DIY Chevron Canvas Shoes

 Hey everyone...or three followers :-) I haven't posted in quite some while. I got overwhelmed with the Hubs' surprise birthday(which went off without a hitch), my cousin's bridal shower and wedding and just good ol' life in general. So I have some major DIYing to catch you guys up on.  I figured I would start small :-). I got a pair of white canvas shoes off Walmart.com for like $7. I had all these great ideas...but didn't do any of them. I just now did something with them(only like 3 months later) but they are perfect for the summer!

What you Need:

Plain canvas shoes(I prefer white)

Acrylic or fabric paint

Paint brushes(small)

Stencil(you could free hand)

Pencil

Step One:

Load your shoe up with plastic grocery bags or something that will make it more stiff. Then get you pattern. I got a chevron pattern off the internet here and cut out a piece that I could stencil onto my shoe. Take your canvas shoe and do just that...stencil away. 

Step Two:

Get your paints out. I chose to use two different turquoisey blues 

and I wanted a coral accent color.  

It was 10:30 at night when I got a chance to paint 

and I didn't have a coral color so I just mixed a pink and orange :-) 

For those interested I used CraftSmart-Caribbean Blue, and Robins Egg Blue. 

And I mixed Apple Barrel-Harvest Orange and Bright Magenta.

Step Three:

Get to painting. This is the tedious part. I had to use small paintbrushes to stay in my lines...like I said it was 10:30 at night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Step Four:

Put the laces back in and wear them! Adore them!

 Get numerous compliments on them! I know I did!!

DIY Fabric Pomanders(Pom-Pom Balls)

This is a tutorial I wrote for my project wedding account when I was getting married.  You can see the original post here. They even made it into an article! Check it out here!

I made these fabric pomanders for my wedding.  I hung them up all over the reception and down the aisle.  They are a little cheaper than making them out of flowers if you can get inexpensive fabric. I got the $2 a yard stuff from Wally World

Supplies:

Fabric (about a yard for 4" styrofoam ball)

styrofoam ball (I'm using 4" ones, 3" ones & 2.5" ones)

Hot glue gun

floral pins & Ribbon (If you want yours to hang)

Instructions:

Step one: 

Trace circles onto fabric.  For my 4" balls, I traced 4 inch circles.  For my 3 inch balls, 3 inch circles

Step two:

After cutting out the circles fold in half and put a dot of hot glue in the center of the folded part

Step three/four:

Fold right side over onto glue- then put another dot of glue & fold left side over

Step Five:

Poke a hole into the stryrfoam ball, not too deep, and then put hot glue inside the hole.  Take the pointed edge of your fabric and push it down into the hole.

Step 6:

 I make a line all the way around the ball one way with the fabric and then start filling in the two empty sides. 

Step 7: (If you want them to hang)

Find a good place to be the top of your pomander.  Take a fabric pin and string it with any ribbon you'd like.  Shove the fabric pin into the styrofoam ball and then tie a knot in the ribbon so it will stay attached to the fabric pin and not slip out.

Final Product:

 Now you're done!!  These take a bit of time but they look super cool and they aren't very difficult to make!  Way easier for me then the tissue paper pomanders on the Martha Stewart website!

My wedding colors were turquoise and brown with lime green accents so here are the three colors I used. I totally loved how they turned out and I have now been able to use them in the Lil' Man's room!

Glitter Personalized Cup

Hello Hello! Aren't you excited a second tutorial on Good Friday?!  So my bestie's birthday is tomorrow and I wanted to make her something using my fancy new Silhouette machine. I got it for my birthday and haven't used it nearly enough. We don't usually do gifts, but rather enjoy a nice lunch or dinner together and catch up. (our busy schedules get in the way of us hanging out very ofter, but she's one of those awesome friends where you can pick up where you left off and no one gets butt-hurt(yup I just said that because if you are a female you KNOW what I am talking about!) that you haven't seen or spoken to each other in X amount of time!) Did you see that...a tangent in a tangent! Anyway she is amazing, she does these smoothie shakes for health and all that junk...not me I am total opposite. So I thought I would make her a personalized mug!

Glitter Personalized Mug!

Materials:
Double Insulated Mug-one that you could draw pictures or put pictures in
Glitter-I like fine glitter
Mod Podge
Paintbrush or foam brush
Vinyl letters-either cut from your cutting machine or purchase premade ones

I got this mug from Joann's they were 2/$5

You need to take the inner liner and put it to the side. Take your Mod Podge and paint the inside of the cup.  I saw a few tutorials before where people have put glitter on the outside of the cup, but who wants to hold something rough like that?

Next you will dump glitter in the cup and move it all around so that it covers all the Mod Podge.

 From the outside of the cup it will look a little foggy...don't worry the Mod Podge dries clear!

Now I waited until it was dry, a few hours and did a second coat.  Then it was time to apply my personalization! I used my Silhouette and cut out my bestie's name in Cheeky Rabbit font. She always puts lil' hearts above her i's so I thought it was appropriate! I also put Dream Team on the back because she is an educator for Dream Catchers Hair Extensions and she travels all over to do hair shows for them. She is why my hair rocks! Anyway if you don't have a cutter you can just use premade letters.

Add them to your cup and....Wah-La you have an awesome personalized gift, I just added a Starbucks gift card to the inside! (I'm so going to be making one for myself and I am going to try to find the cups with straws next!)

Total Cost-$3.50...depending on what products you already have!

Record Table

Happy Friday! As a stay-at-home mom and crafter, Happy Friday is not nearly significant as it is to those of you that work, but it is important because it means the hubs has the next two days off! Woo-Hoo! Moving on from my tangent, (I seem to do those a lot!) I haven't posted because I have been working on something for my cousin's bridal shower and I have been chasin' the lil man all over.  The weather here has been uber nice so we've been spending a lot of time outside before it becomes scorching, summer heat.

This is going to be a quick tutorial because I have a second one to show you as well! I know you are all super excited! Yipee! Friday and TWO tutorials?!? How'd you get so lucky?! Ahh anything to make ya'll happy!

So as I mentioned the lil' man is my lil' rockstar. I didn't go with a "theme" per-say in his room but it did kind of transform into a rock/star theme. Well I order a buttload of used records(LPs) for his birthday decor and now need ideas to use them. Well I came up with one AND it can be used in his room!

The Record Side-Table (this is super easy but turns out super cute!)

Materials: 
Record-free
Planter Table- $3 at wally world
Glue gun-free

Take your plant stand-

 and your record and put hot glue around the top of the plant stand

 Then attach your record. You have to go quick or some glue might dry. I then turned it over and put glue around where the record was touching the plant stand.

And wha-la! A record side table!!

Total cost $3.00 (btw I do not read Adam Carolla to lil' man nor does he drink coffee, I was just using them as props!)

Newsboy Cap Part II

Hello out there! So as I promised yesterday I would show you all how to finish your newsboy cap today. If you are just reading this you can see Part I of the Newsboy Cap tutorial here! Now remember as I said yesterday, this was my first time trying to make this so it didn't turn out fabulous(as in there's no way I could sell it), but it will work and look cute!

So we left off with the brim...you should have placed your hard brim piece inside your two sewn together brim pieces. Now before we attach it to our hat we are going to sew our outer fabric to our lining fabric. You need to take both "caps" and place them right sides together, pin around the edges and sew, leaving a small gap where the brim will be attached to turn right side out.

Now you are going to attach your brim. When you sew it make sure you aren't attaching it to the top of the hat by accident, it will also be a little difficult so go S-L-O-W!

 What I did at this point was tack the brim down.

Yesterday I forgot to tell you that you need a piece of the lining fabric that is 24"x3" You are going to iron this and make it look like bias tape. Then you will attach it around the bottom, on the inside of the cap. Sew around, be careful around the brim, again it's thick so go slow.

 

Now you need to add the elastic. I used a 3" piece of 1/2" elastic. If you don't have any 1/2'' elastic, 1/4'' or 3/4'' would work as well. I attached one side of the elastic to the one pink line in the photo below and the other side to the other pink line. You will be stretching the elastic that's how it will make it fit. I also sewed the middle piece down, after sewing the two sides.

As you can tell this looks pretty...cruddy. I was in a hurry, ran out of regular black thread and had to use black upholstery thread(which was WAY too thick. But...

it looks pretty good on and that's what matters! When I can hold down Lil' D long enough I will get him in the whole get-up and take a picture for ya'll to see!

Hope everyone one has a wonderful Thursday!

Newsboy Cap Part I

Happy Wednesday everyone! I know it's been like a week since I last posted. Lil' D started out with some evil mad allergies and our sleep/nap schedule was all outta whack so it made my days outta whack too!

Anyway on to more fun things! My cousin Kiersten is getting married in May and she going with a 20's theme for her wedding.  She is just the cutest thing! I hope she doesn't mind, but I am going to share one of her totally adorable engagement pictures! 
Ok they are all pretty darn cute! So Here is the website to go check them out!

Now of course I need to find something for me to wear and something for the hubs to wear to this wedding, but really at the moment I am more concerned about Lil' D! Last year I made him a pair of suspenders and a bow tie just for the heck of it.

Well I decided that they would be perfect to wear to the wedding, but he would be missing something...a newsboy cap! I searched online for a tutorial and found this, but it was for a man so it would be awfully big. I also found this, but it wasn't the type of newsboy cap I was thinking of. Lil' D already had a newsboy cap, but it was a plaid blue and red one. Which clearly wouldn't match his black and white bow tie and suspenders. But it would serve as a example for what I needed.  It was a little small so I made the pattern a little bigger. Now you'll have to stick with me here, as this is the first time I've made a pattern and tried to do something like this by myself. (As you will be able to see by the final product it turned out well, but I definitely need some more practice) The patterns are here and here.  Just so you readers know Lil' D is 17months. I am guessing this pattern will probably fit a 12-24 month old, but don't hold me to that number!

Items Needed for Newsboy Cap

1/3 yard outer fabric
1/3 lining fabric
some kind of strong material to use as the brim
fusible interfacing
coordinating thread 
sewing machine
iron     

As you can see by my pattern it says cut one on each large piece. You will need to cut one of your outer fabric and one of your lining. I was doing black and black so I just cut two of each. And of course you need to cut two brim pieces. I then decided I wanted to line the outer fabric with interfacing, so I cut a piece just a little smaller than my piece of fabric and followed the directions by ironing it on.

 

Now you are going to take the upside down U shape and the piece you put the interfacing on and put the right sides together matching up the center of the pieces, and then pinning down the sides where you will sew these pieces together. I pinned them down until the U shape started curving in. I then sewed around where I just pinned leaving maybe 1/4'' of a seam allowance.

Next, I pinned down the center and sewed that up.

 This next part is going to be difficult to explain so please bare with me. So this is clearly a before pic of all my sewing, but it will help me explain what you need to do.  You are going to have to pin the pin to the blue...

So you will pin this down and sew it, it is a little difficult to sew, but if I can do it so can you!!

Now you have the outer part of your hat!

Next, you are going to repeat the above steps with your lining fabric so it looks like you have two hats!

Onto the brim!
  Now for the actual brim I cut out three brim pattern shapes out of that plastic-y covering for your cheap frames. It's supposed to act like "glass" but in reality its just a clear plastic. I glued them together using spray adhesive, and then realized it needed to be a bit smaller than my brim fabric so I trimmed it down a bit. Take your two pieces of brim fabric and sew around the outside round edge leaving a 1/4'' seam allowance(or smaller if you can manage).  Next, I turned my fabric right side out and ironed it down. Just a little tip, be careful if you use the plastic stuff I used....I learned that it will MELT and it will melt quickly! Oooops!

Now slide that brim into your fabric! If it by chance doesn't fit you can do a little more trimming to the hard brim, not the fabric!
And that's it for today folks! It's a sunshiny 82 degrees outside. Not even Spring and we are starting to get the beginning of Summer weather.  I am going to take well rested Lil' D outside to play.  Check back tomorrow for Part II of this tutorial. I will show you how to put it all together!

Easter Egg Wreath Tutorial

Happy Wednesday everyone! I don't know how it looks where you are, but it just started raining here and it looks to be a gloomy day. Guess no park play for Lil' D and me today! So instead he is playing with his cars while I share my latest craft!

Can you believe Easter is just around the corner?!? Seriously, it is in less than a month! I hate how it goes back and forth from April to March. I disliked it even more when I was teaching. I'm sure some of you readers know exactly how I feel, you get to "Spring Break" and it's supposed to give you that close to the end of the year break, but then you realize that Spring Break falls early because of Easter(I find it funny that we get the week off due to Easter but it's not PC to say Easter break) and you still have 2 months left of school. Uhh whoa is me.

Moving on... a few of my friends and I get together for "Craft Night" on Tuesday nights, really its for eating and chatting, but every once in awhile someone will finish a craft. Last night I got started on an Easter Egg Wreath and finished it up this morning. I love wreaths! I try to make one for every holiday/time of year.  So I decided that since I didn't have an Easter one, now would be the time to make one, if I was going to do it at all.  I truly didn't want to waste a good Styrofoam wreath on eggs so I looked on Pinterest and found this lovely tutorial! (she actually refers her tutorial to couple others, but I used what she had) Kennedy Klan News & Honeybee Heaven I loved that she used cardboard instead of an actual wreath. So I had my inspiration and got to work!

Items Needed: 
Cardboard (I would say 18"x18" or so)
Glue gun and lots of glue sticks
Eggs (I used two $2 packages from Target)
Easter grass (optional)
Ribbon


So I had a large piece of cardboard and I actually took a Styrofoam wreath I had and traced the outside and the inside. Then I cut it out using an exacto knife, please be careful on this step. The Hubs always yells at me when I use knives or saws ...well anything dangerous actually. I think he thinks I'm going to cut off a finger! I did work in the picture framing business for 5 years and nothing happened! I know how to operate these tools! Now I have a round piece of cardboard (clearly it doesn't have to be perfect! And as you can see I have a little bit of a fold in the cardboard, that's alright as long as it isn't a huge fold)

Next I took my eggs and just started gluing. I knew I was going to have two rows of eggs on the bottom layer and one on the top. I was not worried about the order I went in with the eggs. If you are more into patterns and such you could separate your eggs by color and do a patten, but I totally didn't care. So I went around once with eggs facing out of the wreath and then went around a second time with the inside layer with the eggs facing into the wreath. And apparently I don't know how to center my pictures!

Then I went and put a layer of eggs on top of the two rows. 
Again, I didn't care about patterns or if colors were by the same colors.

Looking at it I decided it definitely needed the grass, it just didn't look finished. At this point I took a piece of ribbon and strung it between a couple eggs and around the cardboard. I knew I wouldn't be able to do it after I glued the Easter grass on.

Finally, I just started putting glue in big gaps and stuck Easter grass in the holes. I ended up using grass that I had lying around. It was paper grass unlike the plasticy stuff they have. I don't know which would work better, but mine ended up looking good. 

It looked totally fine looking down on it this way, but when I picked it up I saw this...

I did not like that you could see the cardboard so I went around again putting grass in between the bottom layer of eggs.

 I'm not big into bows so I just tied my ribbon into one and hung it on my screen door for everyone to see! I think it looks mighty nice! I'm sad it'll only be up for a month, but there's always next year!