Scarf tutorial

I have a zillion shirts that don't fit me for some reason, either they are too short, too big, too small, etc.  You get the picture.  I keep hoping to fit back into them(the smaller ones anyway), but in reality it isn't going to happen.  SO I have used them for fabric flowers, bags, etc. and here is one more thing that I thought of:  Scarves!

Just in time for Halloween! Fun Masks!

Here is an afternoon project that Hyrum and I did together.  It was fun, fast and easy.  My kind of project.  Here are some instructions and a link to an etsy account where I got the idea.  First I cut out the general shape we wanted.

I used old clothing, a sweatshirt, a piece of corduroy from an old pair of pants, and a piece from the fabric Hyrum's costume will be made out of.  I cut the main piece out of the sleeve(two layers) of the sweatshirt.

We used chalk to mark the circles we would cut out.

We put it all together to make sure we liked it.

Mark with chalk where the eye holes should go.  When putting it all together these marks should go on the back so that you can still see them and cut out the holes(this was one of the final steps).

Pinned the main piece together, sewed around the border.  Then I added the round corduroy pieces, pinned and sewed around the border.  Next I cut out the eye holes.  This was the hardest part by far.  In hindsight I should have used chalk again and traced some circles so that it would be easier to get everything symmetrical.  Then I sewed the edge of the eye holes.  Lastly I used my hot glue gun to secure the little beak.

Tada!!!  The final finished product.  I wanted it to be a little rough around the edges to give it a more "owl" look.  I can't wait for Hyrum to see it tomorrow!!  I think I might do these as a party favor for Hyrum's birthday party.  Fast, easy and pretty much free.  Perfect.

                             Here is the LINK to the etsy shop where I got the idea.  Enjoy!!!!

Julia's Wedding Blocks...

Hey everyone!

I thought I would give a quick tutorial on the blocks I made for Julia's cake Table. They say "Forever." I love making this kind of thing and the project is so versatile. Read through everything first to make sure you have everything you need.

What you need:
*Unfinished wood - step 2
* Scrapbook paper - step 3
*Paint - step 3
*Embellishments - Step 4
* Mod Podge - matte
* Hot Glue Gun
*Sandpaper if wood is a little rough and a damp cloth to wipe down after sanding.

Prep:

1. Choose what you want to say... *Ex. Family, Love, Laughter, Adore, Kisses, Cookies, Together, Spring, Your Last Name...etc.

2. Choose blocks, small plaques or long plaques that will be large enough to have the entire word. Ex. For Julia's Forever I used One Small Plaque for the "F" and 6 small cubes for the "orever." And a long plaque to set them on. Just Mix it up.

3. Choose your color Scheme. For this project it was blue, orange and ivory. Then pick the paint, and 2 to 3 types of coordinating scrapbook paper in your scheme. I usually used 3. You will see in the picture examples I post. I did ivory paint (white with a hint of beige). For the paper I chose orange with ivory polka dots, blue watercolor looking with leaves, and a dark blue for the words.

4. If you are going to embellish it, choose the embellishments...ex. sticky gems (I used sticker pearls for Julia's), buttons, flat ribbon, scrapbook paper cutouts...etc.

5. Create or find the font you want to use, I usually do it free hand but feel free to choose a font from a word doc.

TO BEGIN...

5. Sand the wood if needed and wipe with a damp cloth. Let dry.

6. Cut the background scrapbook paper you are going to use. I like to make it just smaller than the front surface I will be covering. lay it on top of the wood to make sure it fits and is the right shape and size.

7. Paint all the wood. You may need 2 coats depending on the coverage of the paint and the color. Let dry completely.

8. Draw or trace the letters backward onto the back of your coordinating paper. Cuts out and trim as needed.

9. Using modge podge, paste the back of each background paper and stick onto the wood. Do the same with the letters.

10. When this is dry, mOdge podge two coats over the whole thing, allowing to dry between coats. Also, make sure your brush strokes are even and in the same direction so the texture look uniform when dry.

11. The last step is adding your embellishments. I like to use a glue gun because o the ease of use.

12. Step back and admire your work!

Here are some other examples of what I have done with this method. Next I am going to try actual photographs mod podged onto wood. I will update you when I do.

Robin's Quick Pizza Crust

  This recipe was originally given to me by chef Amy about 10 years ago and I've changed it only a little! Ingredients for 1 pizza crust:   Combine 1 cup warm water
                                                               1 Tb. sugar
                                                                2 1/4 tsp. yeast
                                                 Set aside.
                         In a separate bowl, add 2 1/2 c. flour, 1 tsp. salt, and your favorite herbs and spices. I like lots of Garlic powder, basil, oregano, parsley and rosemary. I smell the flour mixture and when the combo smells delicious, I'm done adding. Real scientific right? :)

           Lastly, combine the yeast mixture with the dry ingredients and add 3 Tbs. of olive oil. Knead it all together until it's elastic and no longer sticky( add flour as needed ). No rising time necessary. Just roll out and cover with your usual sauce and other toppings and bake! About 400 degrees , about 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Yum!

             

Shirt half fail...

Today's project was to make a shirt that I didn't have to wear an undershirt with.  So I started with one I had already and cut out it's shape in a pair of scrub pants

Scrub pants cut along the seam

Shirt I used as a pattern

Folded in half to make sure it was even(is this redundant?)

Cut off sleeves

Cut new sleeves to put on

made neckline

More than half way there!(or so I thought)

Bahahah.  I tried it up to myself to make sure it would be a good fit and thought, this is so itty bitty.  So I tried it on....and it was.  I had to cut the front in half to make it fit.  Yikes.  Next time I will definitely take into account the stretchiness of the material.  Why didn't I go find a tutorial???  And yes, my hair was awesome that night.

So I was unwilling to give up and chose another shirt to cut apart and make into the front of my new one.

Here are the sleeves

Pin on, then sew

Tada!  If you want to know what I was going for you can take out the middle piece and picture it that way.  I still like it, but now I have to wear a shirt under it.  Bahah.  Half fail...Maybe I will add something on top later.  Any suggestions?

Baby Shoes!!!!

Shoes!  Baby Shoes!!  I was so excited to see this easy looking pattern:Cloth Shoe pattern

Since I'm not sure exactly about copyright stuff, I only took a picture of the final finished product to share:

They took only one morning to make!  Actually I could have taken less time, but I made one weird one and then I made two left shoes.  Bahaha.  Oh, well.  The girl I made them for(well, I made them for her bebe) didn't even think they were home made, so I guess that's good.  I made them out of a skirt that was too big and too short for me and some shorts that were UG-Lee.  Anyway, I am a novice sewer and these were pretty simple for me, so give it a try!  It was fun and great to be able to do something like that.  Now to learn how to make shoes for me...

Vegetable Garden in 4 Stages: 1.Preparing Garden Beds

When we got back from 6 months away in Utah, I was excited to start vegetable gardening in earnest.  I went down to the back of our property where, years ago, Kevin built 3 lovely 4'X12' raised beds that we hadn't used in several years.  They were so overgrown with grass that I couldn't even find them!

I wish I'd thought to take a before picture, but after an entire Saturday morning of forced child labor, clearing out waist-high grass (leaving us with a lovely fairy tale haystack), this is what the beds looked like:

Sigh, still lots of work to do.  It took 2 weeks of working an hour or two every day to get the grass and its roots out of the beds.  Here you can see the difference in one bed:

You can't grow plants in our San Antonio clay/limestone combo, so we had to bring in soil when we originally made the beds. Much of that soil was gone and the rest was so full of grass roots that little remained when I was done pre-weeding.  We had to truck in more to plant this year:

We chose a great organic soil mix that was already loaded with compost.  The pile doesn't look very big, but at just under 5 cubic yards it took a while to move down to the beds!

To give us more planting room, we acquired a couple of 4'X4' ready-made raised beds from Costco.  I pick-axed the grass out from around the beds to level the ground, then laid professional-grade ground cloth all around the beds to prevent a recurrence of the grass I worked so hard to remove!  Here's what the planting-ready beds finally looked like:

You can see a dog kennel in the background of a few of these pictures.  Since we don't use it any more for dogs, and since we have to fence our gardens to keep the dogs and deer out I decided to use it to give us even more garden space. I pick-axed out the rocks and buffalo grass in an area roughly the size of the kennel, outlined it with heavy-duty ground cloth, brought in several wheelbarrows full of soil, and used spare bricks to define some mounds.  I set the kennel on top and voila! A new garden space!

Ok, so that's the story of preparing to plant which took place in January/February (you should see my muscle definition about now - impressive!)
You're probably dying to know what we planted and how it's doing ;-)  Stay tuned for the next installment!!