Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Feelin' Crafty

OK. So now that school is in again, and we are home for a while, I've been itchin' to get crafty. So for the next several pics you can see what I've been up to. Let's start with cards:

This is a Father's Day card I made using my scraps. It would work for any theme, just change the monogram letter for stuff like 'Thank You', or 'Birthday. An easy design that would work for anything.


With the help of my sisters, we made a ton of these cute Birthday cards. The origional design was for my daughter's birthday. Her preschool didn't allow food of any kind in the class (lots of kids with severe food allergies) so I thought I'd make some hypo-allergenic cupcakes for her to pass out on her Big Day! It turned out so cute! Then in church, our Primary President wanted to send Birthday cards to our Prophet. I volunteered to make the cards. Each child in our primary is to do a service on his birthday, then we write what they did in his honor, take a picture, and mail it off to him. I'm excited about the whole project. Plus the cards turned out soooo cute!


Next, I made some hairbows for my little girl. She loves girly things, and since I have mostly boys, it was fun to get to make her some 'girl stuff'. I'm still working on the actual bow part, but these are my first attempt.


I think her hair turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Next was a recycled jeans skirt. And since I love tutorials, here goes:

First make sure the waist of the jeans fits on your little girl. It's OK if there are holes in the knees. Next cut the jeans straight across just below the zipper. Make sure the pockets are tucked up or you will cut holes in the bottom of them.

I surged the bottom edge to keep it from fraying. If you don't have a surger, zig-zag will work the same way. Next I measured how long I wanted the fabric part to be. My girl is 5 so I think I cut about 12 inches off the whole width of the fabric, then sewed the ends together, right sides inside, and surged one of the edges. Since I had some extra lace, I thought it would be cute to layer the patterned fabric and the lace. The pink fabric is just a little bit shorter than the white background fabric that I attached the lace to.



I also hemmed the bottom edge of the pink fabric. Just a simple rolled hem. Next make sure the two layers are lined up and gather the top edge. My machine has a gathering foot that makes quick work of gathering fabric. If your's doesn't, sew two lines close together with a wide stitch length. Then gently pull on the threads to gather the fabric up, evening out the gather all the way around.

The gathering turned out a little too tight for the jeans, so I had to adjust the fabric a little by stretching out the stitching. Now pin right sides together and sew the skirt to the jeans.

You're almost done. To finish, I topstitched along the seam between the fabric and the jeans. And voila! you have a cute recycled jean skirt that you made yourself!
I wanted to add two more things I made this week. They turned out great and I had to share.

I made this bag out of some scraps I had. The floral and the check are left over from my kitchen curtains. Sorry the photo is upside down. I'm not sure how to turn it.


Lastly is this cute smocked dress I made for my little girl. It was super quick and easy. Just switch the bobbin thread for elastic thread that you hand wind on to the bobbin. Widen the stitch length, and sew 6-8 lines fairly close together. You will have to pull the fabric flat as you go. I added a contrasting edge to the top before sewing it with the elastic thread. Add ties, and a gathered ruffle at the bottom and you're done!

I love being Crafty!

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