Paper Pumpkin

I found this idea through Two Peas in a Bucket . . .



She uses 16 paper strips that are 1"x6" . . . but for some reason, I couldn't get 16 of the paper strips to work. They kept overlapping eachother, and it was too crowded. So I took a few off and ended up using 12 strips for each pumpkin. Then wrapped it with wire and a ribbon to finish it off.

Notebook Purse

I found this idea on a couple blogs who referenced the idea back to Sister's Stuff. I made these for my nieces to go with the crayon/colored pencil rolls that I made in the previous post. I like that they were from standard composition notebooks, so they weren't huge and will be perfect for a 5 and 9 year old.

I painted a top coat of Mod Podge as well - figuring that would help preserve the paper a bit longer with standard kid usage.

Altered Crayon Roll --> Colored Pencil Roll

I altered the measurements again for a crayon roll that I did a few posts back . . . this time it was for the Crayola Twistable Colored Pencils for my niece. They are the same size around as a standard crayon, but taller, so I could pretty much follow the tutorial from Skip to my Lou again, but I just had to make it taller. It was only for 12 pencils instead of 16 crayons, so I didn't need it as long either.

I just measured the pencil length, added about 2 inches or whatever looked good (keeping seam allowances in mind) and then measured where I wanted the pocket to come up to as well. Otherwise it was pretty close to the standard tutorial.

Here's a link to my previous post of the standard crayon roll, and the "large crayon" crayon roll.

Trick-or-Treat Banner

I'm loving this banner more and more . . . . . . but I needed some way to separate the words, so I cut out a bat template and used interfacing to make it more stiff and hand stitched the wings to the blocks of fabric on either side.

The Witch Is In

I made this board out of a scrap piece of wood from another project

• painted it green with a purple stripe
• cut the vinyl on my Cricut
• applied some black ink to distress it
• added a clear varnish coat on it to seal it in and make it shiny
• twisted some hooks into the top and attached ribbon so I can hang it

**I also found the "bewitched" font online and used that for the words.

Halloween Perpetual Countdown

Halloween is my favorite holiday - maybe because of the colors associated with it. So I wanted to make a countdown to Halloween. One of my past co-workers had a perpetual countdown like this, but just basic white with black numbers.

My husband cut the base wood for me (2"x4") and I bought the 2" blocks at Michaels. It took me forever to figure out the numbers for each block. I knew I needed a 0, 1, and 2 on each block, but the rest of the numbers left one number without a side. It took me a while, but then I found that the 9 and 6 would be reversible as the same number (so I had to choose a font that the 6 and 9 worked out as the same number.


Here's a pic of the vinyl I cut out for the blocks:


Then, paint blocks, sand the edges to distress them and cut and mod podge them to the blocks.



When attaching the vinyl letters (you could also use regular paper and glue them on) make sure the 6/9 number is on a paper square that doesn't have writing or an image that can't be upside down.

For the base block, I distressed it with black ink from a stamp pad - then applied mod podge to all 3 pieces to seal the vinyl and paper.


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Large Crayon Roll

I found a tutorial for making a standard crayon roll on Skip to my Lou, so I made one for my niece for part of her Christmas present.

But I wanted to make one for my son as well. He isn't old enough for normal crayons yet, so I bought the "Large" crayons in an 8 pack. Here's a picture of the large crayon next to a normal crayon to see the difference.

My son also isn't able to tie the ribbon to close the roll either, so I made a velcro strap that he can do by himself. The pocket widths are a little looser than the standard roll too so that my son can get the crayons in easier - it's not as tight and hard for him to do.

So below are the measurements for this altered large crayon roll if anyone wants to make it as well.

Fabric:

Cut 2 pieces 13"x6"

Cut 1 piece 13"x6.5" (will the pocket piece - folded in half length wise)

Cut 1 piece 4"x10" (strap)

Interfacing:

Cut 1 piece interfacing 4"x10" (strap)

Cut 1 piece 13"x6"

Notions:

1 square velcro

**follow the tutorial on Skip to my Lou (except for the stitch marks on the pocket)

Stitch the pocket piece at the following inch marks: from the left (you should have 8 crayon slots)

• .5"
• 2"
• 3.5"
• 5"
• 6.5"
• 8"
• 9.5"
• 11"
• 12.5"

To make the strap, iron the interfacing to the fabric. Fold right sides together and stitch down the long edge. Turn right side out and iron flat. On one end, tuck the ends in and stitch it closed. Sew the velcro onto the end.

DON'T attach the 2nd velcro piece on yet . . . once you have the strap sewn into the body of the roll, turn it right side out and top-stitch as the tutorial says. Put the crayons in and roll it up. Then fold strap closed, mark where the velcro needs to be, and sew it on.

BOO letters

These are the paper mache letters from Jo-Anns . . .

I mod podge'd Halloween scrapbook paper to each letter, sanded the edges lightly to distress the paper a bit.

Then I embelished them with stickers and ribbon.

I also made wooden letters for "SNOW" in an earlier post here.

Receiving Blanket

I found this flannel material at Jo-Anns and instantly knew I wanted to make it into a blanket for my baby girl.

First, make it square - I think the fabric was 44", so I just had them cut that same length. But you could fold it diagonally in half and cut the edge so that it's a square. Then I traced a salad plate around the corners to get the nice rounded corners.

I scanned the giraffe on the fabric and enlarged it to the size I wanted for an applique. So I used wonder under and fused it to the bottom corner and then hand stitched it with a dark thread so that showed up.

Place it right sides together with the back flannel piece and sew around the edges (leaving about 4-5" open to turn it right side out. Then, iron it flat and top-stitch around the finished edge (I used a decorative stitch to make it more girly.

Halloween Clock

I found this wood shape at Ben Franklin and ordered the clock kit from Jo-Anns.com (the numbers and clock hands glow in the dark, so I didn't want the standard kit at the stores).

I traced each wooden arm onto scrapbook paper, then mod podge'd it to the wood. I also put black circle stickers around the edges and then put diamond glaze on top of each sticker individually to give it the dimension and raised effect.

This project didn't take long at all to make. I made it last year, so I don't have pictures of the process - sorry. But it was pretty simple.

Halloween Magnets

I have a ton of Halloween decorations that I made last year and some this year that I'm still working on . . . so I'm going to start staggering them through my posts.

I made these magnets last year using the glass drops (clear stone shaped glass pieces with a flat bottom and a convex top. I glued paper to the back side and attached a magnet to the back with a hot glue gun.

To the front, I rubbed on the vinly cut outs. You can make these without the vinyl and they still turn out really cool.

Non-holiday ideas . . . My sister-in-law teaches 8th grade and was looking for ways to decorate her classroom - so I glued some thumb tacks to the back instead of a magnet so she can use them on a cork board.

I also used sculpey clay and made candy corns too. After they had baked in the oven, I used a hot glue gun and attached the magnet to the back.

Smocked Toddler Dress

I've been wanting to try smocking for a while, but I was intimidated by it. After finding a pattern/tutorial in this book, Weekend Sewing, I gave it a try.



I also made the fabric bow clip I made a while back since it was the same fabric. It can be used in her hair or it's even cute clipped on the dress where the shoulder strap connects in the front.

Featured at Today's Creative Blog

I'm the proud blogger who was featured over at Today's Creative Blog . . . I feel so honored! Thanks, Kim! I've always enjoyed the bloggers who she's chosen to feature, and I've loved browsing through her site.

Baby Boy Baseball Set

I made this set for my brother's baby boy that's on the way. I also included the baseball bib from the previous post that was featured in Utah Baby Guide.


For the tie onesie - I used the pattern from Trey and Lucy (pattern located on her side bar). It is already set perfectly for a newborn size, so I didn't have to tweak the length or anything.

For the baseball toy, I made it a crinkle toy . . . here are a few pictures of the process to make it:
For the top, I traced around a bowl for the circle and used embroidery floss to hand stitch the baseball stitches.
For the bottom layer, I traced around the bowl again on the printed fabric, and I cut and folded ribbon and stitched them to the right side of the fabric
I took an empty baby wipe package and traced 2 circle pieces from the bowl (but I scrunched the plastic up a bit before cutting so that it was bulky and would make better crinkle noises)Then I put all 3 layers together (fabric right sides together and the plastic crinkle wrap was on top.) Sew all the way around - leaving a couple inches unsewn so that you can turn it right side out. Then topstitch the finished edges to seal the opening and finish off the baseball.

2nd Feature in "Utah Baby Guide"

My second "craft" article for Utah Baby Guide was a side fasten bib . . . found on page 51 of the online magazine. The tutorial is listed there, so for now, I won't make the tutorial into a post on my blog.
Here's the pattern to download as a pdf if you prefer that instead of printing the magazine pages.

Placemat Tote/Scripture Tote

I've seen a few of these online, but I couldn't ever find a tutorial on how to do the sides/bottom . . . and I got tired of looking, so I got brave and experimented on my own. . .

Supplies

-placemat (I got mine at Wal-Mart for under $2)

-sewing machine

-ribbon

-embelishments

Steps

1. fold your placemat in half and notch out 1.5" on each corner (unfolded, you'll have a 1.5"x3" rectangle cut out of the middle of each side

2. measure and cut the ribbon for the decoration and handles (measurments will depend on how long you want your handles)
3. on the front of the placemat, sew the handles on first, then sew on the ribbon stripe to cover the edges of the handle on each end

4. fold right sides together and sew down both sides of the placemat
5. with the bag inside out, fold each notched corner together so if forms a straight line and sew that line closed (making a boxed corner)

6. turn right side out and enjoy!

Optional - you can add more embelishments - I added a fake flower to the front by hand stitching it into place.

This bag fit my scriptures and hymn book perfectly!

Letter Beanbags

I'm on a "projects from Lil Blue Boo" kick lately. Ashley always comes up with such great ideas. These are going to be a Christmas present for my little man - I'm trying to get things made/bought early since baby #2 is due in December. I'm not expecting to get a lot done the closer it gets to Christmas. I used my Cricut to cut the letters out of the freezer paper - I'm not steady-handed to be able to cut them out with an exacto knife. :)

The back sides have the capital letters and the front sides have the lower case letters. This was the first time I've used fabric paint or freezer paper stenciling - so it was quite fun. The yellow fabric for the "A" was thinner, because that one took more coats and it kept soaking through and looked a little mesh-y.

I'm foreseeing that these cute beanbags will turn into weapons where my husband and Ethan run around and throw them at each other. All my hard work . . .