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.

Rag Quilt

Being far away from friends is hard. Being far away from friends when they are about ready to have a baby is even harder! To let my friend know that I was thinking of her I made this quilt for her.



First off pick out three or more pieces of fabric that you want to have in your blanket. I chose two different green pattern, black with a swirl in it, and a fuzzy white. You can have the back of the quilt be the same pattern by getting double of the fabric or you can do a solid color (which I did). I just went with Black as the back of the blanket. You can also choose any type of fabric. The 3 three (greens and black) were just your regular cotton. But it depends on how warm or heavy you want as to which fabric to choose.

Now for the yardage....
I'm pretty sure that I bought 1/4 of a yard of each color and for the back I bough 2 yards.
I also bought a baby quilt batting for the center of the quilt.

First thing first cut out the fabric into squares. My squares were 7 inches.




Next you need to cut the batting out. I made the mistake of cutting the squares an inch smaller... which didn't work. I then had to re-cut all of them another inch smaller. So my batting was 5 inch squares.



About this time you will also want to be laying out the blanket in the pattern that you think you will want to have the final to look like. This will give you a good idea of how many more squares to cut or if you need more or less of a fabric.

The blanket that I made was 7 squares wide and 7 squares long. Depending on who you are making the blanket for you can go bigger or smaller. Also make sure to cut out the squares for the back of you blanket.



Now the fun part. You will want to piece and sew each square together. So get a back fabric, the batting and the front fabric and make a batting sandwich. I have to pin everything, I'm just not good enough yet to sew without pins.



Then you'll sew an X in each individual square.



Once all my squares were sewn together I started sewing them into rows to form my blanket. To get the fringe on top the best that I found was to put the two back pieces together and sew on the front. I hope this picture shows what I mean:



I found it best to sew each row individually. So when I was done with this step I had 7 rows of squares. This especially helped because when I layed it out I had flipped the pattern and had two matching fabrics right next to each other. If I had sewn them together without laying them down to see a final time, I would have had to un-stitch that portion of the blanket. Glad I dodged that bullet :).



Then you'll sew the rows together the same way you sewed the squares to each other. The nice thing is it's a rag quilt and doesn't need to be perfect. The final sewing step is to sew around the edges. Again it's rag quilt so doesn't need any edges just a nice line.

Not sure what my "hem" measurement is but this is picture gives you an idea of how big I made my edges.



Now turn on a good movie, make yourself comfortable and start cutting. I didn't get a picture but just cut lines into the fabric to make that "rag" look.

And because I had extra fabric and squares I decided to make a bib for my friend using the same method. It was cute but not really sure if it's very practical. It was thick and didn't just sit flush. But it was a fun add on I guess.



And the final project again. I'm hoping to see some pictures with the baby (born Jan 7 on his due date!) so check back for more pictures.

Christmas Stockings

December has definitely slowed me down with getting ready for Christmas, working and trying to get neighbor gifts made and delivered. So if your checking in make sure to check the next few posts because even though I haven't been posting I have been crafting!

Growing up we had the best stockings! My mom made them for us and they were awesome. They were a good size so we got tons of stuff in our stockings. I have wonderful memories with our Christmas stockings. Our stockings growing up were all the same color (green and white) so we didn't have our own stocking. But every year we would write our names on a piece of paper and pin it to our stocking. Christmas morning we would sneak upstairs to find all our stockings in a row on the couch filled to the brim with stuff! Christmas morning always seemed so magical to me. We always got Oranges and Apples in the bottom of our stocking along with nuts. We also got toothbrushes and a few wrapped gifts. The wrapped gifts we could open before our parents got up. Everything under the Christmas tree had to stay untouched until Mom got up. As we got older we each found olives in our stocking... yes my family was crazy about olives. Mine were always green olives because I loved them so much! And we'd also get our favorite soda in our stocking (along with all the regular goodness).

So as you can see the stockings were a major part of our Christmas. And I want our kids to have the same kind of memories. So this year I finally got around to making the kids a stocking of their own. Zack's first two Christmas's he just used a store bought stocking.



So here is how I made our stockings:

First I traced my stocking onto the fabric that I picked out for the boys (Zack's was blue and Gavin's was Green). I don't have an exact measurement though. If anyone is interested in making their own let me know and I can get measurements or a .pdf of our stocking

The best material to buy is the already quilted Christmas fabric. I didn't do that so I had to quilt my own. I also didn't buy enough fabric because I forgot that I had to quilt it so the inside of my stockings are a plain coordinating fabric. (excuse the sideways pictures, blogger keeps turing it this way... Ugh!)

After you've traced and cut out the stocking match up the the inside, stuffing and outside of the stocking. (again stupid blogger rotated the picture)



To make the quilted effect I traced line on the inside of the stocking of the quilted pattern that I wanted.



I then quilted overtop of the lines. I'm not a quilter and a beginner seamstress so I know it's not perfect but it worked for my first stockings.



Once I got both the front and the back quilted I sewed the stockings together. Make sure to leave the top open. As a little bit of decoration I wanted to line the stocking with rickrack. I've never sewn rickrack before so that was an interesting process. It took me a few tries but I think it looked okay. Next time I would definitly make use a bigger rickrack though. Basically for the rickrack I pinned it on the inside of the stocking. That way when I sewed the sides the rick rack would be lining the stocking. Rickrack was definitly a learning process for me. I still haven't mastered how to use it but I am a little bit closer. I'd do a few practice runs just so your familiar with it if you haven't used it before and your going for the same effect.

After I sewed the sides together I wanted to add a fur cuff to the top of the stocking. Again another learning experience as I have never sewn with fur before.

First I cut the fur to the desired width. for the length just make sure it's the size of the top of your stocking. What I didn't do with the first stocking but did do with second stocking that is pretty important is to sew the sides together so it makes a tube. Then pin the fur to the inside top of your stocking. The picture shows the fur the wrong way. Make sure to pin it so you see the back side of the fur or when you turn it to make the cuff you will have the wrong side. Learned that the hard way.



Once you've finished you will have a beatiful stocking that you and your family will be proud to display all season long.



The two red stockings are stocking that my mom helped me make a few years back for the husband and I. They were also my templates to make the boys stockings.

2x4 Snowman

I am addicted to 2x4 projects. Once I saw this tutorial on Crafty Chic Mommy's blog I just knew I had to make one (or two). I also have a very a patient husband that will cut my wood for me (I just can't get over my fear of the saw).

I made this snowman as a baby shower prize. But I couldn't just stop with one I also made one for my Sister-in-Law for her birthday.




How I made the 2x4 snowman:
3 2x4 cut to size you want the snow man.

• I used 8" for bottom, 6" for middle and 4" for head

White Paint
Brown Paint
Burnt Orange Paint (for the nose)
2 Buttons
2 Stars (one for the star with words on it, and one for the nose)
Fabric for Scarf

First you need to sand the edges of the 2x4 so they are smooth and a little bit rounded

Next paint all the blocks white



Once the paint is dry water down the brown paint and apply it like a stain. I liked the kind of dingy look. The white was just too white. Apply the brown paint then immediatly wipe the paint off.


Once the blocks are dry glue them together. I use Gorilla Glue and LOVE it! It drys pretty quickly (completly dry in 5 hours) and you don't need to use a lot of it. And it's tough glue!



Once the glue on the blocks are set you can begin decorating your snowman.

I don't have a saw or anything I could cut a wooden nose out of so what I did was I bought two stars. The one I used for the bottom of the snowman and the second I used for his nose. I used my husbands pipe cutter (I think that's what they are) and started cutting. It worked out perfectly because it already had a rounded corner. To make the lines in the nose I just used one of our old kitchen knives and cut lines. Then I used our potato peeler to make them deeper. Quality I know, but I had to use what I had on hand.

The star that I used for the nose

Beginning cutting

After all the cuts. Don't forget to sand the edges. This will help get ride of any rough edges from the scissors.

Once you've gotten your nose the way you like it paint it orange. Don't worry if the paint doesn't get in ithe lines that you cut because you'll be putting the brown paint (stain) overtop and the lines will be filled in.

Finally after decorating your snowman you will have a wonderful 2x4 creation!

2x4 pumpkin and Christmas Tree

If you haven't been to http://www.u-createcrafts.com/ then you are seriously missing out on a wonderful website. I visit this website daily. Not only does she feature some amazing projects but she also has guest posts with tutorials. Once I saw this project I just knew I had to make one. They are so easy and inexpensive.

The 2x4 pumpkin is from Under my Umbrella. Here is a link to her tutorial on u-createcrafts. Like I said AMAZING website.

I pretty much followed her tutorial.

Here is my finished project


At the bottom of the post there are other projects that Under My Umbrella created. I couldn't resist trying the Christmas Tree.

So here is the finished Christmas Tree


I made these wood projects for Birthday gifts. The recipents lived together and we celebrated their birthday the same day so I had to make one the Pumpkin and one the Christmas Tree.