A good thing to Remember is...

Take time to smell the roses

Take full advantage of the awesome store BEVMO.  Not just for alcohol drinkers, but those of us who appreciate fun drinks like italian sodas, and all sorts of bottled colas.

There is just something about grabbing 2 or 3 bottles with one hand from the icebox that screams "Grab me one too!!" and the fact that you either tare up your hand trying to open the bottle cap or you simple grab a kitchen towel and save your self some hurt. 

So the next time your in the mood for buying some soda...go bottled.  You won't be dissapointed.

Enjoy!!

Hooded Towel Tutorial

I am getting ready for this little boy to come.  I have really low amniotic fluid so it will be sooner than I aniticipated, but is still a waiting game.  Any time now. Right now as I write this post, I am 34 weeks.  if I can just hold out 2 more weeks, then I won't be freaking out so much inside my head.  oh well, My Dr. is fantastic and I know things will be okay.

So I have things to do...Baby needs his towel when he gets home so here it is!!

Get a regular adult size towl, and a Hand towel, or use a wash cloth, but they tend not to be the same type if material so it won't match, but if you run into wash clothes that are the same feel as a towel, your craft just got easier!!

Now your hood is finished.  Excited yet???

wasnt that just awesome???

When Greyson comes, don't worry there will be a picture of him wrapped up with his huge eyes poking out from under the hood.  I did it with eac of my girls.  Its cute.

ENJOY!!

Freezer Paper Stencil Tutorial- Georgia Peach State Shirt

Another one of my most used techniques.  I love this.  The possibilities are so endless and you can make this as easy or as hard as you want.

So its pretty simple.  Grab some Freezer paper.  Yep...freezer paper.  It is in by the plastic wrap and the tin foil, and wax paper at the store. 

Also, grab your craft knife, scissors aren't the best for this project, too many small details.

1. draw out your design, or print something from your clip art.  This is fun, so get creative

2. get your freezer paper and craft knife out along with your cutting mat.

3. trace your design onto the dull side of the freezer paper, make any adjustments you need to to the design...as you can see I did.

Start cutting out the smaller peices, here I started with the letters, when they are cut out, set them on your sketch paper with your design on it so you know where each peice is supposed to lay.  Use it as a map.

Then take your freezer paper design and iron shiny side down to your fabric.  This makes it stick to the fabric, but will easily peel off when your finished.  Make sure you get all edges really good so there is now paint seeping/bleeding.  Especially  on the letters. 

Now grab your premanent fabric paint and make your colors.  Using a sponge brush, lightly dab over any small peices, such as the letters, stroking motions can lift the letters off the fabric, then your screwed.

make sure if your not going for a distressed finished, that you have covered each area with paint.  Let dry about 20 minutes or so.  Then turn inside out and Heat seal it with an iron, or throw it in your dryer for a couple minutes.

see how awesome??  I loved doing this design.  I am adding it to my state shirt collection.  Thanks to Jennifer for the custom order.  She liked my AZ state onesie and asked to do this for her baby,  they live in Georgia. 

Ruffles....what to do with them

Everyone (almos everyone) that I talk to about ruffles, doesn't know this little trick.  They are always fussing with their gathering foot, and not loving the experience.  This has been one of the most useful techinique/tricks I have used.  I use it almost everyday, and it is simple.  No stopping to change presserfoots or anything.  So Hopefully you will enjoy this "how to ruffle" bit and get a new idea or two on what to do with them.

I had some shirts that needed "life"

I also had a shirt I used in the baby pants tutorial found HERE, that I could use up the scraps.  So to do the look of the grey and striped shirt, don't use your rotary and ruler.  Just cut away, making the strips uneven.  This will add great texture to the design.  And it looks pretty with the ruffles.

Now to do ruffles, set your machine to the longest stitch

And set your tension to High

Now sew!  See how the fabric begins to pucker??

Now gather all your strips.

Start pinning the outer circle, then sew.

Continue with each layer

Finish off in the center, then clip all your strings.

Now for another cute idea, make it asymmetrical to one shoulder.

Gather these ruffles as tight as they go.  You may have to tug on the thread (the lower/underside thread)  to make it tighter after running it though your machine.

Layer all the way up to the top of he shoulder.

*try and get your kid to smile and stand still for a great shot...impossible.

I hope you learned something easy and new and found new ruffling ideas.

Enjoy!!!

Crocheting or KNitting?? a handmade Christmas

I am not much of a teacher when it comes to crocheting so that is when I gladly link you over to to someone else who does it much better than I.  So I give you the Purl Bee.  They are over in my sidebar, so you can browse their site anytime, but this link HERE will show you how to knit a cowl scarf.  My favorite since last year.  I don't knit, but I do crochet, so I crochet to get the same look.

This is scratching off one of the items from my Handmade Christmas list.  These are great gifts!!  I am working on mine right now and I will show you a picture when I am done!!!

Holiday House Success

As I have mentioned before, I participated in an awesome,2 day craft bazaar extravaganza.  It was amazing!  For the last 2 months I have been preparing articles to showcase at my booth.  My cute friend, Brittany, from Paisley Lace and Pearls (www.paisleylaceandpearls.etsy.com)  helped me out with my booth.  Decorating for this kind of thing is not really my style, nor am I good at it.  I had a few of the things that were my idea, but I then let her go and run with it and take creative control of the situation.  She shared my booth with me and showcased her pretty little crocheted cuff bracelets for babies, girls, and adults along with some cute hair accessories.
We had a great time chatting away with other vendors and customers over the 2 day 20 hour event.  Some good contacts, and friends were made.  We are excited to participate again next year!  Thanks for to our friends who came and visited us there.  Its so much fun to see familiar faces when your busy at work.  Also thanks to my husband who took care of my girls for the whole two days while I worked hard to make some moola.  All in all this was very successful and the best show I've done thus far.  Thanks Arlena and Katie for opening your home and talents and putting this great event together!  What a great start to this years holiday season!

T-Mobile. America's First Nationwide 4G Network.

Fabric Dyeing

Don't be intimidated!  This is freaking awesome!  No more worrying about not finding the right color of onesie, shirt, whatever.  Especially if you run a boutique, no more wondering what color of shirts to buy.  Just get white, then dye them.  They tend to turn out prettier than the already colored items. I have done both.  But I am sure for some colors you may want to go ahead and purchase the garment, navy, brown, black, dark colors I suppose. 

I was scared when I first tried this technique, now it is a regular occasion for my business.  I love it.  So let me help calm any fear you may have!  If you want to try it out before you go big, get a little box like what I used in this tutorial, instead of the bottle of dye. 

Here we go...ready??

you can find this dye at Joann's and Michaels and I am sure online in many places.  I love grey...you may know that already from previous posts (if you were a follower of my hacked into, deleted blog...sorry I am still a little bitter)

Luckily, my customers share the same enthusiasm for the wonderful shade as I do.

Choose your method.  Open up the box and find which one works best for you.  I do my kitchen sink/bucket method.  Easy and I don't have to get anything out. Which then results in a quicker process.

So you will desolve the dye powder in a cup of really hot water and stir for 2 minutes, while you are filling up your sink/bucket with the hottest water you can get out of your faucet.  Follow the amount of water/ gallons as the box says. 

After your dye has dissolved in the small portion of water, add it to the water bath in the sink/bucket.  Then add your fabric.  It says to prewet your fabric...you may want to your first time. But since I do it all the time, of course I skip that step.  Thats me...

Submerge all fabric and stir a till it is all wet in the dye.  Set your timer for 10 minutes and stir again once the timer has gone off.  Repeat these steps for about 20-30 minutes til it looks about the color you want.

Drain the water from the sink and rinse all the fabric with luke warm water.  Ring them out real good.  Then wash them in cold water in light detergent and dry as normal. 

Look how pretty! There are so many fun colors that it is hard for me to decide when I go to purchase.  of course I always purchase grey and fusia (pictured)  I love the teal and that may be a staple as well.  I have used purple before and that is pretty.  Great for summer.  Try it!  You'll see.  You might be addicted just as I am ;0)

Enjoy!!

Christmas gift count down

I can't wait to get started on my christmas gifts. I'm trying to go more handmade and make different things that I may already have stuff for. Anything on my list interest you?

Knit Pants from Shirt

Here is another good one that I lost in the reckage.  Simple enough though and I am constantly making pants for some reason or another so I just took some pictures this time.

This is great for using up your old shirts that you love but maybe you just don't wear anymore, or there is a stain or a hole somewhere.  You have those right???  Make some pants!!  So here is what you need:

A shirt your going to recycle/refashion

a pair of existing kid pants

elastic

thread

safety pin

turn your shirt inside out and place the folded pants straight side on one side of the shirt (where the side seam is)  Make sure you pull everything nice and flat and that the bottom of the shirt lines up.  Pull the crotch of the pants out as far as you can at that little curve.

cut around the pants leaving 1/4 inch Seam Allowance and a couple extra inches at the top for making the elastic casing.

Take that peice you just cut and turn is and place it on the other side seam of the shirt and cut it exactly.

You will now have 2 folded peices that should mirror each other.

Now, unfold the peices and place them right sides together.  Pin from the top to the curve of the crotch and sew.  Stop at that curve/point.

Repeat for both sides.

Now if you want to add some knee pads, grab some felt and cut your desired shape x2.

Turn the pants right side out making that seam you just sewed the center of the pant. 

Place the knee pads and pin.

sew around the felt and make some stripes if you want. 

Now turn your pints inside out again and we are going to finish the pant.  Keeping that first seam in the center, you will now pin the inside up one leg and down the other.

Sew where you pinned.  it should look like this.

Fold over to fit up to 1 inch elastic and pin.

sew your casing leaving a 2 inch opening to insert the elastic later on.

designate front from back and sew on a tag or a ribbon of some sort.

Now insert your elastic.

over lap it 1 inch and zig zag it several times to reinforce the strength of the stitch. Then sew you casing closed.

You now have some good looking pants that are soft and pretty much free.  I love refashioning.  Especially for my new babe.  My husband give me shirts all the time that I can now make into pants, or just miniature tshirts.  Hope you found this helpful.  This is great for doing pajamas for Christmas!!!  Thats what I do!!!

Enjoy!