure this is something she really is interested in. Instead I made her a small sewing kit with some essentials to get sewing. Life became busy and we never found the chance to take some time to sit down together and work on a project. Finally one afternoon in a search for something Christmas crafty for Hailey and her friend to do for some quiet time I decided it was time to pull out some of those sewing supplies and have that first lesson in sewing.

We made felt star ornaments. I'll show you what we did.

You will need:

• embroidery needles (for the beginning sewer- they are nice and big and easy to hold onto) 
• crochet thread (it is found by the yarn and is thicker than normal thread, which makes it easier for little hands to handle. You could use embroidery floss as well.)
• water soluble/disappearing ink marking pen
• felt
• star pattern (print one here)
• fiberfill (not pictured- whoops!)

I began by marking a small dot every 1/4 inch or so around the star on the front and the back. This was to help guide the girls in their needle placement so they would end up with reasonably even stitches.

We had a quick chat about the seriousness of using a real needle and I pointed out that the tools used in sewing are not toys. And then I armed them with pre-threaded needles and showed them how to move from one stitch to the next.

They loved it. "This is easy peasy banana squeasy!" Oh that made me happy to hear! I was unsure if they would really sit long enough to finish the simple project or if they would lose interest after two stitches.

Sew on they did. I did have to sit right next to them and help them solve their small issues and occasionally gently encourage them to keep going.

Once you get about 3/4 of the way around the star stop and squish in a bit of fiberfil to give it some puffiness. Then continue stitching the star closed.

When they sewed all the way around the star we pushed the needle back through the very first point we made, right through the knot.

Leaving a small loop of thread to hang the ornament by I slipped the needle underneath the last stitch and tight a knot tightly.

Tada! It was finished. The girls were so excited to have sewn an ornament all on their own. Hailey's hangs proudly on our tree. The first thing she did when her dad came home from work that evening was to show off her fine work to him. Fine work indeed!

I'm hoping she's game for another sewing project in the future and we'll keep working on those stitches. In the meantime, I think this little star is adorable. It makes my heart happy to see it hanging on our tree. My little beginning sewer's first project. :)

A Turquoise and Pink Country Wedding

01.19.16 edit: I have added a downloadable file for the Who Has the Groom game for those who may want to use it. 

June was a busy month for my family. My sister was married at the end of the month. I spent a good portion of my free time helping prep for the wedding. I was so excited for my sister, and of course very eager to help craft and create wedding decorations.

My now brother-in-law is a cowboy through and through. He is always in boots, jeans, and a hat. He and my sister go out hunting, fishing, and motorcycle riding. Naturally, the wedding was country themed: mason jars, burlap, lace, cowboy boots, and guns. The colors my sister picked were pink and turquoise, nice and bright for a fun summer wedding.

Let me share with you what kept me so busy helping plan this wedding. Besides helping with set up and food prep in the kitchen, I put my computer and crafting skills to work. When you procrastinate and do most of the work just weeks (or the night) before the wedding, it makes for jam packed days. Not that I did that..

To start the wedding month off, with some help from my mom and aunt, I hosted a bridal shower. Here is the invitation I made. Nice and simple.

When I throw a party I really don't go all out. I like it to be nice, but not over the top. I don't decorate much or do anything real stressful or elaborate. Keep it simple. Corinne did request to play one game she had spotted on Pinterest: Who Has the Groom? I thought it was a fun idea, so we went with that.

The idea of the game is that each guest is given an envelope with a card inside. Most cards hold a celebrity, one or two others hold the groom. Whoever has an envelope with a picture of the groom wins a prize. Pretty basic. We played this game as we went around the room introducing ourselves.

To make the cards I searched online and found an image of a model wearing a tuxedo. I also searched up different male celebrities and used Photoshop to place their heads onto the tuxedo body. I had so much fun making these cards! I included a few of Corinne's favorites, like Steve Irwin (who she loved as a child) and Spiderman.

I sized the cards to be business card size (2" x 3.5") so they would fit inside a small coin envelope.  I rounded the edges of the cards with a corner punch. For the envelopes, I used a template found on Everything Mary Beth and put the text on using Photoshop (or Illustrator) and then printed it all out on cardstock. To seal the envelopes I found a glue stick that was repositionable. It worked great! Follow the instructions, wait a minute or two before sealing the envelope, otherwise it will just stick like regular glue. If you wait, you can open and close it over and over and it will continue to stick and unstick. 

Click here to download a copy of the game with envelopes.

Now, onto the wedding. I designed the wedding announcements. I am really happy with how they turned out. They were double-sided, information on one side, pictures on the other.

At the reception, for centerpieces among the burlap and mason jars, my sister requested I make some fact sheets about each the bride and groom. I made a little table tent that had a picture and a few facts about each of them on either side.

Another requested idea were signs greeting guests as they made their way into the reception. The signs read a welcome message, the bride and groom's names, the date, and a few other fun messages like "The hunt is over!". To make these signs we cut some plywood into rectangles, I think they ended up being 8 x 16. I made stencils on the computer and used my silhouette to cut them out of cardstock, we taped them in place and then painted with acrylic paint and foam brushes. Then the plywood was glued to wood stakes that were found at Home Depot. The signs turned out even better than I had imagined (especially considering we finished them at 10:00 pm the night before the wedding).

The last item I helped with was a quilt. My sister had seen the idea of using a quilt as a guest book and wanted to do that. That's fitting for a country wedding, right? So just a few weeks before the wedding my mom and I got down to business and busted out a quilt top. There were a few times when we were together cutting squares all afternoon, or sewing with both of our machines next to each other. With the two of us working hard we got it done.

The quilt pattern I found is called a Siggy Block, I found it over at Sparrow Quilts. This pattern was perfect for the guest book idea. We did size it up a little bit, so the blocks were a bit bigger. It worked out great. Now Corinne and Taylor will have a guest book they will actually look at. Once we get it quilted that is... :)

That is a small bit of our summer craziness. Now to focus on completely reworking our backyard. Yay!

So tell me, what is keeping you busy this summer?

Home: Our Happy Tree on Canvas

In the 6 1/2 years Kyle and I have been married we have moved 8 times. Yes, we've moved twice in one year, two times. We have been pretty transient. College will do that to you. Now that Kyle has a "real" job, we bought a home, and we are grown up people, we are finally settling down in one place for a little bit.

We haven't ever felt compelled to do much decorating in our apartments. We knew we wouldn't be there long, so we just didn't. 1 1/2 years later, our home is still the same way. Most of the walls are bare or have one lonely picture hanging on them. It's time to change that! We're here to stay and we want to make our home feel like we belong there. 

Kyle is a designer. It is his profession, but also it is innate in him. It is what he loves to do. He has a constant flow of ideas running through his head. Not a little trickle, but a real stream of ideas. And it is starting to rub off on me as well. Kyle had an idea to create a large painting of a tree to place above the couch in our living room. 

We wanted it bright and happy. We love color! We went with lime green and as close to cyan as I could find. It is hard to find a good cyan. I was surprised at what a difficult time I had finding just the right blue. P.S. That lime green is the same green Kyle used to put an accent stripe around the sewing desk he made for me last year.

We laid out our canvases, on our guest bed of all places, down in the basement away from child hands. We put on a light coat of gesso to prime the canvas for painting. And then got to work.

I don't have any pictures to show of Kyle actually painting on the tree. My hands were full and I just didn't think to use a tripod. Kyle made a file of the artwork and using our projector, projected the image onto the wall. I held up each of the six canvases while Kyle worked quickly to paint in the image.

It turned out pretty awesome. We both love it. But, it needed a frame. Last summer, Kyle tore down our old decrepit deck, and saved the reusable wood. He took a few pieces and made a frame. 

The frame really finishes it off. What a happy tree! And that is the beginning of the never ending task of decorating our home.

First Birthday Cupcake Toppers

I think parties are fun. Who doesn't? Party pooper... In college we threw some fun parties, like a fish themed birthday party for our goldfish. Yes, our goldfish actually made it to his birthday. He was a trooper of a fish. Seriously. It was a sad day when he died. We had a funeral.

But I digress...

I really don't go all out for parties. I'm not a big party planner. I think themed parties are fun. But they can get expensive! It adds up quick. But, I feel like when it's your very first birthday you deserve a little something special. Even if it's just a few streamers, a pile of balloons, a special birthday shirt, and a fancy topper on your cupcake.

After screen printing Keira's birthday shirt, I used the same design to make some cupcake toppers. I changed the wording from I'M #1 to KEIRA IS #1.

 I Love them. That's right, with a capital L. I made a birthday poster for my little girl and even put one on there too.

Want to make some? I made a file with five different colors, purple, orange, green, blue, and red. I took off the name, so they just say #1. I assume most anyone else wanting to use them won't be throwing a party for a little girl named Keira. Keira isn't that popular of a name. :)

Print the file out on cardstock, cut the fingers out, and tape a toothpick to the back. That's it!

Click on the image to download the file, or follow this link.

DIY Screen Printing: Nylons, an Embroidery Hoop and Mod Podge

For a few years now I have wanted to try my hand at screen printing. I think it looks so fun! So when my baby girl turned one and needed a 1st birthday shirt, I thought I'd try it out.

You know those foam fingers at sporting events? They say things like, "We're #1!" and are larger than life. How about a foam finger #1 birthday shirt? I had this idea in my head for a few months and was so excited about it. So, I did a little internet research on at home screen printing on the cheap, and got to work. I'm no expert, but I'll show you what I did and what I learned.

First you'll need:

• old nylons, or other tight woven thin material (I read mention of using tulle. I started with that, but the fibers weren't tight enough, the gaps were too big and it was hard to get good definition. It looked pixelated. If you understand the way resolution works, it is the same concept.)
• embroidery hoop
• mod podge
• fabric paint (I used acrylic paint and mixed it with a fabric painting medium)
• paint brush/toothpicks
• credit card or other object with a straight edge, it must be wider than your image

step 1: stretch the nylon tight over the embroidery hoop and secure it into place. 

step 2: You can do this next step two ways. You can print your image out in reverse and place the hoop on top of it with the nylon side up. (This is what I did.) Or, what I think would be easier, is to print your image out just like you want to see it and put the nylon side down so it is touching the paper and then trace the image onto the nylon with a pen or marker.

step 3: Using mod podge, paint any areas of the design that you don't want to be color when you screen print. For me it was the outline of the hand. Make sure you flip the hoop over so the nylon is not touching the paper (the image will be reverse), otherwise it will stick to the paper as the glue dries. 

I used a toothpick to paint the detailed areas and a foam brush to do the bigger outside areas.

step 4: Wait for the mod podge to dry. It will dry clear and harden.

step 5: Now your screen is ready to use! But first you need to mix together the acrylic paint and the fabric paint medium. Follow the instructions on the bottle. For me it was 2 parts paint to 1 part medium.



step 6: Now the real fun begins. Place your screen, nylon side down, on top of your fabric. Squeeze or pour a generous amount of paint in a line across the top of your image. Now, do as I say, not as I do. I took this picture on my very first attempt, and I didn't do it right. The paint should go all the way across your image and be enough that as you pull it down the screen you have enough to fill in the image. This is done in one step. Only pull the paint across the screen one time, so be sure that when you do it that your card is sliding over the whole image. Not like how I show it in the picture below.



I definitely recommend practicing. It took me a few tries to get the hang of how much paint and how much pressure to use.

When you are ready, make sure to remember what you learned, and don't go against your better judgment. Like I did. I said not to go over the image twice, but I did. When I printed on the actual shirt I was so nervous it wasn't going to come out right that I went over it a second time and put too much paint into the image and lost some detail. Darn it!

After the paint dried I went back over it with a toothpick and touched it up. I pulled out some white paint and mixed it with the fabric medium to add the details back into the image.

step 7: To heat set the paint, after it has dried, place a cloth over the image and press an iron to it for a few seconds.

This method of screen printing isn't perfect. But it was cheaper, and it worked for what I was using it for. I actually think it gives a pretty good distressed image, when you do it right and don't use too much paint. :)

Little one year olds don't care what their shirt looks like, plus they look cute no matter what they're wearing. That's the advantage of being a baby. Actually, in the end I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. It was a fun project and definitely something I'd give another try at.

Pinterest Inspiration

In high school I loved interior design. Loved it. I actually wanted to go to college and study interior design. I painted bright colored stripes on the walls of my room, which coordinated with the quilt on my bed. I made a few picture displays for my room, and always dreamt of doing more. I loved watching Trading Spaces on TLC, looking for new inspiration.

Then I moved away from home and went off to college. I took an introductory class in Interior Design and decided I liked it more as a hobby, and wasn't so interested in studying. I think the problem there was that the class was all about memorizing furniture styles and time periods, names of pieces, and their designers. It was lame. I took a 160 question test in 20 minutes and got 100% on it- all because it was straight memorization. I wasn't inspired to learn more.

In college I slowly moved away from design. I moved every year, I always rented, and I really didn't have the time or money to spend a lot of focus on sprucing up my space. 

After college, I married Kyle. It was still the same story, no money, no time, and always a rental= no desire to decorate.

Now that we own a house and have been here for almost a year, I'm finally growing tired of the bare walls, and boring furniture. I'm ready to decorate! But I've lost all inspiration and drive.

Today I sidetracked myself slightly by browsing through a couple of my own Pinterest boards, searching for inspiration. Here is some of what has me inspired: (click on the image to follow the link)