Rag Quilt Letters Tutorial

These have become an instant hit in our house! My daughter just hasn't stopped playing with them (she's really getting into learning her abc's and all now). And, my husband like that these don't hurt his feet like the wooden alphabet blocks she normally will have scattered all around the house. I have many ideas for rag letters in the future. I am going to make a Merry Christmas banner with them for sure and maybe a Happy Birthday one. Here is the quick how to. Mine aren't firm at all, but if you wanted more stable ones you could add some interfacing to the layers as well. Also, you could add velcro or something to the back so they could stick to a felted board, etc.

**If you make some rag quilt letters, share them in the Flickr Group**

What you need:
-Letters to trace
-Scrap Fabrics for front
-Fabric for back (I used vintage chenille)
-Quilt batting
-Fabric pen
-Sewing machine, scissors, etc.

1. Print out letters to trace. I used Microsoft Publisher to create the letters and made them all the same size and used the same font. You could do this in Word as well, or Photoshop. You could also just free style it, etc. Cut the letters out.

2. Trace the letters onto the fabric that you will use for the top.


3. Cut the letters out in square shapes.

4. Cut out squares of interfacing and backing that will be the same size of the letter.

5. Make a sandwich of the fabrics and interfacing. Place the back fabric right side down. Then place the piece of interfacing on top of that. Next, place the top fabric right side up. Pin together. Sew on the tracing.

6. If you desire, you can quilt it or just leave it.

7. Trim the edges of the three layers. Leave at least 1/4 inch around the edges of the letters.

8. Clip the raw edges. Make clips straight into every seam allowance. Stop before you reach the seam allowance.

9.Throw it in the washing machine and then the dryer. They will come out all raggedy around the edges.

Happy Fourth of July!!!! (Winners announced....)

What a beautiful Independence Day it is here in Jacksonville, FL!!! Isn't the sky just beautiful?

(The shirt is one I made. The top is from a dress I cut up and I used some vintage fabric I scored at a yard sale for the bottom.)
It's a little hot, but we have a little kiddie pool I am going to hop into later today with my little girl. My husband has duty this weekend, so we are praying that he doesn't get called in today, as it's his only full day off of work this week.
Here is a another random picture of my daughter:

She's been having a lot of fun with her letters, so I let her play with my little teeny tiny computer. I ask her where letters and numbers are and she finds them for me.

I have also randomly selected the winners to the Guest Giveaway by Donna Kelly. The winner of the earrings is Catherine (please send me your email address as well so I can get in touch with you :) and the winner of the notecard is Megan!!!!! Yay!!! I will be sending you an email today to get your address. Hope you enjoy your prize :)

Have a good day everyone!

Aren't they precious?

These are my cousin's children wearing the outfits I made for them. I think it's adorable to have kids match (I know it bugs some people, but not me). I'm glad everything fit well and all.

I'm slowly (key word: slowly. I'm feeling a bit unmotivated. Maybe it's the dreadful heat we have here!) working on some new tutes and some things to go in my shop. I'm going to combine both shops together and maybe, maybe, start regularly putting some things up. Oh, we'll see. Family comes first no matter what.

Something Old and a Lot of New Headband Tutorial

Hello from Florida! I'm back, well I have been for a few days, but my parents surprised me and came back with us! While they have been here, I focused on some alone time with my hubby (hurray for dates!) and really cleaning the house. I keep it clean, but I mean really getting down and scrubbing hard. I don't like to use my free time (when they are gone) to deep clean, so I try and wait until they can watch the little one for me. It's been fun. I'll be sad to see them go, but I'll see them again soon. Here is a little headband tutorial for you. I saw this headband at Tarina Tarantino and I immediately thought of this vintage pin I had. I figured it would be the perfect thing to use it for. It's just been sitting around waiting to be used. I really love how it turned out.

***If you make one, Please Post it in the FLickr Pool so I can see the wonderful things you do!***

What you need:
-Headband
-Ribbon
-Flower
-Hot Glue Gun
-Vintage Pin (or whatever you want, or you could even just put the flower on and call it a day)
-Scissors

1. Glue ribbon onto headband on bottom of one side. Wrap the ribbon around the headband, but glue it on about every wrap around. It will help make it secure.

2. Cut two pieces of ribbon. One that is 9 inches and the other is 10 inches. Glue them together to create a circle.

3. Glue the middle of each ribbon circle together.

4. The the smaller ribbon piece onto the middle of the bigger one.

5. Glue on the flower. I took out the middle part and a bunch of the petals from the bottom and top until I liked the size of it.

6. Glue the ribbon/flower piece onto the headband. I glued mine to the side, but you can put it wherever you like. I also cut another small piece of ribbon to be glued over the big messy glue part I made while gluing the ribbon/flower on.

7. Add on the vintage pin (button, rhinestone, whatever you like). I just pinned mine on because I wanted to be able to take it off if I wanted. You can of course glue it on as well.

All done!!!!

Me sitting in our new glider! Thanks dad for putting it together for us!

Tissue Paper Flower Ball Decoration How To

This one is for you Heather (and, guess what? I used all materials from the Dollar Store ;).

This is a quick tutorial on how I made the tissue paper flower balls for Je'taime's bridal shower.

As always, you don't have to stick to this. Change the colors, the sizes, even put a smaller piece on top and bottom to help cover up the center more if you like. Change it up any way you want to, but here is a bit to help you get started.

What you need:
-10 sheets of tissue paper for large ball
-3 to 4 sheets for the smaller ball
-Pipe cleaner for each you make
-Fishing Wire (what I used to hang it with).
* Another side note, I also added a paper clip to hook it onto the ceiling. The room we were in had the wire frames in the ceiling, so this was an easy way to stick it up there without harming a thing.

The Big One

1. Take 10 sheets tissue paper and place them on top of each other. It turns out best if the pieces are a more rectangular shape, but the ones I used were square (20 inches by 20 inches).

2. Now it's time to begin folding them. You are going to fold them like a fan. If you are using square pieces, it doesn't matter which side you fold. But, if the piece is, let's say, 20 in by 26 in., you will want to fold it long ways. Start by folding up.

Then flip it over and fold it the other way.

Continue until it looks like this.

3. Fold in half to find the middle and twist on a pipe cleaner. I double it around twice and then twist it so that there is an opening to put the fishing wire through.

4. Trim the ends of each side. You can either do a curved point or a triangular point (like the small ones).

5. Begin to poof up the ball. Open it up.

Start on one side and pull the top piece toward the middle.

Continue for the next 4, then do the other side. Then flip it over and do the same thing. Fluff it until it looks the way you like.

6. Attach fishing wire, hang up, and enjoy!

The Small One

1.Take three to four pieces of tissue paper and cut them in half (if one side is longer than the other, cut it down the middle of the longest length).

2. Place all six to eight pieces on top of each other just like in the first one.
3. Follow steps 2-6 of The Big One.
Picture of the triangular point

The Finished Product

Guest Giveaway!!! by Donna Kelly

I am super excited that Donna Kelly has agreed to do a giveaway. She is a very talented woman. She sent these amazingly beautiful tatted earrings

and this oh so cute and adorable note card with tatted flowers on it.

I told her that this is one of those skills I have on my "to learn someday" list. If you are interested in buying some of her things, the earrings run around $15, but she has a whole list of other goodies she makes! Check out this list:

Tatting- Earrings, Baby Booties, Necklaces, Hankies, Note cards, Easter and Christmas Balls
Smocking- Dresses, Bonnets, Easter and Christmas Balls
Irish Crochet- On Black Velvet Drawstring Bags, Pincushions
Other services she provides- Plays keyboard for weddings, receptions, dinner parties, tea parties, athletic events, etc.
Teaching Lessons- Piano, Keyboard, Crochet, Knitting, Tatting

She also wrote an article on tatting for Victoriana. It's in the April 07, page 25. To view it, simple go to their website, sign up, and you can see their magazine for free!

So, if you are looking for these types of items or if you live near Winter Garden, Florida and need a musician or a lesson in piano, crochet, knitting, or tatting, she's the lady you want to contact!
You can reach her by email at tattinglady@cfl.rr.com or by phone at (407)654-8644.

Here is how the giveaway will work. There will be two winners. To have a chance at winning here is what you need to do:
1) Get one chance by simply leaving a comment (just say hi) and make sure you leave a way that I can contact you if you win.
2) Blog or Twitter and leave a comment say you did so and you get a second chance.
3) If you follow, leave a comment saying you follow my blog and you will get another chance.

This giveaway will run until next Friday (July 3, 2009) at midnight eastern time. It's open to anyone, no matter where you live! (I will ship it internationally).

Bling Bling Bridal Shower

One of the other things I had on my to do list while visiting in Virginia, was to throw one of my best friend's bridal showers. I am her matron of honor, so I wanted to do it up. I saw the bling bling theme on Hostess with the Mostess and knew that was the way to go for this one. I have always admired my friend, Je'taime, for how she carried herself and took care of herself (always has her hair and nails done! beautiful). It reminded me of royalty. So that was one reason I felt it fit. It also reminds me of the Bible verse that says "A wife of noble character who can find? She is worth far more than rubies." Proverbs 31:10. She is a woman of great character and will be an awesome wife to Aaron, so she is worth a lot, like precious jewels, but even more! So that is the other reason I chose the theme.

The entrance table: Bright notecards for guests to fill out birthday or anniversary date. The person with the date closest to Je'taime and Aaron's wedding date won a gift.
There were also scrapbook pages for guests to sign a quick note and envelopes for them to fill out name and address. This helps the bride with thank you notes, but I also had her pull one for a giveaway.

The food tables. I made a bizillion tissue paper flower poof ball things to hand from the ceiling.

The cupcake tower table: We reused the the cupcake tower from my brother's wedding, just changed the paper around it. I made simple cupcakes with strawberry frosting. They were yummy!

I found the "Congrats on your Bling Bling" card at a Pier One sometime ago. I knew the theme at that point, and when I saw it I had to have it for the shower!

For the centerpieces, I bought candlesticks at the dollar store and glued a pretty plastic plate on top. I placed the favors on top of it. Underneath, is a simple paper doily with ice gems scattered around it. We reused the candles from Ben's wedding as well. If found the ring picture frames at Five and Below. They were originally these awful purple and green colors, so we painted them silver and added glitter paint on top. I placed different Bible verses about love and marriage in them.

The Bride's table: I made a paper banner by cutting out triangles and sewing them together. I also sewed the pictures onto them. The paper I used was in the Martha Stewart line, but it's not out anymore. I had gotten it when it was in the clearance aisle at Michael's. The bride to be banner was a find at Wal-mart for $.50!

I found the calla lilies on clearance a bit ago to and was trying to figure out what to do with them when this came to me. I covered the bottom of the vase with tulle to cover up the stems. Then I added the paper curls on top. I was trimming the paper, when I realized that it was rolled so tight it curled, so I had to use it somewhere!

For the napkin rings, I cut up toilet paper rolls. I then spray painted them silver, painted on some glitter paint, and added a little rhinestone.

Before the guests arrived. I finished fifteen minutes before they started coming in!

I asked everyone to wear pink and/or orange as their main outfit color to go with the theme.

Angel so graciously put together the bow bouquet for me. It will be Je'taime's practice bouquet at the wedding rehearsal.

The beautiful bride to be opening presents. I presented her with a beautiful tiara and huge sparkle ring to go with the bling bling theme.