Homemade Headband

Lacy Homemade Headband

Hi again, my blogger friends! I had an AWESOME weekend...my parents were in town, my sister and her fiance are back in the city, and I had great time celebrating a wonderful friend's birthday at dinner last night! With all of the excitement, I did not have a lot of time for crafting!

I decided to take a chance on a simple project I dreamed up on Friday! I have never sewn lace and have very little experience with elastic. And I have to say, it turned out GREAT!!!

Here's a picture of the finished project on!

Does that material look familiar?? Yup, you spotted it; it's the leftover lace from last week's wine bottles! Now, before I get started, I'll just tell you that this project is GREAT for using leftover material, so if you don't have lace (or that's not your style) just substitute any left over material...OK here we go!

First, gather all of your materials! (It's a sewing project...Sorry to you non-sewers!)

sewing machine, matching thread for spoon and bobbin, material,  elastic, measuring tape, scissors

Next, decide how thick you want your headband to be. I wanted an inch wide headband. You are going to be folding it to sew, so you will need to double the width and add a seam allowance (where you are sewing) of a half inch. I cut a 2.5 inch strip for my headband. You can make your's as thick or thin as you want (although really thin will make one step REALLY annoying). Just make sure you double the width you want then add .5 inch for a sew allowance.

By the way, I used the natural lines in the lace to make sure I cut a straight line. If you are using lace or another material that has straight lines, make sure to use them! Got to love sneaky short cuts!!!

Now, fold the strip in half "hotdog style" (haha...teacher term for the long way) and sew as CLOSE to the edge of the lace as possible.

OK, next, you need hide your sewing. You need to flip your tube inside out. This would be the annoying step for really thin headbands. Stick your pinky inside and pull the material with you pinky.

Once you have the material flipped, you are going to hide your messy ends. Step 1: try to flatten your tube so that your sewn end will make one edge of your headband (it still might look a little tubular, that's ok). Step 2: Fold one end over about a half inch. Step 3: To hide your messy edge, fold it over again. Let's call Steps 2 & 3 a burrito fold (I love food references). Then sew back and forth, using the back stitch, parallel to the edge of the material. Repeat on the other end.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Finished

Now, you may need a helping hand from a friend (thanks Jeremy). Get your elastic and hold it together with one edge of your material. Put the headband on your head like you would want to wear it. Hold the elastic with one edge of your headband on one side of your head. Have your helping hand hold the other edge of your material on the other side of your head. now pull your elastic across the bottom of your head (where you would want to wear this part of the headband) as tight as you possibly can. Once you have figured out how much elastic you need, release the material and hold on to your elastic. 

For my whoppa head, I needed about 2.75 inches. You may need more or less depending on the size of your head and how long your material is. You want your elastic to be snug to your head, or else the headband will fall off. 

NOW STOP! Don't cut the amount of elastic you need. Cut one inch more. This way, you will have a half inch on either side to sew onto your material. OK, you can cut now. Sew your elastic onto your material. Sew back and forth SEVERAL times. Remember, this is holding the headband on your head.

Repeat on the other side. Make sure your elastic isn't twisted, or it won't be comfortable to wear.

And, here's your finished product!!

Sewing projects require a little more explanation (thus the longer post), but if you are at all familiar with sewing, this is a really easy project. Start to finish, it took me under a half hour.

So, there are some ways you could change this project. Like I said before, if you don't have lace/don't like lace, use another material. Also, if you want a thicker or thinner band, that's easy to adjust!

Also, since this is such a scrap using project, if you don't have elastic at home (or don't feel comfortable using elastic), you could just add about another foot of material (or so) onto the ends, and tie the material together at the bottom (like a scarf). I think that would look really cute and will probably try it soon!

Next week, I'll try to go back to a non-sewing project for all my non-sewing friends!!

Until then, keep crafting!

SB

Lacy Wine Bottle Lanterns

Lacy Lanterns

I'm really excited for this post for LOTS of reasons! They include:

• I have never seen this idea anywhere else...it's an SB original!
• I thought of this idea months ago, but never got around to it.
• It's my first post on one of my wedding crafts!
• I've been working on it ALL week!

Here's the finished product:

And here's how I got there:

First, drink lots of wine in clear bottles (HUGE sacrifice, I know). Mom, don't worry...this part of the process was started a couple months ago, NOT at the beginning of the week!

 

Second, give your bottles a bath...no really! Put them in a HOT bathtub for about 15 minutes. You'll have to make sure water gets into the bottles, so the whole bottle stays submerged. 

Next, peel off the labels. If you are not a wine snob, Yellow Tail wine is good AND the labels peel off really easily! Once you have peeled all the wine bottles, grab your materials: the bottles, about a half of a yard of lace, scissors, white spray paint, Christmas lights, and tape. I started by using scotch tape, but soon realized that the blue paint tape worked a lot better.

After you have gathered your supplies, take one of your bottles, and wrap it in the lace. Once it is wrapped all the way around, cut the lace. Tape it off with the painter's tape. Repeat once more with another bottle. Take the wrapped bottles into a well ventilated area and spray! Let dry for a few hours.

By the way, this is the step that took me all week. I only did two bottles at a time, and reused the lace. I wasn't in a hurry and it saved money on lace. If you are in a hurry, or don't care about spending a few bucks more, buy a little more lace and do all at once.

Once you have all of your bottles sprayed and dried, it's time for the most time consuming (a little annoying) step. Put your lights in your bottles. I used between 5 and 7 lights per bottle with 1 or 2 lights between as spacing. Here's what one bottle looks like up close!

Now, there's a couple things you could choose to change about this project. I'm a big fan on the imperfect. All of the bottles have been spray painted for a different amount of time, causing differences in the lace contrast. If you would like them to all be the same, just pay attention to how long you are spraying each bottle. Also, if you look at the picture of all 7 bottles, you can see that the tops of the bottles are not as clearly lacy and nice as the thicker majority of the bottle. If you are a perfectionist, I'm sure there's a way to cut the lace to fit the top of the bottle. For me, it wasn't worth the headache...however, if you could think of a way to change it up, I'd LOVE to hear your ideas!

The second feature you may choose to change up is the thing I may want to change about this project. The lighting right now is just the Christmas lights stuffed into the tops of the bottles. If you have an idea of a better way to change the way the bottles are lighted, I'd love to hear it! I'll even change up my project, put the picture up on the blog, and....(wait for it)...write your name in my blog giving credit for the idea. I know, really exciting stuff!!! haha!!

I am having so much fun planning our wedding! I'm excited to put the little details into the wedding that will make the wedding our own! At our reception, we have a beautiful, second floor outdoor balcony attached to our room. I can just picture these lights outside, lighting up the conversations our guests will be having! 

Until next time, keep crafting!

SB

Durable Dog Toy

A Craft for Mosby

So, if you know me AT ALL, you know that I am (slightly) obsessed with dogs, particularly with my puppy, Mosby! My very crafty, very talented friend Cathryn taught me about this craft last year. I changed it just a little, but the idea is all hers! 

As Cathryn taught me how make fleece pajama pants last Christmas, she told me that you can make a cute dog toy with the scraps. I decided to make one for Mosby, with just a change or two. Here's the finished product.

(Spartan fans, please excuse the HORRIBLE pattern on this material. After MSU beating U of M FOUR YEARS RUNNING, I thought I better throw Jeremy a bone, by using his team colors for Mosby's toy.)

First, get some scraps of fleece and some scissors. 

Mosby loves to help with crafts!

Next, cut out 1 inch by 3 feet strips. These measurements are complete estimates, and the strips do not have to be perfect. If you have a bigger dog, make them wider. For my toy, I cut out 9 of these strips.

Now, take 3 strips. Tie them together at the top. Braid the strips together.

After braiding, tie the strips together at the bottom. To do this, I bunched two of the strips together, then tied them with the third strip. Repeat these steps 2 more times, so you have a total of 3 braids.

 Using another little piece of strap, tie the third braids together. Now, braid the three braids to make any EVEN bigger braid. Use another little piece of strap to tie off the big braid.

Your braid should now look like this. This can be the complete toy. Actually, this is the toy Cathryn taught me to make. It's a great tug of war rope!

I took it a step further. I shaped the rope into the circle. Then I took the little loose ends of the braids and tied them together. It's not a perfect art; just grab and tie!

Here's Mosby enjoying his toy! The little guy is loving it!

So, there's lots of reasons that I love this toy! First, fleece is SUPER stretchy! It's really hard for the dogs to tear apart. Second, it's CHEAP! It's made from scraps, so if your dog does destroy it, no biggie! Just grab some more straps and make another! Third, even if the toy starts to come apart, it breaks into smaller toys. First, the circle will become a rope; then it will turn into three little rope. The best part of the toy is there is no stuffing to clean up after!!!

If you want to make a toy for a bigger dog, it's really easy to do! Instead of using the 9 strips of fleece, use 27. Then, follow the steps I outline, instead of making one big braid, make 3. Braid the 3 together, and you have a great thick rope. I made one like this for our pit bull neighbor, Fate, last Christmas, and it took her a month to get through...I think that a world record for Fate's longest lasting toy!!

Til next week...Happy Crafting!

SB

Memories...from the Corner of my Mind...

2012 is going to be a BIG year for us! Jer and I are getting married on June 30th (less than 6 months BABY)! AND my sister just got engaged to her WONDERFUL man! We have friend's weddings, our honeymoon, bachelor/bachelorette parties, bridal showers, Mosby's first birthday, possible job opportunities, vacations, and so many awesome day to day memories...2012 is going to be great!

So, I wanted to make sure that we remember everyday of it...literally.

I saw a cute idea on Pinterest (of course), so I decided to take that seed of an idea a run with it.

Memories of 2012

This was one of Jeremy's Christmas presents. It was really easy (and pretty cheap) to make. I bought a jar and some letter stickers at Joann Fabrics (aka my second home; crafts and coupons, what's NOT to love?)

 Everyday, we talk about the most important/funniest/best/worst thing that happened that day and write it down on a piece of paper with the date. We started January 1st, and will do it everyday of 2012. So far we have had a really FUN time with it! For us, it's been easier to go back the next day to write about what happened.

So, on December 31st, we'll go back and read all about our year together! Then, I think that I'll put all of the pieces of paper into a scrapbook, so we can remember 2012 forever!

Maybe this will even become a yearly tradition....

My sister was around when I was creating this craft, and she loved it so much she made one for her and her FIANCE (still really excited about the recent engagement!). Awesome! I love that the people around me love these ideas too!

Til next time, keep crafting!

SB

P.S. This was my last stored up, unblogged craft! Wish me luck thinking up new weekly crafts!!!

Pop My Top!

It's Not What it Sounds Like...

Every year, the school I teach at has a week long Secret Santa for the staff during the last week of school before break. There's a $20 limit (for the WHOLE week), so you have to get kind of creative if you want to be a good Secret Santa. 

Using two ideas from Pinterest (how did we all live without Pinterest?), I was able to stay (almost) in budget, and give cute gifts!

The first crafty creation was a repeat of a gift I gave to Lizzy. However, these coasters turned out even better than Lizzy's Christmas coasters! My Secret Santa is an English teacher and LOVES to collect pictures of famous authors. So, I just printed off some pictures, got some tiles, mod podged them on, and clear spray painted them! Ta-Da! They turned out great! I think that using a sponge paint brush instead of a bristled paint brush made a HUGE difference!

Can you name all of these famous authors?

Now, my title piece: Pop My Top...

Like I said before, also a Pinterest idea! It's really simple and pretty easy to do!

First, take a Progress pop top can of soup (Campbell's soup won't work, the bottom rim isn't defined enough). Flip it over, open THE BOTTOM of the can. Make sure you left a piece of the bottom connected; you'll need it later. Then, take out the soup (save it to eat later), clean out the can, and let dry.

Next, after the can has dried, put in a treat. I chose Gummi Bears, because it was my Secret Santa's favorite candy. You could do any sort of candy, snack, or anything else that would fit in the can.

After you have filled your can, there is an important step if you have candy or a snack that is not in a package. Put a layer of plastic wrap between your treat and the bottom of the can. It's time to hot glue, and you don't want hot glue to ruin your treat!

If you have a packaged treat, you can skip right to hot glueing. I hot glued the rim and the bottom lid. I also had to glue them again while they were stuck together. My first attempt wasn't pretty, but who looks at the bottom of the can?

And finally, decorate your can! I used Christmas-y wrapping paper, but you could really use anything you wanted. It would be kind of fun to do this again for a good friend using pictures and mod podge to decorate the can, and a treat that is special to the two of you on the inside.

And there it is! My finished product!

I really enjoyed making this one! 

Until next time!

SB

Gracie's Birthday Gift

Happy New Year's!!!

Of course, my break from school ended up being busier than being at work. BUT, Jeremy and I had such an awesome time hanging out with our AWESOME families and WONDERFUL friends back in Michigan, it was totally worth it! 

As part of my New Year's Resolution, I am going to write on my blog AT LEAST once a week. .I'm not sure how all of my creations will look...thinking there might be a few cooking/baking creations scattered in. For the next few days, I am going to be catching up on previous crafts that are completed but not blogged...so get ready!

So, without further ado, here is Grace's birthday gift!

Grace Ryan is my best friend, Maggie, and good friend, Mike's little girl. I found this project on Pinterest (a sort of online idea board, for those non-Pinners).

The general idea is, every year, on a child's birthday, take a picture of the child and ask them the same set of 20 questions. So, I decided to provide the scrapbook conplete with questions. I thought that it was PERFECT timing to make her this gift, because she hadn't had her 1st birthday yet. Of course, Maggie and Mike will have to help her answer the first few years, but the general idea will be there.

So...here's a peak at my materials and the inside of the scrapbook!

Materials I used: scrapbook, scrapbook paper, stickers, questions list.

I learned from my Gram that you ALWAYS need to sign books you give to others.

The question page (see full list at the bottom of the post).

Grace's three year old page. Her picture will go on the left hand side.

So, like every time I give a homemade gift, I was really nervous to give Maggie and Mike the gift. Thankfully, they really seemed to like it! Mike said that Grace will have this out at her high school open house...kinda cool to think about! Their good friends Becky and Aaron just had a little girl, and Becky said she wanted to use my idea for Baby Addison! Fun!

Until next time! Keep crafting! 

SB

My list of questions:

1. What is your favorite color?

2. What is your favorite toy?

3. What is your favorite fruit?

4. What is your favorite TV show?

5. What is your favorite thing to do with Mom?

6. What is your favorite outfit?

7. What is your favorite game?

8. What is your favorite snack?

9. What is your favorite animal?

10. What is your favorite song?

11. What is your favorite book?

12. Who is your best friend?

13. What is your favorite movie?

14. What is your favorite thing to do outside?

15. What is your favorite drink?

16. What is your favorite holiday?

17. What do you like to take to bed every night?

18. What is your favorite thing to do with Dad?

19. What do you want as your birthday dinner?

20. What do you want to be when you grow up?