Once Upon a Thread - The Ugly Duckling

Katy at No Big Dill has been doing a really neat series this month called Once Upon a Thread.  Its all about kids clothing and activities inspired by children's books!  If you haven't already, go check out her blog and all the fabulous guest bloggers she's had this month.

I've had so many ideas of book-inspired outfits, but as usual many a mishap has happened along the way, so all I have to show (so far) is my interpretation of The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen.

The Ugly Duckling feels sad and out of place among her yellow feathered companions.

Then, one day, she realizes that she isn't a duck at all...

Her feathers are sleek and white...

And she's happy to discover that she is, in fact, a Beautiful Swan!

(this is her Happy Face)

 The grey Ugly Duckling Cape was made from upcycled t-shirts.

The Beautiful Swan dress was made from an upcycled lace tablecloth (lining made from a white sheet).  A black broadcloth sash helps the dress look less baptism-y.

The headband is a white store-bought headband with feathers, ribbon, and a big white button glued to the side.  Nice and easy!

The best part about this outfit...its perfect for twirling!

Spring Stashbust!

Robin over at The T Shirt Diaries is hosting a Spring Stashbust - and I am so in!!!!  My craft room is overflowing (see a pic here) and I've got a busy month or so ahead of me...two birthdays, one wedding, Easter, and Earth Day of course! 

So many projects, so little time!

And, to make this Spring Stashbust even more exciting (for me, at least)....I'll be guest posting on one of the days!

Go on over to the TShirt Diaries and sign up for the Spring Stashbust, and stay tuned for a lot of fun around here starting...next week.  (Lame, I know.  But our family is just now getting over almost a month of being sick, so I intend to get outside and do some yardwork this weekend!)

Ruffles make me happy

I think I've found a new crafting idol.  Kelly from Sewing in No Man's Land is absolutely fantastic!!!  Chances are, if you're bothering to read my lil' blog you've already heard of her...if you haven't then get on over there!  Seriously, it is THAT fantastic.

Especially because she does everything on very limited resources - not doesnt-have-money-to-buy-designer-fabric, but she lives in a very remote place (East Timor - yeah, I had to look it up on a map too) and simply cannot run to the store and buy what she wants!  She took 15 yards of fabric with her when they moved there - amazing!

Anyways, when I saw this finale for Project Run & Play, I fell head-over-heels in L.O.V.E. 

Oooh, just looking at it gives me tingles all over.  That jacket especially has me dreaming in turquoise!

Sadly, I don't have any turquoise in my stash.  Hardly any vibrant colors like this at all...but when I went thrifting the other day there was some pea/avocado/lime-ish green fabric that practically had a halo glow and hallelujah chorus surrounding it on the rack.  AND, it pretty much matches this beautiful floral cotton I bought last year at Joann's and have done nothing with.

So, for less than $5, I give you my 'knockoff' of the Petite Chouette jacket:

 I know, a bit of a let-down after gazing at Kelly's amazing goodness.  But I was too impatient to wait for a tutorial or pattern or anything, so I was just winging it.

I also didn't have enough of the green fabric to make a 5t size for my daughter.  But, I am such a slacker that I STILL havent finished some Christmas presents.  So when my sister-in-law sent me the link for this outfit (after I'd already been drooling over it) I knew I should make it for her almost one-year old daughter.  (Thats why I left off the belt loops and tie - I figured they'd be a little pointless for someone that little.  And maybe it was getting a little late and I wanted to go to bed.)

I'm hoping this is about a 2T - I used some of my daughter's old clothes to make the patterns from. Crossing my fingers that this will fit her this fall!

I've decided, if I do no other sewing each day, then I need to at least ruffle something.  Seriously, just making these ruffles made me giggle like a school girl...I'm so tempted to make a jacket for myself, to wear when I'm having a bad day!

Bridal Shower cake

I haven't done very much crafting lately, mostly because we rearranged just about every room in our house, leaving my new sewing room combined with our office and looking a little something like this:

Oh my.

I shudder just looking at that hot mess...it took an entire day to organize!  (Plus bring a few more boxes and bags and shelves of stuff...)

But, I did some cake decorating this last weekend for my sister's bridal shower.  Nothing fabulous or even very special, but because my computer is getting overrun with craft photos, I might as well post it here.  They say when you put something on the internet its there forever, right?  Can't say the same thing about my computer...so should I ever feel inclined to make another man-popping-out-of-a-scrumptious-cake, I'll be able to look on here.

First off, I have to say, everything that could go wrong this last week did.  Making this cake was no exception.  It was a dark chocolate, 2 layer cake with rasberry filling and a shiny ganache.  As you can see in the pick, not only did the ganache end up with little bubbles, and not as smooth as I'd hoped, little fingers also found their way onto it.  (Personally, I don't blame them.  It was good.)

For the centerpiece, I made modeling chocolate - except we had a track-dog-poop-all-through-our-carpeted-living-room incident happen right as I was making it, so I messed it up somehow.  (By the way, we dont have any pets - just an annoying neighborhood dog that better not be showing his face any time soon!)  So, not only was the consistency off but I couldnt get the color I wanted (he looked more orange in real life) and then of course little (chocolatey) hands got a hold of him too!

The bow tie is supposed to be cow print...lil bit of an inside joke, but if you've seen the SNL skit with Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley then you get the gist.

My sister, with the finished product.

I have to say, other than this delicious cake, the highlight of the bridal shower was my almost 3-year old daughter helping my sister open a present that happened to be lingere, and then picking up the thong and asking "What is dis?" (with the little kid lisp)  And then when we said it was underwear, she looked sideways at my sister and said, "You has to be weally wittle!"

Classic.

Upcycled Belt Headband

 I recently cut my hair short - pixie short - and while I absolutely LOVE it (so easy to take care of!), sometimes it looks pretty manly.  Usually a good headband will pretty things up.

The only problem is, little hands like to play with my headbands and usually end up breaking them.  I finally gave in this last week and made one myself:

If it looks a little familiar, I took the concept from the marvelous Disney of Ruffles & Stuff's Lauren Headband Tutorial.  The biggest difference is....I made mine from an old belt!

Seriously, SO EASY.  And fast, too!

As you can see here, I just cut a portion of the belt and rounded the corners, then cut a slit in each end (like Disney did with her headbands), and instead of elastic I used a piece from one of those stretchy headbands.  You know, the kind that never seem to stay on...at least they don't for me.  But they work perfectly for this headband...I've pretty much been wearing it non-stop since I made it Friday.

What I really love about this headband, besides not having to cut straight lines like in Disney's tutorial (pretty sure I failed that part of Kindergarten), is that I didnt have to do ANY gluing.  The cute little bow is just another piece of the belt, folded in, and that loop is the loop right next to the belt buckle that you tuck your belt into before you put it through the belt loop on your pants.

Of course, there was some length of the belt left over - not enough for another headband, but enough for

a bracelet!

I'm still not sure about the bracelet - sometimes I look at it and absolutely love it, other times I just want to take it off and hide it.

Maybe if I used skinnier ribbon?  Hmm...

(Oh, and I did trim the edges of the ribbon and add Fray Check so they arent quite so hideous.)

I'm entering this headband into the Crafting with the Stars contest!  Click the button above and go check out all the awesome projects so far!

Shirt Protectors (and a little catch-up!)

It appears that December got the best of me.

Even though I hardly posted, I certainly did craft...but mostly Christmas presents, which of course I couldnt show!  I'm still finishing a few up - thank goodness for an understanding sister-in-law!  I'll hopefully show all that stuff later.

I do want to say THANK YOU to everyone that voted for me in the Fireflies & Jellybeans Iron Crafter: Clothespins contest. 

I won!  Woo Hoo!  Totally made my day week YEAR!

(I know it says "sweaters", but it really was for the clothespin round...)

And now, on to the good stuff....

I've made a goal for myself this year to post at least one project per week.  This week's project is

Shirt Protectors.

So, maybe this looks like just an oversized bib to you.

That's because it is.

This was my inspiration:

My mom made this for my dad years ago, from the fabric leftover from making him a dress shirt.

But, according to my dad, REAL men dont wear bibs.

They wear Shirt Protectors.

My husband is in desperate need of a shirt protector.  Despite his best efforts, he always manages to get food on his shirt. 

And I strongly dislike spending hours trying to get stains out.

So, I took one of his VERY old t-shirts

(this one saw me through 3 pregnancies, plus the 10 years that my husband wore it) and upcycled it!

It was so easy - I'll show you how:

First, you're going to cut up the shirt.  (If your man's pretty attached to the shirt, you might want to make sure he's not in the room.  My husband almost had a panic attack, even though he had already given the shirt to me to use.)

*I was cutting this out while trying to play Dominoes with my in-laws, so in my haste to keep running back to the game apparently I didnt take pictures of everything.  I'll make do with what I have, but if you have any questions PLEASE ask!*

 

Cut off both sleeves.

Cut off the collar by cutting horizontally right below the front of the collar.  (See where the dotted line is?)  You should be cutting both the front and the back of the shirt at the same time, so that they'll be the same shape.

 

 

 

Cut off the bottom - with a rotary cutter if you have one.  (You'll use this for the ties.)  I would cut at least 2 inches off; for this one I cut 3 and it made pretty wide ties.

Round the bottom corners.  I used a bowl as a guide.

Next, you're going to taper the sides in just a bit.  The top should be just a few inches shorter than the bottom, looking something like this:

With RIGHT SIDES together, you are going to stitch around the outside(the dotted black line below), leaving the straight top unstitched.

Turn right side out.

Press (or be lazy like me and skip it, but get some funky wrinkles when you're done ;) ) and topstitch around the outside edge only.

Now you're going to gather that straight top edge. 

Set your sewing machine to the longest stitch, and increase your tension (I took mine all the way up to 9, the highest it goes).

Stitch across the top edge, making sure NOT to backstitch when you start or finish.  Your machine should gather it as you sew.

*note: this t-shirt was pretty thread-bare from lots of use.  When I made one with a newer, and slightly thicker, t-shirt it didnt really gather.  I just grabbed a thread from one end and manually gathered it, although I think if I had tried to gather the two layers seperately they probably would have been okay.

Now you're going to add the tie.

Take the piece you cut off the bottom (it should be kind of a loop), and cut it so its one long strip.  If your shirt had side seams, just cut along one of the seams.

Lay the strip with the WRONG SIDE up and the hem of the t-shirt at the top.

Place the shirt protector on the strip, centered, so that the straight gathered top hits right below the hem (top picture below).

Fold the strip over, so the hem is now on top of the gathering, with the right side facing you (bottom picture below).

Pin the strip in place, along the entire strip as well as the gathering of the shirt protector.

Starting at one end of the tie, stitch along the lower edge.  Go slow over the gathering, and make sure that you are catching the back of the strip/tie too.  (Thats why I suggested cutting at least 2 inches off the bottom, so you have plenty of fabric to sew on.  And if you used a rotary cutter you will have a nice clean edge on the back.)  You will have a raw edge on the back of the tie, and on the ends (unless you think to tuck them in before you sew, which I didnt) but with a T Shirt thats okay because it wont unravel.  It might curl a little with washing, but I think it'll look just fine.

And you're done!

It was kind of hard to get a decent pic of the shirt protector, because the gathering makes it look funny when its laying flat.  But it does a great job of keep food off my husband's shirt, so thats all that matters, right?!

***I've got a few other projects that I hope to post this week or maybe early next week, and they're pretty neat if I do say so myself, so if you dont want to miss them you can enter your email address at the top of the blog (to the right) and you'll get an email every day that I post something!***

Top 10 - I mean 5!

You're probably getting sick of hearing me say this, but head on over to Fireflies and Jellybeans to vote for you favorite project!

My Butterfly Mobile made the top 5 (usually they choose 10, but they went with 5 this time)...but I really think you should head on over there just to look at the other projects.  Seriously, they are SO creative!