Sister really makes me laugh. A lot. She is (aside from my husband) my very best friend. Just to give you an idea of how awesome she is, I recently asked her for some Mod Podge and the conversation went like this:

(I was supposed to leave out the part about her room being messy, but she has a good excuse. She just bought the house my mother grew up in and is fixing it up, so her life is in turmoil right now. Soon I can share vicarious house fixer-upper posts with you.) Anyway, if you laughed at the Remains of the Day lunchbox, you and I and sister can be really good friends (especially if you can quote other lines from the movie it’s from). Now, to turn it over to Steph for a project so easy, even she can do it. {I will fill in blanks where needed, noted with brackets.}

Up in heaven, when standing in line for various traits and talents for this earthly sojourn, I obviously missed the line for ‘sewing and crafting’. I stood twice in the line for ‘anxiety’, ‘germ-a-phobe’, and ‘OCD’, but the ‘sewing and crafting’ talent line eluded me. Incidentally I did swing by the ‘funny’ line three times, and ‘humility’ four. The sewing talent in our family stays with Mom and Bean, alas. Years ago a friend of mine helped me make a pair of denim pants into a super cute skirt. It lasted about 5 washes before it started falling apart. I told Bean I wanted to make another, always willing to learn, and asked her to help me figure it out. Please note, sewing actually gives me anxiety. Lines are not always straight, which is hard for the old OCD to handle. I am in awe of you people. You know, you people who not only can sew, but enjoy doing it.

It only took 5 months for our schedules to match up to play, and I travelled down to Egypt where Bean lives on a Sunday afternoon to make our pant skirts. Here is the tutorial on how to do it. Bean will magically fill in the details here on her blog in words that you fancy sewerers (it’s a word, look it up!) will understand. I, on the other hand, will fill in the rest of us uncrafty folk in simple terms!!

You know that pair of pants you LOVE and so you wear as often as you can? That pair that suddenly have holes in the bum, knee, or other places? That pair you hold on to and just cannot make yourself throw away, but are beyond repair? Grab those pants, and we are going to refurbish them into a seriously kickin skirt. The pair I chose to play with this time are relatively new. But I also miss the line in heaven for a woman’s bum, and apparently stood in the line for men’s bummies. I have a big, flat, man-
butt. (Too much information?) So this particular pair of pants hang down in the back and are seriously unattractive.

Step 1 – Choose your pants.

Step 2 – Choose a kicking music playlist that is peppy and includes “The Fresh Prince of Bell Air.” {It also includes some punk rock Christmas, a little ABBA, Broadway, and random songs that just make me happy. The playlist is called “Colleen Random.”}

Step 3 – Go shopping in your sister’s amazing basement stash of fabric. What? Your sister does not have stash of fabric? Mine does. They have these stores, where you can go and buy fabric, they are called fabric stores. Do not be intimidated. When choosing fabric for your skirt I suggest a plain pattern that will match cute fun top; OR a fun fabric that will match your plain top.

Step 4 – Turn on kicking music playlist.

Step 5 – Cut out the inseam of the pants. There is something about a notch in the remaining pant fabric that Bean will have to tell you about. I was lost. {After you cut up the inseam, just cut along the front and back seam about 2″. This will give your fabric room to overlap and not get all bunchy.}

Step 6 – Cut the bottom off your pants for a shorter skirt, or leave it long for ankle length. I like to fray the bottom so I cut off the seam.

Step 7 – Cut a triangle in the fabric you will be filling in your pants with. {To determine the size of the triangle, measure the length of the inseam and determine how much flare you want in your finished skirt. Cut two pieces of fabric the inseam length x amount needed for flare. Mine (for a short skirt) was cut at 14″ x 14″. Stephanie’s was 25″ x 19″. Find the center of the top and cut an angle from the bottom corners to the center top.}

Step 8 – Sew it all together. Please note that if you stick your tongue out at the side of your mouth, sewing is easier.

{Here’s where I step in with a few sub-steps to the “sew it all together” part.}

8a. Overlap the two inches you cut up the front and back seams, and sew (using a topstitch) together.

8b. Take one of your triangles and pin it to your former inseam, rights sides together, in the front of your skirt. Sew together, repeat with the other side, and then repeat with the back. Serge the edges to finish, or finish with a zig zag stitch.

8c. Topstitch. You can skip this but eventually your fabric will do that wavy thing where your seam doesn’t really know which way to go and it looks funny. So don’t skip this.

8d. Finish the bottom by sewing a zig zag stitch around the whole thing. This will let it fray a little, but not too much. Or you could do a proper hem by turning it under 1/4″ and then again, pressing, and sewing.

8 easy steps to making a super cute skirt out of the pants you love and cannot stomach throwing away. If you have holes that need patching, it would be super easy to add a patch with the fabric you have chosen to fill in the legs with.

{I hope this made sense. We did this quite a while ago, and I’m just now getting it on the blog! Let me know if anything is unclear, like why on earth a Remains of the Day lunchbox would be funny, or why such a thing even exists.}

I had the idea one night to add some napkin rings to the place mats I made for my partner in the Spicing Up The Kitchen Swap. I was throwing ideas around in my head until this one popped in. I think they turned out fabulous, so I thought I’d share with you how to make them!

They are pretty simple, but pack a big punch. And all you need is a few strips of fabric, felt, 1″ webbing, a sewing machine and a glue gun.

Start by cutting your fabric strips. Instructions here will make six napkin rings (to go with the six place mats I already made). Cut one strip 2.5″ x width of fabric. This will be to cover your webbing and make the actual ring. Cut three strips 1.5″ x width of fabric, then cut those in half. These will be the strips you use to make your flowers.

With right sides together, sew your 2.5″ strip of fabric down the long side to create a tube.

Press your seam open. {And please ignore my horrible burned ironing board cover}

Turn your tube right side out. You can use a safety pin, or find yourself these nifty tube turners. There’s a tube that you slide inside your fabric tube, and a stick you use to push the fabric through. Honestly, it changed my sewing life when I found them in the notions isle at the fabric store.

Now, you’re going to cut that tube into 7″ segments. You also need to cut your webbing into 6″ segments.

Next, turn one end of each 7″ fabric tube under and press, so you get a nice finished end. You can just leave the other one as it is. {Also, please ignore my pink fingernails. Who puts a permanent ink stamp in the end of a child’s Valentine’s Day treat? I had to dig out the stamp pad so I didn’t get red M&M stamps all over my house.}

Now slide one 7″ fabric tube over each of your 6″ webbing pieces, bunching it up in the middle so you’ve got webbing exposed on both ends.

Now, probably the hardest part of the whole thing, depending on how you are at sewing at awkward angles. Take the two exposed webbing ends, and sew them together. Use a zig-zag stitch. Trust me on this one, I did a straight stitch, and had to go back later and zig-zag it.

See, it’s not really hard (none of this project is), it’s just a little awkward.

Then sew down the raw fabric edge to your webbing. It doesn’t matter where it is, it doesn’t have to be right next to your webbing seam, we just want to hold it in place so it’s easier to slide your turned-under edge over it.

See that straight stitch on the webbing there? That should be a zig-zag!

Once your raw ends are tacked down, start sliding your fabric around so the edge you turned under and made all pretty will cover that raw edge.

Then topstitch around both sides. You don’t need to worry about sewing that pretty edge across the ring, once you topstitch the edges, it will hold it in place just fine.

Now set your rings aside for a minute while we make our rolled fabric flowers.

Fold each 1.5″ strip in half, wrong sides together, down the long side. Starting at one end, start twisting your fabric strip. {You can be glad you just have to twist, not figure out a way to twist it and hold it while taking a picture with your other hand.}

Don’t try to twist the whole length of it, just do enough to get started rolling it. Now, start rolling your twisted fabric like a snail shell. Once you get a little bit rolled, maybe just a turn and a half or two, pause and put a drop of glue between the rounds to help hold it together.

Just keep twisting and rolling, putting a little drop of glue about every round. When you’ve rolled up the whole length of fabric, turn it over to the back a glue like a crazy person. You want to make sure you catch each round, and especially the outside all the way around.

Turn it over and stick it down onto your piece of felt. Give the glue a chance to set up, then cut the felt around your rolled fabric flower. Glue a flower to each of your rings, covering your seam where the fabric ends meet.

And just like that, in under an hour (even less if you’re not stopping to take care of your two adorable toddlers) you’ve got a set of custom napkin rings to complete your table setting!

I hope you make some gorgeous rings for your table. I may make myself some, and actually get fabric napkins to use them with! One day I’ll have a fancy dinner party… right?

If you make anything with my tutorials, I’d love to see a picture. You can send them to me, or upload them to my flickr group.

I’m linking up to a few parties with this. Check out the buttons over there on the left side of my page. You will get lost scrolling through the beautiful items everyone is making!

And a little tutorial for you!

What you need to make four placemats:
One Charm Pack
3/4 yards of coordinating fabric for front
1 yard backing fabric
1 yard fleece (for batting)
1/2 yard binding fabric

Cut your backing fabric and your fleece into 19″x13″ pieces, four of each.

Cut your binding fabric into 1.5″ strips

Now for the tops, start by cutting 25 charm squares into 1.5″ strips, or just cut 76 1.5″x5″ pieces of patterned fabric. Cut your coordinating front fabric (I used white to really make the colors pop) into 19 1.5″ strips. From each strip, cross-cut four pieces in varying lengths from 3″ – 5″ and four 6″ pieces. It’s not too scientific. Really, nothing I do is! Here’s how I did it:

When your strips are all lined up, just pull a few ends down at random, line your ruler up with the three inch mark from the shortest piece. Cut across all of your strips. The, leaving the ruler where it is (if you’re using a 6″ ruler) cut across the top of the ruler too. This will give you two random pieces and two 6″ pieces from each strip. Then, pull the longest ones down at random and do it again.

Sew your random white pieces end to end with your charm strips. Then sew your 6″ strips to the other end of your charm strips. Press all seams to the patterned fabric. Now you get the fun part: playing with the layout of your strips.

Lay them out in sets of 19, lining up the ends of your random white pieces along the bottom, so all of the 6″ pieces are at the top. This will give you the staggered look of your patterned pieces along the center. Now for the quilting.

Lay out your backing piece, patterned side down. Place your fleece on top of it. Now, lay out your center strip face up down the center of your placemat, on top of the batting (fleece).

Now, lay the next piece on top of the center strip, this one facing down. Sew along the side using a 1/4″ seam. Use your walking foot if you have one! Repeat with the strip on the other side of center. Then, press your two side strips open. Keep repeating this, sewing the next strip face down on top of the strip that is now face up.

Once you have all of your strips sewn down, it’s time to trim up the edges.

And bind! I’m not typing up a binding tutorial, because I don’t think I could explain it just right. Instead, I will direct you to Elizabeth Hartman’s tutorial, which is the one I used when binding finally clicked for me!

And you have your finished placemat.

I made a few of these for my partner, then started playing around with the pieces. Use your same strips and start playing with layout and you might come up with this

Or my favorite:

Tie them up with a pretty bow, and you have a perfect gift… anyone you know have a new home? Make them something to celebrate their new space!

Oh, and in case of spaghetti, might I suggest a busy backing fabric… still cute, but not “marinara on white fabric” scary.

If you end up making placemats, or anything from my tutorials, I’d love to see them on my Flickr Group!

I decided right away that I would make myself a skirt with these fabrics from the Botanica collection. And I set out to find myself the perfect pattern to use. That’s where I’m stumped. I still can’t decide!

So this morning, instead of sewing myself a skirt, I made one for Kelsey. {Sorry to get your hopes up that there would be a cute tutorial for a big kid skirt made in just five minutes. Not today.}

Here’s my 5 minute felted wool skirt:

You will need
1 felted wool sweater
1 piece of 3/4″ elastic

Step 1: Measure the waist and length. Seriously, this took me longer than it did to make the skirt since Kelsey kept squirming away. In this case, her waist measured 16″ and I wanted it 10″ long.

Step 2: Cut the wool piece. Add 1″ to the waist measurement and cut a piece of your felted wool sweater. For this skirt I added 1″ to her 16″ waist, and cut my piece 17″ x 10″. You don’t need to add anything to the length. There is no hemming or making casings involved here. If you can sew two straight-ish lines, you can make this skirt. I cut up the side seams, and as luck would have it, this sweater was exactly 10″ from the bottom of the sleeve to the bottom of the sweater. Can I take this as a sign that it’s going to be a good year?

Step 3: Cut elastic for waistband. Measure a piece of elastic that is 2″ shorter than your waist measurement. 16″ – 2″ = 14″ elastic. I used non-roll underwear and pajama elastic. The elastic should now be 3″ shorter than your piece of wool.

Step 4: Sew elastic to top of wool piece. On the wrong side of your piece of wool, sew the elastic to the top, matching the top edges and stretching along the way. Make sure you backstitch at the beginning, then just stretch the elastic along the length as you go. It’s not scientific, really. Just make sure the ends match up and backstitch again when you get to the other end.

Step 5: Sew seam. With the fabric right sides together, sew down the side seam.

And that’s it! You’re done. Because the felted wool won’t fray, you don’t even need to finish the top or the bottom. Easy, right? And when you put it on, nobody will even know you didn’t hem a thing. The top even looks finished.

Because it’s wool, it’ll keep their little bum warm in the winter. Plus, smart people wear wool… you know, professors and artsy types, so the minute you put it on your little one, she will be instantly smarter and appreciate art.

{even if the art is upside down.}

Okay, maybe I made that part up. But since I made up the skirt I can make up anything else I want while typing this tutorial!

This part is true: the felted wool stretches, so even though you may think the bottom is tight, as soon as she stretches her little legs to take a step, the skirt will stretch with her. Throw on some little leg warmers and it’s perfect for winter.

And one day soon I’ll find a pattern for my own skirt I like and show you that finished product.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a solution. A menu chalkboard that someone had attached to their fridge. I can’t find that particular one again, I have no idea which blog I was reading that linked to another one that featured the particular inspiration for this. I know it’s not a new concept, so I’ll just share how I did mine.

This morning I packed the girls up and headed in to town. I had a bag of stuff to drop off at our local thrift store, then I parked and went inside to get new {to me} stuff. I picked up a couple of frames for $1 each! Wall space in our kitchen is limited, so I was happy to find a skinny tall frame. I used this one for my project today:

Sure, it was only $3 originally, and the tag says $1.50. But a bargain’s a bargain, right? I feel good about paying just a buck. Especially because it’s so ugly. But, I think it’s like Fran in Strictly Ballroom… all it needs is a little love, a few dance lessons, a new outfit, and it will be a whole new frame. (Alright, maybe I didn’t give it dance lessons, maybe I’m just thinking about that movie since a song from the soundtrack just came on my iPod and now I really want to watch it tonight.)

I started out by sanding it just a tiny bit on the flat parts to make sure my paint would stick. Make sure you wipe all the dust off and let it dry before you start painting.  I used an American Crafts acrylic paint that has been getting a lot of use at my house lately, Georgia Clay.

I applied two coats to make sure I got it in all the little details. Already it looked better – but still quite plastic-y. Is that a word? {okay, I know it isn’t but if you ask that after using a word you just made up then you can feign ignorance, right?}

See? Plastic-y. So I used a little Burnt Umber to deepen it up. A really dark brown like this is one of my go-to colors when I paint stuff, it’s just like a walnut stain ink pad for distressing edges of paper when I scrapbook. Just use a few drops of the Burnt Umber and a few dips of your brush full of water. It should look like a dirty puddle on your palette.

This is why my sister doesn’t craft. This whole project would be a nightmare for her. I know – we talked about it just this weekend.

Anyway, once you have that really watered-down Burnt Umber, wipe it all over  your painted frame and just let it sit for a minute. Long enough to snap a quick picture… or get a Coke from the fridge… or both. Because that’s what I did.

Then, take a paper towel and wipe off the excess dirty water. Because let’s be honest, it’s more dirty water than paint at this point. If that looks okay to you, great! I wanted mine a little deeper toned, so I did that one more time.

This time while it dried a little, I cut out my letters and shapes with my Cricut machine. My inspiration for this was a chalkboard, which I considered, but I didn’t have any chalkboard paint, I didn’t want to pull my girls out of the car again to run into Home Depot, and I kind of don’t like the idea of chalk dust in my kitchen. So, I cut out letters and arranged them on a paper to put behind the glass so I can write on the glass with a glass pen.

I wanted to make a little area to write each day’s meals on, and I kind of like the bracket look. But I also wanted to make sure they were evenly spaced… so I measured down each side, making a mark where I wanted the tip of each bracket. Then I used Mod Podge to glue down the letters at the top and brackets down the sides.

By this time my paint and dirty water was all dry, so I took the frame out to the garage and gave it a couple coats of finishing spray (after all, this will be in the kitchen, I wanted something that would clean up easily).

Put it all together in the frame,

and hang on the kitchen wall.

Tomorrow I’ll run to the craft store at lunch to get a nice white marker I can write on it with. Now at the beginning of the week, I can plan menus, shop accordingly, and not have to stare blindly into the pantry each night before I give up and pull out spaghetti yet again, just because it’s quick.

What do you think?

Update: I remembered where I saw this… Head over to So You Think You’re Crafty and get all sorts of fun ideas to get your mind going! Each week different crafters have to complete a challenge and gather the most votes, or they are kicked off! It’s lots of fun to see how they all interpret a theme for the week so differently.

I discovered the world of craft blog tutorials. I was in heaven! Who knew that there could be such a wealth of information out there, just waiting to be explored? Obviously everyone else in the world knew this and I am just a little late to the party. Well, here’s to being fashionably late, but still bringing a treat for everyone to munch on…

On to the tutorial.

A few weeks ago I made a car seat tent for my little Bug’s car seat. I saw one covering a car seat one day at church, and I thought it was wonderful. So I went to JoAnn and picked up some flannel while it was on sale. 1 1/2 yards of two matching prints. At $2 a yard, the whole thing ended up costing me just $6!

Step 1: Square up your fabric. Or rather, rectangle up. Just even out those cut edges and cut off the selvage. I used my pinking rotary cutter. I use that to cut just about everything. LOVE IT! Then, sew the two pieces together, right sides out.

Step 1

You could also do this by sewing the right sides together, leaving a 4″ opening to turn, turning it right side out, and then topstitching around the edge, closing the opening as you go. But then you’d have to sew all the way around it twice – and I was just plain lazy that night.

Do a random stitch (I did an X from corner to corner, but you could do a heart, a circle, or random squiggles) in the middle of your big rectangle. This will keep it from shrinking up funny when you wash and dry it. Then you can snip around the edges of the rectangle, being careful not to cut the seam. This will let it fray and look really cool, as opposed to fraying and coming apart at the seam.

Step 2: Cut out two strips from each fabric, 2 1/2″ by 6″. These will end up being the handles to attach the big rectangle to your car seat.

Step 2a

Then sew these together, right sides in. Why the difference? Because the outside edges of the main rectangle are going to fray, and I thought it would be more difficult to attach it to the car seat handle if it was all frayed. Plus, these are a lot smaller, so I didn’t mind sewing around them twice. ; )

Step 2b

Step 3: Attach the buttonhole foot to your sewing machine.

Step 3

If I just lost you there, don’t worry – I have an alternative to share. But really, don’t be afraid of the buttonhole! (Most) machines these days do all of the work for you. You just stick the button to the attachment and hold your fabric so it goes in a straight line. Easy-peasy. If you’re still afraid, here’s your alternative:

Velcro

Either way, attach a button to each strip – either to go through the buttonhole, or opposite the side you used Velcro on to make it look like it attaches with a button.

Step 4: Measure where your handles should attach to the cover. I did this by draping it over the top and marking where it hit with a pin.

Step 4

Then I wanted to make sure they were even and straight, so I laid the rectangle out, grabbed my ruler, lined it up on the top edge and measured down. I ended up sewing mine on at about 21″ from the top to fit nicely over my car seat. Pin the handles down in a straight line along the edge of your ruler. (6″ apart worked just perfectly.)

Step 4b

Step 5: Sew handles to cover. I didn’t get a picture of this step, but if you’ve made it this far with me, sewing a two inch straight(ish) line shouldn’t be that bad. I just hit reverse on my machine twice and sewed across each one four times to make sure it was on strong.

Car Seat Tent

Then all that’s left is to button it to the handle of your car seat! My Bug loves it because it doesn’t cover her face. I love it because it keeps the cold breeze off her face. And we get plenty of cold breeze in our Utah winters. It’s also great because I don’t have to carry an extra blanket that she would just end up kicking off the car seat. When I need to feed her, I just un-button the cover and use it to cover us.

Like I said, mine is simple because I’m not a frilly kind of girl – although I do become more frilly each day as I raise two little girls. But you could kick this basic tent up a notch by using a few different fabrics on top and sewing ric-rac over the border, sewing a patchwork top and quilting the whole thing, or by making a rag quilt and attaching the handles where two of your rows meet up. Or just keep it simple like mine so you can finish in under 30 minutes.