Bowl full of Jelly

Today I made a Christmas wreath for our front door. And I am actually pretty proud. I got the idea from craftomaniac.blogspot.com and fell in love with it.
So how to make one of these cute wreaths:)

• wreath
• red yarn
• black fabric for belt
• fabric or paper for belt buckle
• white snow or spider web material (optional for beard. mine felt naked without it and luckily i found a leftover fake halloween spider web)

Take your yarn and tightly wrap it around the entire wreath. Hot glue the ends down.
Next measure the width of the wreath plus 2 inches and cut out the black fabric for Santas belt. I did mine 3 inches wide but it's up to you how wide you want your belt.
Cut out of paper or fabric a square for the belt buckle (make sure to cut a small square on the inside as well:)
Now hot glue the belt to the wreath on the ends and glue the buckle to the center of the belt (just place on top)
Here is my daughter modeling the wreath for me. At this point I wanted no beard and a white buckle. Once I saw it on the door it looked like it was lacking so I glued a yellow buckle on over the white one and added the beard. But here is the Before picture:

And here is the after:

Pretty cute huh?

Have a wonderful day!

The Yo yo flower

Here is the Yo yo tutorial.
Materials needed:

• Fabric
• Matching thread
• Needle
• Button, beads, smaller yo yo to go in the middle

Start by cutting a circle out of your fabric. Keep in mind that your Yo yo will become about a 1/4 of the size of the original circle so make it bigger than you think:)

Take a part of the edge and fold it over about a 1/8 of the way in and begin stitching...like this:

Pull needle through and continue to fold and stitch all the way around.

Until it looks like this:

Now pull the thread tight and bunch the circle until it looks like this:

Now the right side is showing. Push the scrunched part to the middle of the circle and fluff it up a bit.

Secure the stitch on the back. Now you can either snip the thread and hot glue beads or whatever to the middle, leave it alone and put a clip on the back OR you can leave the thread attached and sew it onto a piece of clothing like I did to Amaree's skirt.

After I stitched it, I glued a button on top to give it some pizzazz. I also made a little Yo yo to put on a bobby pin for her hair:)

Now you are done!

Have a wonderful day!

Fall is in the Air

Today totally felt like fall! The cool weather, pulling out my boots and making orange and brown skirts:) Here is what I made for Amaree:

And here is her showing it off for me.

 

Too funny not to show:)

The orange fabric is a fat quarter I bought for a $1 at walmart and the brown is from a 5 yard bolt that I got at Walmart for $5. I used more of that fabric to make a cute fabric pumpkin. I got the tutorial from Danielle Thompson on thompsonfamily.typepad.com. 

I am going to make at least 4 more in various sizes.:)

Here is more of Amaree and the pumpkin

Zoned in on Lady and the Tramp.

Have a wonderful day!

How to Make a Little Girl Skirt from a Woman's Skirt.

There are a TON of tutorials on how to do this out there already but I just had to make one myself:) This skirt is one that I got from my mom when I was in junior high. Then about 2 years ago the zipper broke and I kept telling myself that I would learn how to fix a zipper...yeah right. Today I was finally putting away all of my clothes in the closet (after one week of sitting folded in the laundry baskets) and came across this lovely skirt. Amaree already has about 8 skirts in her drawer but I just had to make another one using a dear friend (skirt) to make it.
Materials needed:

• One women's skirt or shirt 
• Elastic 
• Matching thread
• Sewing machine:)
• Safety pins (for pulling the elastic through the casing)

Put your skirt on your cutting mat and figure out how long you want the little girl skirt. You can measure your little one but I usually just eye ball it. 

Now it's time to cut!

Since the sides are already sewn together all you have to do is sew an elastic casing!

Turn your skirt inside out and figure out how wide your casing needs to be (just a little big wider than your elastic). Now you can fold over that width and pin it in place all the way around or do what I do and just wing it;) 

Sew all the way around until the last 1-2 inches and stop. This is your opening for your elastic.

Your elastic length should be 2-3 inches shorter than your child's waist measurement. I did 2 so Amaree had room to grow.

Attach a safety pin to both ends of your elastic. 

Now insert one end into the opening like picture above.

Once the pin is in, push it through (it bunches like this) until it won't move. Then, while holding the pin in place with one thumb, pull the fabric the opposite direction with the other so that the elastic catches  up with the safety pin.

Continue to do this until the other end of the safety pin reaches the opening. Pin both the elastic and a part  of the opening together so you don't accidentally pull your whole elastic through. 

Now finish pulling through all the way around the skirt until the first pin comes out of the opening. Pin the two ends of the elastic together (unattach the 2nd pin from the fabric) so you don't lose your elastic.

Your skirt will look something like this if you didn't adjust the skirt while pulling the elastic through the casing.

Lopsided! Ha. So now adjust/pull the fabric around so it evens out and looks like this:

You now need to stitch your elastic ends together. Use your zigzag setting to secure it even better. I sew back and forth about 3 times to make sure it doesn't come undone (trust me...it has happened one too many times!). 

Now push the elastic back inside the casing and fold the opening closed and stitch that puppy right up!

Remember to use straight stitch for this. No biggie if you don't:)

 Ta da~!

All done:) Well sorta...I wanted to add some embellishment to mine so I added some Yo yo flowers to the bottom, along with a matching bobbie flower.

Tutorial for that coming later.

Yo.

Have a wonderful day!

Another fabric flower:)

Again please disregard the smudge on the pics:) Alright this tutorial is for an "open" ended round flower. (long title) Anyway here it goes!
You can use any kind of fabric for this one. Knit fabrics don't fray on the open ends whereas many other fabrics will. Thicker fabrics will require a bigger hand-sewing needle where thinner fabrics don't. Etc. It just comes down to what you want it to look like! This flower I used leftover muslin from making my temple skirt.

• First cut 5 circles out of your fabric. (all the same size)

• Now take one circle and fold it in half. Instead of basting a stitch on the opened end of the half circle, like in the rounded flower (Here)

Pull the thread so it looks like this:

Continue to do this to all 5 circles.

• Sew the ends petals together. Make sure to secure at the bottom. Or you can always hot glue:)
• You can add a large button, gem, pearls, or a smaller fabric flower in the middle. Then cut a circle of felt and hot glue to the back of the flower and add a brooch pin or alligator clip.

Have a wonderful day!

Rounded Fabric Flower Tutorial

Alright here comes my next fabric flower. I don't know what to call it, so if you have any suggestions let me know;) This one is extremely easy.

• Again start out by picking fabric of choice. 

*For this flower you can use ANY fabric you want. Just know the thicker the fabric, the harder to pull your needle through:)

• Next cut at at least 5 circles out of your fabric. (I have done 6 or 7 before and it still looks just as cute.) You pick what size  you want the circles to be; they just need to all be the same size. One of my circles is slightly smaller than the rest, but it doesn't make that big of a difference in the end.

• Now pick thread that matches/blends in with the fabric of choice. I used red here so it can be seen a little better through the pictures. Fold one circle in half. Start hand sewing the outside edge of the half circle like this:

• Now pull the thread tight so it looks like this:

This is what each petal will look like.

• Continue to do this to each circle until it looks like this:

• Next attach the end petals together by stitching the outside edges together (do it at least 3 times and secure it in the back).
• Now you can embellish the flower however you like! You can add a rolled rosette to the middle (tutorial coming soon), a cute button, beads, pearls, etc. This beauty about this flower is how versatile it can be. Another variation is the pointed fabric flower. I will also be creating a tutorial for this one.

After adorning my flower, I cut a felt circle and glued it on the bottom along with an alligator clip and brooch pin.

Have a wonderful day!

Burned rose tutorial

This is my first real tutorial so...keep it in mind:) This is for what I call the "Burned Rose" fabric flower.

• First off pick your fabric of choice (silk blends/polyester burn the prettiest so use these). Once you have your fabric of choice start cutting! For this flower I cut a total of 14 rectangles, varying in sizes. 

This is the size of the first two rectangles.

All 14 rectangles decreasing in length and width.

• Next comes the fun part...playing with fire. Keep your fingers as far away from the flames as possible (Trust me, I know from experience). The fabric will burn quickly so don't leave it in the fire for longer than 2 sec.

• Continue to burn the rectangle until it looks like this: 

• After you burn each rectangle, start stacking/placing them how you want. Some flowers I end up using all 14, others I want less petals so it's up to you if you want to use them all. As you stack them, criss-cross them/alternate like so:

• Keep alternating until you are satisfied with the size and shape of your rose.

• Now it's time to keep them together. If you're short for time just hand sew all the petals together at once, by going straight through the middle of the rose (up and down at least 3 times, then secure on the bottom) or you can sew each petal together to make it even more secure. I did the second option for the tutorial. I do two petals at a time:

Go up from the bottom then back down, add two more petals and repeat.

• The end result will look like this:

 

Now you can either leave it the way it is or add some beads/pearls to the center to make it "fancy".

Also hot glue a circle of felt to the back to hide the sewing marks, then glue an alligator clip and/or a brooch pin (i think that's what they're called).

TA DA! You're all done! Now you can add it to a belt, your hair, a purse or whatever you feel like doing:)