Where did she go?

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My guess is that's what you are all wondering. I know. Bad blogger. You know who I blame. Pinterest. And TV. And kids. And life. And possibly me. Forgive me? How about a tutorial to smooth things over?

Let's make some cheap and lovely earrings!  These are very, very easy to make. They make excellent gifts and you can make them in any colors you want. Ready to start?

Supplies:

Wooden shapes- craft stores sell many different kinds, some with holes some without
Earwires and jump rings
Acrylic paint, or even nail polish works too!
Painters or masking tape
A liquid resin- I used Mod Podge Dimensional Magic (very simple to use)

First things first, if you bought the wooden shapes without holes. Drill some. I'd suggest doing many at once. Trust me, you'll be making lots of these once you start. :)

Next start taping off where you want to paint your first color. I did some with multiple colors and some just half colored. Depending how skilled a painter you are, you can just draw lines and follow them.

I also used stamps on dried paint which looked lovely also. I don't have pictures of the steps where I added the resin. Its very simple with the Dimensional magic. Cover a sheet pan with foil and place your pendants on the foil, this protects from any spilling. Make sure the paint is dry and then make a border with the medium, using the filling technique for icing cookies. I use a stick pin to pop any bubbles that appear. Don't worry about the holes for jump rings. You can easily poke through the resin after it has dried. Follow the directions for drying/setting time. I like to cover mine with a shoe box to keep stray dust or pet dander from landing in my work!

Once its all dry slip your jump rings in and add earwires or a chain and wear you art! Did I tell you it was easy!? Here's some photos of my finished masterpieces! To see more of what I make, follow me on Facebook and Pinterest!


Thanks for your patience and loyalty!

Fabric Flower Brooch

So here's what I've got for you today...a easy to make brooch! You've all seen the fabric flowers with the burned edges, right? Well, I made several of those last winter for gifts. I decided to get a jump on spring and make some in bright colors. Well, silly me, I bought the wrong fabric. This stuff went up in flames!! And smelled horrible to boot! This led me to try something new. Necessity is the mother or invention!

Supplies:

Polyester Fabric cut into a strip 1 inch by 20 inches cut with pinking shears

Matching thread

Matching felt

Hot glue gun

Blank pin

After you've cut your strip sew a running stitch along the bottom of the fabric. No need to be even or neat. As you can tell by my picture. ;)

After you've sewn to the end begin to pull your thread gently to cause the fabric to bunch. You want it to be tighter at the beginning and then looser towards the end. Tie off your thread.

Cut 1 1/2 inch circles out of your felt. One will be the base of your flower and the other will be for your pin.

Put a dab of hot glue in the center of your felt. Place the tightly bunched end of your fabric in the glue.

Continue glue and placing the fabric in a circular pattern until you use all the fabric.

Sew your pin blank on the remaining piece of felt and sew the two pieces together at the edges. All done and beautiful! Not too difficult right? I did some experimenting. The longer your strip of fabric is you start with, the fuller the final flower will be.

Thanks for following and reading!

Making it up

So here's what I've been up to, sweetheart. I haven't all the time to write today, so I'm going to blast a bunch of photos to you. Eye candy if you will ;) Enjoy!!

I'll be back with a complete post soon!

2012!!

Happy New Year!

Whew! Its been an exhausting few months for me. I am glad to be putting the last year on a shelf. Do you ever feel that way? Sometimes it seems as if all the rough stuff happens at the end of the year.

In October my maternal grandmother passed away. It was a painful time and her death hit me harder than I had expected. She was 95 and an extraordinary woman. Someday I will dedicate an entire post to her life and what she taught me.
November, things got crazy! I did two craft booths and those can suck up the time, ladies! They are a blast, but exhausting. It feels so good to meet people who enjoy my work and want to talk about making things.
December we all know is madness. I had a booth scheduled at a local bazaar. This event was awesome. Lots of local artists in one place, a handmade mall. Over 600 people passed through the doors! Plus, my sister had her baby! We welcomed my nephew, Dexter, on the sixteenth. Both he and his mom did great and I am one happy aunt!

This month the boutique that I sell my items at is closing its doors. Hopefully temporarily. I'm staying positive and have some new opportunities on the horizon. I'll check in with new tutorials as often as I can! I love you all, and am looking forward to sharing all the new changes of 2012!

In Flanders Fields

Every year my mind goes back to this same poem.
I encourage you all to read it and share it. Please follow the attached link and read the touching history of the poem so that you too can remember it on this special day. It is a beautiful story.

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

-John McCrae

The history of this lovely poem;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Flanders_Fields

BOO!

Happy Haunting!

Its almost my favorite holiday again! Saturday was my aunt and uncle's annual Halloween Bash! I really do love it. Its such a great time. The best part is that it is fun for kids and adults. Costumes are encouraged/enforced for grown ups. My kind of party!! There is a spook walk, kid friendly, and a hay rack ride, chili, desserts, and a rousing game of hide and seek in the dark. Jealous? Here's some photos of my family's costumes this year

Dark Spiderman/ Thing 2

Darth Revan(Star Wars villain)/ Thing 1

Rocky the Flying Squirrel/ Yours truly

Rocky and Bullwinkle/ Myself and my husband Ty

Not bad, huh? We have such fun with our costumes.We try to always make as much as we can. The goggles are the only part I didn't make and they were free from a coworker of my husband. He made his antlers and bought the hat at the dollar store! I wish I had taken pictures of all of the other relatives and friends that were there. If they email me any I'll be sure to post them! What was your favorite Halloween costume? Have a safe and sugar filled Halloween!!

What's that? A Giveaway!!

Look what I'm giving away! Firstly a magnolia hairclip and secondly a hydrangea headband. These are are being given away over at my lovely friend Mindy's blog. So buzz over to marigold road and enter!

Her blog is super awesome and she makes wonderful, beautiful creations! I wish you all the best of luck in the giveaway!

And welcome to all the newbies! I look forward to sharing my craftiness with you! Browse around, look and try out some tutorials and have fun!

Squeaky Clean Now!

Two posts in two days! Shocking isn't it? I feel so relieved after today. I love my sister and my cousin but no more double showers! Lots of work. Lots of time. Lots of money. It turned out lovely and everyone had a good time. That's the important part. I felt stressed early on, but even I got to relax and talk with family and friends.

Here's a close up of the bunting I made using some scrapbook paper. I used my Cricut and cut onesie shapes. We strung them on clothesline and hung them using miniature clothespin from a craft store. They were relatively cheap and cute to decorate the cake and gift table.

The guests of honor! Aren't they precious? No clue of the sleepless nights and dirty diapers they are in for!

She's going to eat the whole cake! Can you tell who my sister is? What a ham! It was a yummy cake, half strawberry, half vanilla.

Instead of games,(I never like shower games) we decorated onesies for the girls. This was a lot of work for me! Gathering up the onesies, paints, iron ons, brushes, etc. Not to mention one baby is a girl and the other a boy! But it turned out great! People had lots of fun doing it too! We set up three stations for people to decorate when and how they wanted.

We also made sure to get onesies through the first year. That way the babies have hand decorated onesies the whole year through. It's really sweet. I'm glad we did it.

Here is a shot of the table full of finished works! Lovely!

And here is a picture of one of my finished onesies. This one has special meaning. For my cousin, I drew the tree with fabric markers. Then I had her mother and sisters dip their fingers in paint and leave fingerprint leaves. I know, awww.

That's all for now, my lovelies! Tomorrow I will post pictures of my handmade gifts for the shower. And possibly a tutorial this week!

Baby Shower! Baby Shower!

Hello strangers!

I disappeared again! Sorry, sorry, sorry. I've been planning a joint baby shower for my lovely sister and my darling cousin. Boy, that takes up a lot of time. I've got lots of handmade goodies to share with you. It will all be over tomorrow. So hang in there and talk amongst yourselves. I promise it will be worth it. Plus! I've got a giveaway coming up in the next week! You heard it here first. Kisses!

Blog Lovin

Anytime anywhere!


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T-shirt scarf Necklace! Oh Yeah!

Hello Beautiful!

Remember the tutorial I showed you on T-shirt scarves here. Well, these 100+ degree temps haven't been scarf friendly. How about we swap them for necklaces instead? I thought you'd like that!

If you have a scarf already finished simply snip off four loops of the scarf. Fold them and half and cut three so you have six equal pieces of jersey. If you are starting with a untouched T-shirt, lay it flat and cut off the bottom hem. Now cut four more loops from the bottom of the shirt. Cut through three loops so you have six equal pieces of T-shirt. I hope that made sense.

Gather six ends together and stitch them together as so.

I doesn't need to be pretty just, secure. Time for beads. You can use wooden beads, glass, beads, or pony beads. I found some cute plastic star beads I had stashed away. Unfortunately they were hideously colored. Spray paint to the rescue! After painting them a soft gray(because that's what I had) I strung them on the T-shirt strands in a semi-organized fashion. Mainly, I made sure that each strand had a decent number. Once that was done I sewed together the other ends.

Now take your spare loop that you cut. Snip it in to three equal strands and sew these together at the end. Braid them.

The length of the braid depends on where you want your necklace to fall. I made my braid long enough so that the necklace could slip over my head. Measure and decide how long is long enough. When you get there, sew the ends together and trim off the excess. Save these scraps!
Sew your braid to your beaded strands. Once again, security over beauty, we are going to cover this up.

Let's cover it up fast! Remember those scraps I told you to save? This is why. Wrap them around the joint of our two pieces. I wrapped over my beginning and then stitched the end down.

So far nothing has come undone. Do the same with the other side, and wear with gusto. Bask in the compliments!

Here is one I made with wood beads too!

Keep Crafting!

Margo

Felt Lotus Hair Clip Tutorial

Sweetheart!

Here I am with another tutorial for you! Time to make a hair accessory! This horrible heat makes me want to shave all of my hair off. Maybe pulling it up in a cute clip will keep my mind off it for one more day. Maybe...

First off I'll tell you what you need:

- 1 sheet felt acrylic/wool

- liquid fabric stiffener approx 1/4 cup

- needle and thread

- spring back clip/ hair comb

- scissors

Step one cut your petals. You need fifteen of the long petals and three of the small ones. After they are cut separate the long in to groups of five. These are our layers.

Step two, with a length of thread start a running stitch in the first petal of the first layer.

Continue with the same thread through the rest of the petals in the first group. When finished, pull, the thread tight, carefully. The petals will form into a circle when the thread is tightened. Sew a few stitches to connect the first and last petals together. Complete the two other groups the same way.

Step three, place your three layers on top of eachother. Make sure you stagger the petals to give your lotus more depth. Stitch these layers together.

Step four, the center! Take one of your three little petals and roll it in to a loose tube shape. Holding it in place, wrap it with another small petal, and then the final petal. Sew together by running the needle through the tube several times. If the center seems to be too tall, cut the bottom to shorten it. Whipstitch the whole thing to the center of your flower petals.

Now for the magic part! The first time I made this flower it was lacking shape. A lotus stands up more and the felt just wouldn't stay in place. I had bought fabric stiffener for a previous project and decided, why not? So I mixed 1/4 cup stiffener, with 1 cup warm water, put it in a spray bottle and magic happened. Make sure you have a dish towel under your flower, one you don't care about ruining. Spray until the fabric is damp but not soaked. The spray will leave spots at first but it dries clear. (I've only used lighter colors so far) Shape the petals after you've sprayed them. Let the flower dry overnight and it's done! Add leaves if you want then glue on a clip or comb.

Pretty right? I'm working on a magnolia right now using the same technique.

Deep Apologies!

I'm a liar! So, sorry! I've been missing for so long I know. Once the two things got out of school we took a week trip to Califorinia and I haven't had a moment to do anything it seems. That's a lie, too! I just have been lazy, I guess. Forgive me? Please? Thanks so much!

Onward! Still interested in a T- shirt necklace tutorial? I'm going to put out another choice. What about a felt lotus hair clip? Like this?

Comment to let me know! Otherwise I may do a random tutorial. Which will be fun too! And stay tuned for a giveaway this month! I do owe you that :)

New look for your T-shirt scarf!!

I'll be posting the tutorial tomorrow! Stay tuned...

Mother's Day

Dearest,
It's almost Mother's Day! I wanted to share some past gifts I've given my own mom. I try to give her something handmade, because a lot of my creativity comes from her!



This is what I am giving her this year. A handmade coinpurse. They are very easy to make and pretty fast too. The fun part is coming up with a design for the outside.

This idea is one of my favorites. I took a vintage compact (a new one will work too) and sized a picture of the two of us to fit it. You can seal it with Mod Podge or thin plastic.

Here is a necklace that is great for any mother. A lovely bird's nest made from wire. All you need is the chain and three beads. I used a white pen to draw spots on my 'eggs'.

Pillow? If your mom is anything like mine, she loves decorative pillows. There are oodles of tutorials online for felt pillow. I didn't even have to buy a pillow form. I took measurements of one of the existing pillows on her couch. Bonus, you get to know she uses it.

How do you feel about personalized nesting dolls? These were actually a Christmas gift for my mother. I have a very talented cousin who was able to paint these for me. My idea, his talent. Order your own here. He also does peg people!

Lastly, I made silhouettes of the grand kids for her. Pretty easy with photoshop. The hardest part was getting a profile picture of the kids. Speaking of, I'll have to make to more of these! My brother has another son and my sister is expecting. Mother's day next year is covered!

I hope you all have a wonderful day. Remember the most important gift you can give your mother, is a thank you. Speaking as a mother those two words mean a lot. That, and sleeping in!

Daughter, Mother, Wife, Sister,

Margo