T Shirt Scarves

I know I said way back when that I wanted to do a post about the t-shirts scarves that I found on Pinterest and made for Christmas presents.  I have put it off because, even though I made several of them, I only made one style for my presents.  There are several variations that I wanted to try and make, but I have been so busy with other things the t-shirts for the new projects continue to sit on the shelf and call out to me.  I definitely want to make more scarves, as well as some other ideas I found, all using just plain old t-shirts.  I have had several people who check in on my blog ask about the scarves, so rather than keep everybody waiting on my schedule to clear, I decided to go ahead and at least share the first scarves with you all.

 
This is pinned to my Pinterest Board "Christmas Present Ideas"

If you look thru the "Christmas Present Ideas" as well as my "DIY & Crafts" boards you will see some of the other scarf ideas that I still want to try.  It will happen!!  Just not exactly sure when.........

This is hands down the easiest project I have ever done!  Seriously only took like 5 minutes to make.  I did cheat a little bit.  I knew this was gonna' be one of my Christmas presents to all the girls and while I was wandering the aisles of Michaels, my favorite store ever!  I came across some strips of t-shirt material.  I wouldn't normally buy it because at regular price I could very easily by 3 t-shirts, cut them up myself and have at least 6 times more strips of material to work with, but these were on clearance for $2.49 and I knew that plain t-shirts at Walmart ran about $3.49. I assumed you would get about the same amount of strips to work with but after buying the shirts and cutting them up, I found that you get almost double the strips from a shirt. Oh well, lesson learned.  

I got out my t-shirts and started cutting.  The strips I bought at Michaels were about 1/2 inch wide and I knew I wanted to make all the scarves relatively the same so made sure to cut the t-shirt at the same width, but you can cut them any size you like.  Some of the info I read said that the wider you cut your strips the fuller the look of the scarf.

I mentioned before that I could not live without my rotary cutter.  It makes so many of my projects 100 times easier and this was definitely one of them.  But if you don't have one, this project can still be done easily enough.  Will just take a little longer.

The instructions said to use XL to XXL shirt so that your strips will be longer, but if you wanted it to be smaller, you could use whatever size shirt you want.  Once all the strips are cut, you just gather up your strips. Again, since I had pre-bought the strips and there were only 12 strips in the packet, I stuck with that game plan and only used 12 strips from the shirt even though at 1/2 each you have at least 6-8 more.  I will use the extra for another project at another time, but you can use them all for yours.  Grab the inside of the loops and stretch as far as you can.  The edges immediately curl for you!!  All you do then is just tie them all together.  I cut off a strip from the arm and used that to tie them.

I did tie them all with the t-shirt material first and that looked great as is.  You could totally be finished at this point if you wanted.  But I decided I wanted to add a little extra.  These are some that I had found some pretty broaches and pinned them over the area where I tied them all together.

I also had some leftover ribbon from another project that I used on some other gifts.  Sorry didn't get pictures of those for you, but you get the idea.

If you would rather purchase the scarves, the picture from my Pinterest board is from the Etsy shop "BlueEyesAndBareFeet" they are for sale for $19.50 each and she makes the pretty flowers to put on hers.  Also, if you do some checking on Pinterest, you will find many different ways that you can wear these scarves.  The pictures I took of mine are with them doubled, but I have seen them used in several different ways that are equally cool.

                                 I would definitely recommend you give this project a try!!
There are LOTS more scarf ideas - vests - dressed up tee's and MUCH more!!  I want to do them all and most certainly will - just not exactly sure when..........

                                                     Just a plain old t-shirt - who knew!!


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Cork Crazy!

                                                      Corks, Corks and More Corks!!

My 2011 New Years Resolution was to finally start an online Arts & Crafts business and make and sell all the things that I have been making and giving as gifts to friends and family for years.  Everyone has been bugging me to do this and I finally got up the courage to give it a try.  Well, I have been in business for a little less than a year now and it's slowly beginning to become a profit making venture.  Either on my online Esty page, at local Arts and Crafts Bazaars and my sweet hubby has
even shared some of his man cave with me so that I am able to have a display of all of my goodies for customers to drop by and check it out.  What a guy, right!!

Among the many things that I make and sell are hand painted wine glasses, cut and engraved wine bottles and misc. products made out of corks.  On occasion, I have been asked, "Do you drink all of  that wine?"  I kinda' have to giggle at that one.  Don't get me wrong.  I do enjoy a good glass of wine or two, but The answer is no, well, not all, I do save all of my bottles, jars and corks, but I also have friends and family who bring me bottles and  my best friend works at a restaurant that serves wine so she collects all of their corks and gives them to me.  Since my cork collection has been growing in the last few months, I've been trying to come up with some new ideas for corks.  So, where else would I go, but to my faithful and never disappointing Pinterest!!



These are both pinned to my board "DIY and Crafts"

The first picture is one that my daughter, Danielle has requested.  It's on my list Danielle, I promise!!

Since Valentines Day is right around the corner, I thought something to do with hearts would be a good idea and I had seen several cork/chalkboards that others had made on Etsy.com.  So using all of these ideas I came up with my own. WA-LA!!

Will soon have this for sale on my Etsy page, but if you wanted to make your own, it's pretty simple really. All you need is a simple wooden board, whatever size you like, then just paint the entire board with chalkboard paint.  I had some that I had bought at Walmart, but I have also seen on Pinterest, recipes to make your own chalkboard paint in any color you like.  I will definitely be trying that out one day soon.  Ok then just a few wine corks.  For the border, I cut the corks in half and glued them all the way around the edge.  Then for the heart I stood them up end to end and glued them into the shape of a heart.   I did get a little glue here and there on the chalkboard as I was gluing on the corks, no worries.  Just touch up with a little more paint!!

Here are a couple other ideas I have come up with.

Christmas Ornaments

Candle Holder

A friend was also telling me that she had strung corks for garland on her Christmas tree!!  I have seen lots of ideas and I still have lots more corks to work with, so be assured that I will be going to Pinterest for more inspiration.  Well, right after I get Danielle's jewelry board made.

Recycle those corks!!  Even if you don't want to use them, bring them over!!!! 

I will find a use for them!!

A Tiny Tutu!!!!

As you know by now, my youngest granddaughter, Ella, turned one last Friday.  I had found several Tutu instructions on Pinterest so decided she would make a perfect little princess wearing a tutu while she opened the rest of her gifts on her big day.   I had to make her one!! 

This is pinned to my "DIY & Crafts" Board

Ella is a tiny little thing, she just had her one year check up and she only weighs 19 pounds.  Most of the Tutu patterns were sized 2T and up, but I could just picture her opening her birthday presents wearing her tiny tutu.  Adjusting a pattern like this was not big deal, right?  A couple of days before I bought all the material needed, she came over for a visit and I measured her waist size as well as the length from her waist to the floor.  Her waist measured 19 inches while she was fully dressed.  Didn't think that was a big deal since she would probably wear the tutu over her other clothing anyway.  From her waist to the floor was only 12 inches.  The pattern I had chosen said the tutu would end up measuring 12-14 inches long, I  thought that would be perfect, a long flowing tutu for our little princess!
For Christmas presents, I also had made all three of the youngest grand kids shirts with various decals ironed on and used fabric paint to put their names on them.  They were some of the very last gifts I made before Christmas Eve and apparently I was pretty tired and made Ella's backwards!!  She has a shirt with a cute little heart & crown that says "Princess" and her name painted on the BACK of a shirt! 

We all got a good laugh from that one and just a little teasing from my kids, since they always say that I lock myself in the Art room for an entire month before Christmas.  So, since her birthday was so close to Christmas, I decided it would be perfect to make her another one, taking care to make sure it was on the front, of course,  and also to match her new Tutu.  A whole little princess outfit for the Birthday girl!  Perfect!!

The pattern called for 4 1/2 yards of tulle.  I knew I wanted to make it two colors.  I had two of my older grand kids with me and off to the fabric store we went!  We found the tulle and my 9 year old granddaughter and I thought the extra sparkly tulle was perfect!  We picked out a pale pink and a white and Lainie carried it over to the cutting station.  Luckily, we weren't the first in line, so we stood and waited a few minutes and while waiting, we found that the "extra sparkly" was definitely not the best choice for a one year old!  Lainie was COVERED in glitter!!!!  Her coat, her shirt, her face, it was even in her hair!!  Not only her but even Landin, who didn't even hold the tulle had it on him!  We were cracking up, talking about how Aunty J's house would be covered in glitter,  and headed back over to pick out a less sparkly tulle for the project.  Got the fabric and the rest of the materials needed and headed home.

The pattern called for 27 inch strips cut 3 inches wide.  Knowing that it needed to be 12 inches long and I would be doubling the fabric, I cut mine 24 inches long instead.  I have to tell you that if you don't already have a rotary cutter, I would highly advise investing in one!!  I can't imagine doing some of my projects, this one included, without one!!

I got all the strips cut and unattached them from myself!  Tulle attacks!!

  In the instructions it had said to just tie a knot in the elastic and measure to the child before sewing, but I didn't quite follow that part.  I had already measured after all, right?  I had also noticed on the pattern the lady said "I use extra tulle because I like my tutu very full".  Sounded good to me!!  Nothing worse than a flat tutu!!  I started knotting the pieces to the elastic as per the instructions. Like I said, there is a lot of static in the tulle, that was the hardest part for me, just trying to keep it from clinging.  A premonition of what was to come?  Maybe.  I got into a rhythm and it moved along pretty fast.  I had also decided that I wanted a satin ribbon around the top to cover all the knots and the elastic.  The original pattern I used did not have that, but it was pretty easy to go back onto Pinterest and find instructions for that too.  Have I mentioned how much I love Pinterest?

I finished it pretty quickly and was happy with the results.  My granddaughter, Lainie, came over and saw it.  She said it was super cute but the waist seemed "kinda' big".  I'm still thinking that with clothes underneath it would be perfect, even though with all the "extra" tulle the lady had said to use to make it "extra" full, it was as wide as it was long.  I still wasn't deterred!  She was gonna' be adorable!!

Her birthday arrived.  Our baby is now one!!  She ate her birthday cake and enjoyed it thoroughly!  Her Mom took off her cake covered clothes .  Since it was time to open gifts anyway, I pulled out my gift bag, my vision of her opening gifts in her new outfit dancing in my head!!  She put it on and first of all the elastic was WAY too big, even with clothes underneath, her mom took the satin ribbon and tied it around twice to keep it from falling off.  Also, it really was EXTRA full, she couldn't even see the floor!!  Not such a good idea, especially since she is just learning to walk!!

This is the only picture I have of her in her new tutu because she only wore it for less than a minute!  She couldn't reach her other gifts to open them and it was so full and clingy she kept trying to push it out of her way!!  Oh well......we will save it for when she's a little bigger and can tame the beast, so to speak!!  At least her new shirt has her name on the front!!

Even though this didn't turn out quite the way I had envisioned I know there will be more tutu's in my future. I still think it was super cute, just not right for Ella.......yet!!!   I learned a lot this time around!!

Better gifts to come Ella!!

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