Stitchery Project: Valentine's Pillow

We're getting all decorated for Valentine's Day! How can you not love a holiday that involves pink, red and hearts? I whipped up this cute, little throw pillow cover for the pillow that lives on my rocking chair.

This is a fun, quick project, get the pattern for the stitchery here. I used a basic backstitch for the letters and french knots on the postscript and to dot the "i."  Note: I'm having issues with my scanner so I took a picture of my template. When I uploaded it on Google Documents, the jpg was converted to a pdf and was reduced in size a bit. The phrase on my pillow measure about 9" wide, I'm going to try and figure out the scanner issue, but until then you might have to increase the size on your printer a bit. :)

I made the back of the pillow cover with a split-back so it comes off and on easily. I used some leftover fabric from the outfit I made my daughter last year for V-Day. :) I love the little butterflies.

This was the first time I've attempted piping and I followed a tutorial by Pam from  Threading My Way. Well, with one exception. . .I didn't have any piping! I wasn't able to get to the fabric store, and I really wanted to finish this up so. . .

. . .I used sisal covered in fabric!! It was a little stiff to work with, and thicker than piping cord, my corners are more rounded than I'd like, but it worked just the same! (and it was free!!) I applied the same principals as making your own piping, I just used the sisal in place of the piping cord.

Now our rocking chair is ready for the big day. . next on the list is a fun Valentine's tee!

Linking up with:
http://www.vwbblog.com
http://www.notjustahousewife.net/
www.sugarbeecrafts.com
http://www.mommybydaycrafterbynight.com
http://nightowlcrafting.blogspot.com/
http://www.houseofhepworths.com/
http://www.yesterdayontuesday.typepad.com/

The Versatile Blogger

Things have been busy on the homefront. When aren't they busy? I wouldn't have it any other way but once in a while I need to stop and breathe! I haven't given much time to my blog, I am trying to figure out how all these fabulous women keep their houses tidy, their kids engaged, make healthy dinners and still have a project to share a few times a week. I have several in the works, though that I am exited about sharing. One Valentines craft that my daughter and I will work on today and hopefully post tomorrow! :)

I received a lovely note from my blog-friend Pam over at Threading My Way. I was delighted to read that she has awarded me the Versatile Blogger Award. It's always a wonderful feeling to know that someone likes your creative efforts. :) Thank you so much, Pam, you just made my day!!

I did the Versatile Blogger Award in November, so I am linking that post up here. But you really much check out Pam's blog! I love her blog, all the sewing tips. Thanks to Pam's tut I successfully used piping for the first time! She also had a really fabulous idea for on-going Linky Parties. I'm telling you, she is putting together a creative database to drool over! She has different catagories from clothes, bags, pillows, you name it, and she keeps adding more! But the highlight is truly her daughter's wedding dress transformation. She took this garment from a wedding gown, to an day dress to a darling top and matching clutch. She worked with her daughter's vision and made it come to life! A really, fabulous, fun and creatively inspiring journey! Thank you again, Pam for thinking of me! :)

Afternoon Quickie: Tee Shirt Refashion

As I was sorting through the summer clothes pulling out items to refashion and work into this year's warm weather wardrobe, my daughter caught sight of her beloved tie-dye tee (that she made her very own self) and begged to wear it. I started to explain that it was 55 degrees today (cold for us) and she needed to wear long sleeves. Then my eye caught the arm of a long-sleeved pajama top we just recently outgrew. . .and inspiration struck!

This is a quick and easy project that you can do in about 30 minutes (if your kids still nap!! If they don't (like mine) it'll take about an hour and a half since you'll have to stop every 10 minutes to get snacks, drinks, put the ball gown on Barbie, get the Barbie shoe out of the dog's mouth, turn on a movie and get out the watercolours.)

 

Ta-daaa!! A fabulous, long-sleeved shirt in no time flat!

A Perfectly Pink Cupcake Pinata!

In our quest for a perfectly Pinkalicious party, my daughter wanted to play Perfectly Pink Party games! We started with our Perfectly Pink Ring Toss and thought I would post our Perfectly Pink Pinata as well. Pinatas are a fairly easy, inexpensive, super messy/fun family project and if you haven't made one yet, find a reason to make one today!! :)

You will need:

• newspaper (torn into strips about 2" wide)
• a round balloon 
• a cylinder shape to use as a form for the bottom of the cupcake
• Papier Mache paste (I use a very basic paste, 1 part flour to 2 parts water) in a very large bowl or bucket
• candy and treats for inside the pinata (you can find a pinata bag at any party store and in most party aisles of discount dept stores like Target and Walmart)
• Two pieces of twine about 4' long
• tissue paper cut in 3" squares in the desired colours of your cupcake (we used light pink, dark pink, white and red)
• Elmers or basic craft glue
• a pencil

To begin you will do a basic papier mache over your forms, the balloon and the cylinder shape. You're going to make the base of the cupcake and the top of the cupcake separately and let them dry, then you'll remove the forms and attach the dried papier mache pieces together to make the cupcake shape.

Pick one form to work with, we started with the balloon. Blow up the balloon to the size that will work with your cupcake "wrapper" form. Then place the balloon in a bowl so that is doesn't roll around. Roll up some newspaper into a ball and tape it to the top of the balloon. This will be the cherry on top. You'll cover this and the rest of the top of the balloon in papier mache. You won't cover the whole balloon, just the top 2/3 of it.  I drew a line around the bottom portion of the balloon, so we knew to cover the area to the line in papier mache. Cover more area than you think that you will need for the cupcake top. Its much easier to cut away parts you don't need rather than realize your form isn't big enough and you have to start over. Dip the newspaper strips in the paste and gently slide the strip through your fingers to remove the excess paste. Then place the newspaper on the balloon, and smooth it out. Repeat until the entire surface is covered in a layer of papier mache. Then do it again so you have 3-4 layers.

Repeat the same process on the shape for the base of the cupcake. But don't make this mistake; I spent a good 30 minutes measuring and fan folding paper around the base-form so that my cupcake would have that traditional zig-zag shape on the base. See how cute the cupcake wrapper shape is below? So realistic? So useless! Keep reading and you'll see why, but know that simplicity is the word of the day with pinatas! Keep your wrapper smooth and you'll erase 30 minutes of your time!

Once the mache is dried (usually overnight for us because we live in a dry climate, it may take a day or two if you live in a place with humidity) remove the forms. I gently pulled out the basket I used for the base and just popped the balloon. Fill the base with the candy and treats.

Also take this time to poke four holes in the top of the cupcake, in kind of  a square formation, around the "cherry." Take one piece of twine and thread it down through one of the holes and then up through the opposite hole and tie the ends together. Do the same with the remaining piece of  twine and the two other holes. This will form a "handle" so that you can hang the pinata when it is time to play. This is a really important step you do NOT want to skip! I don't have a picture of it because I completely skipped this step and my husband had to attach the handle after the pinata was finished. :)

Glue the two pieces together to hold them in place and attach them with 3 more layers of papier mache. Let them dry completely. Now you have a basic cupcake shape, with treats inside and a handle! Don't panic if it doesn't look perfect. Mine doesn't look perfect, its a bit lopsided and that cherry on top isn't as round as it should be. You can fix all of this with the tissue paper!

We wanted to mimic the Pinkalicious cupcake, so we drew a line (several, actually) to give us a guide for our dark pink "piping" on the top of the cupcake. I wanted the piping to have little loops at the top, like I'd seen on Pinterest, but as my daughter pointed out the Pinkalicious cupcakes in the book didn't have little loops. Just "doops" as she called them. So we ended up following the purple line drawn on the form. But I'm getting ahead of myself. . .

To attach the tissue paper, get your glue, tissue paper squares and a pencil with an eraser attached. Place a tissue square on the table and the pencil (eraser side down) in the center. Then twist the pencil so the paper scrunches up.

Remove the pencil and pick up the paper by the top edges and dip the bottom in glue.

Press the tissue against the form, side by side. Don't leave any spaces in between each scrunched tissue, covering the entire surface. Do "detail" portions first, like the piping shown below. Also, notice how the flat, rather square-shaped cherry on top is filling out with the tissue?

Turn the pinata upside down in order to cover every inch,  remember, the pinata will be hanging from above so don't forget underneath! We placed it on top of a large vase while we worked on the bottom portion.

Once we covered the whole cupcake, we went back with some white tissue paper to add the sprinkles. Notice the bottom of the cupcake and how you can't even see the realistic cupcake wrapper through the scrunched tissue? :)

Everyone loved Pinkalicious's cupcake pinata and they enjoyed smashing it to bits even more!

Another thing you might add to your list is a pinata stick! lol Being wrapped up in the party plans, I forgot to pick one up, but a Little Tykes golf club does work in a pinch!

I hope we inspired you to make a pinata too!

Linking up with
http://etcetorize.blogspot.com
http://craftomaniac.blogspot.com
http://sewcando.blogspot.com
http://www.vwbblog.com

Perfectly Pink Ring Toss

We're up to our eyeballs in pink this week! My daughter is turning five (FIVE?!?!?) and she's having a Pinkalicious birthday party. We love the Pinkalicious books in our house, we have all of them and read them often. Its not unheard of to have a Pinkalicious reading marathon and we are begging Pinkalicous the Musical to include our city in their 2012 tour.

If you don't know about Pinkalicious, its the adorable story of a precocious little girl (named Pinkalicious) in the first book she eats too many pink cupcakes and turns pink. Her doctor diagnoses her with Pinkitis and the only cure is to eat all green food!! The stories really are fabulous and ones that I don't mind reading over and over and over again. :) What better theme for a pink-loving girl's birthday, right?

My daughter and I love to plan parties. For the last couple of years she has the vision and I make it happen! We spend the week or so before her birthday making decorations, planning the games and all the food. No detail is overlooked. Which leads us to the games for this year's party. She wanted to play "Pin the Horn on the Unicorn" (Pinkalicious has an imaginary pet unicorn named Goldilicious) and Ring Toss. No problem, except we couldn't find a pink ring toss game!!! The set at our local party store was all primary colours "too circus-y and not Pinkalicious-y, mom." We found a Sponge Bob game and a birthday cake, but nothing pink. So, we did what any crafty mom and daughter duo would do. . .we made our own!

This is super easy, very quick and a total family project, so I thought I'd share.

We made a trip to the craft store and picked up four wood cutouts (we used stars and hearts, of course) little spindle-thingies that were in the wood section. With the coupons we had, the whole project cost under $3!!! We also used a few things we already had on hand, cake dowels, rope, hot glue, paint and fabric scraps.

We began by cutting down the cake dowels to our desired length, which ended up being about 7". Then we put the cake dowels in the little hole on the spindle/finial dealie so that one end of the dowel was flush with the bottom of the spindle/finial dealie. This gives the dowel a bit of a foundation that you can attach to the base of the ring toss. Then we (well, I) hot glued it to the wood cutout. We painted them pink (what else) and after a long decison making process, she decided to use glitter paint rather than stickers to decorate them. "Because stickers are nice, but glitter is fabulous!" I had pictures of all this, but I am getting used to my new glasses (hello, bifocals!) and I thought I was focusing the camera right, but I wasn't and they came out blurry. :(

While she painted, I made the hoops for the ring toss. Measure the length of the rope (I used a 1/4" sisal rope) to the hoop size desired and cut. Hot glue the ends together

Beginning at the spot where the ends are glued together, I used the hot glue to attach the end of a long strip of scrap fabric to the hoop.

Tightly wrap the fabric around the rope, working your way around the whole hoop until you reach the place where you began! Then hot glue the end to the hoop.

Ta-daaa!! A perfectly pink Ring Toss game!

Linking up with these parties:

http://www.sugarbeecrafts.com/

http://www.vwbblog.com/

http://www.notjustahousewife.net/

Repurposing; Sweatshirt to Poncho!

So I had this x-tra large, grey, boys sweatshirt. Just laying around, hanging out and taking up space. And I thought, what can I do to make this poor, boring sweatshirt, fabulous?

I started with a boys, xtra-large shirt. I cut off the binding on the waist, the sleeves and the neckline (although later I discovered that cutting off the neckline binding was unnecessary.)

Then I cut right down the seams on the sides of the shirt and at the arms. I suppose you could pick out the seam and open it up, saving a little bit of fabric, but I just pulled out my rotary cutter and chopped the seam right off!

The next step is to attach the sides to the sleeve edges. Start at the "underarm" and sew all the way down. The sleeves will be longer than the front and back, just trim it a little to even it all out. :)

Then look at it and think to yourself. "Hmmmm. This isn't supposed to be a box!" Draw a line across the front and back of the shirt from shoulder seam to shoulder seam as pictured below, and cut on the line and the shoulder seams. Discard the top of the shirt (with the neckline.) Now turn the whole thing upside down. The bottom of the shirt is now the neckline and the top from before is now the bottom! ooooooooh, fancy stuff! ;)

I put a zig-zag stitch around the bottom of the poncho, I did pull a little bit on each end of the fabric as it was being sewn to give it a slight/faux lettuc edge. Then fold over the edge at the top, about 1" to make a casing for the elastic. I didn't bother finishing the edge because the fleece fabric won't fray. Sew a seam all around the edge, leaving a 2" opening to insert the elastic. Don't forget to lock your seam and the beginning and end. Then sew another seam all the way around (no opening required) about half an inch from the original seam (I used 1/4" elastic for the neckline.) The second seam will give a ruffle edge to the neckline once the elastic is inserted. Insert the elastic and sew the opening closed.

At this point I planned to applique some little flowers on it, maybe two teeny ruffles around the bottom edge. I was trying to decide between light pink and dark pink (it would have to be pink for my girl) when my daughter saw the poncho. I told her it wasn't finished, that I had to sew some flowers and ruffles on it to make it fancy, she said it was already fancy and perfect and fabulous! "Like a skirt for your shoulders!!!"  She wore it around, twirling. Which, means she REALLY loved it! I was so shocked, she doesn't own anything neutral. I fully expected her to back away from it, looking in horror at something so plain, so grey! But she loved it and declared it didn't need a thing!

Frankly I'm a little disappointed, I had a whole thing planned. . .with flowers . . .and ruffles!! It was like some kind of Freaky Friday deal; she wanted to leave it plain and I wanted to fancy it up!

So there you have it. A quick and easy project, a sweatshirt to a poncho. No ruffles, no applique. But cute as can be!

Linking up at:
www.sewcountrychick.com
http://icantstopcrafting.blogspot.com
http://craftomaniac.blogspot.com
http://sewcando.blogspot.com
http://thecreativeitchboutique.blogspot.com/
http://www.504main.com
http://mommybydaycrafterbynight.blogspot.com/