Commissioned: banner, bag-o and bench seat

Here are a few commissioned projects I haven't yet blogged about:

These aren't great pictures, but I made a 'Here Comes the Bride' banner for a friend's wedding. Two little boys carried it down the aisle just before Megan and her daddy walked down the aisle. I hope the photographer got a good shot of this banner with the bride in the background! I actually ended up using iron transfer letters for this because that's what I had in hand. If I had thought about it more I would have purchased some iron-on black vinyl and used my Silhouette machine to cut the letters out.

 My boss was having a tailgate and couldn't find his cornhole/bag-o bags, so I made him some. They are really easy! I followed this tutorial. Before I sewed the bags together, I freezer paper stenciled the hogs on. I used my Silhouette to cut out the hogs. I purchased the corn feed from a local farm supply company for super cheap.

 I sewed this bench seat cushion for a friend's sister. That thick foam is expensive! I price shopped for quite  a while and ended up buying it from Hancock Fabrics when they had a 54% off sale. {why 54...why not 50 or 55?}  I used an electric cutting knife to trim it to the size I needed then followed this tutorial for the cover. I would say this is an intermediate-advanced project. If you take it slow you will be fine...there's just a lot of fabric on your machine at one time and some angles to work with. 

Mizzou's Centennial Homecoming

Sean and I traveled back to Columbia for Mizzou's 100th homecoming this past weekend. We weren't sure what it would feel like to be back in Columbia, but we LOVED it! Running into familiar faces everywhere we went was refreshing. It felt comfortable to be back on campus and surrounded by black and gold.

We went to house decs on Friday night. For those of you who attended Mizzou, they aren't quite as impressive anymore. Rightfully so they have cut back on the amount of pomping - I mean...those were ridiculously time consuming and expensive anyways. I'm glad they've done that, but they're not quite as much fun to see anymore.

The parade, however, was great! This float was my favorite - my super sweet 16 themed.

After the parade we popped into the new bookstore to buy a couple of things then headed to my sorority house for a brunch. Look at my tan-tastic headshot below. Not sure how I even got that dark and am slightly embarrased that picture will be up in the house forever.

A good family friend graciously let us sit with him at the game. The weather was beautiful (we actually got a little sunburned)! 

 This is a picture from inside the new student commons center - it's really impressive! Tons of room for student to hang out, study and grab a meal in between classes. They did a great job integrating Mizzou traditions into the new facility.

 Last but not least we dropped in HyVee. Oh, how we miss this place! I really didn't realize what I was missing  until we went back in - their selection is SO big and prices are good. With the Wal Mart national headquarters in NWA, that's pretty much our only option here. Sean plans to write a letter to HyVee asking them to expand into our area. I'm sure they'll listen. :)

 We also spent time with old friends, went to The Crossing on Sunday morning and dropped in the new Goodwill store {it's the nicest one I've ever been to!}. We have no idea where we will end up after Sean finishes school in May, but Columbia is definitely on the list of places we might like to be! 

DIY Camping Party Invitations

These are some party invitations I made for a 10 year girls birthday party and they turned out pretty stinking cute. Since the theme is camping I had the idea to make each invite a s'mores kit.

With some inspiration from the web, I grabbed the clip art from thinkstock.com, downloaded a font called Pinewood and used Publisher to put it together.

Front:

 Back:

 For the actual invites I used vellum envelopes from Hobby Lobby. I printed off the above design on cardstock, filled the envelopes with s'mores goodies, then stapled the topper to the envelope. I used tape to secure the envelope shut.

 You probably want to assemble these close to when you hand them out so the graham crackers and marshmallows stay yummy.

 These will be fun invitations to hand out at school! With just $10 and less than an hour's time, these cute DIY s'mores invitations add a special touch to party!

Baby shower - DIY elements

This past weekend I hosted my first baby shower for a friend here in Fayetteville. Here are the invites I made - based off an idea I found on pinterest.

As my gift to the new-mom-to-be I painted this door sign. It acted as door decor for the shower, but can also hang on her hospital door when little Caleb is born. I left room for them to write in his stats after he makes his appearance. I really like how this turned out. It's just a $5 canvas from Hobby Lobby that I painted. I used a sharpie for his name and the Bible verse, but will probably use my Silhouette to cut out vinyl/heat transfer on the next version for additional precision.

 Welcome baby banner.

 I made some tissue paper poms (see tutorial here) and some paper pinwheels (see tutorial here) to hang above the food table. The thing to remember about the paper pinwheels is that the larger the diameter of the circles, the longer the strips of pleated paper will need to be. Hot gluing the circles to the front and back centers provides stability.

This was one of my favorite parts of the shower! I set up a onesie decorating station with freezer paper stencils. Here's a good tutorial on freezer paper stenciling. I googled various boy friendly shapes, imported them into my Silhouette software to trace their outline then used the machine to cut out the freezer paper stencils. I hung them on some fishing line with mini clothespins from Hobby Lobby. Other items I had out:

iron and ironing board

fabric paint

foam brushes

paper plates

blow dryer 

instruction sheet

The guests loved this!  

 I bought a couple packs of onesies and blank bibs for the guests to decorate. Note on the blank bibs: when heat setting the fabric paint, don't hold the iron in one place too long b/c the bibs have a plastic backing that could melt.

 See all of their adorable creations?!

 I also had a stack of diapers out with sharpies for guests to write encouraging notes for the new mommy and daddy.

 Overall it was a success! I think Mandy felt loved and cared for - she's got a great support network of friends and family in the area, which I'm sure she will appreciate as she starts her family! 



Sewing Essentials

September is National Sewing Month! Oh, how I love learning more about sewing and making homemade gifts for friends!

Hop on over to the Sew Mama Sew blog for a list of seven sewing essentials and links to multiple tutorials. They include:

1. Pre-washing fabric

2. Taking your measurements

3. Pressing

4. Seam finishing

5. Sewing zippers

6. Buttons and buttonholes

7. Hemming

I know how tempting it can be to take shortcuts during a sewing project - sometimes I'm just so excited to see the finished product that I'm not as careful as I should be. Something important I have learned since I started sewing is to do projects in small increments when necessary. If I try and take on too much I will rush through a project and almost always make some sort of silly mistake. These tips really do help to encourage your sewing abilities and make your finished products look more professional. Try something new this month!

DIY crib bedding

When a friend of mine told me she was going to have a baby boy I volunteers to sew her crib bedding for her and it was time consuming, but a lot of fun. Here are some details and lessons learned on the project: 

I started out following this tutorial for the bumpers. After thinking about it, I wasn't crazy about the rounded edges or that each bumper was a separate piece, so I went in a different direction. That tutorial, though, did talk me through the process of sewing my own piping. Custom piping really adds a finished look to the project and was really easy to do! The new mom to be picked out all of the fabric with a little bit of my input.  

I purchased crib bumper pads from JoAnn Fabrics with a coupon. They look like this. Another way to do this would be to recover an existing crib bumper set, which I think would be easier to manage and you could use the previous one as a pattern for the new fabric. I would measure the distance for the bumper ties and sew them on to the outside fabric before assembling the cover. I forgot to do this and had to hand sew the bumper ties on.

For some reason I can't find the exact crib skirt tutorial, but here's one that pretty easy to follow.

Here's the crib bumper set up in my room and after I added the razorback and monogram, cut from my Silhouette machine and applied with fusible interfacing. You might also choose to do this step before you assemble the bumper covers. I wasn't sure where I was going to place it at that time, so I ironed it on later.

Here's the bedding in Caleb's crib!  

 I also sewed a coordinating valence, which turned out super cute. I took the window width + 12 inches {3 inches on either side of window to allow for valence bar, and 6 inches in the middle for the pleat} x 15" long. I sewed the pocket at the top, tacked the pleat, and ironed it down a bit to ensure a crisp pleat. My serger made the crib skirt and valence project go much quicker than if I would have had to hem all sides, but it's definitely possible.  

I would say that this project would be at an intermediate level. The hardest part was measuring out all of the pieces for fabric amounts and cutting. Just give yourself plenty of time so you can work at a leisurely pace and take breaks when you need to. There are so many adorable fabrics out there and this is a great way to personalize your little one's room!

A few Silhouette SD projects

I can't tell you how much I love my Silhouette machine. It's so versatile! You just download the Silhouette software from their website and connect the machine to your comp with a USB cord. It can be used to cut heat transfer material, paper, fabric, vinyl, etc. The software is really easy to use and has an interface pretty similar to Word. Here are a few of the projects I have done so far:

I did another upgrade to our front door wreath {it has gone through many changes over the past couple of years}. For this I used Silhouette's flocked white heat transfer material and it worked like a charm. I purchased the heat transfer starter pack from their website and it came with a few different colors. One of the coolest things about the Silhouette software is that you can import any image or font you want to use!

It's kind of hard to see in this picture, but I  imported the Razorback image, traced it and cut it out on fabric. I just iron fabric to one side of fusible interfacing then place that on the thick cut mat with the paper backing still attached. I put the settings on a slow cut speed and it works great! One time there were little pieces that didn't cut all the way through, but I just used an exacto knife to help with that. Then, just peel the paper backing off of your new shape, iron on to fabric and stitch around edge for added durability.

Silhouette does sell their own fusible interfacing for fabric, but for this I just used good old Wonder Under and it worked great.

 This is the same razorback shape and I also cut the monogram out of fabric. I will post this crib bumper project next.

  Another great use for the Silhouette is to cut freezer paper to use for a stencil! It's so accurate and can cut shapes that would take for-ev-er with just a craft knife in just mere seconds. The monogram onesie below is an example of this. I did also make a couple of other precious onesies for a friend's new baby girl, but forgot to take pictures.

The Silhouette is coming out with a new model next month that can cut patterns up to 12" wide {as opposed to the current 8.5"}. I haven't found a need for the wider cutting capabilities myself, but others seem to be really excited about it.