Mother's Day Idea #1...

Well I'm finally back to blogging thank you to my loyal 10 readers who stuck it out with me. The show went really well and all my orders are almost filled.. yay! Husband is in the middle of his last week of law school finals... double yay! And I have a house to pack for our big move across the country to Utah... But enough about me let's get to the real reason you're here- a craft.

Mother's Day is coming up and if you're like me you're scratching your head trying to think of something new to give to the woman who gave life to you- no pressure right? Well for the next week I will showcase easy, cheap, and meaningful presents that you can give to that sweet lady.

Today's idea is a dvd of your family throughout the past year or an event or whatever. But the tutorial is not about how to make the dvd, it's how to makeover the dvd case.

First find a case. Then pull out the cover of the case and trace on to the paper of your choice (this dvd is actually for an outgoing missionary). Cut out paper.

Yeah, we own Shrek- don't judge.

I inked the edges of mine.

Add something to the front of the case. Since this is for a boy I kept it simple, but you could really go crazy, add a picture, etc.

Slide into case. Done.

Now that great dvd or cd full of pictures has a cute home!

Linking to these parties.

Easter Hair Clip

I finally made some fabric flowers and I loved to make them! Fast, easy, and cheap. I bought an 1/8 of a yard for 38 cents and it's enough to make at least 3 or four and thats being very generous. These are what I like to call a rewarding craft because they are so easy and fast and if you mess up they just look better. I used the tutorial here ( I get a lot of things here(because Heidi Swapp in my opinion is the ultimate- I spent a whole summer learning to write like her- yeah I know) as my paypal account frequently shows).

Lil A in all of her easter goodness.

Linked up to these parties!

Last Minute St. Patrick's Day Craft

Want ONE more St. Patrick's Day Craft? Need a little present for a friend, teacher etc. Here is a solution that is cheap, easy and FAST. These took me all of five minutes to finish.

Materials:

Ink Pad

Clothespins

Stamps

Magnets

Stamp the word Lucky onto your clothespin.Attach magnets to back.Enjoy!

That cute little guy in the middle? My father in law- how cute is that?

Library Bag

I have been wanting to make one of these for a really long time. I could picture it in my head and for once the real life creation is every bit as cute as the picture in my head. I wanted Lil A to have her own bag to take to the library. I finally got around to it- enjoy the tut!

First, cut out all of the shapes that make up the owl and iron them onto wonder under. ( I really need a new ironing board cover- working on it)

Iron all the pieces of the owl together. I top stitched the wings, eyes and nose before I ironed the owl onto the bag. Then I top stitched around the edges of the owl.
Add eyes to the owl. Mine are just fabric.

Cut out the word books using a cricut or scissors, iron onto bag and stitch.

Look and enjoy.



This was the hard part for me. I knew I wanted a place to keep the library receipt with the due date. So I cut a square of vinyl and zig zagged it on, leaving about a .25 inch at the top unstitched.

Top stitch ribbon to cover up the zigzag. Remember that .25 inch we left unstitched?- tuck you ribbon under for nice finish. For the corners I just folded the ribbon on an angle and kept sewing- this left less ribbon edges to fray or get caught on things. Place receipts in here so you remember when your books are due.... so you don't have humungo fines like me. Take to the library and stuff with books.




Don't be jealous of our library- it won Library of the year for 2005. It is a wondrous place.

I'm linking to:
Keeping It Simple
The DIY Showoff
Twice Remembered
Making the World Cuter
The Girl Creative

Skip to My Lou

Between Naps on the Porch

Persimmon Perch

Sumo's Sweet Stuff

It's So Very Cheri

A Silly Sparrow

Today's Creative Blog

My Frugal Family

A Soft Place to Land

Tip Junkie

Lucky Star

Works for Me Wednesday

Blue Cricket Design

The Thrifty Home

Someday Crafts

Somewhat Simple

Life as Lori

Bloggeritavile

Shabby Chic Cottage

Fireflies and Jellybeans

Beyond the Picket Fence

Treasures for Tots

Tatertots and Jello

Car Seat Cover

Okay, time for another tutorial. Have you seen those really cute car seat blanket/tent/canopy/whatever you want to call them? I know I have, now I don't have a little one in a baby car seat right now but I have plenty of friends with baby showers coming up. So i googled and searched and I think I pretty much every tutorial there was for these things. I took all the best of those tutorials and combined them into one that I liked best. At the end I will tell you what I would change for the next time around.


Materials"
2 yards coordinating fabric
Sew-on or Iron-on Velcro
Wonder Under
Other coordinating fabrics
Thread
Sewing Machine
Iron

Okay here we go... I wanted to put an applique on the front of my cover, if you don't skip these steps. I cut out flowers on my cricut... To cut Wonder Under on the cricut place the paper upside down on your mat to cut (this will only work with shapes- letters will be backwards if you do this).

Iron on your flowers, etc. Put your ribbon under the flowers. Then stitch around your flowers and ribbon stems.

Cut your fabric- I cut mine to 36" by 40". I really didn't want the cover to drag on the floor once it was finished. That being said I'm not sure all car seats are the same size so lay your fabric on top of yours and see where you're at size wise. I cut them at the same time so they would line up. Save your scraps- these will be our straps.

If you want your corners rounded, put a bowl down on the edge and cut around.

Then put both right sides together and stitch around the edges, leaving a small opening to use when you turn your fabric right side out. Turn your fabric right side out and then iron all your edges. Iron the space you left open to match your other edges, then top stitch around the entire cover.

Remember your scraps we saved, now its time to use the. Cut four 4" by 7" pieces- these will be your straps. I really need to recover my ironing board the cover is hideous- hilarious but gross.
Lay your pieces right sides together and then stitch around the edges once again leaving a space to turn them right side out. After that's done, I trimmed a little of the corners off to make smoother corners. Then turn them right side out and iron them flat then top stitch.
Then sew on your Velcro.
Then lay out your cover and decide where to put your straps. I fold my blanket in half then in half again to see where the middle of my blanket was then space from there. Then just stitch the straps two or three times on the machine and your all done. Now clip your loose threads and enjoy!

UPDATE: A few answers to some questions: Sewing around the flowers takes more patience than practice- although I have done a lot of applique in the past year. Just take it nice and slow and you will be just fine. The plus about this kind of applique is that if you wash the cover or just use it the flowers will fray a little covering up any mistakes you have made.

My friend I gave the cover to, has a wider car seat handle than the one I have, so you may want to add a couple of inches to the straps.

You can make your cover reversible by making an extra set of straps and repeating the process on the other side.

I'm linking to:

Keeping It Simple, DIY Showoff, Twice Remembered, Making the World Cuter, The Girl Creative, Skip to My Lou, Persimmon Perch, Tip Junkie, Somewhat Simple, Life as Lori Bloggeritaville

Lucky Banner Tutorial

All right, onto another St. Patrick's Day goodie. I started this banner weeks ago- Feb 15th to be exact- but I have had the hardest time finishing it and getting a tutorial up- but here it is finally. We have a huge window in our living room that I refuse to buy or make curtains for because we're renting anyways I like to make a banner to hang over this window for holidays birthdays etc to spice it up a little.I started by cutting circles on my handy cricut, I used 5.5"5" and 4.5". Then I inked the edges of the white cardstock with green ink. After that I pulled out my handy foam stamps and stamped "LUCKY", I waited to glue everything together until after I stamped- that way if anything get messed up I am only out one circle instead of three.

Modge Podge them all together.
Now, my favorite part. I traced a shamrock in pencil then stamped the word lucky over and over to form a shamrock.

Then I laid it all out on the floor and pinned my banner to the ribbon so sewing would be easier.
All done!

Birthday Shirt

I needed a quick thank you gift for a nice family that is letting my husband crash on their couch this weekend while he interviews for a program for next year. (If you are reading this nice family because my husband is shamelessly promoting my blog- then thank you for letting him stay with you.) My husband told me they had a daughter and she was 22 mo- no other details- he's a guy after all... I'm impressed he remembered she was 22 months. So I thought I would make her a birthday shirt that's been in my head for a while now. I think my favorite part is the ribbon flame. Now I just have to wait until it's lil A's birthday to make another one- and that birthday can take its own sweet time- she's growing up too fast.

P.S. Today is the last day to enter our giveaway.

St. Patrick's Day Centerpiece etc....

This next St. Patrick's Day craft is very kid friendly- I know for a fact since I did it with a very excited 2 yr this morning. And it's FREE- using just supplies I already had on hand.

We got our quarterly candle shipment yesterday- a gift from my mother in law that I LOVE- every three months new candles arrive on my doorstep packed in Styrofoam that gives me all sorts of ideas. This time around we took the two large cake like pieces out for our base.

Then we painted our bases- I was not patient enough to find my spray paint- we used acrylic and it worked fine.


While that was drying we traced shamrock outlines on the back of our scrapbook paper- just one of each. Once we cut out the first set we flipped them over and traced them to get our backing shamrocks.
Here you see our two sets of shamrocks laid on top of each other.


Then we spray painted some skewers from our junk drawer white.


The cover the shamrock in modge podge and sandwich your skewer between your two shamrocks.

Stick shamrocks in Styrofoam at varying heights, and voila!

Be Sure to check out our GIVEAWAY!

Easy, quick and free. Candle Tutorial, Lucky Frame Tutorial, Irish Canvas Tutorial.

Blue Cricket Design, DIY Showoff, Finding Fabulous,

Poppies at Play Someday Crafts