Guitar Onesie and Tutu

I had a baby shower I went to over the weekend, so that means the week before was my creative time. I always try new things when I have a deadline - like a present to give. So that way I don't put off the project.

I used the guitar applique pattern and tutu idea here - and i used the tutu technique of wrapping it on cardboard here - made it much easier.


The headband is a knee high that I cut the toe and elastic top off and sewed together - adding a ribbon loop at the seam so that the hair clips can be interchangeable.

I keep a pack of onesies in my fabric stash so that I can use them when I need them - it's hard to not grab from that stash to use on my kids instead of doing laundry when they run out of clean ones :) I suggest getting a pack of gerber onesies at Jo-Anns when you have a 40% off coupon. Some days I'm just wandering the store with nothing imparticular that I need so instead of letting the coupon go to waste - I buy some onesies. They're usually in the isle with the fabric paint - in my store, it's next to the yarn isles.

Burlap Heart Wreath

Once I saw this idea, I had to make one. I've been seeing burlap projects everywhere and just assumed that burlap fabric was expensive. Boy was I wrong. It was only $2.99/yard at Jo-Anns. And that was the regular price. So I used one of my 40% off coupons and 1 yard of the red burlap was under $2. And I was so excited to find RED burlap.

I don't have any sturdy wire to use as the frame, so i shaped a wire hanger into a heart and strung the burlap strips on from there. I used 8 strips (2.5" wide) to make this wreath. But I had bought a yard, not sure how much I was going to need. That left me with about 16" extra burlap. So I cut 8 more strips at 2" wide each and made a 2nd wreath for my sister. So 2 wreaths for $1.97 - can't beat that!

When the fabric lady was cutting the burlap for me, she did something different than just cut at the yard mark. She made a slit and then pulled one of the strings out - giving her an even guide to cut on. I thought that was genious - so I used that same trick to get even 2.5" strips when I cut it up.

First, make a slit with the scissors and then pull a string at the slit so that the burlap gathers - see photo.

Then when that string is out, you have an easy guide to cut along so your strips are even. I LOVE this idea! So there you go - a trick to cutting burlap strips . . . if you didn't already know it. :)

Vinyl Heart Plate

I made this vinyl plate last year . . . I cut out the white vinyl on my cricut and applied it to a sparkly heart plate I found at Target last year. I love plates with vinyl on them displayed on the mantle at holidays. My favorite one I've made is my St. Patrick's Day one . . . I'll post that in a few weeks - once it's closer to St. Patrick's Day.

Game Scorebook

As a Christmas Gift for family members, I made a game scorebook. This way, they can keep track of their scores when they play games like scrabble, dominoes, etc.

Plus, they love Scrabble, so I made the book out of a Scrabble game board. I found this idea on Infarrantly Creative a while back.

I did mine a little differently after I had issues getting the stitching right at the binding. My game board had the seam in a different direction than the example, so my book had to have the front going a different direction. Once I cut the board in half down the center seam, I also cut off the side that had the letter points and extra space that wasn't the playing area.

Then, I put my pad of paper inbetween the book covers (like a sandwich) and used gorilla tape to tape the binding. This way the book stayed flat when closed and didn't pop open on it's own. I lined all four edges of both with the tape as well since I had a raw edge from cutting off the extra board.

Then I hot glued the scrabble letters to the board to say "Otto Scorebook." The note pad is glued to the inside of the back cover.

Celebrate the Boy!

I'm so excited about this. . . Dana (from MADE) and Rae (from Made by Rae) are teaming up for the month of February to come up with projects for all those little boys! Most sewing/crafting projects out there are for girls, so it's great that the boys will get some exposure.

I've been following Dana for a while now, but just heard about Rae when they announced this event. So if you aren't following their sites already, you should be. Each site will have tutorials/ideas all month long.

Valentine's Day Garland

I saw a cute garland on Naptime Journal that I liked. I have an 8' wide opening from the dining room into the living room that I wanted the garland to go on. She used pink - but that didn't match my decor in the house, so I stuck with white, black, and red. But I think one out of just pink - a few different shades - would be adorable.
I bought 2 sheets each of black, white, and red felt. I used red glitter felt - but it's hard to capture that in the picture. I found cookie cutters and traced them onto cardboard to get templates of the circle and heart shapes. And then I used spray adhesive to put the hearts on the circles. But beware - that spray adhesive is a beast to get off your hands. I tried using nail polish remover and that didn't help much; I guess I shellacked my fingers pretty good.

I hand stitched some black embroidery floss around the white circles to add a little to those ones since there wasn't the glitter detail there. Since it's hanging in a walkway, I also cut out hearts for the back side as well, so there are hearts on both sides of the circles.

Personalized Checkers

I stumbled across this idea in the early summer at The Thrifty Chick by Stacey (who unfortunately passed away in July). She was a very amazing crafter. I fell in love with her blog when I happened upon it early in the spring last year - you should stop by her blog to check out all her creations if you haven't been there before.

My brother and his wife love games, so as one of their Christmas presents, I made them their own checkers board - and with an IOU for future personalized checkers pieces for their children when they have kids.

I didn't have a checker's board, so I found one at a thrift store that was in "like new" condition. The brown pieces have an "N" for Nathan - but it's upside down in the picture so it looks like a "U". And then I used Stacey's link for the crown on the back of each piece. I cut out the k's and n's with my cricut in brown/ivory vinyl and then the crown is printed on paper and mod podged to the back.

I also mod podged paper and letters for the word "checkers" to the game box lid, but didn't get a picture of it before shipping it.

Record Bowl

I found this craft idea on My Naptime Crafts (love the name!!). My Dad's birthday is today and when I saw this idea, I instantly knew it would be a great gift for him. He loves records - but I didn't have any. So I made a trip to Value Village hoping they would have some good records. They had a ton of Amy Grant records, but I didn't think that would be a great one for my Dad. Then I found and Aerosmith one and B.J. Williams one that would work great.

Obviously, these won't work for food, but they can be a table topper/decoration to hold keys or other things.

I followed the tutorial, but my records weren't pliable enough to mold into the bowl shape. So instead of the suggested 200 degree setting on the oven, I had to do 250 degrees. And mine also took a little longer than her's did to soften. So, if you are going to do this craft and it isn't working, just alter the temp and/or time. I'm guessing altitude and ovens are going to affect it's pliability.

Patchwork Shoulder Bag Tutorial

I got a few responses showing interest in the tutorial for this bag, so here it is. It was quite photo intensive and wound up being 7 pages in Word, so I made it into a PDF and posted it at the link below.

Download TutorialIf you get stuck or need clarification, let me know.

Note holders

I saw this idea on Sister's Stuff during the summer and decided to make one for my mom and one for my mother-in-law for Christmas. My mom has a slight obsession with post-its (she got that from her dad) . . . so I figured it would be perfect for her.You just need one of those plastic 4"x6" frames (turned on it's back instead of upright) and scrapbook paper and embelishments.

Then, attach the post-it pad to the top - once the post-its are gone, they can just add another stack and keep using the holder.