Hello

Is anyone still reading this little ol’ blog???
May was so busy with activity {worse than December if you ask me} and I really just wasn’t feelin’ it so I took a little unplanned bloggy break.

But HEY, I’m BACK!!! {and now you are stuck with me}
So there ya have it! I’m here and you are stuck.  I win!

Thanks to those of you who have left comments and emailed me to make sure I was ok. Y’all are what make this blog thang so much fun and I appreciate your concern. I have the BEST readers!

So……what have I been up to you ask.

Josiah had his school program and did such a great job singing and smiling.
I spent 6 years taking kids to preschool here and I will miss the wonderful teachers.

We are nearing the end of baseball season. Corban’s team is doing really well this year {haven’t really been able to say that before}. He managed to end up on a team where the coaches see their work with the kids as a ministry and said as much at the first practice. Wow. love that! It has made for a very enjoyable season so far. 

Little man gets a .25 tootsie pop every. single. game.
Keeps him still for a little while.

Josiah started t-ball last week. He was so excited~ crazy excited. Like drive you nuts, can you please stop talking about it kind of excited.  

I have also been sewing like a mad woman. Mostly Etsy shop orders, but I did manage to make myself a new little bag last weekend. I love it! The pattern is from I think Sew. 

It’s the retro bag. I {heart} the pleats on the front and that it’s a crossover bag and that my hands are free when I carry it.  No more hurting shoulders from a heavy purse. 



Speaking of the shop, I put in on vacation yesterday!! As much as I love making things for other people, I decided I needed a little break. Sales have really picked up lately and I am forever grateful to those of you who have shown your confidence in me and bought one of my cases. However, I need a little rest and relaxation for a few weeks so the shop is closed until June 25th. You can still place an order, but it won’t ship until after the 25th. If you placed an order before. June 5th, I will finish your order and have it shipped by tomorrow.

Speaking of relaxation, I can’t wait to be sitting on this beach this summer. dreamy.

How about you? any relaxation in your future?

A new case for your sunnies

A little more sunshine each day means you are probably using your sunglasses a bit more. If you are anything like me, they often get lost and scratched in the bottom of my purse.

That really bugs me.

So I decided a while ago to make myself a little sunglass pouch.
I added a little ruffle because everything is sweeter with a ruffle, right?
I figured I couldn’t be the only one that disliked having my glasses all scratched up so I picked some super cute fabrics and made some for my Etsy shop.

I love the little ruffle.
It is just enough.
Enough to be girly without being over the top. 


Wouldn’t your sunnies be so happy in one of these sweet little cases?
I think so too.

Blessings~

Ruffled Rosette Pillow Tutorial {from a t-shirt}

You poor souls.
Why on earth do you even put up with me?
On Monday, yes Monday, I said I would post this little tutorial the next day.
Well, 4 days later here I am.

I am nothing, if not completely and totally unreliable.  
What can I say, It’s spring break week here. kids. enough said.

So on with my little pillow tutorial.

If you didn’t see this post on the swirled ruffle pillow, you might want to start there. It will give you the steps to make the actual pillow and how to make your ruffles.

This post will show you how to use your ruffles to make a completely different looking pillow. Ok, maybe not completely, it still is ruffled and made from a t-shirt. Movin’ on……


Here she is.
I {heart} her.
Just lovely.

You will start off by making your pillow cover and ruffles just like in this post, but without stitching any ruffles on it. Go ahead and sew the opening shut and you are ready to make some rosettes to place on your pillow.

I made 4 big rosettes and 2 smaller ones. The larger ones take a couple strips of ruffle and the smaller ones only take one. So about 10 should do it. Keep in mind it will depend on the size of your pillow. Mine is only a 14” pillow so if yours is bigger, you might need more to make it look balanced.

For each rosette you will need a circle of felt or fleece cut into about a 3” circle. It doesn’t need to be exact {or perfect} it will be hidden and any extra will be cut off.  I used my high temp glue gun. I like the high temp because it adheres better and faster, but be careful or you might not have any finger prints left when you are done {not that I would know}.

First I took each strip of ruffle and rounded off the corners at each end so it would have a softer look.

Take your first ruffle and fold it in half lengthwise with the stitching on one side, creating a V shape with the ruffle. The stitching side is the part you will be gluing  down.

You will start with a  dot of hot glue in the middle of your felt piece.

Grab the end of your first ruffle and kind of swirl it around the end to make the center of your rosette. I like to put my finger through the middle of the ruffle {the V part} and push the stitching part onto the glue.

Once the center is adhered, make another short line of glue around the center part in the direction of your ruffle. {did that make any sense at all?}
You will just keep going around in a circle with your glue and your ruffle, pushing it into the glue to adhere it.  {this is way easier to do than to explain….promise}.

Here she is after one ruffle has been added. If this were one of the small rosettes I needed, I would take my scissors and cut around the bottom of the felt to remove any extra that wasn’t glued down and I would be finished.

BUT, this is one of my big rosettes, so I am going to add one more ruffle to make it even bigger. I just start adding it where I left off with the other one.


Here she is all finished and ready to apply to my pillow. 
If there is still any bit of felt on the back side that hasn’t been glued, now would be the time to cut any of that extra off so you won’t be able to see it on the pillow.

To adhere the rosettes to your pillow, simply lay them out in  a design to your liking and hot glue each one to the pillow. Make sure you get plenty of glue around the edges so they don’t peel up. Nothin’ worse than peeling rosettes on your pillow.

I actually thought this pillow was a lot easier to make than the other one. I love making the rosettes. You could use them in lots of different ways.

Thanks for puttin’ up with me.
I am so thankful for each of you that comes to visit and leave comments.
You really do make my day!

Have a beautiful weekend!

This post is linked to: Weekend Wrap-up Party, Dittle Dattle, Mad Skills, Sew cute Tuesday, Take a look Tuesday , The Lettered Cottage          

 

Swirled Ruffle Pillow {from a t-shirt} Tutorial

The other day I was in Target with my daughter and we were oohing and aahing over all the pretty throw pillows they have. Of course the thrifty side of me immediately thinks “I could totally make that for soooo much less”.

So that’s what I did.


This was the pillow we saw that we both really liked, but I wasn’t going to pay $20 for it. $20 isn’t a terrible price, but I knew I had a couple of pillow forms at home so I would only need to make the cover.


We wandered on over to the clothing section and I found these two long sleeve t-shirts on clearance for $5 each. I picked 2 that matched her bedding perfectly {in XXL}. $10

I am using the green one for this pillow. I’ll show you the purple one tomorrow.

Let’s get started and I’ll show you how I made this cute swirled ruffle pillow.


First off, I used my rotary cutter and cut the bottom hem off the t-shirt.


I measured my pillow insert and figured it was 14” square so I cut my fabric exactly the same. Normally, you would want to add fabric for your seam allowance, but since the fabric is knit and I wanted it to be tight, I cut it to the same dimensions as the pillow.  I also cut it so I left one of the  side seams intact. Less to sew later. 


I then cut off one of the sleeves.


I cut off the sleeve hem and the seam that runs under the arm so I could open it up and cut some strips for my ruffles.

I cut as many strips as I could {I got 6 from one sleeve}. I cut each one 2” wide and as long as the sleeve would allow.

I made my ruffles like I made them here.  High tension, long stitch length.

All ruffly. cuteness.

I took my ruffles and laid them out how I wanted them on the pillow. I only used 5 of the ruffles.

When I pinned them down I simply overlapped the ends of the ruffles. I laid the one on the bottom flat and tucked under the end of the top one. Hopefully you can see that in the picture.

Looks pretty good from the top. Ruffles hide lots of imperfections.

I started with the bottom ruffle since the end of it goes under the long middle swirl.

Make sure you adjust the tension and stitch length back to normal before you stitch the ruffles down.  I used lots of pins to hold the ruffles in place while I stitched them down to the front of the pillow cover.

All stitched down and lookin’ sweet.

I then flipped the case with right sides together and stitched the 2 sides together and the third side leaving a 6” opening for the pillow insert.

Trim your corners at a diagonal.

Turn right side out and push corners out with something that isn’t too sharp. I like to use a chopstick. Insert your pillow carefully, trying not to pull to hard on the opening {knit fabric with rip easily where it’s been stitched}

Pin your opening together and use a slip stitch to close your opening.  Here is a good tutorial on how to do a slip stitch.

All done. I made the pillow cover so that my slip stitch was at the bottom of the pillow.  It makes me feel better since it never looks completely perfect.

My daughter loves it and I think it turned out pretty cute. I’ll show you the purple one tomorrow. It’s a little different, but still ruffled.
*****UPDATE********


If you would like to see the tutorial for the Ruffled Rosette Pillow, it can be found here.

this post is linked to: Tutorial Tuesday, Tutorials and Tips Tuesday, Dittle Dattle, Creation Corner, Today’s Creative Blog, Spring Fling, Somewhat Simple, Frugalicious Friday, Crazy Domestic                                     


 
    

U-Create’s November feature!!!

As far as crafty blogs go, there aren’t any I can think of that have more awesome projects han U-Create. Kari simply has some of the most creative crafts over there as well as other sister sites for parties and kids crafts, etc.


Soooo……. that’s why I’m super excited that Kari selected my Christmas Tree Skirt Tutorial from last year as one of her feature projects for November’s “Create with me”.

Basically, you make one or both of the featured projects and submit your pictures to Kari so she can put them in her gallery by the end of the month. Easy enough. Just be creative and get a project or two done that you probably needed to do anyway.

I look forward to seeing everyone’s take on my Tree Skirt at month end!