Drawstring Circle Bottom Pouch Tutorial

I'm so excited to announce that we have a new pattern up in the shop, as well as a TON of bags (there maybe more coming....you know us and our bags!)

 This bag is SO fun to make. The tutorial includes pattern pieces for 3 sizes of the bag. 

 So many possibilities for uses. 

I hope you check it out - be sure to tell us what you think!

Architectural Letters Tutorial

So I didn't plan to do a tutorial but I did snap a few pictures in progress. So hopefully they will give you enough information to get yourself in trouble! 

I used:

Mat Board

Card Stock

Tissue paper

Glue Gun

Tacky Glue

Paint

Sparkly Modge Podge

Pick your font and Blow it up to the size that you want your letters to be. I used Arial Black at around 600pts. Print and use them as a template to cut out two sets of each letter from your mat board

 Next cut a bunch of 1 inch strips out of card stock and accordion them. Using the hot glue gun attach them to one side of the letters.  

 Then attach the top

Now I don't have pictures of this next step. But you take additional one inch strips and using the hot glue sparingly attach the strips around the outside of the letters overlapping the edges. It should look like this when you are done

Now the fun part. Water down your glue and decoupage the tissue paper onto the letter forms. I did about 4 layers. Letting in dry between each layer 

 Paint it to your color preference and then seal it with modge podge 

Of course swap out any of the materials for things you have in your house- cardboard, newspaper, starch... 

Let me know if you try it out I would love to see what your make!

PS Don't forget to enter the giveaway for the beautiful hand knit scarf. 

Isabella's Night light

So I've had a few requests for how I put together Isabella's night light so here it is.... 

Supplies

1- anchored hook

3- 3m hooks

fishing line

6 pack accordion lanterns

6 tissue balls

white corded string lights 

extension cord

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

Screw in anchored hook 6" in from each wall. 

Attach the 3m hooks to top of cabinet about 4" back. 

plug in lights to extension cord, swag white string lights from ceiling to 3m hooks very loosely 

 using fishing line hang the 3 largest lanterns from ceiling hook 

 mix in the smaller lanterns to fill in the gaps

 tuck/hang tissue balls in the additional gaps

 plug in your lights and ENJOY! 

Let me know if you have any questions!!

*a few additional notes-- I plugged the extension cord into the outlet that is connected to the wall switch- much easier to turn on and off! Also I don't leave this on all night in her room. I just turn it on when I need it, it's dim enough to not wake either of us up too much but casts enough light to be able to change diapers safety. 

Patriotic Garland Tutorial

Thanks for all of the love for Isabella. We are home adjusting to life as four- it's going very well - just very busy! I will try to get some pictures up for you shortly meanwhile hope you enjoy this scheduled post!

It's been a while since I did a tutorial ... or a garland. This one is pretty basic and will work for quite a few holidays hope you enjoy! 

Supplies:

Red, White and Blue Felt by the yard- 1/8 yard of each color. The larger you want the garland the more you will need mine measures about 10 feet long. 

Red, White and Blue Embroidery Floss

Red Grosgrain Ribbon - 3 feet

fabric-tac

Scissors

Needle

Printed Pattern

Directions:

Using Pattern pieces cut out stars- you will need 2 cut outs per star. Double your felt and cut them out together to make it easier on yourself. Cut out even amount of every color if you would like the garland to alternate red white and blue. 

 Put together the end stars first. Select one red and one blue star set. Cut Ribbon in half and using Fabri-Tac glue ribbon between two stars.

 Using coordinating embroidery floss sew your stars together hiding your knot between the stars. 

 Use a large stitch. Pull thread and knot slightly smaller to give wavy effect to the star. Repeat on all stars.

  Thread stars on red floss beginning and ending with the stars attached to the grosgrain ribbon.

 Hang garland and enjoy!

Don't forget to add your garland to our flickr group!

Art Board Tutorial

I just thought I would give you guys a brief run down/source list on how we made the Art Board in Micah's room.... just in case anyone wants to make one of their own.

I thought this project up when we were in the process of moving and had this huge 4'x8' pegboard that once hung in our garage. We either needed to store or get rid it, as we don't have a garage in our new place. Really it was just too nice of a piece to get rid of. Uber made it with molding that I can't seem to locate more of - it's basically a picture frame molding that used to be sold at building supply stores... not sure what it's called or why no one here seems to carry it any longer. 

Mom bought the Martha Stewart Organizing Magazine to get us ready for spring ... and my move... and in it her people used a peg board in a kids bathroom which made me think how awesome it would be in a kids room.    

So we started with this already built frame. 

From Ikea we picked up:

The shelf - EKBY JÄRPEN/ EKBY BJÄRNUM - in the 7 1/2" depth

Bins - RATIONELL

Rail- GRUNDTAL

Paper - MÅLA

I just played with the heights for these until I was happy with the placement. Then we centered them and used toggle bolts to hold the the shelf and rail in place. 

The Grundtal Rail has screws on the ends of the bar so when the paper needs to be replaced we can just undo those and slide on a new roll. 

The bins are all held on by small pegboard hooks- this way they can be rearranged in the future if the supplies being stored need more space. 

The sheet metal was a bit more tricky- home improvement stores didn't carry a large enough piece so luckily Mum deals with First Coast Sheet Metal (no website but you could look them up if your local. I would recommend them) through work, so she ordered a custom piece cut to the exact size I needed with rolled edges- I am sure you could just look up a company in the phone book and have the same thing done. It was relatively inexpensive - around $40 which if you price out the smaller pieces sold in Home Depot or Lowes you would be up over that price and would still have to figure out how to cut it yourself.

I'm sure they could have drilled holes for us but I am not that on my game so Uber had to do it when I got the metal home and marked the back. 

He used a nail punch to dent the metal where he would be drilling

And then slowly gauged up with the drill bits 

The tear bar is a short piece of aluminum that I found in the metal section at Lowes.

The sheet metal and tear bar were all secured with a bolt on the front and a washer and nut on the back. 

The sheet metal serves a couple of purposes- smooth drawing surface, magnet board and can also be used as a white board. 

I used my silhouette machine to make these chalkboard vinyl labels (since I had vinyl on hand from the stair numbers) but Martha Stewart sells the same thing at Staples. I used a chalk pin to write on the labels so they can be redone in the future.

 And of course don't forget to secure the board to the wall so you don't have to worry about it falling over on anyone. We have ours leaning too - the bottom is about 6 inches out from the wall. 

I can not express to you how much I LOVE this project. It's really fun and I think it will grow with him. I have all sort of fun ideas for magnets!!

And no post about the boys room is complete without a picture of the boy himself- his dad taught him how the drill works.... not really something I appreciate....he is crazy about tools

Should an 19 month old be able to lift a drill? 

Well he can and he is very proud of himself.

Felt Dryer Balls Tutorial

... Well I guess we just kind of fell off... 

We've been busy having fun and celebrating things like birthdays. Oh and doing some major crafting... none of which we've taken pictures of! Hopefully we will get busy and blog some of what we've been up to next week- but I'm not making any promises!

This is useful to everyone! Don't get distracted by the first two paragraphs!

I think  I have mentioned here before that I part time cloth diaper. We've been having absorbency/ water proof issues and it's been driving me crazy because over all I really love cloth diapers but leaky cloth diapers make me want to start a bonfire. Now before I lose you all this isn't just about diapering... this is just so you know how I came up with this project. I finally had a chance to talk to the one other person I know who CD's and she said she cut out dryer sheets altogether and uses wool dryer balls that she ordered from Amazon. I had never heard of these before. Am I alone in this? I've always seen the nasty looking plastic ones that I just couldn't bring myself to buy but Wool?! That sounded doable! 

So of course a lot of googling and I was ready to DIY some...actually I was ready to make Mum do it for me... but she liked the ones she made so much she wouldn't share! From what we read the best method is to use wool roving yarn it seems to have less piling problems then straight roving (old sweaters also work... but I'm not cutting up any I still own). The two brands we found to work best are Patons and Full o' Sheep. The Patons brand yields 3 balls and the Full o' Sheep yields 2. 

 Unfortunately Bernat was an epic fail... just keeping it real!

So are you ready?- this is really complicated.......

Roll the yarn into a ball. It's not necessary to wrap tightly just wrap with medium pressure that keeps yarn in place. 

I like to roll mine keeping all of the crisscrossing at the same spot. 

When you get it to about tennis ball size cut off 18 inches and thread a long doll needle.

Then I just run the needle through the ball on either side of the crisscross 

I just repeat this a few times until I am out of string.

It looks like a button. 

Now make a bunch of them... It's definitely worth wrapping the balls neatly they stay together better for the felting process. 

If you want to do the process properly do a quick hand agitation with soap and get the wool fibers started sticking together. If you are lazy like me (and have wrapped them really well) then you can just toss them in the washing machine on hot and add a little soap.

They will come out looking a tad smaller and felted. 

Now you can stop here but if you are bored and want a total time suck you can decorate your balls-- 

Be prepared to be addicted it's fun! The stitch decorated ones are mine, the awesome perfectly decorated ones are Mums. She crocheted a net around them and they look beautiful!

 For best results have 8-12 in your dryer. We've been using ours for a few weeks and I really have to say they work just as well if not better then the dryer sheets did. Uber has even given them the ok - which means everything had to remain as comfortable and soft to wear as it previously was.  

I'm not going to go on and on about the benefits. There is plenty of well written information out there on how and why these work just visit this Etsy seller she has beautiful products and also sells oils to scent the balls.