Putting on some Glitz

The other day I stopped by Old Navy and got some awesome deals. Seriously, I must have snapped up pretty much all the cute clearance shirts in my daughter's size. She was so excited!  When I showed her this one though, she was a little disappointed in how plain (and quite frankly, how not pink it was). 

It just needs something.

Glitter fabric paint to the rescue! I figured that a little glitter would jazz up the shirt a bit, so I got out my Tulip glitter fabric paint and painted each of the ribbons going down the shirt. A fun way to add a little glitz!

Happy Crafting!
~Patricia

DIY Plant Hanger

The other night I followed this picture tutorial and made a cool plant hanger out of an old t-shirt. I learned a couple of things along the way, and I'm going to share them here with you, so that you can make your own t-shirt plant hanger too. (Or make one for a gift!)  This is such a cool idea, here's the link to the website that has actual written directions, along with the pictures.

Hints:
Use a big t-shirt, like the biggest you have.  I used a woman's small from Target, and wish I would have used one of those big xxl t-shirts I have in my upcycle bin. (and yes, it's an upcycle bin, not a hoarding bin!).

When I do it again, I'm going to tie the knots at the end around my pot, instead of just tying them and then trying to find a pot to fit. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Get creative!  You can experiment with braiding, adding giant wooden beads, etc. There are so many cool things you can do with this idea once you get the hang of it.  And if you have an old, big t-shirt lying around, it's free! Who doesn't love free?

Have fun and get creative! Happy Mother's Day!

~Patricia

DIY Photo Hangings

Home Decor.

Nothing scares me as much as those 2 dreaded words: Home Decor.  I just never know what to put up, so our home looks basically the same as it did over 6 years ago when we moved it. A lot of the walls are bare, there are some blinds up, but no window treatments. I once told a friend we had nothing up because we were "minimalists;" but really it's a combination of not knowing what to do and laziness.  

However, I realized that I loved going to homes and looking at other family's portraits, so I decided to start out with one wall in our living room and work from there.  I printed some of my favorite photos from our wedding and got to work.  Feel free to craft along, you can do this with any photo!

DIY Photo Hangings

Supplies:

photo

claybord or similar (artist's canvas, piece of wood)

black paint

modge podge

spray sealer

hot glue

black ribbon

hanging supplies (nails, hammer)

Let's get started! 

The first thing I did was pick up this cool claybord from Hobby Lobby.  It's a nice quality board for painting on, and essentially that's what I did! My photos and claybord were similar in size.

I painted one side and the outer edges with black acrylic paint. This was a little tricky to do to get full coverage, I might try using spray paint next time, or even a sharpie in a pinch! It doesn't really matter if you want to paint the whole board or just the parts that will be seen, totally up to you!  let the paint dry, according to the directions.

I then did a thin layer of modge podge on the painted claybord, then I placed my photo where I wanted it, and then covered it all with another layer of modge podge. Let dry!

I then sealed it with an acrylic sealer spray and let that dry.  To hang it, I hot glued ribbon to the back of each claybord. I hammered some nails into the wall, and voila!  A fun, inexpensive, easy way to display my favorite photos!! 

I am not done with my first wall yet, I am finishing up on the curtains, as well as making a song lyric board with lyrics from our wedding song on it! So excited about that! 

Stay tuned, and thanks for crafting along with me!

~Patricia~

Quick Oatmeal Pancakes

This morning I wanted to try a different take on our usual homemade pancakes, so I did a search on allrecipes and found this  little gem.

They turned out dense and filling and very yummy,  even without syrup (which I didn't realize we were out of). My sometimes picky 6 year old loved covering them with sprinkles, and she loved eating them too!

Here's the recipe: 

Quick Oats Pancake 

From allrecipies.com (modified slightly by t-shirtsandtulle)

Makes approx 8 pancakes.

Ingredients: 

1 cup milk

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup milk 

2 teaspoons butter to cook with (more if needed)

sprinkles (if desired)

Directions:

1. Place 1 cup milk in microwave safe bowl, heat in microwave until bubbling, about 2-2.5 minutes

2. Stir the oats in the milk, set aside.

3. Milk the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and cinnamon together in a large bowl.

3. Whisk the eggs, melted butter and vanilla in a separate bowl. Add 1/4 cup milk.

4. Pour oat mixture and egg mixture into the flour mixture in the large bowl. Stir to combine. 

5. Melt 2 teaspoons butter on a griddle (med. heat) and pour about 1/3 cup pancake mixture into the hot melted butter. Add sprinkles if desired. Heat 5-6 minutes (until top layer of batter bubbles); flip and cook other side 5-6 minutes or until evenly browned. 

6. Serve with a maple or fruit syrup. Enjoy! 

Spring tiered skort

Fun spring tiered skort!

So I have to confess that I have a problem...I love a good deal! Maybe 2 years ago now I bought a cute spring fabric remnant at Joanns, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I do this all the time!

Well, I finally found something to do with it! And I must say that I love how it turned out. 

I've been wanting to make another skirt for a while now, but couldn't come up with just the right idea. Something fun, but not difficult. Something with some flair, but with shorts underneath. (My oldest daughter won't wear a skirt without shorts.) And their are lots of skirt options, just do a basic Pinterest search and you'll be blown away.

My idea for this also came out of a desire to do a skort and not wanting to make shorts. Not to mention that I have a giant pile of long knit pants that have never been worn by my children. You just don't need long pants in south Florida!

Basic idea: create a tiered skort, using a fabric remnant and an unused pair of knit pants.

Materials:
approx. 1/2 yard fabric
knit pants with an elastic waist
sewing machine, coordinating thread, scissors/pinking shears, serger (optional)

Wash and dry your fabric. Then start out by laying out your fabric, ironing it if needed and marking it off in strips. I think my strips are about 3.5 4 inches each. Obviously I just made this off the top of my head, so go with whatever looks good to you! You could also do different lengths for each layer and different colors and fabric for the layers too. And while some tired skirt tutorials will tell you to make your skirt from the bottom up, this skirt I made from the top down.

Isn't this fabric cute?

You then need to ruffle your strips. Do this on the sewing machine by adjusting to the longest stitch length and a higher tension number.  It took a couple tries to find the right setting on my machine, so don't worry if you have to play around with this.  Don't backstitch as you're basting these stitches,

Once you're done ruffling, you can start to assemble the skirt.  Think of the elastic waistband of the knit pants as the waistband to your skirt.  Putting right sides together, stretch the elastic waistband as you stitch the fabric to the skirt, using a zig zag stitch. I used one strip all the way around the waistband. The pants were a 5T.

Then you'll want to take your next strip and sew it to the bottom of the top strip. Again put right sides together as you sew. Because you're now sewing onto the bottom of a ruffle, you'll need more than one strip on each layer from now on.  I like to sew a couple strips together before I start on the next layer so that I don't have to stop and add a new strip, I can just sew it on all the way around. I sewed the strips together with a straight stitch and then finished it with a zig zag stitch. You could also use a serger to finish off your seams. 

As you can see, I did 3 tiers. The skirt has a nice spin to it! 

When you have made it as long as you'd like, finish the skirt with a hem. You're going to want to  use your iron to fold the bottom up a small amount, then up again the same amount. Top stitch. I thought about adding some decorative ric rac to the bottom edge, but my daughter liked it as it was. 

I was also planning to cut off the pants, but she liked playing with it today with the pants long, so we'll save that for another day, maybe in the summer when it's 90 degrees. :) The nice thing about knit is that it doesn't fray, and since it will be shorts under the skirt, no one will see it. You can just cut it and not have to worry about a hem. 

So there you go!
Easy and cute! Now go find some extra fabric and spruce up those boring pants!

And I apologize for the poor quality of the pictures, she was just so excited to be wearing it and twirling around! :)

DIY Baby Ribbon Toy

Today my littlest one was being fussy, so when I had a few minutes I whipped up this little gem of a baby toy. I think she's teething, because she just wants to chew on things, especially her car seat straps!

I first saw this idea as a monogrammed/appliqued bean bag on sewlikemymom here. It's a great tutorial, but you can't sell these as Taggies has a patent on the looped ribbon. But, you can make them for your kids and your friends as gifts!

I started with 2 different squares of fabric, since I wanted different textures for her to feel. They are 9 in squares. I chose six different ribbons and cut two 3 inch pieces of each.

On the RIGHT side of one piece of fabric, sew on the ribbon by folding it in half, spacing it out evenly, 3 to a side. I like to mark where mine will go ahead of time, so I make dots on all 4 sides at 2.25 in, 4.5 in and 7.75 in.

Then put right sides of your fabric together and sew around the edge, leaving a 1/4 in seam allowance, and leaving a space on one side in order to turn it right side out.

Clip your corners, turn it right side out, and use a pencil or your fingers to push out the corners. Then sew the opening shut and if you want, topstitch all around.

Now sometimes I like to add a layer of plastic to add that crinkly sound to it. I use the plastic covering to a wipes refill. I only buy Pampers sensitive wipes, so I have a lot of their refill bags lying around. I think there are 9 bags that come in the big box that I usually buy. If you add this layer, add it to the outside of your right sides together fabric. In other words, you'll be sewing plastic, wrong-side piece #2, right-side piece #1 with ribbons.

And as a side note, I just saw a friend with one of these  commercially made yesterday! How much more would a new mom love this, if it came from a friend, made with love? So go find some scraps, some ribbon and get crafty!

Freezer paper ONESIE

For Valentine's Day, I made a cute monogrammed heart onesie for my littlest one using freezer paper. I got the idea from somewhere, but for the life of me I cannot find the photo. When I do I'll post it.

If you've never done a freezer paper stencil before, you should! They are so easy and in no time, you've created something. Just be sure to irom it on really good, so the paint doesn't bleed. I've also been covering the paint with glitter, because everything is better with glitter!!