Leafy Wreath

Finally a craft post! YAY! 

Here's the wreath I made to give away as a door prize at our school carnival this weekend.

I got my inspiration from this wreath I found on Pinterest forever ago. 

You can purchase that wreath here: Jane Joss Etsy shop. Be sure to go visit the Jane Joss shop. She's got some beautiful items. 

I made my leaves very similar to the way the Etsy shop owner describes hers, but I added a flower as well. It turned out really pretty. I like the neutral colors, but it would be fun in bright colors, too. And especially in fall colors during the fall. 

It was a pretty quick Friday night project. And I was happy to hear a friend of mine at school won the wreath. She said it would match her current decor perfectly. 

I decided to make a tag last minute. I'm loving my new polka dot stamp.

Hope you love this leafy wreath as much as I do. I needed something a little different and this one was fun to make. I'd like to keep experimenting with it and do some other variations with colors and different flowers. 

Thanks for reading and have a great week! See you again soon! 

Necklace Refashion 2: Interchangeable Flowers

Hey everyone! 

 So it's been awhile since I've posted a real tutorial. Too much other life things happening. Like grad school. And teaching. And...well that's mostly it really, but - whew - those two things are kinda taking over right now. Since it's been so long without a great tutorial, It's high time you get something awesome. So here it is. Or at least I think so. :) 

I hope you enjoy this Interchangeable Flower Necklace Refashion! 

Okay, so the name is a little long, but that's okay. I'm long-winded so it works. 

I've gotten lots of compliments when I wear this necklace. You will, too if you make one! 

The necklace on the far left is what I started with. I lengthened it and added a flower that is interchangeable! 

 How much more fun is that necklace now! And you can change out the flowers to whatever you want!! I love multiple options!! 

 If you've been to my blog before you might have seen that I actually already refashioned this necklace earlier this week. Who would have thought I could do it again!
If you missed the first refashion, go check it out! 

The necklace that I started with had been sitting on its hook for years untouched. It was in good shape and had nice beads on it so I decided it just needed a redo. This necklace is very easy-even if you've never made jewelry before. All materials can  be found relatively cheap at your Hobby Lobby or Michael's store. 

Materials:

1. Bent nose pliers

2. Flat nose pliers

3. Jump rings

4. small link chain (only about 4-6 inches worth)

5. Lobster clasps (I used two small and one large, but It doesn't really matter)

6. Filigree

7. Large link chain (13 inches, cut in half)

8. Felt circles that match the back of your fabric flower

9. Old necklace (mine was 16 inches long)

10. Fabric flowers you made or bought (not pictured above)

11. Hot glue (not pictured)

Let's get started! 

1. Take apart the old necklace.

Open the jump ring by holding one side of the ring with one set of pliers and holding the other side of it with your other set of pliers and simply pull apart. Your bent nose pliers are thinner and easier to work with so I usually position my flat nose pliers in my left hand to hold the jump ring stationary and then I use my bent nose pliers in my right and let them do most of the work. Here's my deconstructed necklace. I think I'll have to find something fun to do with that sweet little bow charm. 


2. Attach closure to the chain. 

My large chain was already cut in half and the perfect size (miraculously enough that was left over from a previous project!!) so I don't have a picture of measuring the chain and halving it. You need two 6.5 inch lengths of chain (if your old necklace is the same length as mine). This chain is huge and pretty strong so instead of cutting, pull apart a link (and then re-close it) to separate it into 2 pieces.

Now let's attach the lobster clasp to one end of the large chain. Open a jump ring (as shown above) and slide on the lobster clasp and the chain and then use your pliers to push the jump ring back together as it was before you opened it. Make sure it is fully closed. You don't want your necklace falling apart. That has, of course, never happened to me.... riiiiight. 

Then take your other piece of chain and attach the small chain to it using the same method. The small chain can be used if you want to adjust your necklace. You can hook the lobster clasp to the jump ring to close it or to one of the links in the small chain.

3. Attach large chain to old necklace.

Now open another jump ring and slide on one end of the old necklace and one end of your chain (whichever side you don't want the flower on) and close the jump ring back. 

1. For the other side use jump rings to attach the other two lobster clasps to both the chain and the old necklace. These will hook to both top and bottom of your fabric flower allowing you to change it out if you want. 

2. Attach jump rings to the top and bottom of your filigree.  This is what you will hook your lobster clasps to. The jump rings will help your lobster clasp lay flat.

3. Hot glue the filigree to the back side of your flower and then glue the matching felt circle on top of it. Only glue on the middle on top of the filigree and out to the edges of the felt circles on the sides only. Leave top and bottom unglued as shown so the felt can be pulled back to reveal your jump rings.

4. Attach lobster clasp on the old necklace to the bottom of your flower and attach the lobster clasp on to the chain to the top of your flower. Now let the felt fall back and your lobster clasps are hidden! 

Done!

I like to wear my flower a little lower so that the necklace has an asymmetrical look to it. Also so the flower isn't all up on my neck. Ha! 

If you're interested in making this flower, go see my Chain Wrapped Rosette tutorial.

This one is HUGE, but I love it.

If you're interested in making this flower, it's just an extra huge version of this flower tutorial

Who doesn't love leopard and old buttons? 

This flower is made using my Scrappy No-Sew Flower tutorial with black mesh in the middle.

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial!

Linking to the parties on my sidebar. 

A Bright and Happy Wreath for the Classroom

At school we play Secret Pal between teachers where we send each other little gifts and encouraging notes throughout the quarter anonymously. So I took a tiny break from entering grades for report cards and writing papers for my grad class to make this wreath to give to my teacher friend as her "Reveal Gift" to hang on her classroom door.

I got my inspiration for my wreath from these beauties:

this one from Nest of Posies 

How gorgeous is that wreath in a frame?! I've got to put a wreath in a frame soon. I just love it. 

and this one at Kiki Creates which I've loved forever.

I used embroidery thread to put centers in the flowers and also to outline and add veins to the leaves.

I'd also never made those fun loopy flowers before and used the techniques seen in this tutorial, but I made my loops bigger. 

 I really had to restrain from using those warm fall colors that I love so much since my friend's favorite colors are pink and blue, but I did manage to sneak that mustard yellow in there. I love when I create things for others and use colors that I wouldn't normally use and end up loving it! 

 I took these pictures during a 5 minute break at a professional development day at school before I gave it to my friend. That must be why I did not see that blue nail or whatever that is on the wall in the center of the wreath! Ha! 

I hope you like it. Thanks for reading! 

Linking to the parties on my sidebar. 

Tiered Eyelet Skirt and Flower Shirt

Some of you may remember that several weeks ago I was competing in Season 9 of So You Think You're Crafty. I was eliminated from the contest the week before Creepy Crafty Halloween started and never had a chance to share! 

This is the project I made for Thrift Store Week for SYTYC. I loved this project, but there were some fabulous crafters with some great projects that beat me out, so it's ok!  Even though I wanted to continue competing, I got eliminated at the right time because my life got crazy this month.  I wanted to take a minute, though, and thank you for voting for me and share these sweet dresses with you. 

Like many crafters/hoarders, I have a growing pile of thrift store finds waiting to be re-vamped, but for this challenge I didn't feel like any of those options were fun enough. I went shopping last minute and got so super lucky! I found an awesome peach eyelet queen-sized bedskirt (top left) and a 4 piece something (bottom right) that may or may have not matched the bedskirt with these really great orange pleats surrounded by a vintage-y lace. SO cute. I didn't know what I'd use them for when I bought them (which is usually what happens to me in thrift stores), but I knew I needed them. 

Finally I knew that precious peach eyelet needed to be a little girl's skirt. 

 And so was born the two-tiered, lined skirt for my friend's little girl, Maycie, with a matching flower shirt. 

 The only way we could get any pictures of her was to play peek-a-boo. How sweet is she?! I made the orange pleating part into a casing and slid wide elastic in to create the waist. I just love how the little skirt turned out. My friend's daughter loved it too. She was super sad when I had to take the outfit home with me to take more pictures. 

The little top is one I found on clearance at Wal-Mart and the American flag on it is completely covered by the flower. It also has the vintage-y lace from the fabric I got at the thrift store sewn to the sleeves and collar. 

Then since my friend is expecting another little girl, I just had to make a little matching onesie dress.  Even though I made this one second, it might be my favorite. So precious. The two little girls are planning on having pictures taken in their new matching outfits after sister #2 makes her appearance! 

I used the tutorials in this post to make the onesie dress and flowers on both outfits. They're a little summery, but I was hoping with that deep orang in there they'd be cute with leggings for fall.
Hope you love them as much as I do!

Hope everyone's having a great weekend. See you again soon for a Halloween post!
Linking to the parties on my sidebar!

Embellished Gift Bags {A Tutorial}

 So I might have gone a little overboard here. I made a lot of embellished gift bags. I ruffled, I flowered, and I put a bow on them. Now you get to learn how. Check it out.

 Once I got going, I couldn't stop. Seriously. Ridiculous. I even coordinated fabrics with different types of embellishments...

I might need an intervention. These are so easy and fun. 

I got this idea because I always get so mad when I walk into Target and have to spend $3.99 on one cute gift bag. In this post I talked about how I decided to just get the 10 for $5.99 pack and embellish my own for only 59 cents a piece. Well. I went to this fun little hometown discount store, Ollie's, and got a different pack (the teal you see) 10 for $3.99!! 

That's 39 cents per gift bag, even after embellishing if you use your own scrap fabrics!!

Wanna make some? Let's do it. 

Beware. This post is long and full of pictures. It's only to help you (and to help me) be more clear on how to do it. Don't be overwhelmed- this is so easy.  

Materials Needed:

About 20x7in of tulle

About 20x5 in of chiffon

About 20x3 in. of cotton

About 20x1.5 in. of cotton

gift bags

hot glue

Sewing essentials

For the ruffle gift bags, I basically used 4 layers of ruffles as labeled above. All layers are strips cut to be double the length of the bag. The first layer is about 5 or 6 layers of either tulle or mesh and is 7 or 8 in. wide (about an inch in from each side of the bag). The second layer could be chiffon to add more texture (or you can just use cotton) and is about 4 or 5 inches wide. And the 3rd and 4th layers are cotton coordinating fabrics, the 3rd layer is 3 inches wide and the 4th layer is 1.5 inches wide.

I found this great bolt of tulle that is a perfect width to start out with at Michael's. You can always cut yours, too. 

Cut 5 or 6 layers of tulle, set your machine to the highest setting on tension and the highest stitch length on your machine and sew down (for more ruffling techniques and tutorials go here).

 Once the stitches are in, to add more texture cut the one layer of tulle at a time so that the layers are different widths. I started with the top layer the smallest width and worked my way out.

It'll look like this when you're done.

 Then pull on the basting stitch so that it's ruffled enough and is just a little longer than the length of your bag.

Use your glue gun to draw a vertical line up the center of your bag and place ruffle on top, ensuring the seam of the ruffle goes on the line. 

Once the ruffle is glued down, you're safe to cut off the thread that you pulled to create the ruffle. (Not pictured.) Use your glue gun to draw a horizontal line (the same width as your fabric) on the top and bottom of your bag, then fold your fabric under and press down. 

Make the rest of the ruffles the same way (minus the cutting the layers into different widths like you did with the tulle) and glue on top.

And done!

Materials Needed:

4x60in of fabric (for flower)

6x6in square of coordinating fabric (for leaves)

1/4 yd or less of felt

gift bags

hot glue

Sewing essentials

I first made flowers kind of like these in my Easter Flower Onesie Dress Tutorial and you can also see a tutorial for them here which I used as a guide when making my flowers on the Easter Flower Onesie Dress. I did these a little differently in that I did not make the folds in precise places as the target pillow tutorial suggests, and I made them more loose than the ones in my tutorial by not stitching across the entire flower at the end (only the center) making the flower a little more free-flowing).

Decide whether you want thread that blends in mostly,

or contrasting thread and then gather supplies.

 First cut a strip of fabric about 4x60 inches and then press in half long ways. 

Draw a circle around a piece of felt. My bowl was a perfect size because it took up most of the bag. This circle will be your guide for sewing.  

 Lay the strip of folded fabric along the circle with the middle of the strip kind of on the line. 

Sew straight down the strip until it's time to turn and follow the line of the circle. Make sure your needle is down before you move your fabric and fold your fabric over 90 degrees. Sew directly over the fold and once you're in the middle of the strip, needle down, turn your fabric so you're ready to sew straight down the fabric again.  

Continue this over and over. As you work your way around each layer of the flower, work your way in as well.

Once you get to the center, turn the end of the fabric strip under itself and sew over. Then for added texture, sew a spider web-y star pattern over the center by sewing forward and backward at different angles. Cut any loose threads.

Your flower will look like this.

Cut extra felt from flower by folding the "petals" back and cut close to the flower so the felt doesn't show. Sew flower aside.

Now let's make the leaves.

 Cut curved triangles.

 Sew triangles onto felt with contrasting thread starting at the bottom and sewing all the way around using a 2/8 or 1/8in seam allowance.

 Sew to middle of the bottom of the leaf, then with needle down turn the leaf to pointy side down. Sew down an inch or so. (Now we're going to make the decorative stitching that will be the veins of the leaf.)

Needle down, angle the leaf away from you to the left and sew down and then backstitch to the original line and stop. Needle down, and angle the leaf in the opposite direction and do the same thing.

It should create an upside down Y as pictured above. 

 Continue that pattern until you get to the the top and then backstitch all the way down the middle vein (it's ok if it's messy) until you get to the bottom of the leaf. Snip loose threads. 

Cut excess felt from leaves and then stitch leaves together with a few stitches in a V-shaped form. 

Glue the leaves down first and then glue the flower on top.

Done!

Now this tutorial isn't mine. I borrowed Kate's Bow Tutorial from See Kate Sew, except I did not round the corners as she did and instead of stitching the middle piece of fabric, I just hot glued it, as seen below. 

 Don't make fun of my ridiculous mess of  a glue gun!! 

Then just hot glue the bow wherever you want on your bag.

On this particular bag, I was using a fabric with a birdie print so I had to save some to put on the bag. :)

Get creative! 

And done!

Now I have all these bags finished and ready for any kind of occasion almost! All of it created for only $5.76 and I have brown bags left over!

Just think about all the goodness you could create for Christmas! 

Thanks for reading! 

Linking HERE and Six Sisters Stuff