Knit Fabric Headbands with Hairbows and Flowers

This was a birthday present for a 7 year old girl.  I made 3 knit headbands with 6 hair bows that she could attach to the headbands if she wanted to.  I found the headband tutorial at Altered Cloth.  It was a very easy tutorial to follow.  This is a great project for using up left over knit fabric!  Because my headbands were for a little girl, I decreased the length to 16 inches. 

The best internet site I've found for making hair bows is Girly Things.  For the pink flower clip, I just cut a fabric flower off of a bouquet that I got at the dollar store and glued it to the clip.  Then I glued a rhinestone in the center to jazz it up a little.  The black flower is actually crocheted, forgive the picture quality.  Remember my winter flowered headband?  I just followed the pattern for the flower, and then glued a black button in the middle. 

Hair Bows and Chocolate Popsicles

I had a fun filled day yesterday teaching my sister-in-law how to make hair bows for her little girl.  Here are the ones that I made for Rebekah.  I learned how to make them from a friend and from this website: Grily Things.  They are so easy!  For the flower, I just bought a bouquet from the dollar store and we cut the flower off and glued it to a covered clip, see the picture below for the back view.  Super easy, and super cheap!

As a treat tonight, I made homemade chocolate pudding pops!  I think my kids liked them!  I found the recipe in a Weight Watchers magazine, July/August 2011 issue.  It was called dark chocolate pudding pops, on p108.  The only substitutions I made was using almond milk instead of regular (so Rebekah could have it too), and I used bittersweet chocolate chips instead of dark chocolate because that is what I had on hand.  They were really good, but had an odd taste, maybe from the almond milk, but the kids didn't notice.  The only problem I had was getting them out of the popsicle molds!  Do not run them under hot water, they melt too much and stick to the molds.  It was best to try to wiggle them out while fully frozen.  Next time, I think I'll take my sugared strawberries and puree them in the blender with some vanilla yogurt! 

Happy Valentine's Day - Toddler Skirt

Happy Valentine's Day!  Here are my two little valentine's, Rebekah is wearing a new skirt I made for her!  Directions and more pictures are below.  This morning I came downstairs and found a beautiful potted rose plant sitting on the table!  In return, the kids and I made giant chocolate chip cookies with icing, and I took one to Kevin's work and left it in his car.  I have been so incredibly blessed with a husband that loves me as the bible describes (1 Corinthians 13:4-6 see below).  He has a strength in the Lord that I can always lean on, and he treats me as if I was a cherished treasure, and I love him all the more for it!  Here's a picture of us on our honeymoon, 6 1/2 years ago.

1 Corinthians 13:4/6 (The Message)

Love never gives up.

Love cares more for others than for self.

Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,

Doesn't have a swelled head,

Doesn't force itself on others,

Isn't always "me first,"

Doesn't fly off the handle,

Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,

Doesn't revel when others grovel,

Takes pleasure int he flowering of truth,

Puts up with anything,

Trusts God always,

Always looks for the best,

Never looks back,

But keeps going to the end.

Do you like Rebekah's Skirt?  Here's how I made it!  I started with a toddlers pair of pink corduroy pants.  After ripping out the seam, I cut the pants to about knee length and turned it into a skirt, like here.  (Super easy to do on a toddler skirt!)

Then I cut two pieces of curved fabric, 5 inches wide, and about 2 feet wide.  The longer the length, the more gathered the skirt will look.  Also, if you want it to be more flowy, make your curve sharper.  I zig zag stitched around each piece, all sides, and then sewed the ends together.  Finally, hem the bottom side.  (See finished part below)

Then, hand sew around the top of the white part using large stitches, like 1 inch stitches.  Pull the thread tight until the circumference of your bottom piece matches that of the bottom of your skirt.  Pin the piece to the skirt like shown below.  I like to make sure the folds are all going one direction, but that's not necessary. 

Here's the finished skirt, but it looks a little plain.  

So, I decided it needed a little more embellishing.  I added ribbon around the bottom and made an "R" for Rebekah.  I also added a ribbon flower by the pocket with a button as the center, and then made a matching one for a hair clip.  I think it's adorable! 

I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's evening!  We are going to make chocolate covered strawberries!

Fabric Flower Hair Clip and Stuffed Animal Hospital

This flower hair clip is made from only circles!  After making the khaki skirt shown below, I cut circles out of the scraps, freehand.  Then I sewed around each circle, 1/4 inch from the edge.  I got lucky at this point, because while sewing around the edge (initially just to prevent fraying), the thread tension must have been too tight, which caused the circles to curl.  Then I laid the circles on top of each other and stitched them together.  The top circle didn't curl as much as I would have liked, I think it's because I sewed the edge much slower on that one so the thread didn't pull.  To make the button sewing easier, I sewed it onto only the top circle first and then sewed that top circle to the rest of my stack.  What do you think?

This khaki skirt is made from a pair of corduroy pants.  It is just below the knee in length with a frayed hemline.  

Lastly, I had an animal hospital yesterday with my kids.  We had an injured deer and a teddy bear that split it's seams.  I just sewed them up with a whip stitch, the fuzziness of the fabric hid the stitches.  Here's the pics:

All Better!

All Better!

Hair bows!

I love making hair bows for little girls!  Hair bows are something that I would never spend a lot of money on, but I can make as many as I want when I do them myself.  It's especially fun to have a friend to make them with so you can swap ribbons!  You only need 1-2 feet of ribbon, or less, depending on the size of your bow, so swapping is great since most ribbons come on spools that can be several feet long.  The base of the bow is a metal double prong clip, found at Sally Beauty Supply, $5.39 for a box of 100.  I like the instructions on this website: Girly Things.  Youtube is also a good place to find instructions!  I made all ten of these bows in 2 hours.  My favorite is the big stripped pink and orange one!

Up-cycled Skirts and Hair Bows for a Little Girl

This green skirt started off as a cardigan that is super soft!  I loved it as a cardigan, but unfortunately it got a large white stain on the chest area.  So, I cut the sweater just under the stain and took the buttons off.  I sewed it together to make a tube, flipped it upside down and added an elastic waistband.  After hemming the bottom, it make an amazingly soft sweater skirt for my daughter.  I also made a matching hair bow using one of the pearl buttons.   I still have the sleeves and the upper part of the cardigan, so I need to figure out something else to make with it.  It's so soft I can't waste it!

This skirt started as a toddler pair of capris pants found at Goodwill for $1.50.  The flowers on the hair clips came from a pack of scrapbooking stuff that I bought for another purpose, they were leftovers.  

Lastly, this skirt was actually a toddler jumper that was much too short for Rebekah.  I cut dress just under the armpits and added an elastic waistband.  The hair bow is made from the straps of the jumper, and one of the buttons. 

Three outfits for $1.50, that's what I call a bargain.  I spent 2 hours making all that you see here, not too bad, especially since my kids were upstairs playing and I got the time to myself!  Now I want to go dig in the closets some more and see what else I can up-cycle! 

Another Little Girl Skirt with Matching Hair Bows

This was a brown corduroy pants that I turned into a skirt for Rebekah.  I had leftover material from the bottom of the legs, so I made matching hair bows.  For the bows, I basically made the handle part of my favorite tote.  Then I made a loop and flattened it, the ends slightly overlapping.  I sewed a couple stitches across the middle and pulled tight so it would gather a little in the middle.  After covering the clip with pink ribbon, I hot glued the bow to the clip and added pink ribbon around the center to finish it off.  Now, I just need to find a cute pink sweater to complete this outfit!  Hmm... maybe I should work on my crocheting!

Felt Hair Clips

These are really easy to make and don't take much time.

Materials:  Felt in various colors, a button or rhinestone, hair clip (found at Sally's Beauty Supply), Glue Gun

1. Cut out 3-4 flower petals.  It works best to cut out a rectangle in the size you want and then fold it in half to cut the petal.  Use the first one cut as a template for the remaining ones.  Try pointed petals or round ones.

2.  Glue petals together so they make a flower.  I found it easiest to glue them in crosses and then glue the crosses together.  This way they will be spaced evenly.  If you are going to use a button for the middle, sew it onto the top petal before gluing.

3.  Glue layers together.  If you are using a rhinestone or anything else as the middle, glue it on now.

  4.  Cut a circle out of felt for the back.  Fold it in half and cut 2 small slits.

5.  Glue around the edge of the circle and adhere to the back of the flower.  Slide the hair clip into the slits and you are finished.  You can also glue on a pin backing and use your flower as a pin.

The possibilities are endless: vary the size, the colors, petal shapes, the middle button, add a leaf, glue it to a headband, add a pin backing...  Let me know what you have come up with.

Tote, Zippered Pouch, Notebook, and Felt Hair Clips

This is what I made for a 4 year old little girl's birthday gift.  I hope she will find lots of joy in it!!!

The tote and the zippered pouch were made using the directions at Skip to my Lou.  It is a wonderful blog with tons of homemade gift ideas.  The zippered pouch took about 30 minutes and the tote took about 1 hour.  I am very happy with the results.

The notebook and felt hair clips are my own creations.  For the notebook, I stitched on a matching scrap of fabric and then tied ribbons onto each curl of the wire binding.  I lifted up the ribbons and ran a line of hot glue on the book and then pushed the ribbons to the front.  This was so that they stayed in the front and covered up the edge of the green notebook.  I am also going to include a small pink pen with the gift.  I will post a tutorial for the flower hair clips in the next post.

After posting this, I noticed on facebook that the birthday girls' mom has a birthday tomorrow too!  So I quickly made another tote to give to her.  This one took me 45 minutes.  I absolutely love this green fabric.  I might have to make another one for myself!