It's the Life

Felt Baby Mobile

My friend just had her second baby boy. She has the new baby in her bedroom for now and was looking for a light weight mobile for his temporary crib. She sent me a link to this site, where the writer makes cute felt mobiles. I thought they were really cute, and pretty simple, so I made one for her as a surprise.

I knew I had all the supplies in my craft room to make this. Felt, buttons, ribbon, scraps of fabric. When I looked through my scraps of fabric for some coordinting boy fabric, guess what I found? Scraps from the baby quilt I made her first born! So excited!

 

Click here to see the tutorial I followed to make this mobile.

 

If I had a machine that would cut out circles or flowers, I would proably start making these for everyone I know! Cutting them by hand made it a bit of a task.

Totally worth it though. It turned out really cute.

 

Happy new baby Syd!

Tutorial: Shorten your Jeans, Keep the Original Hem

I don't think I've ever bought a pair of pants that were the right length for me. My legs are just too short. When I used to hem my jeans I would just cut them to the length I wanted plus an inch or so, fold back the fabric and stitch a smal line around the leg bottom. I never really liked the look of it, but I'm short, what choice do I have? I like the manufacturers hem, but I didn't know how to get that same look. I still don't know how to create that look, so I decided to keep it. I'm going to show you how to hem your jeans, but keep that original hem. Don't stress, it's easy.  Really, really, easy!

Start with a pair of jeans that are the length you want. Lay the shorter pair on top, making sure the tops, hips and crotch lines are all matching.

Using a pin or a pen, mark on the longer jeans where the stitching for the hem on the shorter pair hits. Not the bottom of the jean, but where the yellowish stitching is.  This is where you will sew the stitches of the longer jean.

Now, fold the leg of the longer jeans up until the bottom of the original hem lines up with the mark you made. Pin in place.

Make sure the stitch lines that run up and down the leg line up.

Pin it in place.

Line up the other side as well. Pin in place.

Do this on both pant legs. 

With a sewing machine, stitch along the original hem line. As close to the fold as you can, without going onto the fold.  Stitch all the way around each leg.

As you sew around, make sure your lines are still matching as you stitch.

When you have stitched all the way around, you can fold the excess inside the pant leg. At this point you should be getting excited! Look at that beautiful orginal hem. Look how those lines match up perfectly.

Heat up your iron and press your stitches from the inside and out. Make sure your fold is where you want it to be.

At this point you should find a thread that is a blue/grey. It doesn't have to match perfectly, but you don't want to use white (or pink). I use this same thread for dark and light jeans, and it hides just fine.

Bring your nicely pressed jeans back to the sewing machine. Stitch all the way around the leg bottom as close to the fold as you can.

Feel your heart swell with pride as you see your lines lined up perfectly.

Remind your husband how lucky he is to have married a catch like you! 

Holiday Wrap

I am a big believer in good packaging. I am a product marketer's dream. I've purchased many things simply because I loved the bottle or container it was in. Like buying a few bottles of coke when I could get a 24 pack of cans for the same price...

 

In the same spirit, I like to decorate my holiday gifts. For one, they look like a continuation of the Christmas tree decorations, but they also add to the gift giving fun.

It's really easy to add a few extra touches to your gifts. I made a tutorial of how I did mine, but use your imagination and do something that says "this gift is from (your name)"!

Most of these things I just had at my house. 

I started by adding a small glitter dot sticker to the fabric brad.

Then I inserted the metal tabs of the brad into two of the holes of a slightly larger button.

Now fold the brad tabs down to secure them all together.

So cute! That might be cute in a little girls hair.

My gift tag is just a 1.5x3 inch piece of white paper.  I stitched a line down one side with my sewing machine and then used a glue dot to attach the buttons. You could stop here and just use this for a gift tag. Especially for a smaller gift.

Next I added a couple glue dots to my 3x3.5 inch paper.

Secure the snowflake a little off center.

Use another glue dot to add your tag to the snowflake. These snowflakes came in a pack of 8 for $3 at the craft store. I think the fabric brads were the most expensive item I used, but I love them.

Hole punch the top corner and your tag is done! 

Now we do the raffia ribbon. You can use any kind of ribbon, but I have a thing for the raffia. Make a simple knot and leave some strings to attach the bow.

To make a bow with this thin raffia, you just take a long strip and fold it back and forth until you get two loops on each side.

Set the folds of raffia on the knot you already tied on the gift. Take the strings from the knot and tie the raffia folds to the package.

Isn't that cute?  This is why I love the raffia for gifts. Now all you have to do is use the long strands to tie on your gift tag.

I liked the gift plenty with just the gift tag, but I wanted to add one last thing. When I did the cake table for my nephew's first birthday, I had sewn a bunch of circles together to make the birthday sign. I thought I would do something like that again. Using a glue strip not only made sure the stitches won't come apart, but now I can glue it to the package.

I think adding the stitches makes it more "from Andrea". 

I just love it. I made sure to wrap a gift to myself so I can keep one!

To: Andrea    From: Yourself

If you live in Utah and you are interested in decorating your gifts, you should go to a Roberts craft store. They are, sadly, going out of business and everything in their stores is 40% off.

Happy Holidays!  

DIY: Christmas Advent

I loved Advents when I was a kid and I love them now.  I am a list maker. I enjoy either adding to a list or being able to cross things off a list.  Advents are just a cute list with treats, how could I not love them?  The last few years we have been doing a count down to Christmas with wrapped books. I made a post about it here.  I thought I'd add a more traditional advent this year.

Here is what you need to make your own:

24 "favor tins". (I found them in Hobby Lobby's Party Section)

1 craft circle punch

24 magnets (can get at the craft store)

Adhesive (I used glue dots)

Advent Images (You could also just use scrapbook paper and write numbers on them)

First you need to download the advent images.  Click here. In order to print them to the size I needed, I opened them in a word document and from there I could adjust the size of the circles using the ruler on the top as a guide.  I printed my circles 2 inches because I had a 1 3/4 inch circle punch.

You need a hole punch like the one above.  Mine is 1 3/4 inch.  After I printed the images on cardstock, I used the hole punch to punch out the images.

The inside of the tins are 2 inches.  Using my cricket, I cut out some 2 inch circles.  If you have a 2 inch circle punch, you would print your images 2.25 inches and then skip the second circle step.

The 1 3/4 inch circles fit perfectly in the clear centers of the tins.

Flip the advent number and place it inside the tin top.

I used three glue dots on the backs of my 2 inch circles.  The middle dot will attach the smaller circle to it and the other two will help keep it in place.

Insert the 2 inch circle face up and press down to adhere. (If you use a 2 inch punch, just put two glue dots on the outer edge so they don't show through the clear part of the tin)

One down, 23 to go!

Next you need to add a magnet to your tin. If you are going to put candy in the tins, I would recommend using a strong magnet like the sliver one above.  They also sell them in black.  The magnet strips are not strong enough to hold the tin with candy inside. You could put lighter things in them like stickers and the strips would hold.

The magnet will attach itself to the tin, but when you try and place the tin on another metal surface, sometime it moves around, so I used a glue dot to help it stay in place on the tin.

Now fill them up!  In addition to treats, I am planning on putting Christmas stickers or small toys in others.  It would also be fun to plan a holiday activity and have a note in the advent telling the kids what the activity will be.  That way its not just candy every day.

 

I had this framed magnet board in my basement.  It is what inspired me to make the advent.  If you don't have a magnet board, you can get them at a craft store, or you can use the tins on your fridge. You could also glue a thumb tack to the back and use them on a cork board, or use that ticky tacky stuff and put them on the wall.  You could use a large frame and glue the tins to the glass. You could even hide them around your house and have your kids hunt for the right number each day.

 

Can you believe it's almost time to start the Christmas count down?  I think time goes by faster and faster each year. 

Holiday Hand Towel Gift Idea

Last month my mom and I made some Christmas aprons.  Using the fabric scraps left over, I made matching hand towels for our kitchens.  How adorable is that fabric? It goes perfect with my Christmas gingerbread theme. They turned out so cute that I thought I'd make some for everyday.

I also made a tutorial so you can make some too! 

Click Here for the hand towel tutorial.

Click Here for other sewing tutorials

Click Here for other gift ideas!

DIY: Re-Cover your Kitchen Chair Cushions

My friend, Sydney, asked me to re-cover her kitchen chair cushions.  They went from well used cream cushions to these babies!  Isn't that fabric bright and fantastic?

Click Here to see how I transformed them!