Re-Purposed Fabric Flower Hair Clips

I am gearing up for an upcoming local farmer's market and have decided to place a big focus on creating items from re-purposed fabrics! There are so many great fabric out there, on old clothing and what not, that can be used to make cute "new" things! Plus, old fabrics have been washed so many times that most of the chemicals used in their fibers are gone! (yea organic!)
So here are a few fabric flower hair clips I made from an old shirt. I LOVE this fabric and am so excited it found new life in these clips.

I didn't capture the steps on camera, but I'll give you a summary of how to make your own clips!

1. Cut a strip of fabric, mine vary in width and length, think about how big you want your flower to be. 1" is a good place to start on width.

2. Stitch along one long side of the strip and gather (pulling your stitching).

3. Secure your gathered stitches. I just tie a knot using a previous stitch ( I don't know how to explain it better!! :) )

3. Now bunch together one side to form the center and stitch through it to secure it.

4. Start twisting the rest of your gathered strip around the center, stitching through every so often to secure.

There you go!!

I attached mine to snappi clips that are covered in matching fabric.

These ones are in the etsy shop so check them out, or make your own!!!

re-purposed owl pillow

Meet our newest family room friend!!! I am so excited about this finished project. I LOVE owls! I don't know why, but they have always seemed a bit whimsical to me. I was digging through a bag of old clothes the other day and found an old sweater and the owl was imagined! it didn't take long for me to gather a few old shirts for coordinating fabric. Literally all the fabric used is re-purposed!!!!! 

I wanted to do a tutorial, but my camera battery was dead, and I have to use my time when I can get it, so he was created without pictures of the process, but it was really quite simple.

1. draw your pattern- I use fusible interfacing to draw my patterns on. I based this owl loosely off my hair clips that I make.

2. cut out the pattern and pin it to the sweater so it goes through both sides.

3. Cut out the owl from the sweater.

4. using coordinating knit fabrics (they won't fray) cut out the belly and eyes.

a. I used various household items to draw the eye circles (jars etc...) and the smallest circle i used the sweater material.

5. Cut out a triangle for the nose. This should be fairly large so the eyes can overlap it.

6. sew your belly onto the front of one of the sweater pieces. I used a tight zigzag stitch, but you could straight stitch around .

7. sew the nose on. I used a straight stitch. sew your eyes on going from largest to smallest using a straight stitch.

8. Pin your owl right sides together and stitch around the edges, leaving an opening for turning and stuffing.

9. Stuff with poly-fill and close with a hidden stitch.

You now have a new friend too!!!!

So Many Things I Want to Make!

I haven't had enough time to upload pictures of the fabulous hair bow holder I made for Ava Monday, needy baby and all, so I'm just going to write a little about all the AMAZING things there are to make out there. My head is swimming with projects to take on. I wish I could win a shopping spree to Jo-Ann's so I could buy all the materials I need, then a day garage sale shopping and a babysitter and I would be set!
So here's just the tip of the iceberg of things I want to create:
1. I am dying over these adorable Baby Shoes at Goosie Girl's. Marley still wears infant sized shoes and I would love to make a pair for every outfit! Ok, every outfit might be overdoing it, but a few pairs would be fun!

2. Infarrantly Creative has this great copy of an adorable Anthropologie necklace I have had my eye on. This is a must make! 

3. Since pretty much everything in my life revolves around my kids, They are the target of most of my crafty projects so this one is for them. Obsessively Stitching made a wonderful ABC book I have been stalking recently. I will make one... one day!!

And the list goes on....

Feeling Fabulous!

Somewhat Simple, one of the blogs I follow, is doing this great Feeling Fabulous Challenge! I am so excited! It has totally inspired me to do things that I should already be doing, and just take a little more effort to do them! I was bummed I missed the first week, but I am on board for this week. The plus is, there's a prize. Motivation, motivation, motivation!! I also LOVE that one of the goals is getting dressed. Seriously, some days that is a real challenge! So day 1, today, I already drank more water, got dressed :), finished a project (and started another one), walked with the kids and a few more things! My most difficult challenge, no sweets or soda! I could not triumph over that one today, but maybe tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Mod Podge Nursery Letters

I've had this project in the finishing stages for about.. hmm... 8 months now! Poor Marley, her room has been a bit neglected since our move corresponded with her birth. This is a super easy way to decorate a nursery, or kids room, to your style cheaply!

You will need:

Cardboard letters- I got mine from Paper Source for about $4.00 a piece

Decorative paper- I also used paper from Paper Source as

 well as recycled wrapping paper (yea re-purposing!)

Pencil

Scissors

Mod-Podge or PVC (Paper Source)

Sponge-tipped brush- I used a painting brush in these pictures because I can't find my sponge-tipped one (Moving!!). You can subb a painting brush, but the sponge-tipped ones are better!

Command Picture hanging strips

1. Lay your letter face-down on the wrong side of your decorative

 paper and trace around trying to get as close to the letter as possible.

2. Cut out the letter.

3. Brush your cardboard letter with PVC.

4. place the paper letter on the cardboard letter and press down carefully, being sure to align your edges. I like to start at the top and move down making sure there are no bubbles or ripples in my paper.

 5. This step is optional, but I think it looks better with it! Brush a layer of PVC on top of your finished paper. This seals the paper and gives is a glossy look. I brush a little around the edges to fill in any gaps too.

6. When you go to hang the letters attach a command strip to each letter and place it where you want it. These strips are great because you can adjust how the letter hangs, or even change the letters, and they remove from the walls without leaving any marks ( at least on my walls they did!)

Felt Playhouse Continued...

I promised more pictures and templates so here we go! As I mentioned earlier my original inspiration came from homemadebyjill. She did an adorable one for her son, and my mission began! I changed a few structural things, since my older daughter is 4, I needed to make one that was tall enough for her to stand up in, so I decided that I would have my husband build a PVC frame. The dimensions ended up being about 48" tall (on the short sides), front and back are 50" wide, and the sides are 36" wide. I got the felt at the Black Friday sale at Joann's, so it ended up costing about $35 for all the fabric, and I have lots left over for additional add-ons that I have planned! 

If you are looking at the front of the house this is the left 

hand side/ 

back corner. The tree was inspired by the one on Jill's blog, but came out looking alot different. 

This is the back side. I have alot more work to do here, but I have the "base" of a garden. The picture isn't that great, but on the bottom is about

 a 4" tall strip of brown felt to act as the dirt. I sewed the bottom and sides, and then about every 3" sewed a pocket in. This way the girls can pull vegetables out of the ground! I have carrots there already (you can see the bright green sticking out) and have plans to make onions, and potatoes. The tall plants are a pea plant and a tomato plant (Ava's 

favorite at Nana's house!), I still need to make t

he veggies to go on them!

Jill has the templates for veggies here and apples for the tree!

This is the left hand side. I got my inspiration from an etsy shop tha

t sells these, missprettypretty.

She has this adorable cupcake bakery that I knew Ava would love! So, this side has a cabinet that she will be able to display her cupcakes in and a table that she can set up or decorate her cakes and cupcakes on. I haven't made the cupcakes, cakes or decorations yet, but they will have velcro on the back so that they stick to the felt, but are easily moved.

Last picture for today! This is an up-close of the front mailbox and house numbers. I used my girl's birthdays as the house address. I drew out the numbers and cut them then stitched down the center. The mailbox opens for letters... another yet to come item! 

As I add items, as you can tell I have lots to add, I will post more pictures, templates and tutorials!

Happy New Year!

Looking back on 2009 I can't help but wonder what 2010 has in store for us! Last year we had a baby, bought a house, and I started my business. Who knows what this new year could hold!! I got a new sewing machine for Christmas (yea) so hopefully it hold lots of sewing and crafting in the coming months. As always, I try and make a few resolutions, here's my list for 2010:

1. Get my home in "maintenance mode" - we recently moved and I still am catching up... I need to be in a place where I feel like I can maintain with out always feeling 10 steps behind!

2. Read a book a month - This should be pretty easy considering we canceled cable :)

3. Exercise!!!!- My never ending and slow to conquer goal

Speaking of the read a book a month... I am currently reading Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked, If you liked Wicked (the book) you will LOVE this one! I'm so captivated. I love his writing and I feel like Wicked just continued... not always the case with sequels. Check it out! My next title... Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver