Jersey Knit Bracelet

This afternoon I was watching the movie Austrailia with my dad and I decided to attempt a craft. I have been wanting to try this bracelet for a while, and since it required very few supplies, I decided it would be a good one to try this afternoon. I used my left over jersey knit fabric from my Bow Tie Top. 


The tutorial was super confusing to me, so it was good I had a movie to distract me. I redid this bracelet about 6 times. I decided to weave on 2 fingers because I liked the look of that bracelet. Since I did a simpler weave and I have tiny wrists I was able to get away with using only 1 strip of jersey fabric 1" wide and about 58" long. 

The only supplies required!

My first attempts to follow the tutorial were a mess. I couldn't understand the directions, but I also couldn't describe a better way to do it, so if you want to do it, stop by and I will demonstrate. :) I was so frustrated and kept starting over. My dad felt sorry for me and offered to let me weave the bracelet on his fingers if it would be easier. haha! 

This is not the correct way- it was a HOT mess

Totally uneven!

Undoing my work again!

Eventually I got the hang of it but my first bracelet was unevenly woven so I pulled it apart and started again. I used the extra strip I cut at the beginning and made a second bracelet. I think I would like this bracelet more in a brighter color but for now the black is okay, and it matches the ring I made yesterday. 

Also, good things are coming next week. I am going to make "The Awesome Bag" check it out on my pinterest. It involves a lot of complicated sewing and making 10 buttonholes; it should make for some good blogging!


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T-Shirt Ring

My friend Megan came over today to craft. Her one request was something that didn't involve any sewing, so I found this ring on Pinterest that required no sewing. This craft only requires a piece of felt, an old t-shirt (or new), a toothpick and a glue gun. Anna generously donated a t-shirt to the cause if I agreed to make her a ring too, so I purchased nothing for this craft.


The tutorial is a little vague with instructions so I was a little worried about it not turning out, but it is a very 'forgiving' craft. A little estimation and you are good to go! First we cut out a circle of felt to use as the base for the ring. Then cut out a bunch of circles of the t-shirt in about the same size as the felt circle. We chose to use a black t-shirt for this because it is versatile and can go with anything. :)

Next you take your glue gun, properly bunch it up over the toothpick, add a drop of glue and glue it to the felt. Megan really got into the technique of bunching the fabric properly. I love a good glue gun, but the glue gets everywhere.

Megan demonstrating the proper bunching technique!

After sufficiently gluing t-shirt circles to the felt, let it dry for about a minute, and then trim it up. I was a little nervous about trimming it, but it was no big deal. Also, it is so easy to make that if you mess up you can just start again.

Use a piece of the hem to make your 'ring'. I made mine slightly tighter than it needed to be as I figured it would stretch out over time.

Finally, glue the trimmed flower to the ring and you are finished. Megan and I made 4 of these in less an hour. The ring is super comfortable to wear, I consider it the yoga pants of rings.

I am considering what crafts to attempt next week, if you have requests that you would like me to try feel free to leave a comment. I think I may attempt some more sewing next week, but we will see what the week brings.


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Cute Coasters

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas! I have been slacking a bit in the crafting this week and have been catching up on reading instead. But have no fear crafting has started again! 


The inspiration came from multiple posts on Pinterest but I have linked you to the tutorial that we followed. Next time I want to try making the cut out version. 


There is no better way to start out a craft evening then with a glass of wine. Anna generously invited Caitlin and I over to her house to craft. We decided to make coasters as they seemed like they would be easy and inexpensive. We purchased your basic bathroom tiles at the Home Depot for a steal $0.16 a tile! Anna donated leftover scrapbook paper and Modge Podge for this craft. 

I haven't worked with Modge Podge since I tried to make 'beads' out of wrapping paper (it was an early craft attempt, the idea was taken from the American Girl magazine) in about 1995. All I remember from that craft was that the paper and Modge Podge turned into an icky sticky mess until my mom rescued me. This craft luckily wasn't too disastrous. 


First we selected paper and Anna quickly used her paper cutter to cut out squares in the exact size we needed them. One disaster avoided, I would have spent about 10 minutes fighting with the paper cutter and ended up with paper that would be too large or small. :)

Next we covered the back of the paper in a thin layer of Modge Podge and placed the paper carefully on the tile. This is a little tricky because you want to avoid getting air bubbles in the paper. Then cover the top of the paper with another THIN layer of Modge Podge and let it dry. Repeat the layers of Modge Podge two additional times. 

They key is to use THIN layers of Modge Podge and avoid air bubbles. Caitlin ended up with a large air bubble in one of her coasters at the end. We left the coasters at Anna's to dry overnight before spraying them with acrylic to put a final coat of protection on them. After that we need to add felt to the back of the tiles and Voila, cute coasters. The great thing about this craft is that it was super inexpensive, fun and easy to make. This is one craft I will definitely do again in the future. I will post an updated photo once they have been covered in acrylic and backed with felt. 

Air Bubbles- sorry Caitlin...we will get them out next time. 

Almost finished! 

Things at our house have been a little crazy so my mom and I are pushing back our sock monkey craft until next week. This afternoon I am going to attempt to make a ring out of t-shirt with my friend Megan, so look for that post later this week. 


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Quick Candle Holders!

Over the river and through the woods to Grandmothers house we go....

Crafting will be on hiatus for the next few days as I will be out of town for Christmas. Yesterday Anna (another lovely crafter and an awesome friend) and I did a quick and easy craft. We found the inspiration on Pinterest.

Basically you take clear simple vases put rubber bands on them and spray paint them to turn into candle holders. On Wednesday I went to the goodwill to find vases/glasses that would work for this craft. When I told my mom that, her first response was "Could you stand the smell?". Haha. Goodwill does have a nice aroma but it is worth it to get 5 vases for $5. Anna went to a different goodwill to find a few more vases. You will need completely clear vases or glasses, Anna purchased some with a flower design on them, and it still showed through at the end. In addition you will need to get spray paint, the example pinterest used white spray paint but I decided to purchase frosted glass spray paint.

Step 1: Wash and dry your glasses/vases

Step 2: Place the rubber bands on the glasses/vases

Step 3: Find a well ventilated area to spray paint, preferably not in your house, since it smells really bad. We chose my garage, with the garage door cracked. It was a balmy 27 degrees out yesterday, slightly chilly for this craft but it still worked out.

Step 4: Spray your glasses/vases with a coat of paint letting it dry for 5-10 minutes between each coat. We ended up doing 3 coats.

Step 5: Have patience! On our practice cup we were eager to see what it looked like so we moved the rubber bands and the paint got smeared. Instead let the vases/glasses dry completely for 30 minutes. I left mine in the garage for 30 minutes then brought them in the house and let them warm up and finish drying for another 30 minutes. Then just take off the rubber bands, drop in some candles and magic- you have awesome candle holders.

These are super cute and would make a great gift idea. Each vase/cup was about $1 at the goodwill and the spray paint was $3 (normally $6 at JoAnn but we used a 50% coupon). This was a very inexpensive craft, and almost fool proof.

Have a very Merry Christmas! Crafting Disasters will be back next week...right now making sock monkeys with my Mom is on the agenda, along with a few other crafts.

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"Simple" Bow Tie Top- Complete!

45 minutes of cutting, ironing and sewing and the shirt looks much better. It is something that I actually might wear now. I ended up making the shirt about 5 inches shorter and 4 inches narrower. 

What do you think, is this version better than the previous one? 


Next up are a couple of crafts that do not involve sewing, and hopefully take a little less time! 


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"Simple" Bow Tie Top- Part 2

Now when you see the words "part 2" at the top of this you may think, is there going to be a part 3? Oh yes there is. Technically the shirt is finished, just as the tutorial instructed but I hate it. So this morning I will be modifying the shirt in the hopes that I will actually wear it once. :)


So when I last left you the sewing machine was eating my fabric, my frustration was high and I was ready to chuck the sewing machine out the window. Monday evening my mom took a look at my 'technique' on the sewing machine, here is what we discovered:
1. The bobbin was threaded incorrectly, hence the eating of the material
2. Supposedly I was sewing on the wrong side of the fabric
3. The machine was not set on the right stitch
4. I wasn't remembering to reverse at the beginning and end of my sewing to keep the stitches in
The transgressions continued from there, so basically home-ec class had failed me (or maybe my effort in home ec class, my mom was one of the class volunteers and I am pretty sure she made my shorts herself-ha).


So after a quick 5 minute refresher course on the sewing machine, I started successfully sewing the shirt. It took me about an hour to make the top 'hem' as I call it, sew the sides, and hem the bottom of the shirt. At this point I basically have a large square of fabric. I have to say there is a certain amount of satisfaction when you actually use the sewing machine correctly.

My beautiful zig zag stitch!

So my dad was 'supervising' my sewing at the end, because I refused to be left alone with the machine in case there was a crisis, and he sees the shirt and starts laughing. Really hard. He make a comment that there is room for 4 people in it, and starts laughing harder, and at this point I think there are tears running down his face. Then my little brother comes in to see what is going on, and they both are giggling like toddlers. The support of my family is always reassuring.


Yesterday I was determined to finish the shirt, all I had to do was sew the fabric for the bow. My mom changed the thread, bobbin and stitch type before she left for work, so I could wrap this project up. I had decent success with this. I mean the two pieces were supposed to be the exact same size from when I cut them but, SURPRISE, they were about and inch different. I decided to just eye ball my sewing (enough measuring already) and it worked pretty nicely. I did almost forget to leave an opening to turn the fabric the right way but I remembered right at the end. The tutorial instructed to leave an 8" opening to do this, and then hand sew that shut. I hate sewing by hand, so I left about a 3" opening and it worked pretty good. The biggest thing about this fabric is that it frayed within 2 minutes of cutting it, and was everywhere. After some lovely ironing by my father, it actually looked like it was supposed to.

The fabric for the bow inside out, just need to trim off the extra fabric. 

Turned the right side out, kind of looks like a snake. 

Ironed, and actually looks like it should. 

 Finally the moment I had been waiting for, the shirt was almost done! I strung the fabric for the bow through the top of the shirt and tried it on. Well the arm holes were HUGE, so I quickly fixed those on the machine, and then tried it on again to see what I thought. I HATED it.

Front

Back

It doesn't look awful in the pictures but it is just way way too big. So today I am taking about 4" off the hem and making it about 5" narrower. Then I think it has a chance of actually making it out of the closet. The way it is now, any of my friends who are slightly shorter then me could wear it as a dress. It looks ridiculous!


I am planning on wrapping this project up today...so look for a post later of the finished project.


I am also planning on making a trip to JoAnn Fabric today to buy supplies for future crafts. If there is something from my Pinterest board you are dying to see me attempt, leave me a comment and you may see it sooner rather than later!

"Simple" Bow Tie Top- Part 1

So this morning was the day I had been waiting for, time to take out the sewing machine and put my middle school home-ec taught sewing skills to the test. Not to ruin the surprise but my 'skills' have failed me- more on that later.

The machine that outsmarted me today....

Here is a link to the tutorial I am attempting, Simple Bow Tie Top. I purchased the fabric for this project over Thanksgiving and I have been super excited to start this. The word simple was in the title so I figured it couldn't be that bad.


I got up early this morning prior to my mom leaving for work so she could give me some pointers on how to correctly cut the fabric. What else would she want to do on a Monday morning? She was a good sport and helped me cut the silver fabric for the bow before she left for work. I cut the black fabric for the shirt on my own, and I actually didn't mess it up. That of course is according to me, no one is home to tell me otherwise.

Cutting the silver fabric

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I have no idea how to thread a needle on the sewing machine. So I was pleasantly surprised to find black thread all ready to go on the machine. This meant I could attempt to sew while my family was at work today. First I ironed my black fabric and pinned a 2" hem thing (obviously my terminology could use some work). The fabric is super stretchy so it is 2"-ish...some places a little more, some a little less, but in my world good enough!

My 2"-ish hem, super straight- HA!

Next was sewing, I did a few practice runs on the extra fabric I had. The normal zig-zag stitch wasn't really looking good, so I switched the settings to something that looked like a little fancier zig-zag-ha. After doing about 40 practices runs (alright we know I don't have the patience for that, I actually did 4). I decided it was time to sew my shirt. I was so excited, I just wanted to finish the shirt today.


I started sewing, very slowly as my mom instructed, and I got nervous it wasn't going right. So I stopped to take a look (MISTAKE!). It was looking just fine but I couldn't get my fabric lined up correctly so I had to rip out about 3 inches of sewing which took 30 minutes. It was the ultimate test of patience because I didn't want to make holes in my fabric and the 'fancy' zig zag made a bunch of extra hidden stitches which were a pain to take out.

The fabric looks grey in this picture but you can see the poor sewing skills I have! 

Rethinking my choice of stitch, I decided to go back to the normal zig zag. Thank goodness I decided to practice on my extra fabric again because the machine ate my fabric and made holes in it. I wanted to throw the machine out the window, but since it is my mom's I decided that wasn't a great idea. She must have sensed my frustration across town as she decided to call at that point. After describing the situation, she suggested I put this craft on pause until she could assist. I agreed because at this point I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this craft.

The sewing machine ate my fabric......

I am heading to happy hour in 3 hours- thank goodness. Crafting is stressful. :)

Pearl Cluster Necklace in Action!

My mom, being the great mom that she is wore her new necklace when we went out to lunch today. :) Here is the finished product!

The First Attempt- Pearl Cluster Necklace

Each time I blog about a craft I will link you to the original tutorial or idea. I am in no way taking credit for the ideas of other people, or am I criticizing their tutorial in any way. I may make suggestions along the way of how to avoid my mistakes if you try the craft (think crafting for dummies) but other than that this is basically a journal of the disaster.


Here is a link to the tutorial for the first craft "Pearl Cluster Necklace"


I actually started this craft during my Thanksgiving break, but due to many unfortunate disasters, I did not get a chance to finish it. I braved the Black Friday crowds at JoAnn Fabric to buy all of the supplies for this craft, and I was super excited to start. I arrived home from JoAnn and I had approximately 40 minutes to craft before I needed to get ready to go to dinner with my friends. (Lesson one, only attempt a new craft when you have actual time to work on it). So I sit down prepared to whip out this necklace basically before dinner. HA! Within 5 minutes I exclaimed my deep hatred for beading crafts.


Step one of this tutorial (which I did not take pictures of, view tutorial above) is to put the headpins through the beads and twist them into loops. Well, that did not happen. The headpins I purchased I could bend in half, but I could not make the beautiful little loops that were supposed to be created. I tried this with 10 of my beads, each one more of a disaster then the previous. The next day I had lunch with one of my friends and she suggested we go to a local bead store (The Bead Monkey) to get some advice (good idea Maria). The staff was brilliant and I realized two things, first I didn't have the right type of pliers. For this project you need the round nose pliers and I had purchased the knotting pliers. Also, the saleslady showed me that they had thin, medium and thick headpins. I tried to make a loop with the thin headpin and round nose pliers and magic happened- it worked. I quickly purchased the roundnose pliers and thin headpins for this project For those of you in the Twins Cities be sure to visit The Bead Monkey for all of your bead related projects, their knowledge will help you to avoid many of the disasters I just described.


I went home and successfully made loops with all of my beads while watching a movie. Here is one  pictured below (I apologize for the poor quality picture):

While I was successful in making the loops, my fingers were screaming in pain from being poked by the headpins, and attempting to make these loops.


Next you are supposed to take groups of the beads and put them on a jump ring. I attempted to get these beads onto the jump ring and failed. I had purchased a "double jump ring" and I needed to purchase a single jump ring. I could not even get the double jump ring apart enough to get one bead on. Luckily, I had saved my packaging, packaged those babies right up and returned them (Ok, I confess I had a plane to catch back to Chicago, so my mom returned them and purchased the correct ones- Thanks Mom). I know I am 25, but thank goodness I have that women to help me out! Now you are up to date on where this craft was when I arrived home for Christmas Break (also known as 30 days of bliss).


So I finished this last part in about an hour...mind you it is 6am, and I decided it would be great to finish this craft while laying in bed. In retrospect, kind of a terrible idea as I had to get out of bed about 7 times to go downstairs to get various things to finish this craft, but it was still pretty comfy!


Tip if you are making this necklace- make sure the jump loops are completely closed after you add your cluster of beads otherwise they will start falling off once you start stringing the beads.


Here are all of my clusters- This was an easy part, I started getting a little cocky, in my head I am thinking, okay probably 10 minutes and I will be done. Then the beads started falling off the jump ring and I was brought back to reality.

Successfully strung all of the beads on the wire (I will admit, attempt 5 probably, a couple of false starts due to beads falling off).

Here is the finished product, I wish I would have made the ribbon a little longer, because the necklace is slightly shorter than I would like it.

This necklace if for my mom and later I will post a picture of her wearing it. I am tempted to wake her up and show her my creation, but it is only 7:30 on Saturday morning, so I will not be doing that.


This craft overall wasn't bad, I think I only threatened to quit it about 5 times. If you attempt, I wish you the best of luck!


The next craft project I am going to attempt involves sewing on the sewing machine. Since I don't even know how to thread the needle on the sewing machine, it is going to be interesting. Check back in a few days for the progress on that.


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