Temporary Tattoo - Tris from Divergent

So, it was storybook character day at school.  My eldest is an avid reader.  She really liked Tris from Divergent, so that is who she wanted to go as.  It wasn't just the clothing we HAD to find, but the TATTOO!  She was wanting to wear a tank top with a jacket over...ummm NO! It is snowing here, in fact the original character day was canceled bc they closed school due to snow/ice.  So I was hoping I could get off the hook for the tattoo.  Not so lucky with that one!

So I hunted and hunted and watched a few tutorials.  Many that involved liquid eyeliner.  Which if I had time in the morning, sure I could attempt that.  But I have four kids and two which are participating in character day, and the other two are my busy ones and I have to keep them out of trouble.  So between breakfast, messes, braids (I had a Katniss on my hands) and tattoo...it needed to be easy!

Supplies

Contact paper

X-acto knife

cutting surface

black face paint

I first researched the tattoo online.  I needed an image to copy.  I decided to do this on my iPad so I could just lay it down and copy over it...but there was a problem.  Everytime I touched the screen it made the image go back to thumbnail.  So I did a screen capture.  Still wasn't working...so I just printed the image.

I laid my image over the contact paper.  I couldn't see it through the paper to trace.  If you can, then great!  My first mistake was putting the image on the non sticky side...so the tattoo would have been inverted.  On my contact paper (bought at the dollar store.  Used for lining shelves.  I got clear but I imagine any will do!) the one side has a grid pattern the other, is white...but that is the sticky side.  So lay your image over the sticky side.  I used my x-acto knife and cut through all the layers of paper.  This is pretty small and has some fine corners, so use your time and be patient.  The bottom layer didn't come out all the way so I went around where it was still attached.  I used the knife to pull each layer out holding tight so that things didn't shift. 

This was me doing it on the WRONG side....

Once we were done, it was ready to be applied.

The morning of, I applied the template to her skin.  I didn't do anything to prep it.  She had showered that morning and as usually didn't apply any lotion (sigh).  I took the back off the contact paper and laid down the template where I wanted it.  I made sure all the little corners were down.  Then I wet a make up sponge/wedge and rung out any extra water.  Then I dipped it in the black face paint and started applying the paint from the edges in.  I didn't want any paint going under the edge, so I treated it like a stencil.  I did some dabbing around the edges and if I need to do more of a pulling motion I did from the edge to the center.

After I was done applying the paint, I sprayed it with some hairspray.  Not sure if it was needed but I felt it would help set it.  I let it sit like this for awhile (because I had to braid Katniss' hair).  Then I pulled off the the template.  I sprayed it again with some hairspray to help keep the edges clean.  After it dried, I brushed some Rodan+Fields mineral powder over to make it look a little more like it wasn't just sitting on top of the skin and have a more tattoo look.  This also helped the redness, because my daughter has sensitive skin and I left it on too long, and it gave her a nice peptide treatment!  Lol.

The nice thing about the contact paper was that it isn't too sticky.  It peeled off nicely.  Of course if you have any type of adhesive allergy/sensitivity do not do this.

My daughter was thrilled with the results and I was pretty impressed if I don't say so myself. 

She wasn't too thrilled with me taking a photo....

Katniss and Tris...they are getting too big!

I hope this makes sense.  If you have any questions let me know!

Chamois Fitted Crib Sheet Tutorial

So, I have taken a HUGE break.  So sorry.  Don't worry, I have been uber busy building and crafting and will be sharing with you all soon.  Today, I decided I would start with a sewing project.  The inspiration for this came from this blog.  It is relatively easy, the hardest part was cutting the fabric and threading the elastic....so I think you can do it!

So first, go measure your mattress.  A standard mattress is 51" x 28".  If not, then add 16" to both the width and length to determine how much fabric you will need.  I have a standard mattress and will be using dimensions based off MY mattress.

Supplies

2 yards of fabric

scissors/rotary cutter

straight edge (yard stick for me)

coordinating thread

2.75 yards of elastic (width is your preference)

pins

Now, go head to you local fabric store and pick out your favorite chamois, minky fabric....don't forget your COUPON!  You will need 2 yards (remember I have a standard matress...two yards should cover most though).  If you want to make a matching changing pad cover get 1 more yard.

I always wash my fabrics first.  That way IF there is any shrinkage I get that out of the way BEFORE I sew!
Now to the "hard" part....cutting your fabric.  For the standard mattress you will want to cut a rectangle that is 67" x 44".  Once you have your rectangle you will need to cut 8" squares out of each corner.  You can either do them individually, or fold the rectangle in half, then in half again, getting all the corner matched up.  Did I loose you?

Fold in half the long edge to long edge.

Fold in half short edge to short edge.

All four corners together.

 Now that I have my fabric folded I cut an 8" square with my rotary cutter and a straight edge.  Be patient and make sure you go thru all the layers.

Time to start sewing!!!  We are going to be making a french seam.  I have been told that this fabric sheds...so we are going to contain it.  Grab one corner and put the WRONG sides together and pin.  This will seem like it goes against everything you have ever been taught.  It will be ok, I promise!

Sewing wrong sides together.

I sewed about 1/4" seam allowance.  I am not exact and I just sew sometimes...oh well.  Once you have sewed your seam you are going to fold that corner so that right side of the fabric is facing each other and you are going to sew, making sure that you encase the edge of fabric you just joined.  This will take about a 5/8 " seam allowance.

Sewing right sides together, encase the edge of the fabric with the seam.

Congratulations!  You just made a french seam!!!   Do this for all four corners.

Once all the corners are all done it is time to create the pocket for the elastic.  Start by folding the fabric edge up 1/2".  Then take that folded edge and fold it up 1" and pin.  Do this all the way around the fabric. Or another way to do it is, fold up the edge 1.5" then tucking the top 1/2" of that fold down (it depends on how your brain works which you will get).  The first one is easy for me, the second took me a couple of tries so I took photos). 

Folding the unfinished edge up 1.5"

Folding the unfinished edge down 1/2" leaving 1"encasement.

 Once it is pinned in place you will pin all the way around leaving 2" opening to insert your elastic.  I think about 2.5 yards of elastic will do, but definitely 2.75 will be plenty.  Attach a safety pin to the edge and start threading through.  It gets harder as you start getting closer to the end, just keep swimming...
Once the elastic is thread through, I attached the ends (once I was happy with the length and the amount of tension) of the elastic with a zig zag stitch (sorry I thought I took a photo, but I think you get it!).  I went over it twice.  Tuck the end of the elastic in the encasement and sew it closed.
Now, run upstairs and throw everything off the mattress and slap that bad boy on.  Do a happy dance that you didn't drop a pretty penny at PBK!  My plans are to turn this into a blanket after he is done, but cutting off the edges and attaching a back...but not now.
Now to make one in my size....lol

As always, if you have any questions let me know!!  Happy sewing!

Flannel Infinity Scarf tutorial

Flannel Infinity Scarf - tutorial DIY

Sorry for the long delay between posts.  October was insane and I felt the month of November was spent digging out.  So now with Christmas on the horizon, I thought I would share how to make these super easy scarves.  I think they are affordable and simple and would make a great gift!  So here I go....
I posted the link on my previous post to the tutorial I used.  I have decided to do it again, because when searching things on Pintrest, I would go to the site of something I like, only to redirect me to another site.  So I am trying to simplify for you.  If you'd like to see the origin of this tutorial go here.

First head over to your favorite fabric store and pick out your favorite flannel.  You will need 1.75 yards.  I have found most are 42inches wide.  IF you get two yards there are some fun things you can do with that extra .25yard.

When you get home find a big space (just to make life easier) and lay out your fabric. 

You are going to be cutting right down the middle on the short side of fabric yielding two long (1.75 yards to be exact) strips of fabric.  I simply folded in half the on the short side and used my pinking shears to cut.

Folded in half the long way

Cut in half

This brings me to how to handle fraying.  Flannel frays!  So, I read that pinking shears will work if you don't have a serger.  I am not a fabric expert and rely on the advice of others.  I did on some scarves try a zigzag stitch.  So either cut around the whole perimeter with pinking shears or use a zigzag stitch or serger.

Once you have your fabric ready fold one strip in half, on the short side, right sides facing each other (mine didn't really have a right side, they both were the same).  Now you can pin if you want but I just used my hand to guide.  On the long edge you are going to sew almost the whole length of the fabric, but leaving 2 inches open at the top and bottom.  I always use about 1/2 inch seam allowance.  I try 1/4" and always am more comfortable with 1/2" (I don't know why).

Sewing down the long edge...

Leaving two inches at top and bottom!

  Turn the fabric right-side out.  (I missed this step my first time).  I found putting my arm inside the tube and grabbing the opposite end and then pulling it up through worked well. 

Reach arm into tube and grab the end

Pull it through to the right side.

 This is what it looks like when pulled out, showing the two inches at the end...

Right side, with two inches not done on either end.

Once you have straightened out the fabric and get it laying flat, fold in half the long way.  So now the ends of the scarf are matched up. 

The short ends matched up.  Fabric folded the long way.

This is where it gets hard to describe.  You will grab the two middle pieces, pushing the other pieces away, and start to sew.

Grab the middle pieces of fabric

Sewing only the two middle pieces at this point....make sure to push the top and bottom fabric out of the way!

You will continue around (the very end will be hard), marrying up the fabric as you go. 

Sewing along, pulling the fabric together as you go

Eventually you will be swing the top and bottom piece.  Just trust me.

After  you have completed joining the seams.

Another view..

  Once you have connected the ends of the scarf together you are ready to close!

Pulling the joined edges into tube.

You are going to push in the sewn ends inside the big tube.

After pulling the ends in.  Now to close that hole.

I pull the seam tight and push the fabric down, then I pin it closed.  This is because I use a machine to close and I can get closer to the edge (just my technique).  You can use an invisible stitch and do by hand...but no one will really see it so I say make life easy and use your machine.

I put a pin right at the hole opening so I stitch a little before

I am stitching super close to the edge...red means stop.

 Cut all the lose strings and you are DONE!!

Even works well for big kids! 





















Feel free to share with me your scarves and if you have any questions!
Thanks for stopping by!

So unassuming at first but goes with a lot!

Looks amazing with my orange coat and SO fall!

Labor of love....?

I didn't realize that when we moved here, that I was afraid to really dig into decorating the girls rooms because the fear of us moving after only 2 years.  So other projects were put ahead of the fun stuff..painting, hanging pictures, moving furniture (which we actually have done a lot of switching of kids rooms...a topic for another day).  Toward the end of summer I started to tackle painting rooms.
An old friend had moved into the area and I was inspired to actually put this house in MY order.  So I tended to steal some of her ideas.  She sent me a picture of her sweet babies room and I just loved it.  Painting was the easy part...a can of paint is rather inexpensive.  I chose Benjamin Moore's Owl Gray (bc my friend did...and it looked great).  So I drove to the local shop, so I could take it to Home Depot to have them color match.  When I handed him the card, the clerk told me I didn't need the card, that they had the colors on file.  I don't know if that is true for all Home Depots, but I was excited about this because the closest Benjamin Moore isn't close...
But the curtains....

Those babies were from Pottery Barn Kids and I needed four panels.  No way with preschool, three kids in expensive activities could I fathom paying for four panels (remember I am a real mom with a real budget).   Then I remembered something I had pinned on Pintrest a while back.  Now to go find it.  It was Anthropology inspired ruffle curtains...I found it  HERE  PERFECT!!!  Her tutorial is pretty good so I really wont go do a tutorial but give you some advice I found.
First of all, she used a queen sheet cut in half to make the curtains and then three twin flat sheets for the ruffles.  I found something cheaper.  I went to Ikea (I am lucky to have one close) and bought two sets of their curtains, Vivan and 6 (I need to make four panels) twin flat sheets, Knoppa.  This brought the budget WAY down!  These total were $43.92 (plus tax).  Way better!!!  However this room faces the front of the house and gets the most sun.  So for privacy reasons and to decrease heat I decided to add a liner.  I opted to not get the full black out (because they didn't have enough in stock and I am inpatient) because they were almost to heavy for such light weight curtains.  I ended up going with something lighter..I believe it was called suede.  It was back by all the blackout liners.  It was on sale and I had a coupon...but it was still over $30.  I got 9 yards because I was cheap and had to do some joining of panels.
The first panel took the longest.  I cut the curtain to the size of half a queen sheet (so I could follow the tutorial).  If you aren't going to line the curtain you can leave one of the finished edges in tact.  I left the top until the very end, so I had enough length.
I followed the directions to make the ruffles from the tutorial.  This is definitely not a quick task...especially when making 40 ruffles (I had 10 per panel which is different from the tutorial).  I did the first two panels first and then many weeks later (because of traveling) I did the other two.  So I would make a goal, like hem 10 ruffles or as many as I could in an hour.  This is very time consuming project!!!  So take the pressure off, give yourself plenty of time and just bang it out an hour at a time.
To ruffle each strip I found it the easiest (of course at the end) to fold each strip of fabric in half and hang on to both sides of the bottom string and ruffle both sides toward the center (or to the bottom since they are folded in half).
Since I was making so many I measure where I attached each ruffle and did the same for all the other four.  If a ruffle was way off I just laid the panel I was working on, next to the completed panel and adjusted the height, so that the bottoms matched.
Attaching the liner is just like any other liner.  I have made curtains before so I just kinda winged it.  I am sure you can find a tutorial out there!
For the top...so for my last ruffle, I folded the fabric that was left (the top of the curtain down over all the ruffles and stitched just below where I attached the last ruffle.  The I folded it up...then attached my liner. After cutting off the top part of the original curtain, it was too long and I didn't need it.  I made a pocket rod with the liner and the curtain.  And done!

Don't mind the space around the windows.  I have been waiting for the hubby to put up the molding we removed before I painted.

Labor of love.....more like very, VERY frugal.  Now my eldest wants these....sigh.

I wrote this post while the kids were running around so if you have questions, please ask!

I hope you enjoyed the first post...my I wanted this, so I made that!

My Ruffle Wreath

I started my adventure on needing a new wreath for my door and finding inspiration on Pinterest.  I was bogged down with having to change my wreath for each season or Holiday (but I will not be giving up my Christmas wreath...it's just my idea of the season).  There are many reasons that I came to this conclusion.  One, we move a lot and never know how much storage we have and  two,I am also trying to simplify.
So, one day while on Pinterest, I somehow came upon this wreath.  Well actually, it wasn't the wreath that was pinned, just embellishments.  It was pure genius.  One wreath with different clips (home made hair clips to be exact) for each season.

Now I could store those (or take them from my kids).
So luckily for me there was a link on the page to her tutorial on how she made her wreath.  So I set off to the store to get my wreath and fabric.
So I followed the tutorial and this is what was starting to come together.

I referred back to her original image.  Her tutorial was on a NEW wreath she was creating, not the original.  It was different.  Things were NOT matching up to the original.  So I set it aside for a good week.
After looking at the original wreath and mine, I noticed what was wrong (and I have just realized something new..but it may leave it).  The outside ruffle was laying flat.  She also had the raw edge standing up, perpendicular to the wreath, not parallel.  SO, I took off the outside edge and started over.  I also, had done a little on the inside and thought about making it match the outside ring.
So after undoing and redoing the wreath this is what I came up with..

Now for embellishments.  Currently we are heading into St. Patricks day.  Seeing that my husband is half Irish...we really enjoy showing our (uh hmm...the girls) Irish pride.  So I found these cute felt cloverleafs.

(please note that for my larger clover I used a 1.5 inch heart..it would help if I would go back and read directions before I start a craft)

I set off to get my supplies.
While shopping I found a few other things that I started to think about adding to the wreath. So I have a few questions for all of you reading this...
Do you think I need to do a tutorial?

and

Done?

Done?

Done?

Hydrangea Wreath

Hello again.  It has been a LONG time since I last got on here (because hubby has been home) so I decided I would just put on here all the things I love to do/make/think/read on a regular basis.
For my new years resolution (usually I use a move to make changes, but we don't have another move for another 1.5 years, so I actually made a resolution this year) I decided to live more simply and more frugalishous and pay CASH!
So for my first day back I am posting this wreath I made today.  I absolutely LOVE hydrangeas!  All the wreaths in stores are sparse and still $20 - $30.  So before Christmas I fell upon a tutorial for a hydrangea wreath here and I KNEW that I had to make this.

So I had checked out Michaels the other day looking for ribbon and noted that their stems were on sale.  So this was going to be the weekend...I needed to first go home (shopping with a very busy 2 year old makes it difficult) and research the project (and would go back on Saturday).

This is what  I needed...
10 hydrangea stems
1 - 14 inch grape wreath
glue gun
wire cutters (or tin snips as you will see and a VERY strong husband)
and a Michaels coupon for 40% off (the wreath because wasn't on sale...for a coupon go here)

So Saturday morning was here, and once I looked at the budget and made sure I had enough money left in the household envelop (part of the new years resolution) I could hardly contain myself...I NEEDED to go now!  What if all the stems they had yesterday were gone?!?!  I was irritable until we loaded up the family and headed off to Michaels..with my freshly printed coupon in my sweating hand.

It is a cold rainy day here, perfect for crafting.  So I hop out of the van while my dear hubby parks the van and unloads the crew (in the rain) and go to Sears...brave man..love him!

I already had the glue gun and "wire cutters" so I purchased the stems and wreath and spent approximately $35.

I assembled my items

According to the tutorial, she said to cut off 3 inches, so my handy husband came to my aid and easily cut all 10 of them for me.

He tried using the smaller red cutters but it couldn't hack it, so he used the tin snips..not the best but got the job done.

Next I started placing (no glue yet!!) the blooms.  I tried to either put them in the middle of the wreath or in the top third.  Each stem was place about 3-4 inches apart (I just eyeballed it, but you are going to push some of the bloom out of the way when placing the next bloom).  

To insert into the wreath gently separate vines and gently push it through until the base of the bloom is resting on the wreath. This took hardly any time at all.  I was super surprised.  

After I finished placing the blooms I took a look and then started fixing some areas I thought could be spaced better.

This is how it looked

In following the tutorial and leaving 3 inches of stem this is what I was left with...

See the excess here...

My kids were excited about it standing on the table..me not so much

So I had the hubby come and trim off the excess to make it flush with the back of the wreath.  

Now it is time to glue.  I was thinking that you probably don't really have to glue (depending on where this is being displayed)  Then you could just change out the blooms for the season but I LOVE it so I wanted it to be permanent.  So next I plugged in the glue gun and waited..

Then I lifted up the bloom (once the gun was ready) and found the base of the stem and placed a glob of glue around the base and if some dripped down the stem I thought it would help secure it more.

The stem

The glob of glue

I could only wait two minutes before I HAD to hold it up and check it out but I was dry.  I was in shock at how quickly and painlessly this took and I think it is beautiful..you must do this!!

It's done..not in it's exact home, but this is close to what I am thinking in my mantel redo..this would be step two