Bow and Headband Board

 

Newborn girl = lots of bows! I had a drawer full of them and needed a way to organize them. I had seen the bow holders that had ribbons hanging down with the bows clipped to them. That style didn't really fit what I was looking for. Plus, I had all these headbands for the bows and headbands with flowers, and they wouldn't go on the ribbon holder. So I went to my trusty DIY site... pinterest!

 

I've seen these boards before to hold photos, cards, messages, etc. Basically a board covered with fabric and ribbon woven across. Some had little hooks on the bottom to hold the headbands... genius!

 

I thought about putting the fabric around a piece of plywood, but I ended up finding a spare canvas board. I intended it for a painting project... I brought it home from a moms craft night. I found some girly fabric that would match the nursery (I didn't have enough caterpillar fabric to cover the board. Otherwise, that would have been perfect!). I had tons of ribbon, and left over curtain hooks. I just stapled the back of the fabric and ribbon in place. The ribbon was a little too flimsy for me. When I put bows on, it started to sag. I sewed buttons on where the ribbon crossed, and that helped keep the ribbon in place.

Cost to make a bow board? Free! I was able to used scrap fabric and craft items already in my inventory. I even had extra hanging hardware that I nailed to the back of the canvas board.

It looks perfect!

Leap Pad Case

 

 In the age of technology, kids are so tech savvy at such a young age! Every time we went into the toy section at the store, our oldest son would gravitate towards the Leap Pad (which looks just like an iPad), and he knew EXACTLY how to navigate it! I checked out the games that came with it. Many of them were educational. So we got him a Leap Pad for his 4th birthday.

 

At first, we got him just one game. Then for Christmas, we bought him a second game. Then we had a problem, what did we do with the little game cartridge when it wasn't in use? It looks like a memory card, and I didn't want it to get stepped on, lost or damaged. I looked up carrying cases online and they were SO expensive (for my taste anyway).

 

I searched pinterest (LOVE!) for some kind of homemade case and found a tutorial, found here. I was able to use fabric and velcro that I had left over from a blanket I made from a friend. The fabric called for interfacing, and I was like "huh?". But I had some upholstery fabric that I used in placed of it. That was a mistake! It ended up being so thick and stiff. And there'ss many layers to sew through and lots of flipping inside out of fabric. Batting would have sufficed, or a few layers of scrap fabric. The only thing I had to buy was a zipper, .99 cents!

 

 This turned out adorable! It's the perfect size for his Leap Pad and has a pocket in the front to store his games. Perfect for traveling and storing everything!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Quilt

 

Baby #3 is going to be The Very Hungry Caterpillar theme. I first saw this nursey theme in Pottery Barn and fell in love! But $200 for a quilt?! Yikes! Plus, you need sheets, bumper, decor, etc. Ugh.  The boys have twin quilt madras quilt from Pottery Barn and I love them! But they are going to use them for a long time, not just as a toddler. So it was worth spending more. Plus, my mom bought them for birthday presents :)

 

Andover Fabrics sells Eric Carle fabric. But I wasn't able to find it in local stores or from the manufacturer. Back to etsy! I had to price shop (searched eBay too). I wasn't able to find all the fabrics that I wanted from the same seller, so I had to buy them seperately. But depending on what kinds of fabrics you want, you can save on shipping by buying from the same seller.

 

The border and backing I got from a local fabric store. They had a very cute green Eric Carle fabric I thought about getting for the backing, but thought I had spent enough! So I got a cute earthy green that I thought would do well as the backing.

 

I did diagonal stitching for the quilting, but didn't like how much it was bunching. And I didn't want to regret the way it looked. Had to use the seam ripper (which took a couple hours!) and removed the quilt from the machine after each line, smoothed everything out, repinned and sewed another line. It took longer, but was much flatter.

 

I also wanted to do a blind hand stitch on the binding. This also took a couple of hours, but it looks so much better than top stitching the binding. And I didn't have a blind stich options with my machine. I always forget how to do the machine binding and mitering, but finally found this video on youtube, found here. Machine stitch the binding to the quilt, then flip and press and hand stitch the other side. She talks about how to machine stitch the other side as well. I like to have a continuous border on the binding, and always forget how to do the corners. This video is great!

 

I love this quilt and have a crib bumper in the works as well! I spent about $50 on the fabric, had batting on hand and about 10 hours of labor (some of that was fixing mistakes!). I even tried looking on etsy to see if I could find quilts for under $200. Not easy, but there were some available. I just had a certain quilt in mind, and thought I could do it for cheaper!

Padded Camera Strap

 

A friend of mine suggested that I put a padded cover on my camera strap. For comfort, and for fashion :) I never heard of such a thing, but it made sense. The strap did sometimes irritate my neck. Plus, it would add some flare to my camera! I bought about a 1/4 of a yard of fabric. There was a decent amount of excess fabric, but it didn't cost much. I probably could've done an 1/8 of a yard. But better to have extra than not enough! Also, I used leftover batting from Christmas quilts.

 

Sandwich the batting inbetween the fabric, folded wrong sides together, and with the fold at the top. It should look like a rectangle. Usually the fabric is about 45 inches wide, so I just folded it down and it was about the length of my strap. I would suggest spray basting, but I didn't have any. I had to pin, and it never came out perfectly flat. But it was good enough for me.

<  Sew lengthwise on both sides. You will be sewing these sides together later, but this will just keep the batting in place as you work with it.

At the bottom, cut the batting a 1/2 inch from the edge. Then fold the edge in and press, with one side of the fabric covering the batting 

Once you fold and press both sides, it will look like this.

Sew on edge down with the batting.

Do a blind stitch to sew it up.

Fold it over your strap for size. Pin and cut excess fabric.

< Sew together and seal with a zigzag stitch. Flip it inside out. Done! Comfortable, fashionable, I love it!

Dinosaur Shirt

I saw a personalized dinosaur shirt in a catalog and thought it was the cutest thing! But $40 for a tiny shirt?! Get outta here! So I was browsing the shirt-making aisle and my son found these iron-on dinosaur patches (he has recently gotten into dinosaurs). And then it clicked! I was already planning on making some grandparents shirts, why couldn't I make a little dinosaur shirt. Well, the disappointment came... I didn't have enough letters after my grandparents shirts to make my dinosaur shirt. Drat! But I had learned this freezer paper and painting technique.

Type out what you want on the shirt. I used my sons name and the year he was born. I think discovered is dinosaur-y.

Place freezer paper over the print out, and trace the outlines of the letters.

Cut out the letters with a razor. The letters can be disarded, that's where you'll be painting. But the little spaces inside the letters (Like in the A's, R's, O's, etc), keep those so you can iron them onto the shirt along with the cut out.

Place the now stenciled paper onto the shirt. I placed the dino patch on too, just to visualize. But I ironed that on after I painted. Iron the paper down, paying special attention to the edges. You want the edges down so the paint won't seep under the paper. Press the fabric paint onto the letters. Do 2 coats. I was a little anxious to get this project done. Maybe the paint wasn't dry enough, so I ended up with some not-so-crisp edges. But it worked for me. It's a dinosaur shirt!

DIY Grandparents Shirts

I really wanted to get my parents shirts with their grandkids on them; be it name or picture. I went to a website that had personalization options to add grandkids' names and/or picture. But not only did it end up being a lot of work to get the right picture (you had to have the perfect shot of just their face... and many of my shots are at home, with toys and other kids in the backround), but it was $20 per shirt PLUS shipping. I think the only color was white and I didn't care too much for the designs (options were limited!).

I decided to buy plain shirts ($3.99 a piece) and iron-on letters ($1.99 per sheet). I copied the cute phrase from the previous website "2 Reasons I Love Being a Grandpa" but couldn't find any cute little boy iron-on pictures. I remembered a website I came across recently for skeleton Halloween costumes, found here. I then decided to attempt to create my own little boy stick figures and put them on the shirt. My creation follows....

I got shirts and iron-on lettersfrom the craft store. We have Hobby Lobby, but sometimes I really miss having a Michaels's! And if you really want to cut down on costs, you can use 40% off coupons to make this project even cheaper.

Arrange the letters on the shirts. I use a ruler as a guide to make sure the letters were centers and lines were equally spaced.

Once you have a row of letters right where you want them, press with a hot, dry iron (specific heat temp should be listed on the letters package, it's seems to always be high though).

Now it's time for the pictures. Since I couldn't find what I had in mind, I opted to design them myself. Freezer paper is drawable on the paper side, and irons on the shiny side. Found with saran wrap OR in sporting. I thought that was weird, but hunters use it for freezing meat I guess. Makes sense... I googled boy stick figure images and free-handed with a sharpie. Use something that leaves a thick line so when you cut the image out, there will be enough space for the paint to make a definite line. Wherever I made a blue line, I will cut out and will paint. Does that make sense?

OK I didn't realize how overly ambitious my cute little stick figure boys were. With the pockets, fingers, extra details of lines here and there, ugh. But still very do-able. Keep all those pieces that get cut out, you'll need them to re-create your image.

Iron the outline image on first. Position exactly where you want it and press with a hot, dry iron. Make sure the edges are pressed down. You want nice, crisp paint lines. Now place those cut out pieces back into the picture; shorts, shirt, hat, face, etc. Whatever you cut out that will re-create what you first drew. I did them one at a time to make sure they were properly placed.

Now it's time to paint. I got textured fabric paint, I didn't know what "textured" meant, but it was the only kind. The skeleton costume website says to use a brush with stiff bristles, so that can be used too. I didn't have one and I didn't want to pay $4 for a whole pack. I had a pack of foam brushed from the dollar store from when we painted our house, and that seemed to work out just fine.

Slide some cardboard under your images, the paint will soak through a bit. Press the paint down, don't do strokes. You don't want any paint to seep under the paper. Do 2 coats. Peel the paper off. You can use your razor to help lift up the edges of the paper. Turn it inside out and slide it oover the ironing board (just the front of the shirt that has the images should be on the board). Quickly press the painted images. The paint may seep through a bit more. This helps seal the paint and puffs the paint up. Ah ha! *lightbulb* "Textured" paint! Now I get it! I love the effect this gives the paint.

I made one for Grandma too. There were some spots here and there that seeped under the paper, or paint peeled up with the paper. I just touched up as needed and it looks great! Exactly what I envisioned! Aside from the paint, which I will use in many more future projects, this project costed me about $8 per shirt. If I would have used my 40% off coupons, I would have saved more money! Or you can print these out off of the computer, trace onto freezer paper, and cut the letters out. My kids' names required lots of E's, A's and N's, so you may need more or less sheets of letters depending on your names. But there you have it, 2 personalized, handmade Christmas gifts.