Project Easter Skirt - Fail

As the title says I tried to make myself an Easter skirt and failed miserably.  I found the cutest skirt here.  The Tutorial was pretty straight forward and it looked really easy to make.  I followed her guidelines on making the skirt a different size (Sadly I'm a little bit bigger then she is -- height and waist).  Not sure how I messed up but after I got 2 of the ruffles on I realized that I had cut my skirt in on the width and not the length.  So my skirt is now short and big around instead of the other way around. 

Basically I just wasted $19.00 in material.  Grrr!  It's not salvageable because not all the measurements are off. 

Also I am having a huge issue with my sewing machine sewing ZigZag Stiches.  You can see from this picture what it's doing.  To get around this I just used a straight stitch when I sewed the ruffle to the skirt. 

The most frustating part of it all is I thought it was going to be easy to work on so I started this first instead of working on the boys ties and now it's the day before Easter and I don't have an Easter skirt and the boys don't have Easter ties.

I'm frustrated with myself and lack of sewing ability. I keep thinking it's a learned process but I honest think some people are just born with the ability to creat thing with a sewing machine (like my mom) and I just don't.

Easter Peep Bunnies

I have always been fan of the Easter candy Peeps.  I love when the package has been opened and they get just a little bit hard and a little bit stale. 
Well this next craft isn't hard or stale... LOL.

Check out the blog Dandelions and Lace for this next tutorial.  I'm not even going to show how I made them (other then a few tips) because her explanation and pictures are amazing! 

The first difference in my Peeps and hers is that I enlarged her pattern.  The reason I did this was because
a) I'm just a beginner and I don't think I could have sewn around the ears as well as she did... It was still tricky.
b) I wanted to use my peeps as decorations where hers were small enough to put in a Easter Basket.

Here are my Easter Peeps:

And now my tips.

If the back of the fleece isn't noticeable like 2 of my fabric's were make sure to mark them somehow so you know which way is the front and which is the back.  The pattern looks symmetrical but it's not.  I had this problem with the first one that I made.  I had the second piece all pinned to complete the back and none of the corners or ears matched up.  It would have made for a silly looking bunny.

When pinning together the back of the bunny.  If found it easier to match key corners (top of each ear, anywhere there was to be an indent).  It took away any guess work that I had to do. 

Use a ton of pins!  It helps keep it all together and makes sure the fabric won't bunch up or stretch the wrong direction.

Have fun  with the colors and where you display the bunnies.  My son loves getting up in the morning and seeing where the bunnies have moved to that day.  The funniest thing he said one morning while eating breakfast and saw that two of the bunnies were on a ledge we have in our living room "Oh my crap mom, what are they doing up there?!"  He's only two so it was pretty funny because I don't know where he learned "Oh my crap" from. 

Remember to visit Dandelions and Lace. She also has a pattern for Peep Chicks.  So cute, but I'll stick to the Peep Bunnies this year.  If you do make a bunny please post either a link in the comment section or email me to let me know.  It's fun to see what others are making.

St. Patrick Day Shirts

This year instead of trying to find the perfect St. Patrick's Day shirt I thought I'd make my kids their shirts.



Supplies:
Tshirt
Fabric of your choice
Sewable Heat Transfer
Coordinating thread
Fabric Paint (I just used Acrylic paint)
Freezer Paper

I bought their shirts at Target for $3.00.



Next I picked up some Green fabric from Walmart. It was pretty cheap I think I spent $0.27 for the little bit that I bought. I already had the heat transfer so I didn't need to buy that.

So pretty much each shirt costed me $3.27 to make.

First I found a four leaf clover on the web. I found this one:


I resized it to fit the shirts that I had bought. Gavin's four leaf clover was a little bit smaller then Zacks naturally.

I cut the fabric and the heat transfer to the size of the clover picture that I had printed.



I then ironed on the heat transfer as directed on the package. Remember to use the Sewable heat transfer if you are planning on sewing the shirts. I wanted them to last so I sewed my design on.

Next I pinned the clover to my fabric. And cut it out.





After the clover was cut out I peeled the paper off the heat transfer (as directed on the packaging) and ironed it to my shirt. Not sure if because it was sewable transfer paper or if I'd had it for a while, but the edges didn't stay down very well. The rest of it held in place so it was workable.



After I had the four leaf clover where I wanted it on the shirt I figured out how big I wanted my words. I'm not very creative so I just used the word LUCKY. I have the program Cricut DesignStudio on my computer (LOVE IT). By using the Design Studio I'm able to make my letters exactly how wide and long I want them to be. I can also move the letters so they are closer to further apart to each other. (So much I'm able to do with this program).



When I was finished with my word on DesignStudio I cut out the letters using my Cricut and Freezer paper. Freezer paper is amazing because it can be used like removable heat transfer paper. I basically cut out the letters out of the freezer paper and ironed it onto the shirt so it was a template for the paint.





I just used acrylic paint because that's what I had onhand. Plus have you ever gotten acrylic paint on your clothes? That stuff does not come out easily. And since I wasn't worried about it fading to much that's what I used. Make sure when you are painting to dab not brush. You don't want the freezer paper to get peeled up.



Let the paint dry then peel off the freezer paper carefully.



I didn't get a picture of the sewing process. But with your coordinating thread using the sewing machine (or by hand if you want) sew around the four leaf clover and stem.

And there you have a easy St. Patrick's day shirt.

Neighbor Christmas Gift

Every year I try to give a neighbor gift to some of my neighbors and also I give a little homemade gift to my close friends.

This year my friend gift was Christmas coasters. I got the idea from a few different blogs (our computer blew up so I lost all my links).

First I bought 4 coasters for each of my friends.
I got the tiles from Lowes
Cost: $0.28 each tile



Next I bought a sheet of cork for the backs. Don't want the coasters scratching anyone's tables. I cut the cork so it fits on the back of tile.
Cost for the sheet of cork was under $1.00



Next I bought some Christmas napkins from Target. I think the cost for the napkins (pack of 25) was just under $2.00.
Cut the napkin so it fits on the tile. I just mine just a little bit smaller so a little bit of the tile was showing.



I then mod podged the napkin to the tile. It does bubble a little bit so you have to use the mod podge sparingly.



To finish off the tile I sprayed each one with a waterproof spray.



Word to the wise, if your going to spray the waterproofer outside make sure to have something underneath the tiles. Or else your cement will look like mine....



I didn't get a picture of all the tiles together but I tied four tiles together with a ribbon. You can kind of get the idea, I made the ribbon look like a present.

Batman Hooded Towel

When I saw this post over at emile handmade I knew immediately that I had to make one for one of my friends that was having a baby. I made this in December so this is a old craft project that I worked on, but just found the pictures....

I followed her tutorial pretty much to the "T".

I had found the towel at Target on clearnace (score) and picked up the yellow towel at Wal-mart for farily cheap.

I think total cost for this amazing project was under $5.

So to begin go to Emile's blog and check out her tutorial.

The only thing that I didn't do was the loops for the arms to go into since I was making this towel for a baby gift. Also I used binding (I think that's what it's called) for the edges so it gave it more of a finished look to it. So to finish it off I attached the binding to the edge of the towel with pins. I cut it off at each edge and started again to give it the perfect scalloped look.

My friend LOVED this gift.

This is Zack modeling the towel before I gave it as a gift.