simple Analogy

Fabric Tassel

Remember this diaper clutch from a while back?  Well, it was time to wrap it up for the baby shower.  I  use craft paper bags all the time and dress them up with fabric.  This time I decided to make a fabric tassel to attach to the handle.  Can you say stashbuster?! 

Just pull out all those scrap strips.  You'll need about 10-15 strips of fabric about 1 inch wide and at least 18 inches long.  I tore my strips to make a rugged edge.

Stack all but two of the strips and find the middle.

Fold one of the extra strips in half and run through the middle of the stacked fabrics.

Wrap the last strip around the tassel just underneath the folded edge and tie in a knot.  Cut close to the knot.

Brush through your tassel to straighten the strips.

Cut with scissors or a rotary cutter to straighten the tassel.

There you go!  Now tie it onto a bag or whatever you'd like to decorate with it.

Knotted Cuff Tutorial

I promised this to you a week ago, and it's finally here!  Let me just say, I used a red t-shirt for this tutorial.  Red is really hard to photograph, so it sometimes looks pink or even hot pink but I assure you it's red.  Who cares!  Let's get down to business...

Supplies:

two 16 x 1 1/2 inch strips of t-shirt fabric

sewing machine

matching thread

Directions:

Take both strips at each end and pull tight to make them roll in on themselves.

Next, I could explain how to tie the knot, but it's so much better if you watch it. Watch Mandi's video for directions.

Center the knot on a self healing cutting mat.  Cut the ends of your yarn 2 inches from the knot.

With two pieces of the yarn you just cut off unroll and align the long edges together.  Place right sides together and pin.

Sew a 1/4 inch seam. 

With that seam in the middle, fold right sides together.

Sew a 1/4 inch seam, then turn the tube right side out.

Cut the edges about 1 inch away from the seam. 

Stuff the ends into the tube on each side.  Make sure that you push them all the way in to the seam. Pin.

Sew each edge of the tube with a 1/4 inch seam.  Be sure to backstitch when you start and stop.

The edges of the tube will kind of curve in on their own.

After you get the first one under your belt, you'll probably be able to make them in about 15 minutes!  Woo hoo!  Cheap, quick stylish!

Spider Applique

So you want to applique a spider.  You came to the right place.  This weekend I dug into the t-shirt scraps and whipped up a spider applique.  Some of you may have seen this on my Instagram feed.

First find the shape of spider you want on Google images.  Print it out on freezer paper and use an exacto to cut a stencil.  Those of you who have a Silhouette machine can do this lickety split!  Iron the stencil onto the color of t-shirt fabric that you want your spider to be.  Layer this over the top of your base fabric and pin in place so that it doesn't shift.  My top layer was black, the bottom layer was red.

Using the edge of the freezer paper as your guide, sew around the edge of your spider stencil, backstitching when starting and stopping, using a regular straight stitch.  Set your needle in the down position so that you can pivot that little guy around while making your way around the stencil.

Once your spider is stitched, remove the pins and freezer paper.  You'll see your spider design.

Carefully, so as not to cut through the bottom layer, use small sharp scissors to cut around the outside edge of your spider.  Cut as close to your line of stitching as possible, but be careful not to cut the stitching.  Well, hello little spider!

Even though this spider was not used for halloween purposes, he could totally work for that too!  Can't wait to show you how I used him...

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Linking up with Sugar Bee Crafts

Upcycle: T-shirt Barrettes Part Two

So what do you do if your t-shirt doesn't roll up into yarn like I described last time?  Some t-shirts just won't roll no matter how much you stretch them.  I've found that the cause in most cases is that they are slightly ribbed.

In case you have some ribbed tee scraps in your pile, here area few ways to use them...

Make a pom pom anyway!  Directions HERE.  Instead of it looking like a cheerleader's pom like these, it will look more like a flower.

Make a rose.  Directions HERE, then just hot glue to your lined barrette.

See you on Monday with a fun Kid's Craft Along project for October...  October?  Already? 

Upcycle: T-Shirt Yarn Pom Pom Barrettes

The scrap knit pile is growing, ever growing.

It was time to do something with those bits and pieces, so I made a bunch of t-shirt yarn pom pom barrettes.  T-shirt yarn is easy to make... cut knit scraps about an inch wide and pull on both ends to stretch it out.  It will roll up on itself, and presto!  Yarn!

You'll need t-shirt yarn, alligator clips, hot glue, and a scrap of knit about 3/8 inch wide (eyeball it) and about 7 inches long.

Step 1 - Wrap an alligator clip with a scrap of knit.  I used this video tutorial.

Step 2 - Make your pom pom...

Wrap t-shirt yarn around your hand until you get the bulk you want for your pom.

Tie a scrap piece of yarn around the middle of your wrap.

Cut loops.

Fluff.

Step 4 - Hot glue onto your wrapped alligator clip.  With a larger pom pom, you won't even be able to see the barrette (like mine in the picture.  Trim the pom pom smaller if you like.  

Done!!!

DIY Bleach Stamp Pad

Wanna play with bleach?  I've been having fun altering fabric with bleach over the past few weeks.  Although it's a little stinky and has great potential for disaster, it's pretty fun to play with.  So I thought we'd just play around with bleach all this week.

Before we begin, here are some common sense things you'll need to do to protect your clothes, your surfaces, your brain...

1.  Wear old clothes so that if you spill or drip, you won't ruin your high dollar pair of jeans or designer shirt.  

2.  Make sure to cover your work surface with some sort of plastic sheeting.  This is so that the bleach doesn't sink through and ruin the surface you're working on.

3.  Protect your layers.  For instance, if you are going to use your newly acquired bleach skills from this week on a shirt, put a layer of plastic between the front and back layers so that the bleach doesn't soak through to the layer underneath.  May favorite thing to use for this is Press 'N Seal.

4.  Work in a well ventilated area.  Open a window, or do it outside.  We need all the brain cells we have and don't want to loose any.

5.  Do a practice run on some scrap fabric so that you can get the hang of it before trying it on your main fabric. 

First up, let's make a bleach stamp pad!  This is the technique I used to do some of the lettering on my new journal.

Supplies:

plastic disposable bowl/plate

paper towel

rubber stamps

bleach

fabric (I'm using jersey knit.)

Directions:

Fold your paper towel in half so that you have two layers, then tear it small enough to fit into the bottom of your disposable bowl/plate. 

Pour a little bit of bleach onto the paper towel.  You want it wet with bleach, but not puddling up.

I'm using alphabet rubber stamps so that I can do text, but you can use any kind of rubber stamp.  Lay the fabric flat.  "Ink" your stamp in the bleach stamp pad and press stamp firmly onto your fabric.

Notice that if you get a little bleach around the edges of your stamp, it will transfer to your fabric making a bleached little square around the stamped design.  See the A.  It kind of gives it some messy character.

Perfectionists who don't want that little box around the design will want to check the stamp after "inking" it.  If it is wet around the outside edge, just blot the edges (not the design) with a paper towel to remove the excess, then stamp like normal.

Once you stamp your design onto the fabric it's a done deal.  If you are going to center words like I did, it is best to start with the middle letter and work out from there to make sure that it is centered.  For example, in the word BLEACH I centered and then stamped the E and the A first and then did the other letters.

At first the design will just look wet on the fabric.  Slowly it will begin to get lighter and lighter.  Shorter cure time = darker color.  Longer cure time = lighter color.  When it reaches the color you want, just rinse it in the sink to wash away the bleach and stop the process.  Lay flat to dry.  

I like the vintage look of the letters.  Like an old worn out typewriter, except that no two letters will look the same.

Lazy Girl Ombre Dyeing

Ombre is like chevron, everywhere.  I couldn't let it go by without giving it a try.  So when it came time to do some fun shirts for this year's VBS, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  Yellow ombre dyed tee's.  If you want a precisely dyed t-shirt you'll want to follow this tutorial.  However if you want the ombre look but aren't too fussy about perfectly straight lines, or you have a bunch of shirts to do and not a lot of time to put into them keep reading.  After all, this IS the lazy way to do this.  

I usually do my dyeing outside.  Last year I did these shirts outside in the middle of the day in June.  Not smart.  It's WAY too hot in Houston to do that.  So this year, I used my head and did my dyeing in the late evening.  It was MUCH cooler!  Only thing is that you can't take good pictures at that time of day.  So instead of taking pictures for you, I drew them instead. 

I used a small rubbermaid tub and filled it a little over halfway with hot water.  Stir in half a cup of salt and your packet of dye.  The dye will look darker than you think it should.  My "yellow" looked more like orange.

Lower your shirt(s) into the dye bath until the color comes right under the sleeves.

Drape the top of the shirt over the side of the tub and let sit 5 minutes.  I did 12 small shirts at one time and just draped them all around the edge of the dye bath tub.  Pull your shirts out of the dye and squeeze out excess liquid.  WEAR GLOVES!  

Next, lower 2/3 of the bottom of your shirt(s) back into the dye bath.  You should be able to see several inches of yellow above the liquid line.  

Drape the t-shirt over the side of the dye bath tub and leave for 10 minutes.  Take the shirt out of the bath; squeeze out excess liquid.  

At this point I tied all my shirts together at the neck and hung them so that the bottom few inches of the shirt were in the dye bath.  Leave for 20 minutes or overnight if you want them really dark at the bottom.

Squeeze out excess liquid, then rinse with water until the water runs clear.  Wring out and throw in the dryer.

Like I said, this is the lazy way to ombre dye.  You won't get straight lines, the sleeves might drop down into the dye, and the dye pattern will look different on each shirt.  All that is just part of the fun, making each shirt individual.   Plus it takes out all the stress of having to dye them perfectly, and you can mass produce these in a much shorter time than if you dyed each shirt individually.  Works for me.  

Tomorrow I'll show you how we embellished them.

 

Refashion: Empire Dress To Skirt

This week I'll be sharing a couple of refashions that I've been working on.  First up, this knit dress a la Target last fall...

It was $10 on clearance, and I loved the stripes.  Problem was that it was too short.  Since it had an empire waist I figured that I could make a skirt of it that would be the perfect length.  If that didn't exactly work, well I'd have some good striped knit to do something else with.  So I bought it, and it's been in my closet waiting for a free creative moment.

The Deconstruct

Cut the top away from the skirt at the empire seam.

Cut off the sleeves.

Using the top portion, cut just under the arm holes.

Cut off the side seams and square up edges.  You'll have two rectangles to use for your waistband.

The Reconstruct

To make the waistband, take both of the rectangles and fold them in half (long edge to long edge).

With the folded edge at the top, cut a diagonal starting at the bottom corner going up and in one inch from the top edge.

Do this to both edges of both rectangle pieces.

Open both pieces and with right sides together pin the sides.

Serge both sides.

Fold waistband in half wrong sides together. Pin together each side seam on the raw edge.  These seams will be East and West on your waistband.

Match the side seams together in the middle and smooth out the waistband.  Put a pin on the raw edge in the fold on either side.  These will be North and South.  Add a few extra pins to keep the raw edge of your waistband together.

Your waistband is now ready to attach to the skirt portion. You'll be sewing the raw edge of the waistband to the skirt.

Using the same method as above find North, South, East, and West on your skirt and mark with pins.

Turn the skirt wrong side out and place the waistband inside.  Match the raw edge North, South, East, and West points to the waistband and pin in place.  Then pin in between these points all the way around the waistband.

Serge all the way around.

Turn right side out, press seam toward skirt, and you're done.

Wear it with pride!

DIY: Simple Leather Bracelet

Isn't all the leather jewelry that's out there just beautiful?  I especially like it mixed with metal.  In all my jewelry making I've never really worked with leather, but there's always a first time.  You know my affinity for all things Vintaj...  I mixed turquoise colored leather with antiqued brass findings for a perfectly simple leather bracelet.  Here's how.

***Note:  Please forgive my dry, snarly hands.  I know I need lotion, but I can't stand the slimy feel of it.

Supplies:

Four 9" lengths of 1/8" wide deerskin leather lace (Hobby Lobby) or other very soft leather

One 2mm circumference hammered ring

small lobster clasp

2 small jump rings

Two 9mm  crimp ends

beading glue

ruler

beading pliers

Directions:

Start with two of the leather strands.  Find  the middle of both and center the middle over the middle of your hammered ring.

Pull the ends around the back of the ring and through the loop of leather on the front, making sure that the shiny side of the leather (not the suede side) is the side you see.  Pull tight.  Repeat with the other two strands of leather on the other side.

Now center your brass ring, which is almost an inch wide, on your ruler.  Measure from the ring about 2 3/4" and cut all the strands.  This measurement is for a 7 1/2" bracelet.  Adjust your length here if you want a smaller/larger bracelet.

On one end of your bracelet, gather all four ends of the leather into a nice neat stack.

Place your stack shiny side down into the crimp end lining up the ends of the leather with the top of the prongs.

Add a little bit of glue to the sides and top end of the leather/crimp end.

Using needle nose pliers, crimp one end down tightly over the leather.  Then crimp the other end over.  Give it a good squeeze and add a jump ring.

Repeat with the other end attaching the lobster clasp along with the jump ring.

This bracelet is so lightweight you'll hardly even know you have it on.  Looks perfect with jeans and a t-shirt or more dressy attire.  I'm pretty sure this will be my go-to bracelet for the spring/summer!

Lunch Sack Flower Tutorial

The tutorial as promised!

Six lunch sacks, a bit of scrap fabric, some of those white circle stickers that are use to enforce the holes of notebook paper, and a little elbow grease... that's all you need to make a beautiful gift presentation.  Actually any kind of double sided paper could be used to make these, but for all practical purposes we'll use lunch bags since that's what I have on hand.

Ready?

Cut the bottom off of six brown paper lunch bags.

Cut off both folded sides of each bag.  This will give you twelve rectangular sheets of brown paper.

Fold each sheet in half making the short ends meet.

Fold the top down to meet the bottom.

With the folded corner on the top left, fold the left edge up to meet the top edge.  This will give you a sort of triangular shape. 

 
Fold the top layer of the triangle back to meet the bottom edge.  All twelve pieces of paper will be folded this way.

Now, we'll cut the petals for four large flowers:  I drew the shape of half my petal as close to the edge of the top layer as possible.  Do this on four of the folded papers.  Cut the shape stopping at the fold of the top layer.

  

Unfold the top layer and finish cutting the petal by following the cut edge.

Make a small snip to cut off the tip.

Unfold.  This is what your large flower shape will look like.  You should have four of them.

Medium flowers:  On four pieces of the folded paper, draw the petal shape 1/2 inch below the edge of the top layer and follow the steps above to complete the four medium flowers.

Small flowers:  On four pieces of the folded paper, draw the petal shape 1 inch below the edge of the top layer and follow the steps above to complete the four small flowers.

At this point you should have four of each size flower.

Now take the reinforcement circle stickers and place them around the hole in the middle of each flower.

Stack your flowers according to size.

Cut (or tear for a frayed edge) your fabric into 1/2 inch strips.  You'll want one strip that is long enough to wrap around a gift box plus a few inches.  The other strips should each be at least three inches long.  You'll need about 6 to 8 of the smaller strips.

Using the long strip of fabric, thread it through all four large flowers.

Continue threading through the medium flowers and last of all through the small flowers.

Leaving a loop in front of the topmost flower, begin threading back through all layers of flowers.

Insert the small strips into the loop and pull the strings in the back to tighten loop.

Give the smaller strips a haircut.

Fluff the layers.

Tie onto a package and you're done!