Super Hero Cape Tutorial

This tutorial is WAYYYYY long over due.  Since Nathan's birthday last year when I made 7 capes, I've made 11 more!!  Here is a quick tutorial on how to do it.  Anyone who can sew a straight line can do it!

1.  My mom helped me design these.  We started with two colors of fabric, one for the outside and one for the lining.  First, cut both pieces of fabric into 21" by 20" squares.

The fabric is folded in half here, so that the angles would be symmetrical.

2.  Cut the bottom into a point with the shortest section being 17" and the bottom section being about 3" wide. 

Does that help?  Yuck, I can see my old Blackberry in this pic!

3.  Print out a Superman emblem onto a full size of paper and cut it out.

Found via Google Images

4.  Pin the paper emblem to your desired color of felt and cut out the felt.  If you are going to use an embroidery machine to stitch names onto the emblem, iron stabilizer on the back.   If you don't have an embroidery attachment, you can leave the emblem blank and buy stick-on stars or other shapes to have kids decorate their own capes, or use stick-on felt letters to spell out the kids' names. The possibilities are really endless here.

5.  Pin the completed emblem onto the top piece of fabric and, using a zig-zag stitch, sew the emblem to the fabric.

6.  Next, pin both pieces of fabric together, wrong sides together.  Make sure to pin where you will leave a hole to accommodate the tie string.  I just eyeballed it to go a couple inches above the top of the emblem.  I wanted the emblem to be in the middle of the child's back and wanted a little bit of a collar to ruffle at the top.

7.  Start to sew in straight stitches, leaving a 1/4 inch seam.  When you get to these pins as you are sewing, backstitch to make sure it wouldn't unravel in the wash or anything, jump to the next pin and backstitch again.  Make sure to leave a hole in the cape in order to turn it right side out.

8.  Turn it right side out and iron the seams flat.

 

9.  Next, top stitch all the way around, skipping over the holes for the tie string again.  You will then stitch across the top of the cape, from one side of the little hole to the other, making a track for the tie string to stay in.  (Note: It looks like I had sewed along the entire edge, but I just hadn't snipped the string that jumps across the start and finish of the hole yet.  You will need that hole to be open in order to thread the string through.)

10.  The last step is to thread your string through the track.  I have used ribbon and I have also used binding tape (folded in half and stitched closed).  Then secure, you can use a cord stop on each side, or you can ruffle up the collar to your desired effect and stitch the ends of the track closed.  Stitching it closed makes it not adjustable, but I don't really think that matters too much.  Nathan's cape is stitched closed and he doesn't mind that he can't adjust it.

Happy cape making!!

Decorating capes at Nathan's birthday last year

Wearing the completed capes

Running in the neighborhood to save the day!

Finished cape from my Craft It Forward project

Do you have any little ones who would like a super hero cape?  Who is YOUR favorite super hero?  Maybe you can just make one for yourself!  Or by like my friend and make one for your dog! :)

Homemade Crayons!

Here is a fun easy project I've been doing for a couple of years with Nathan's and my student's broken crayons!  I used to just throw away broken crayons.  Now I save them, Hoarders style, in a big yellow bucket.

When I am ready to make crayons, I have to peel the labels off.  This takes awhile so I plop myself on the couch with a good movie or a date with the DVR, and get to work.

I then sort the crayons into like colors.  I only do the rainbow colors.  So all the shades of blue go into  the blue pile.  I then get out my crayon supplies: a small metal pot and small metal bowl, both from Goodwill.  I also have a hot pad that I use just for crayons, a skewer to stir the melted wax, an old towel to set out on the counter to catch any drips, paper towels to wipe out the metal bowl, and plastic molds to pour the wax into.  Some of the plastic molds I have are soap molds, some are chocolate molds, and some are lollipop molds.  I've gotten them at Michaels, Joanns, and Amazon.

I set the pot and metal bowl up as a double boiler, with water in the pot and the sorted crayons in the bowl. 

I wait until they are all melted, then using the hot pad, I pour the wax into the plastic molds. 

I allow them to completely cool.  Sometimes if I want them to cool faster, I put the mold in the refrigerator. 

Here is the process again, but with green.  Put the crayons in the bowl.

Using the skewer, stir until completely melted.

When finished pouring the wax into the molds, wipe out the bowl with a paper towel to get rid of all of the green residue and to get ready for a new color. 

 

That's it!  I made Super Hero crayons as part of the goodie bags for Nathan's birthday a couple of weeks ago.  I plan to make crayons for the kids' table at my brother-in-law's wedding in May, and I always send my students home for the summer with some homemade crayons.  This year they will be getting little paw prints, since we are the Mill Park Panthers.  It'll be so cute!

Super Nate Turns 5!

We had Nathan's Birthday party this Saturday over at Bliss Bake Shop in Bethany Village in NW Portland.  My mother in law took Ben and I to a crab feed dinner at her church and we bid on a birthday party package at the silent auction.  We ended up getting it!  Bliss was great - so adorable, awesome staff, and delicious cupcakes.  I highly recommend!

The theme was Super Heros, since Nate has been into them for awhile.  His big Christmas present last year was a Bat Cave, he was Iron Man for Halloween, and he got Trio Batman and Joker sets for Christmas this year.  I made his invitations with the Paintbrush application on my Mac (I wish I had photoshop!)  It turned out cute!  It took FOREVER to crop his picture.  I hung a white sheet over the baker's rack in our laundry room for a backdrop.  His outfit is Superman jammies with a velcro cape.

The treat bags were really fun.  I ordered the bags from Groovy Holidays.  I had a coupon for $20 off from Mamapedia Sweet Deals.  I filled the bags with Iron Man and The Hulk Silly Bandz, homemade Batman and Superman crayons (more on those later!), Batman notepads from the dollar section at Target, Spiderman stickers, and a Super Hero Squad figurine.  The kids were pumped about all the fun loot!

I had one bag leftover and am going to use it as a pattern to make more.  They are just sewn from felt.  Should be really easy to re-create.  And with my new embroidery attachment, I could personalize them!

I also made little cupcake toppers for the party.  Unfortunately, I forgot to put them on!  Here they are on the two leftover cupcakes after the party.  A good idea, too bad I forgot!  I found the graphics for free on a blog, but don't remember where and now I can't find it!  If you want the graphics, I have them saved on my computer.

I also whipped up a quick bunting flag of all of Nathan's birthdays.  I used a big circle punch to cut the pictures and taped them on in the car on the way to the bake shop!  

 This was the photo we used for his birth announcement.  Such a sweet little baby.

 Here are birthdays 1 and 2.  We still have that little crown.  It's now on a stuffed animal!

 Here are birthdays 3 and 4.  I'm excited to keep adding to this each year!  Maybe I'll make fabric flags and permanently adhere the pictures.  What a fun keepsake!

Last, but not least, were the Super Hero capes!!  My mom helped me make them and they turned out adorable!  I made various colors and let the kids pick which they wanted.  I also bought stick-on felt stars and let the kids decorate the Superman-esque emblems on the back.  Originally, I was going to put each child's initial on the emblem, but then I wasn't sure who was all going to come, so I didn't want to make extra work for myself!  This worked out great.  The kids loved decorating their own.  Here are Nate, Cody, Oliver and Audrey playing in the kid's area of the bake shop.  The boys were running wildly, letting their capes fly in the wind!

Here is my big 5 year old boy, with his special Batman cupcake!

 And a cute pic of Audrey.  She now loves Oreos!

That's it!  The kids had fun and so did I! All in all, I'd say it was a success!

Clown Costume

My friend Kristin asked me to sew her daughter Noelle a clown costume a couple of months ago.  I said yes, even though I've never done a sewing project that big before.  Kristin picked out and bought all the fabric and the pattern and sent it down to me from the Seattle area.

When I got started, I knew I would need some help.  So, I enlisted my mother-in-law Patsy.  She is a master seamstress and quilter.  I knew this project would be a cake-walk for her.  She helped me for quite awhile on the first day and we got everything cut out, attached my first zipper (yay!), and got the sleeves and pant leg all finished on the pink side of the costume.  The next day I did the other half of the costume and the neck line.  Doing this part by myself was hard and I let out a few choice words as I ripped out seam after seam of mistakes.  However, I prevailed, and the blue side looks pretty darn close to the pink side. 

The third day I made the yarn pom poms and the neck collar.  On the last day I made the hat, boxed it up, and sent it off back to Mill Creek, WA.  Kristin got it in the mail a couple days later and voila!  Here's the costume hanging in my dining room after I had finished adding the pom poms.

 And here's Noelle showing it off!  She may need to wear it next year too, because I'm sure it will still fit! :)

I'm pretty happy with my first big sewing project.  Have you sewed a Halloween costume before?  What did you make?  Maybe I'll get some inspiration for my next project! :)

TOOO Cute Dollhouse

Alright, who's going to help me??  I found a super easy and totally adorable dollhouse tutorial over at Nicegirlnotes.com.  It's made out of an old nightstand, some scrapbook paper, and mod podge.  It's so my kind of project: easy and doesn't take long!  I just might have to make one of these puppies for Audrey to play with in a couple years!