Hair Bows

I love making these bows for my girls!! (I like'em HUGE!) The crafty ladies at Enchantresses3 thought of this one. They have a tutorial, here. They can turn nothing into something amazing for your home. Check it out.

Revamping a backpack

A while back, my mom bought my 2 year-old a princess backpack that has now seen better days. Poor Aurora! It definitely needed a little pick me up. Lucky for me, Jessica at Happy Together got the idea to decorate a backpack with petals.

Now my little angel has a backpack that is church worthy. She can wear it with a cute dress, or just for fun. I love this idea!! The petals were from the Dollar Tree, so they were only a buck. The backpack that Jessica used was also a $1 at the Dollar Tree. I also bought my grosgrain ribbon that I used on it from there. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to give this to her now or save it for Christmas. Hmmm...(any thoughts?)

Cute, Simple Shirt Tutorial

First things first, turn your shirt that's too big, inside out. Now, I like to put the shirt on (still inside out) and mark how deep I want the neck and where my cap sleeves need to begin and end (to keep it modest).
Then I take it off and lay a shirt on top of it that fits me WELL. This is how I know how loose or fitted I want it to be---and also how long (I love longer shirts)!Next we are going to make our cuts. Don't forget to add room for the seam allowance on the sides and sleeves, and a hem for the bottom. I fold it in half to cut the sides and sleeves, to make sure they are exactly the same. You also don't want your arm holes too tight. I love making a shirt this way, because there is definitely room for error. However, it's always better to have excess fabric then not enough. If your shirt is too loose or too long, it's an easy fix.
Since your shirt is already inside out, stitch up the sides. Usually I'd use my serger, but the great thing about jersey knit is that it won't fray. So I'm just going to use a straight stitch.

Here is the fun part! Turn your machine to a small zig-zag stitch that's close together. If you don't know what knob does what and you're too lazy to get your manual out (like me), just try it a couple different times with a piece of scrap fabric. Now your want to sew the edge of the fabric, and while you're sewing, pull the fabric tight, like this: (keep in mind that I don't have three hands)
This creates the ruffle, and you could've messed up a million times and no one can tell because of the ruffle. You are almost done!!

Here comes the elastic thread. The elastic HAS to go in the bobbin and you HAVE to winde it by hand loosely. I've also heard that it does not work in a plastic bobbin, but I really don't know. Before you start sewing, you want to make sure the elastic will appear on the INSIDE of your shirt. Now stitch about a quarter to a half an inch away from the edge on the neck and sleeves (again--doesn't have to be perfect, you won't be able to tell). When you're done, you'll want to get out your ironing board and a spray bottle with water. As you spray the elastic thread on your shirt, you'll see it shrink up. Iron it dry. As you can see....very stretchy.

HERE IS WHERE YOUR CREATIVITY COMES IN!

I purposely left the bottom for the end, because there is more then one thing you can do. You can ruffle and use elastic thread exactly like the sleeves (that is very in-style), you can have it only ruffled (which is also very cute), or you can do a classic hem (which I chose to do, because I had a ton of ruffle going on).

If there is something on the front or not enough fabric left over, then...YOU'RE DONE! If your shirt has enough fabric and doesn't have anything on the front, you can do ruffles on it. This also needs your creativity, because I've seen 4 rows on up to 8 rows of ruffle. They can also be as wide as you want and as long as you want.

For gathering----put the tension knob on your machine to the highest setting, and set your stitch to the longest length. Leave several inches of thread leftover on both ends (this gives you the option of lengthening your gather). Stitch down the middle of your strips (Just guide it through the machine, don't pull as it sews). Ta Da! Your machine gathered it for you. Gently pull fabric together to gather any way you desire. When you've figured out where and how you want to place them, stitch'em on. AND YOU'VE DONE IT!! NOW GO DO IT AGAIN...IT ONLY GETS EASIER!!!

2 year-old reminder

My little princess just reminded me of something we made a few months ago out of cartons. These are really cute coin purses. You can find the template here.

Another One Done

****For those of you who don't know, the goal of this blog is to share everything I know how to do with everyone that wants to learn. I hope to someday learn some of your amazing skills as well---like cooking :) I have issues in that area. I'm a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due, so any ideas I get from other blogs will be posted with a link. ****

Here is the other one I finished last night. I'm really happy with them, and I can't wait to fill them. I don't really think that my poor picture taking skills do them justice.


I've been getting more comments about the clothes then anything else so I'm going to start working on a tutorial for that today. They are really easy as well (lots of room for mishaps). I'm going to take a pain navy blue T-Shirt that's too big and turn it into something more fitted with ruffles. If you want to follow along, all you need is your shirt, sewing machine, matching thread and elastic thread (that you can pick up @ Hobby Lobby). Anyway...Happy Crafting!