Fabric Flowers and Baby Headbands

I shall keep my promise, to blog this weekend, even if its a 2 am in the morning! That's ok, I slept in late this morning, (Saturday) so thankfully I am fully rested.

I got to work on these Friday night. I know sad huh? I mean no Friday night plans? I did get to go thrift shopping on Friday during the day with my friend Terri. I got a few good deals.

Anyway, I need to get busy on more to add to my Etsy shop. I am always looking for new crafts to sell on there. I finished with a few, and wanted to show them off to you, and teach you how to make them.

I went through all of my fabric and put all the potential flower making fabric into a big bin. I couldn't believe how much I came up with. I really am a fabric hoarder. It's hard for me to throw out fabric. I mean a  1/4 a yard or less can make a few flowers. I still have 3 big drawers full of fabric for future projects.

There are 4 different styles of flowers shown. And yes... I will show you how to do all 4. I know how to make more styles, but we'll do that on another post.

First flower/headband:

 Step 1: Cut a tiny slit in the fabric and then rip it all the way down. My strip was 36 inches long.

 Step 2: With a needle and thread sew it very loosely all the way down the strip.

 Step 3: Leave the needle in the fabric, don't cut it, then gather it.It will not be this gathered, this is just for the picture. You'll have to play with it while making the flower. 

Step 4: Start rolling it with the stitching at the bottom.

Step 5 Keep doing it until you achieve a flower rose like this.

Step 6: Sew the layers at the bottom together

I added another smaller flower and a white flower to the headband and then cut 2 pieces of felt like this into ovals. This is actually an unused flannel blanket that my step mom gave me for scrap fabric. Gotta love her for saving stuff after her projects so I can hoard it, lol.

Step 7: Attach the flower (s) to the felt circle (oval) and then trim the excess felt.

Now for the elastic headband part. I buy Fold Over Elastic 10 yd 5/8 inch FOE - Shiny that is for baby headbands. I measure it 16 inches (8 folded in half)

Step 8: I hot glue the ends together then attach it to the felt and sew it on there, this reinforces the headband too.

 Step 9: Attach it with hot glue to the headband, then trim away the excess, felt.

And whaa-la, now I have a shabby chic baby headband!

Now onto the next flower:

Step 1: Cut 4  4 in diameter circles

Step 2: Cut 4 3 1/4 inch circles

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 in a lighter shade fabric.

Step 4 fold the circle in half and then again in another half.

Step 6 Hand sew or hot glue the 4 inch circles (darker shade) to your felt circle.

Step 7: Do the lighter shade on top, going in between the cracks of the bottom layer.

Step 8: Repeat with the darker 3 1/4 inch circles.

Step 10: add one more light color 3 1/4 circle and sew it to the center. 

Step 11: Fluff the layers up and add a embellishment to the top, and attach it to a headband if desired.

This flower has the least amount of steps and I would say its the easiest. It certainly can be depending on what kind of fabric your using. I used an old cotton stretch ribbed sweater. Another Scrap from my step mom! This is to show you how many different kinds of fabric/scraps you can use!

Step 1: Twist it, you won't be able to twist the whole thing. Funny technique I use is to get on the floor twist is as much as I can and put the end in between my toes. Oh ya, if this is for someone else, make sure your feet are clean, lol.

Step 2: begin rolling it into a spiral kinda thang!

Just keep rolling, and hot glue about every 3 rolls around the circle. Watch those toes, trust me, enough said!

 Step 3 Attach an embellishment if you desire and then attach it to a headband or clip.

This is one of my favorite flowers, its just so shabby chic, and can look very vintage if you use off white colors.

Step 1:Cut a strip about 1 1/2 half wide

Step 2: Fold it in half and hot glue it.

Step 3 Cut slits, I like to make some long and some short, some skinny and some fat.

Step 4 Starting from the outside of your felt circle, begin gluing it down.

Step 5 Keep gluing it in circles till you reach the center, trim off any excess fabric.

Step 6 Fluff the heck out of it to achieve the stringy look.

  

And whaa-laa another flower for your DIY collection!

Now I just needs some baby subjects. Guess I'll send them to my friend at Lilac Blossom Photography.

Thanks for tuning in!

It's not a party without Pink Popcorn and Punch!

Ok, ok, last post on my daughter's party, I promise, lol. I think. No really, I promise.

What  fun is a party without pink popcorn? I ask ya! When my daughter said she wanted a pink party, I hopped right on pinterest and started pinning everything pink that I could think of for her party. I even made a board titled "pink slumber party", click on it if you want to follow it.

So I see the idea of pink popcorn, I was like "Ohhh ya baby, gonna make that!" When I told my mother, she said "OMG, hahahaha, no way, ya know they sell colored popcorn at Crackle Barrel?" And then I said "Well, no but... half the fun is trying to make it myself!"

I searched for enough recipes on how to make it myself and this was the simplest and easiest..

1 cup of  (uncooked) popcorn cornels or 2 bags or plain microwavable popcorn
2 cups of sugar
1 tbsp of butter
1/2 cup of water
food coloring

Preheat oven to 250 degrees
Pop your popcorn by either method, and then place on a cookie sheet in the oven to keep warm while you make the sauce.

In a sauce pan mix all of the rest of the ingredients, I placed about 6 drops pink food coloring.They actually have Neon Food coloring and it comes in pink.

Let all ingredients come to a boil and then let the sauce cool for about 5 minutes. I at first tried just pouring it over the popcorn but it was making it soggy so what I did was place the solution in a gallon size baggie about 1/4 of the a solution at a time, and then filled the bag with popcorn, and Shake, Rattle, and Roll! 

Then empty and put it on the cookie sheet spreading it out so it can dry properly without clumping together.

Keep doing this until all of your popcorn is PINK, PINK, PINK!

As you can see it was a hit, the girls kept sneaking it before the party started.

Now onto the the pink punch!

I love any excuse to get out my punch bowl set. This punch bowl is as old as I am. My Aunt purchased it for the my mom's baby shower when she was pregnant me. So when I got married, she gave it to me as one of my wedding gifts. Unfortunately, I have only gotten to use it about 3 total times. So when I saw pink punch and it was in a punch bowl set, I was so excited.

The recipe is so yummy and so simple.

1 gallon of Raspberry Sherbet

1 liter of Ginger Ale

1 liter of Sprite

In the bowl, 1/4 of the gallon sherbet,  1/4 liter of ginger ale and 1/4 liter of Sprite. It makes a total of 4 batches.

Maybe I should have taken the picture before we started drinking it, lol. Hey we were thirsty from all those sweets!

Thanks for tuning in, and stay tuned later in the week/weekend for my next DIY project that's not related to my daughter's party, lol.

How to make a Triangle Fabric Banner

 

Hi guys, I think this might be a record, 4 posts in one week. Eeek!

I have a lot of things I want to post, especially from my daughter's party. I thought I would do individual posts on each of the crafts I did for her party. Today, we'll learn how to make a fabric triangular banner.

Step 1 choose your color palette, pattens etc.


Step 2 Pick out fabric

Step 3 Cut them into triangles you can make them as big or small as you want. I made a cardboard template and then traced and cut mine.

Step 4 attach the triangles to bias tape (quilting trim) I attached mine to this pink color

Step 5 is optional: I sewed a zigzag stitch around each triangle, but they do not have to be sewn, you could also just cut them with pinking shears.

Step 6 attach it to whatever you desire. I made mine for my daughter's 8th birthday party. We used it to do a photo booth type pictures.

Hope you got some ideas. I had fun making mine. And I will for sure use this for other photo shoots. I am thinking I'll make many more for boys etc.

Thanks for tuning in! Don't forget to follow me!

DIY Pink Slumber Party Decor and FUN!

My little baby girl has turned 8. Awe, so sad for mama, but I have one happy girl. We planned a slumber party for this beautiful girl. And of course she wanted a PINK Party! I was well... tickled pink, lol.

Anyway, so I did what I always do and searched Pinterest for some ideas. Ahh, I just love them. I really am a "Pinterest Addict"!

Here are some pictures...

The Pink Punch

Homemade Pink Popcorn

Handmade tissue paper pom poms

DIY Photo backdrop, with handmade Banner. You can learn how to make the banner here.

I edited them and then made them into photo booth strips on pixlr.com

She was so excited to get her laptop (mini-lap top that is)
and loved her new bag for it from her Aunt Ra-Ra

I'll post individual recipes and how to's in case anyone wants to know how to do them, and then I'll put the links on this blog post. I'll hopefully be able to do that very soon!

Now that her party/planning is over, time to concentrate on back to school!

Thanks for tuning in and don't forget to follow  me.

How to make Tissue Paper Pom Poms/Flowers

Oopsie, sorry guys. Last night I did an impromptu Drive-in movie night with my friend Terri, her kiddos and my kiddos.

It was super fun, we saw Smurf's 2 and Turbo. Two movies my kiddos have been wanting to see. So yes, guilty as charged, I wasn't able to post the project I promised. Please, pretty please forgive me.

Ok, enough mushiness. Onto the good stuff. How to make tissue paper pom poms/flowers.

I used the pink dyed tissue paper to make these, and made several, some large and some small.

So what you need:

Tissue Paper

Yarn or string

Scissors

Step 1 you'll need about 8 to 10 sheets tissue paper. The more paper the fuller it will be.

Step 2 bend the sheets back and forth like a fan.

Step 3 tie a piece or yarn or string in the middle.

Step 4 Cut a rounded tip on each side.

 

Step 5 Fan it out.

Step 6 peel each layer up, until it is all fluffed up.

Keep on fluffing until you get a ball, like below.

 I love how they turned out, now all I have to do is attach some clear string, and hang them from the ceiling. These were decorations for my daughter's slumber party. 

Thanks for tuning guys! Until Next time...

To see how I made the tissue paper pink, click here.

How to dye tissue paper

I know what you're thinking... Why on earth would anyone want to dye tissue paper? Well there are a couple of good reasons, one might want to.

1. You need a specific color and can't find that color in stores.
2. You only have white, and don't want to spend the money on purchasing more.
3. You have a lot of RIT dye, and lot of white tissue paper.

Ok, so in my case. I had a lot of RIT dye and a lot of white tissue paper, and not a lot of money to spend on purchasing more. I mean come on have you seen how many sheets you get in a package. I mean even if you shop at the Dollar Tree, you will still spend $1 on about 10 sheets, and well for the project I was going to do, I was gonna need a lot of tissue paper.

So this is what you will need

1. RIT Dye (its the cheapest and comes in a lot of colors, plus it comes in liquid) I used Petal Pink

2. A spray bottle ( you can get them at the dollor store)

3. White tissue paper

Fill your sprayer with 1 cup of hot water to one cap full of RIT Dye. I filled up my whole bottle. Using 24 ounces and 3 caps full. Unless your're only planning on doing  20 or less sheets, I say fill the whole bottle up.

I have a roll of white tissue paper, so I rolled it all out long sections at a time, and began spraying away.

It's kind of hard to tell by the pictures. But as it soaks into the paper it becomes a beautiful pink color. Best of all it tends to collect in certain spots, and dries pinker in that spot. It sort of looks tie dyed, which you would think would look strange. But it actually looks really pretty.

It took a little while but then again I made probably 160 sheets (by the time I cut them).

My back was getting a little tired from bending over to spray it. But the good news is I think I may have killed some ants. If I didn't then they are really pink now, lol.

Here is the outcome when it dries. As you can see, it will dry wrinkled, but I like it that way.

Stay tuned tomorrow! I will show the project I am working on, hence why I wanted the tissue paper pink.

Thanks for tuning in, and I'll see you guys tomorrow!

Click here,to see project I used the pink tissue paper on.