Emergency Car Care Kit Tutorial

These are stinkin' cute! 

I got one for Christmas last year and I love mine.

I decided to reproduce something similar.

I love the big chunky buttons and the cute potholders.

These cost me $3.50 a piece to make.

First thing will be to find some cute potholders.  The one that I got was a larger sized pot holder, but a standard size will work just as well.  These came Dollar Tree

Take 6 plastic, zipper seal Ziploc and place them inside the potholder.  You will want 3 going out each way.  I hope you can see what I mean in the picture.  Measure your potholder across to find the center.  I used a dry erase marker to draw a line down the center for a sewing guide.

You are going to stitch a zigzag stick right down the center of the bags.  This is kinda hard and I messed up the first one, because the bags are slippery to sew on. 

Go back and trim the excess off of the bottom of each bag.  Trim it as close to the stitching as possible.  Be careful not to cut into the stitching.

Sew a cute chunky button on the outside and now fill it with goodies!  I put in antibacterial wipes from Walgreen's,a couple of Tylenol packets, band aids, tissue, dental picks, safety pins, nail clippers and a file.  You can fill it with whatever you want.  Mine had all of these things plus an emergency sewing kit.  You can also save a slot to put in some cash.  Mine came with a $5.00 bill.

I whipped out 15 of these in 2 hours.  All of the filler came from the dollar store and Walgreen's.  This is an easy present to mass produce if you want to do them for Christmas.Happy sewing

Popsicle Cosies

Type Popsicle Cosie into your google search and see what pops up. HILARIOUS and somewhat disturbing.... Anywho, I saw this idea last year, and I can't remember where, hence the google search. I thought about making them, but just never got around to it. My 3-year-old loves Popsicles, but doesn't like to hold them, so she wraps wash clothes around them. The other day, I was watching her and remembered these!
So easy and my kids are in love with them. Every time they have a Popsicle, they have to run and grab a cosie now. Even my older kids! I love it. I took pictures to post a tutorial, but they are the simplest things ever to make.

1. Cut yourself a piece of 3x4 felt. The 3 being your height and the 4 your width.

2. Fold the felt in half, so that you have a 2 inch piece of felt. Sew a stitch down the side. I did a fun zig zag stitch. I used the edge of the zipper foot as my guide. Trim it up and you've got a Popsicle cosie that will fit an otter-pop!

That's it! So easy and so cute! We have a huge stockpile in different colors, because we are the neighborhood party house.

Applique Tutorial

Remember to scroll down and get entered in the giveaway!

Step 1. Find an applique that you like. Cut it out. Cut out a piece of Wonder Under, that is big enough for your applique.

Step 2. Iron your material, wrong side up.

Step. 3. Place the wonder Under on the material, placing the bumpy side to the fabric. Press with a hot, dry iron for about 15 seconds until it is stuck well.

Step 4. Trace your applique onto the wonder under. Cut out the applique.

Step 5 and 6. Remove the backing on the applique. I use a seam ripper to carefully slice a small line in the backing and then I peel it off. It is the easiest way that I have found to get the stuff off!

Step 7: Press the shirt that you are putting the applique on.

Step 8: Place your applique on the shirt. Adjust it to where you would like it. Press with a dry iron, set on the wool setting until applique adheres to the shirt. This only takes about 30 seconds.

Step 9: Wear your cute shirt!

You can also sew a cute top stitch around the edges of the applique. I recommend this. I left the top stitch off of this shirt and washed it to see how it held up without it and it was did great! However my little 2-year-olds fingers managed to peel it off.

This is great for those stained t-shirts and onesies!! Extends their lives and makes them oh, so cute!

No Sew Felt Poppy Clips - Tutorial

These are stinkin' cute! I have made poppies out of fabric before and had them turn out okay, but it was a complicated process with using a pattern and cutting them all out and it took forever. I made 3 of these in just under 20 minutes. They are that simple. I had a friend teach us how to make these at a Young Women's activity, but she had us sewing them together. I have made some like that, but using the glue gun is so much easier and they seem to hold up the same.

Your going to need 6 circles cut out of felt, all the same size. These are 2 inches in diameter. I used a pattern that I had already made for silk flowers. Which will be hopefully posted on here next week!

Your going to take a piece and fold it in half. You may want to put a dab of glue right in the center of that crease. I don't do that on every one, but sometimes they do unfold. Up to you!

Then fold it in half again and stick a dot of glue in the fold to hold the petal in place. You will have a triangle shape petal.

Take one of your pieces of felt and put a dot of glue and glue your petal on. Repeat this step with the other 3 circles. I like to do the first two petals right across from each other and then fill in the gaps with the other 2 petals.

This isn't a great picture, but this is what it will look like. If you have any edges sticking out, you will just want to trim them off. You can leave it just like this, or.......

Glue a cute button into the center. I love buttons! Place your last piece of felt in between the prongs of your hair clip. Smother the top of the felt with hot glue and attach it to the back of your flower.

This is seriously so easy and so cute! You can use them to embellish, purses, clothes, and just about anything you want. Tomorrow I am going to show you another use for them!

Rolled Flower Tutorial

I've had a few people ask me if I have any tutorials on flowers. Nope, but I said, I'd make one. And I remembered why I hadn't done a tutorial, they take forever!! But since I love you guy's, I did one up for the rolled flowers. I originally got this idea from a headband I bought a boutique. It's alot looser than the one's I have been making, but I really like these.
They are so easy and so pretty.

You'll need. Two felt circles that coordinate with your material. The bigger of the two is the one you will use as your base for the flower. Then your scissors and glue gun. You could also use fabric glue if you wanted to. I tried it and it didn't work nearly as well as the trusty old glue gun.

Depending on the size you want your flower, your going to tear yourself a strip of material, about 1 to 1 & 1/2 inches wide. For this large flower, my fabric was 45 inches. For a tiny flower, you might only use about 12. I always figure that if I want to finish the flower off, I will just trim the excess material off.

Put a dab of glue in the center of your felt. You can tie a knot in your material and place it onto the glue, or you can simply stick the material to the glue. I do it that way, because it makes it easier to put buttons into the center later on.

Your going to take your material and start twisting it around itself. I do a few inches at a time.

Then you simply start to roll it around the center piece and glue the fabric to itself. You can glue it directly to the felt, and you will want to do that every couple of times you glue, but not every time or else it gets to hard and not pliable.

And from here, you just keep twisting and gluing until you get the desired size of flower you want.

Sorry, I should have cropped this to get a closer picture. But here is what your back will look like when you are done. If you have extra felt sticking out, just trim it off.

And this isn't a great shot either, but take the end of the material and simply tuck the ends into a the last twist you did and glue it.

The best place I have found to get clips is to buy them at a beauty supply store, like Sally's. I got 100 clips for $5.00. But here you'll take your second felt circle and stick it in between the the prongs of the clip. Now put a liberal amount of hot glue to the top of the felt.

Then stick it to the back of the flower. I put the felt in between the flower and the prongs because then you don't have to mess with getting the glue perfect and it doesn't get caught in your hair.

Now add a button and glue it to the center and you have a darling rolled flower. These are super cute when attached to a headband. Like the Mellow Yellow headband I listed in the giveaway. They are also cute on clothes, bags, and just about anything else you can think of. I have another project to show you with these, but I don't want to give anything away!!

Hopefully this made sense and helps someone out. Happy flower making!

Fabric Covered Magnet Board Tutorial

This is a super simple craft. I'm sure you've seen it around. I tried to see how others had done this by googling it, but couldn't find any tutorials. In theory it's really simple, but I thought I would post it here just in case someone goes looking for it.

I started out with a plain wooden frame that came with a piece of sheet metal inside of it. I got it at Roberts. I painted it a soft black color to start.

Then I dry brushed two coats of pink over the top. I added iridescent glitter to the paint on the second coat.

While your frame dries, lay out your material and your sheet metal. You will want to give yourself about 1-inch of material overlapping the metal.

Iron your material to get out any wrinkles!

Lay out your material again and get ready to hot glue!

You want to pull the material as tight as you can around the magnet board and hot glue it all the way around. You will probably burn your fingers at least a dozen times!!! Pull it as tight as you can so that you don't have any bubbles on the board.

Place your fabric covered metal into the frame and close the backing.Add any embellishments you want to the frame. I used some vinyl to put my nieces name. My sweet sister-in-law has a cricuit, that I covet and she was so nice as to cut this out for me! Once you've done that you have a darling magnet board! I made this for my cute niece who just turned twelve. I hope she likes it. It was so easy to make and turned out pretty cute. The picture doesn't do it justice. I had to turn the flash off so I didn't catch a glare, but it's very pink and very bright.

You could attach ribbon to the back of the board and use that to hang the board with. This particular frame is super heavy, so I decided against the ribbon because I don't think it could really hold it up.

And remember the magnets from Monday's post? Those go with this fun little craft! Cute present for a teenager!!!

Fleece Blanket

I know that everyone probably already knows how to do this, but you never know. Someone may not and is just waiting for me to post a how to on my blog. Maybe?

Anyway, these are the easiest blankets to make. They are simple in the skill department, but do take a little bit of time. I made 3 of these this year for Christmas and it was a favorite gift for everyone who receive it.

First thing you need to do is match up your material. You will want to trim it so that all sides are even. I had to cut the bias off of both of the sides and I had to trim a little bit off of one end on the yellow material.

You will want to cut a 4x4 square out of each corner. It makes the corners rounded in the end.

Now you cut. And cut, cut and cut. You will want each cut 4 inches and you will want each cut to be about 1 inch apart. I cut one side and then I tie that side. It makes it easier to fold up if you need to and to come back to it later. You do that on all 4 sides and you are done!! Easy, huh?

The nice thing about these blankets is that they are very forgiving. No one notices the mistakes if you do make one. By the 3rd quilt, there were definitely mistakes. I had some really uneven cuts and the material didn't always match up just right, but it was day's before Christmas and I was tired of cutting. I tried to use my rotary cutter, but it did not cut well through 2 pieces of fleece.

Good luck!