Playhouse link

I know I've already linked to a little fabric house, but I loved the "extras" on this!! So, so cute. So far in my Christmas crafting I've made 1/2 dozen fabric eggs, and a handful of strawberries. lol. I better get sewing! I just wish we had a joann's closer so I could just go pick up a lot of felt easily. The felt I'm using for the food is wool felt from a quilt shop. Quality and beautiful, but way too expensive to do a play house!

Felt Playhouse found at homemade by jill
A spin off of hers is also found at fireflies and jelly beans

Trick or Treat Totes

 LeAnne's Trick or Treat Totes have been on my list for the last two years so I am happy to say that I finally made them this year.

While I was at JoAnn's before Halloween I noticed that all of their Halloween fabric was on sale (40% or 50%) so some of it was super cheap. I bought some Halloween fabric for the first time in my life with the intention of making these... and hopefully a few other fun Halloween things in the next year or two. The kids loved picking out their favorites of what I brought home. Buddy wanted the green bat fabric and Bella picked out the purple trick or treaters and my two favorite fabrics were the black/silver/sparkly spider web and candy fabric. So I put those together for the baby. I had fun cutting the shapes out of felt and doing a little embroider work. And I won't lie - sewing the spider onto the bag was a beast. It was worth it though because I love it and Bella decided it was her favorite. I think they are so cute though and the kids loved them. Even little Lou grabbed onto hers when we got in the car and didn't want to let go.

These cute Halloween totes made our Halloween even sweeter! Thanks LeAnne for the great tutorial!

XO

Maren

Tutorial: Strawberry Shortcake Hat

Although I have not found a lot of time lately to blog, I have still found some time to sew. Once I catch my breath I will catch you up on some of the stuff I have been sewing lately - including the hair rollers and some burned edge satin flowers.

I love Halloween. I do not, however, love the costumes found in the costume isles or in the Halloween stores for one reason or another (quality, $$$, etc). I especially don't love the costumes for little girls. But I won't go there today. I will just say that I think I will be making Halloween costumes for the rest of my life. And I will be happy to do it.

Bella finally decided, with a little persuasion from me, to be Strawberry Shortcake for Halloween. Her costume was pretty simple to throw together. I appliqued felt diamonds and a strawberry on a plain white t-shirt, bought some tights at one of those Halloween stores, and made a tutu. I admit that I think her costume would be a lot cuter with a simple elastic waistband skirt that matches the hat, but she loves tutus and I know her tutu years are limited. She loves it and feels magical in it so that is good enough for me. When she wears her costume for real I will probably curl her hair and paint a little strawberry on her cheek and maybe give her some freckles. I know there are pink strawberry shortcake wigs out there that you can buy for little girls, but I didn't want to spend the money on one or the time tracking one down. So basically the only thing I was perplexed on was her hat and I wasn't able to find any good tutorials out there for the right kind of hat. So here you go. It isn't the fanciest tutorial, but I hope you will get the picture.

This costume is based on the latest version of Strawberry Shortcake.

First: Make the brim

I got out my daughter's baseball hat and traced the shape of the brim onto a Costco milk box. I then cut it out and wrapped it in duct tape as suggested in this Threadbanger brimmed beanie tutorial.

I then traced around the brim on some wool felt. This is the same felt that I used to applique diamonds on her t-shirt. Make sure to leave enough room around the brim for a seam allowance - at least 1/2".

I actually only cut around the bottom and left the top flat.

Sew around outside edges and flip it right side out so that it looks like this.

Stuff your taped cardboard  brim inside and trace around the inside edge of the brim.

Sew along that line sealing the brim inside. Trim about 1/2" - 3/4" leaving enough material to sew to hat.

For the rest of the hat I took a one yard cut of pink fabric and cut it 10" deep. So I had a strip of fabric 36" x 10". I then cut three 6" slits dividing the strip into fourths. My fabric was folded into fourths already so I cut along the fold marks. Here is a good tutorial that I used for the method. I just had to find a way to make it bigger and floppier.

After you have your sections notched, create a football shape for each section. I folded each section in half and sketched something like this. Cut.

This is what it should look like when you are finished. I must have gotten a little lazy on the last one because it looks more like a triangle than a football.

Next sew adjacent sides together and do a basting stitch along the bottom edge. It should start looking kind of showercapish.

Next take a piece of wide elastic and measure it around your child's head. I happened to have some underwear elastic so that is what I used. Sew it into a circle.

Pin the hat to the elastic, gathering it evenly along the basting stitch as you do so. Sew the hat to the elastic. The other option would be to make a casing for the elastic. I just thought this was a lot easier.

Now, I had pictures for the rest of this process but my own dear Strawberry Shortcake got a hold of my camera and deleted them. Basically I took the elastic and flipped it towards the inside of the hat and sewed it in place. I then centered the brim and sewed it onto the hat above the elastic part so that the elastic part is not visible from the top. 

You are now finished (unless you want to embelish with a strawberry or green felt leaves on top)

Hopefully this picture will give you an idea of what it should look like.

Here is the whole costume. I have debated doing a strawberry purse, but I don't know if I will get to that - maybe when I convince my baby to be Strawberry Shortcake two years from now :)

(Please don't use pictures without permission)

XO

Maren

September Challenge

Hi! It's Maren here and I am going to post our challenges for this month. I can't believe it is September already!!

I am so glad that Celia included LeAnne's Trick or Treat Tote in the challenge last month because that is on my list to do before Halloween. I was scrolling through some of her tutorials and remembered that she also had a cute felt Halloween banner which would be another fun Haloweeny thing to whip up for a decoration this Halloween season.

Since I have girls I am going to post a few links of some girly things that I have been working on or that I have been thinking about working on. They are great for either the little girls in your life or for yourself.

First: Fabric Hair Rollers from Life with Monkey. Have you ever tried those pink foam ones. Well check out this little girl's hair using rollers from this tutorial. WAAAY better results. I think I will be wearing these to bed.

Second: Shirring. I have been hit by the shirring bug. And I have LeAnne to thank for this! She did a tutorial for a cute little summer dress and tipped me off on some patterns that were for sale on etsy. I manged to snag a few patterns before the shop closed forever and I really have enjoyed them. I'll post more about them later. I think that LeAnne did a great job with her dress tutorial and the great thing about shirring is it is so easy and so cute and so versatile. You can add wide hems of coordinating fabric, ruffles, different types of sleeves. wider strips for cap sleeves, ribbons, spaghetti straps etc. You can even make a top for yourself as well!

 LeAnne also did a great tutorial on shirring. I am so glad that she included a picture of what the elastic thread should look like. Months before I started shirring I picked up some elastic thread at JoAnns because I knew at some point I wanted to give it a try. My thread was on a plastic spool. I kept hearing that it has to be on a cardboard one. I went back to JoAnns to find the stuff that I needed and could NOT find it. I even asked someone and they were pretty clueless as to what I was even talking about. The label on the thread I got said it was meant for shirring so I used it. And it worked. However, The first day my daughter wore her dress I noticed that some of the thread broke and now I will have to go back and do it again! Not Fun. So I will be finding another way to get the proper elastic thread. Just a word to the wise.

Third: I have really been wanting to make my oldest daughter some cute flower hairclips/headbands to wear to preschool. I love these kinds of projects because they don't take a lot of time and you can make a whole bunch in one sitting. Here are a few tutorials. These flowers can be used for anything - brooch, clip for a purse or bag, gift topper etc. No sewing machine necessary! (sorry I was not able to get any of the pictures up - but go ahead and click. You won't be sorry)

Felt Peony
Felt Flower - the scalloped roll method
Felt Flower - the glue method (love the button center)
Satin Flowers - the candle method - I soooo want to do this one
Rolled Fabric Flower
Fabric and Paper flower roudup from Little birdie secrets -I love the painted newspaper flowers. It would be a fun one to do with  kids to give away to someone special (Mother's day, Valentines day, birthdays etc)


 Recipe: Triple Layer Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I love fall desserts and I love this one. I made this on a couple of different occasions. Once for my son's first birthday and now that I have an October birthday I think I am going to make it for my baby's first birthday next month. It is very yummy. I have done it with three layers, but it would also be yummy as cupcakes or made in a regular old cakepan. Delish!

XO

Maren

Felt Hair Clips

I signed up to make a donation for our Young Men and Young Women acution for their scout camp and various activities. Last year I made some felt hair clips so I decided to do the same thing this year. I also made a crochet beanie which I will show you later.  Here are the clips.

I used this tutorial for the rose clips. At first I didn't realize I was supposed to cut down the lines on the larger petal so my first attempts (the red rose) were a little sloppy. I finally figured it out on the pink one. I love the template for the clip covering in this pattern too. The clips stay right inside. I used to glue the little felt "sleeping bags" to my clips but since my glue gun is junk and since Bella isn't exaclty easy on her things the clips kept falling out. No falling out with these ones. My favorite clip is the layered circle rose with the clear vintage button as well as  the clip with one of my all time favorite vintage poppy buttons on it. I made a few duplicates for Bella! These are my favorite hair accessories because quite often I am in a hurry to do Bella's hair and this is the easiest thing for me to do. I just pop one of these in her hair to keep her hair out of her face. Also, one of my favorite projects because it is so fun and they work up pretty quickly (and I love working with felt :)

XO
Maren

Felt Mr./Mrs. Potato Head

I first saw this on Make it and Love it right before we left on our Christmas vacation. I decided to make it as a last ditch effort to have a quiet toy for Dean on the plane rides. He didn't really play with it much then, but I have found him playing with it in his room from time to time while he is in time out. =)

I just love the angry eyes!

What? What did I do? (I love his mustache. hehe.)

You can still do the crazy combos I thought were hillarious as a kiddo.

And this is on the back where I'd have put a long strip of velcro to hold the extra pieces.

I think it's a great idea. I made my own body and parts templates, and I didn't make the back pocket. If I were to do it over, I'd put a long strip of the soft velcro (loop?) on the back and just attach the spare pieces there. Or make a bag that has a long strip of velcro. Otherwise the scratchy velcro (hook?) kind of "tears up" the felt. I didn't stuff any of the pieces except the body, mainly because I was trying to get it all done quickly. I just used two pieces of felt for each thing. It worked fine.

Heart Garland

I really enjoyed this craft and it was as the name suggests, super easy. In fact, after I cut out all of the hearts I sewed them together with Bella on my lap at the sewing machine. She liked choosing which colors to use next and passed me a heart every time I needed a new one. I used 7 different colors of wool felt and I only used 1/2 sheet of each color(1/2 sheet divided into 3 stips). A little goes a long way. And as you can see this garland is super long. I love how it turned out. I love all the colors and I love all the different shapes and sizes of hearts. So fun. And so cute!




Here is the link again.

As a side note, I probably mentioned this already but I have a really hard time finding cute felt around here so I bought most of this wool felt on Heather Bailey's online store. For those of you in Utah, there is no shortage of cute fabric shops (so jealous!). Material Girls is one in South Jordan that I hear is really good and I beleive carries great felt - ya know, if you are interested. I'm just jealous I can't go there myself. And I will admit, since I know I am not the only one, that I used to hate (and I mean really hate) fabric shopping. Now it is one of my favorite things to do.

For this project I am sure you can use regular felt as well. It would be a little bit cheaper, but I must confess that I have become a felt snob. I love wool felt. It really is much nicer than the regular stuff. That being said I do still use regular felt - especially for felt food. Anyways...

XO
Maren