Earring Holder

While perusing Pinterest, I've noticed so many adorable earring holders lately.  I decided to make myself one! 

Here's one I loved, originally from I Heart Organizing:

And another one from A Girl and a Glue Gun:

I really liked the use of radiator screens from the top one and the fabric rosettes from the second one.  I decided to use a silver frame Ben's dad had given us that was sitting unused in our basement.  I then went to Home Depot and got a decorative radiator grate.  I had a guy at the store cut it into the dimensions I needed for my frame.  There was enough for him to cut two pieces.  I plan to use the second piece to make an earring holder for a friend as a gift.

I spray painted it white, since I thought this color would look ugly with my silver frame.  We already had a can of spray paint in the garage left over from painting little bird houses for my friend Carla's baby shower.  All I did was spray the grate white and pop it in the frame.

I then got to work making the fabric rosettes.  Here are my supplies:

I started off with this tutorial from Little Birdie Secrets.  She has you use fabric glue and 1 inch wide strips of fabric.  She suggested ripping the fabric to create long pieces of threads coming off the fabric.  I tried that, but it didn't rip very well.  I ended up washing and drying my strips, then ironing them flat.  This made it look a little more rugged.  As per the tutorial, you tie a knot in the end of a strip of fabric, and twist and wind around itself to create the flower, gluing every few centimeters as you go.  I made two flowers with this technique, one a little bigger than the other.

I then switched over to a tutorial from Lillyella: Uniquely You.  In the directions, you wrap your fabric strip around a skinny piece of cardboard.  I used the side of an empty spaghetti box - work with what you got!  You then iron the fabric to get creases in it.  Then, you remove the cardboard and wrap the fabric around a pencil.  When you remove the pencil, you can form it into a rosette.  Go to the original blog for better pictures and directions.  Lillyella does a much better job at explaining this than I do!

The next step was hot gluing the rosettes to my frame, adding earrings, and hanging it in my bathroom! 

 I love how it turned out!  I layered the last rosette on top of the first two, since it was poufier (is that a word??) 

 Here is a close up of the flowers.  You can see the raw edges of the fabric, which I like.  It would be cute to add a little pearl bead in the middle of the biggest rosette, too.  I think I'll stop here, though.

Here is a close up of another corner, so you can see the pattern of the metal sheet and the thin frame I used. 

Here is a breakdown of cost:
Frame - free
Metal sheet - $18 (a little steep, but there was enough to make two frames)
White spray paint - already had
Fabric rosettes - already had the glue and fabric

Total cost: $9, since I plan to make another one as a gift for a friend.

How do you store your earrings?  Would you use an earring holder like this? 

Happy Birthday Nash!

Today was my awesome friend Katie's son's first birthday!  Katie is seriously one of the funniest people I know.  However, everytime I hang out with her, I am blown away by not only her quick wit but how she takes everything in stride and focuses on what really matters.  I mean, the birthday boy himself was an hour late to the party and she didn't even flinch!  "A boy's got a nap," she said.  I, for one, would have been freaking out saying "Ohmygawd, people want to see the baby, but he's not here, ohmygawd!"  Thank you Katie, you are an inspiration to control-freak, anal-retentive moms such as myself! :)

But on to more important things - like what the cutie-patootie birthday boy wore!  :)

The theme for the party was mushrooms, butterflies, and forest friends.  It was adorable!  Katie made a cupcake stand by wrapping soup cans with wood grained contact paper and layering them with cut wood rounds.  She made adorable cupcakes with red frosting, and upside-down white chocolate chips so they looked like little mushrooms.  She then placed these adorable thin, edible butterflies on top that she had gotten on Etsy (they looked like these, however I'm not sure which vendor she used).  I was in love with the cuteness.  So with all these mushrooms and foresty things going on, Nash (the baby) needed a matching shirt - enter me.

 I looked at some mushroom graphics on Google Images to get an idea of what shape to make.  I then cut it out of the fabric (bought the red, but already had the brown and the felt).  The next step is ironing on the fusible interfacing, cutting out, and ironing it onto my 18 month old shirt from Target.  I zig-zag stitched around each piece, using red thread for the top and brown for the bottom.  I then eye-balled and cut out the 1.  I straight stitched him onto the middle of the mushroom with white thread.  The 1 looks a little long, but I wanted it to be the length of the mushroom.  In retrospect, I wish I would have made the mushroom squatter and shorter, so the 1 could fill the space and not be so skinny.  Oh well, I still love it.

Here is baby Nash and his beautiful mama.  Sorry about the terrible iPhone pics.  Like I said earlier, Nash was woken from his slumber to attend his party, so he was a little groggy.  But, he's still handsome!

And here are Nate and Audrey playing with Nash in the soda bucket.  They were enamored with the ice cubes.

Happy birthday, Nash!  We are so glad that we could help make your day special!

Handmade Gift Exchange

I signed up for this summer's Handmade Gift Exchange, hosted by the lovely Linda over at Craftaholics Anonymous. 

I emailed back and forth with my amazing partner Kris and learned a bit about her.  She's a nurse and a mom.  She lives in Tennessee and loves to sew.  She has a couple of the patterns from Sew Liberated, but offered to make me anything I wanted!  I decided on a nice tote bag for bringing things to and from school.  Teachers can never have enough bags!  When it arrived this week, I couldn't believe it - it's so beautiful and so me!

 

Don't you just love the fabrics Kris used?  I love bright colors and love the patterns she chose for my bag.

Here is a close up of the darling flower pins she added to the bag.  I love that they coordinate, but I could also take them off and pin them on a jacket or scarf as a brooch.  So smart!

She also wrapped the bag up in adorable pink tissue and tied it with lime green tulle.  I wish I would have taken a picture, but I was just so excited to open it that the picture didn't happen.

Here is the gift I made for Kris, all wrapped up and ready to send off.  I made a little ribbon bow and hot glued the wooden martini tile to the center, just as some decoration.  I think it turned out cute.  I tied the gift with twine.

I made Kris two gifts, actually.  I was only planning on making her the oven mitt (see below), but as soon as I saw the bag she made me and the attention to detail she put into it, I had to give her something else as well.  She made the coordinating pins, sewed three pockets inside the bag, chose adorable fabric, and she is such an amazing seamstress.

Here is the oven mitt I made her.  The pattern is from The New Homemade, a sewing book that I love.  It's perfect for novices like me who want to learn about sewing.  It has tons of easy and useful projects - they are perfect for gifts. 

This side is the quilted side.  I now know terms such as "stitch in the ditch" and how to use a "walking foot" for my sewing machine.  I sound so smart and cool.

Here is the other side, with the patterned fabric.  I loved this fabric when I saw it at The Fabric Depot - a HUGE fabric store in SE Portland (it's amazing and overwhelming at the same time!)  I loved the graphic-ness of the polkadots, the cute pink, magenta, and teal colors (kinda retro, right??)  And there are even little forks and spoons on it.  So perfect for a kitchen item.  It was literally begging me to make an oven mitt out of it.

 

Here is the inside.  It shows the liner is one of the fabrics from the quilted side.  I even made my own binding out of coordinating fabric.  I bought a teal binding tape in case it didn't turn out.  I really need to work on binding things.  It's hard to sew it even and hard to finish it off at the end without it puckering.  Sorry Kris, it's not perfect.

 

Here is Kris' bonus gift.  I pulled out corks from Oregon wines and made her a cork picture frame.  It was actually my husband's idea to cut some of the wine stained ends off and glue those on.  What a crafty guy!  I think it turned out awesome.

I even made the little sign inside with a free downloaded font.  I wanted the picture to tie in the colors from the oven mitt.

 I hope my partner loves it as much as I loved making it for her!  I will for sure do this again in the future, it was so fun!

Keep Calm

Is it just me, or are the Keep Calm and Carry On signs everywhere?  For Valentine's day it was Keep Calm and Love On.  For Thanksgiving: Keep Calm and Gobble On.  And even for St. Patrick's Day I saw Keep Calm and Pinch On. 

Well, I'm not so into pinching, especially with 1st graders, so I decided to make one of my own: Keep Calm and Read On.  I actually saw it in a classroom my team was observing to learn more about Daily 5 and CAFE.  I thought it was adorable and would be easy to re-create.

I put it in a clear sheet protector and, using packing tape, taped it to the side of a bookshelf in my classroom library.  I love it and so do the kids!  I might print another one to display in our large Expedit shelf - It would look great in a white frame!

Make sure to leave a comment with your email address and I will email it to you.  If you'd like it in a different color, just let me know!

What other Keep Calm signs have you seen?

Edit: I just uploaded several new colors to my Scribd account and also pinned them on my Pinterest account.  Thanks!

Giraffe Diaper Cake

I went to a baby shower last week that had jungle animals on the invitation.  So, I thought a giraffe themed diaper cake would be adorable!  My idea was to find a giraffe print fabric for the burp cloth and matching onesie.  I thought the mom would love how graphic it was and that it wouldn't be too babyish.  She also doesn't know what she's having, so the giraffe print would be gender neutral.  I ended up finding a perfect giraffe print flannel at my fav Fabric Depot (where I've gone for fabric for this project and this project).  Here is the onesie and matching burp cloths I made:

I decided to put a star on the onesie, thinking it would be a good graphic for a boy or a girl.  I also sewed on the new fabric labels I just got for my Etsy shop, Pic-Nik Designs.  I got them here.  Super fast shipping from Australia, great prices, and wonderful customer service.  If you want to get customized fabric labels, I highly recommend them!

Back to the diaper cake.  Since the new mommy and daddy-to-be live in Kentucky and requested gifts to be travel friendly, I only made them a one tier cake.  I used a half pack of Seventh Generation diapers and gave them the other half in a  gift bag (so they would see which brand and size the diapers are).  I wrapped the diapers with some giraffe printed ribbon I found at Joann Fabrics and added some green washcloths, folded to look like flowers (I knew from their registry they were going with a gender neutral green color palate for the nursery).  I also added a yellow stuffed giraffe from Target that has a little wind-up thing on the side to make it play lullabies (kinda like this one) and a little giraffe rattle from Babies R Us. This is kinda like the rattle.  Maybe I couldn't find the original one online because I had bought it in the store a couple months ago?

When I walked up to the baby shower, I saw a giant wooden giraffe on display on the front porch, wearing a bib.  "Score," I thought.  "My gift matches that giraffe."  I then got inside and noticed the mommy-to-be was wearing a giraffe printed dress.  Not only did my gift match the decor, it matched the mommy!  Perfect!  500 points for me!

More Owls!

I am officially obsessed with owls.  I found these super cute owl Valentine cards from Living Locurto blog and I HAD to use them for Audrey's little daycare friends.  Since babies can't do the whole Conversation Heart candy thing, I opted to sew them each a little owl.  They turned out so cute!  I got the pattern from the Rubber Punkin.  You can also check out Homemade by Jill's crinkly version.  I used fleece for the bodies (since I already had it) and used felt, ribbon, fabric, and batting that I already had.  Yay to fun and free projects!  The babies all loved them and the daycare lady placed an order for me to make a couple more for her two young grandsons for their Easter baskets.  I can't wait to get started on them!

Aren't they so cute with the ribbons as their little wings and feet??  Notice the feet ribbon from the gift bags at Baby Gap?  I'm officially turning into my MIL and saving WAY too many craft items!  (Love you Patsy! :)

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!