Fabric Sale

Fabric.com is having a GREAT sale right now! $1.95 a yard. Here are some of my favs

Purse Into A Wallet

I made this wallet from the great directions on Confessions of a Fabricaholic- HERE. For the outside of the wallet I decided to use the material of an old purse I had been holding onto.

First I had to reduce the purse down to "fabric." So to start I cut off the top and bottom.

Then I cut out the size of material I need out of it. I also cut out the magnetic snap and zipper in the purse and used them in the wallet too.

And I LIKE it!

My favorite part of the wallet is this cool vintage button I used on the closure.

It was a great purse- now its a great wallet!

Extend Your Skirt

So I have a favorite dress that I always feel uncomfortable wearing because its just a tad too short to me. So I decided to change it.

I decided to add lace to the bottom of my skirt but I just wanted it to poke out of the bottom. I've had a cheap slip for forever that I hardly ever wear and a peice of lace I got as part of a wedding gift.

I marked where the slip hit the bottom of my dress and cut it off.

Then I cut the portion of the lace I wanted to stick out.

Then I simply sewed the two pieces together using the widest zig-zag stitch I could, because of the lace.

What do you think?

Use your imagination! You can put lace on the bottom of your skirt/dress or make a slip like mine. Or don't use lace at all! Use tulle fabric, or just a cute cotton print. Here are some other cute examples I found on the web:

Dashing. for cute boys on the go

I have offically opened my very own ETSY shop! I have been trying to get this up and running for a while now so I can't believe its finally up. I'm very excited (and a little scared?) of this new undertaking and hope you all enjoy it! Please check it out

Spice Things Up!

I've been getting the itch to go shopping lately but resisted and decided to re-purpose some clothes instead. This is great for un-experienced sewers because there is no real pattern or exact way to do this- the more organic the better and its an opportunity to be creative.

What You Need

-Plain Shirt

-Strip(s) of knit fabric

-Sewing Machine

-Thread

-Pins

Take you Strip(s) and lay them on your shirt where you want them to be. Pin fabric down (spacing the pins) and leave a lot of excess fabric in between.

Advanced Sewers are not going to like very much- for me at least it was hard to digress in a sense and not be exact with my sewing. You pretty much sew slowly and push gathers under. Try to vary the size of gathers and space between them- I tried but mine ended up looking like I used a ruffler foot haha. I sewed closer to one side with my big ruffle but you can sew right in the middle if you are sewing smaller strips.

To end mine I did some random folds and gathers and some excess fabric.

Here is the opposite side of my shirt to show you where my stitching ended up.

There you go! A whole new shirt for much a lot less!

Finally!

Here you go! I promised you a little pre-maturely but here it is. A decorative pillow case for my couch. Background on the saying: Jesse got me a card on our 5 month anniversary after we were married and it said "I would totally throw myself on a bee for you" on the front. I loved it and we say that to each other every once and a while so I figured to incorporate it in our home.

I chose vintage buttons as my closure. I've never used buttons as a closure on my pillow cases before and I'm not really a fan. I think I'm going to hid a zipper to close it and keep the buttons for decoration.

I loosely based my back on this pillow on Sew, Mama, Sew. I didn't have many scraps left over from my curtains so I couldn't make it as cool as I wanted it to be but I still think it came out good.

Happy Birthday Markie!

Today is my good friend Markie Hatch's Birthday! She is my hero! She is so creative and runs her own fabric flower and bow business. She is also my go-to craft buddy. Check out her stash today!

Happy Birthday!

Freezer Paper Party

A couple of nights ago I invited my crafty friends Markie and Laura over to use my recently acquired Freezer Paper. Markie made a cool looking t-shirt for her husband and Laura made some super cute valentines day shirts for her daughters.

{My mess}

Don't you want to know what I made? Well too bad! You have to wait! (I know I'm so mean)

Coming Soon!

Freezer Paper Stenciling

I finally found some Freezer paper in Rexburg! So now I finally get to finally experiment with it! I've been looking for a long time for a cheaper/not so complicated/not so messy way to do silk-screening at home. Freezer paper stenciling is much more limited but I think I'm in love! Its super easy to add a simple decal to your clothes or fabric decoration in your home.

What You Need

Sketch pad/pencil

Freezer Paper

Exacto knife

Clothing Iron

Craft sponge brush

Fabric Paint

In your sketch pad draw your design you want to apply. Place freezer paper over design and lightly sketch it on the NON-SHINNY side of the freezer paper.

Carefully cut the design out with the exacto knife.

Place SHINNY side of the freezer paper on fabric and iron on fabric until all edges stick.

Apply paint generously over design. Depending on what look you are going for you will probably have to do multiple layers and you can't apply another layer until the first is completely DRY! This takes awhile- I think the bottle said like 48 hours but I put a fan on mine and it dried in a few hours.
DO NOT REMOVE Freezer paper until you are completely done and the paint is completely dry! It will mess up your design if you do not follow this!

Ta Da!

**The freezer paper peeled up a little on the left side so my circle has a little "bump" in it. Thats why you need to be very careful that it doesn't peel up while your working with it.

Dye Fabric

This being my second time dying, I think this round went MUCH better! Of course I needed to dye some onezies to sell on my Etsy shop. Here we go!

What You Need

Big bowl- find one that you can dedicate to dying

Big Spoon

Your Favorite Dye color- I used Rit's liquid version (Dry is cheaper but it can be harder to work with)

Items You want to dye

latex gloves

I'm a big Eye-baller. I eye-ball almost everything. But as I found out with my last attempt at dying, you can't really do that here. You need something to help you measure. I had this awesome measuring pitcher that I stole from a roommate in college years ago and it worked GREAT!
Mix the correct amounts of hot water and dye in bowl (see directions on bottle). Your supposed to pre-wash your fabric so I just hand washed them in my kitchen sink and then stick the wet fabric in the dye mix. Stir constantly for 30-60 min.
Rinse fabric until the water is clear. Wash fabric with detergent in washer machine. Then dry.

Ta da!

Dying Fabric

I've been wanting to dye fabric for a long time but was actually inspired by a fellow blogger and friend of my sister's- Dana. You may know her very popular blog MADE. She is my blogging hero! I want to be like her when I grow up =) anyways... while I was visiting my sister right before Thanksgiving she was showing me the AWESOME GIFTS Dana sent her. I was admiring Dana's work and wondering where she found the cool colored onezies she make for Jack when a couple of days later she posted about the gift and answered all my questions! haha!

That inspired me to finally start playing with dyes! Heres my experience:

What You Need

Dye

fabric/elastic

Bowl

gloves

Follow the directions on the bottle about quantities of water/dye- I did not =( so my stuff turned a dark gray instead of black- its ok I still like it ;)

Place your fabric/elastic in the warm dye bath and stir for about 30 min.

{Before}

{After}

{Before}

{After}

Rinse until the water is not colored anymore. Wash once in the machine, then dry.

I will defiantly use more dye next time (especially on the fabric) but I'm still happy with how they came out! Thanks for the inspiration Dana!