Diy baby knot hat! Tee shirt upcycle Soo cute!

Its cold outside, and our babies are bald!! lol! lets make some hats!

For starters, I traced an old knot hat i had, but made it a little bigger all around (needed it a size up) but i also found a printable one if you wanted your own at prudentbaby  HERE I really made mine the same way ;)

I started with an old tee shirt, and my pattern.

I missed the photo of step one, but pretty much as you would imagine, i laid the tee flat inside out,  traced my pattern (right on the bottom hem so i could use it) and cut it out/sewed it together, 

 I used my new serger for this, but have made them before with regular stitch followed by a zigzag on the outside to reinforce it. This is what i have now. (see the tee hem at the bottom)

Next step is to fold the bottom up evenly as shown and pin in place

a zig zag stitch is used to sew right along this seam

now turn inside out and press seams flat 

tie knot in top as wanted. you can fold the bottom up again or not, however you like... cute right

we will let the reborn doll model it here lol

you could also embellish them with buttons, flowers, bows, etc.

I made a couple for some friends of mine.  I just hand sewed little Initials on that i cut out of felt. Simple but made them so much more special! 

Thanks for stopping by! Happy Crafting!

Upcycle! Diy girls skirt from old hoodie!

I love to upcycle! Partly because I'm a creative spirit, and love to make things, and then also because I have a problem throwing anything away.

I had this Cabela's hoodie which I loved. It had barely been worn when I got wood glue (which never would come out despite all my pinterest stain removal efforts) all over the sleeve. I kept it for over a year (because I cant throw things away, remember). Whilst making an effort to get rid of some old winter wear I drug it back out, and came up with this cute idea... a skirt for my big girl!

I started simply with the sweat shirt

(notice i already started chopping then thought... may want pics of this) 

Then i cut the bottom off

 (I left alot above pocket for it to be approx knee length, would look even cuter, shorter)

I also cut the string part of the hood off, with about 1.5" of fabric in tact to be the waist band ( you may have to use something else, but this fit my girl perfect... and its an instant drawstring if it were too big.

 I turned the skirt part inside out and marked an inch or so wider than the waist of a nice fitting skirt on either side, and sewed in a straight line (or straight as I could) from that mark to the hem band on either side.

I sewed the hoodie string part into a circle right sides together to finish the waistband,

and marked the middle and both sides of it, and the skirt body with pins and pinned them both together, right sides together.

I then sewed these two pieces together (I used my new serger. eekkk!! best gift ever) stretching them out as I went so they were the same size.

Then just turned inside right, and ironed the seams down....Voila!!

  Adorable with tights, and my girl said its super comfy! Win win!

Diy play birthday cake

DIY Play Cake

I've made several different play foods out of felt for my kiddos to play with, but the one thing they needed most was a cake. They are always throwing birthday parties for each other and what not, and I wanted to make one for them.  

I made one myself out of only felt. . . well. . . it didnt hold shape, so as i looked online for how to fix it (and i did, ill post it later hopefully) I found this tutorial here at she wears flowers for one using a hat box. I loved the idea of one with storage for decorations, but didnt have a hat box, or the metal for the outside of it, but to my surprise while searching my craft pile, i found this old cookie tin and thought YES same idea, minus having to cut metal!!

The idea:  wrap the tin in felt to look like a cake, make felt decorations that can store inside it, add magnets to the decorations and they stick on the cake. . . awesome, right!!

First, cover the cake! I wanted it to be chocolate, so  found a nice brown and cut a strip (or two) the same width as the depth of the tin, sewed them together to the right circumference (to fit snug) 

Next, turn this brown circle inside right, and slip over the tin.

Important:  The tin needs to close, so make sure you leave the space at the top that the lids comes down to uncovered.  Extra will hang over bottom.

Wrap that extra around the bottom and hot glue it in place

Next cut a circle a bit bigger than the lid, and hot glue it on so it touches the rim 

mine was a little short but thats ok, im adding a ruffle 

 I saw instructions for making the felt ruffle HERE (she wears flowers)

after making the ruffle, (well several sewed together long enough to go around) I glued it on the rim of the lid like so:

I made sure it hung over a little that way it would cover up any gap i may have had in the felt

see how cute!! 

 I liked the ruffle so much i decided to make another for the bottom of the cake too, to more resemble the piped decorative icing on a real cake.

Bottom and top of cake 

And then what the kids loved best. . . the decorations!!

For the candles theres a better turorial here.

I just cut the little flame shapes out of red and yellow felt and glued them together with hot glue, then took a 2" square and rolled it up, glued the end to together, glued flame atop, and a round magnet on bottom :)

felt sticks to felt, so i cut random shapes out for them to stick on the cake

i made theses flowers of felt and glued a magnet on bottom

see, here is a cute cake to have with tea, 

and here is a birthday cake for all their parties!!

 and what i like best. . . all decorations store inside !!

DIY Snowman Kit

This idea came from a post on pinterest that you can find Here

Materials Needed:
craft dowels (or old pencils lol)
Sculpey Clay in assorted colors

Just as in the tutorial above, I sculpted all pieces out of sculpey, baked about 20 min at 275 degrees, and glued to sticks (to stick in snowman)

I followed that almost exactly, except that I didn't have dowels on hand, so i used old pencils,

I crumpled a small piece of aluminum foil in the shape of a carrot and covered it with the clay so it wasn't such a thick piece of clay (called bulking out) , and I baked my eyes and buttons flat, and hot glued the pencils on later.

This shows my old chewed on pencils hot glued to back of eyes and buttons

what pieces looked like when done

(I also lightly sealed it with Pledge with Future Acrylic Floor Finish)

We had our first good snow last night, so we got to use our kit this morning!

Just add any old hat and a scarf and there you go! Cutest snowman on the block!!

Old Top Repurposed!!

So, I had this cute short sleeve sweater. . . Which is much too tight.  This is why in the pic I chose to hold it up to me, rather than try it on. LoL.

Using my creative mind, I decided to repurpose it!! Meaning, I decided to transform it from an old ill fitting sweater, into a cute girls sweater dress.

First (no pic of this sorry), I put it over my girl, and pinched the sides together to get an idea of how much smaller it need to be.  I pinched up a bit more than an inch on either side.


I laid the dress flat, inside out and sewed a seam down each arm as shown below (about
 same as I had pinched together on her earlier)

Make sure if you do this that you round out the underarm, and cut the excess off as close to the seam under the arm as possible, so it lays right when turned back inside right.

Once sewn down both sides, trim excess close to seam, and turn inside right.

It was a hit! She loved the dress!

Tie Applique tutorial!!!

This tutorial is for the matching brother shirt. The skirt and ruffle shirt are in previous posts. . . feel free to share.

First pick out a tee shirt, and material for tie.

I also used Heat Bond (got it at walmart ;) ) as my fusable backing

draw out your pattern on paper (size will depend on your liking and shirt length)

this is mine. . . feel free to copy it. . . it was roughly 9" long

cut into two pieces and place on tee to make sure you like its size

cut out a piece of fabric and a piece of fuseable material, and iron the heatbond to the back side of the material

place pattern pieces upside down (because you are on back side) on fuseable backing and trace them

cut pieces out and peel paper backing off. . . place on tee

iron into place

could be done here. . . this heat bond says it doesn't need sewn, but i like the finished look

run around all edges with small close zigzag stitch

tada! adorable, right?