Tag: flower

Craft Projects

Flower pins and barrettes

Jessica Smith

I was a crafting machine this weekend! Unfortunately for the blog, I was making oodles and oodles of the same things, all of which I’ve shared with you already. My weekend was consumed with Mod Podged candles and feather pins and barrettes. I did get a chance to try something new that I think will be a big hit at my fair in November — flower barrettes! If I had a daughter, she’d be wearing these things every day. They are so flippin’ cute!

Since I was making these for the Trash to Treasure fair, I was using materials that others my otherwise think of as garbage. So, I pulled out a scrap of blue fabric about 4 inches x 6 inches and some cardboard that came in a package at work this week.

The first thing I did was cut out five petals from my fabric. I cut these petals with a pointy tip, but I think I like the rounded edges a little bit more.

Next, I sewed the petals together. To do so, I started on the bottom edge of the petal and stitched it down through the top, then back and forth three times. This puts a nice little crease in each petal.

Once you do the first, add the rest in the same manner. With all five threaded, put a stitch back through the first petal, then tie the thread in a knot.

Now it’s time to add the backing. I cut out a square of cardboard and a piece of felt and glued them to one another. Then, I glued the cardboard side to the back of the flower.

By glueing the cardboard side to the flower, this leaves the felt side up — this is the part that will touch your hair, so you want it to be soft.

Next step: hot glue on the barrette clip or your pin back. I made this on into a pin.

Clean up the felt by removing the hot glue strings, then flip over your pin and add a button to jazz it up!

All done!

Here are a couple more that I made. This one is another pin:

And this one is a barrette. I added tulle “leaves” to this one. So cute!

Craft Projects

Mod Podged Candle Holders

Jessica Smith

Today I’m sharing another project I made for the upcoming Trash to Treasure Fair in November. Using pages from an old book and the remainder of my burlap fabric scraps, I turned two shot glasses that my mother-in-law’s work was going to throw away (not sure why they have shot glasses…) into adorable candle holders.

Here’s what you’ll need:

  • Pages of a book (or any paper) cut into little pieces
  • Mod Podge
  • Fabric
  • Hot Glue
  • Needle and Thread
  • Buttons
  • Ribbon
  • Glass

To start this project, I cut up three or four pages from an old dictionary into little pieces of paper. I had no rhyme or reason for the shape of the paper, just random shapes.

Once my paper was small enough, I started to Mod Podge it to the glass. I put a thick layer of the podge down, then placed strips of paper on top. I smoothed out the paper as I went along to remove any bubbles between the paper and the glass. Once each glass was covered, I placed a layer of podge on top.

I let the candle holders dry for a bit before adding embellishments. They weren’t dry completely, but I didn’t mind since I wanted the stuff I was adding to stick right on top.

At this point, I flipped each glass upside down and added a slim, pink ribbon around the bottom with small dabs of hot glue.

With the pink ribbon added to each glass, I set both candle holders aside to create two oversized flowers. I cut out five petals for each flower, using scraps from an earlier project.

To connect the petals, I folded each petal at the flat edge in an accordion-style fold: down, up, down, up, down.

Then, I sewed through each of the folds. Once I had stitched my way through one petal, I went on to the next, adding petals until I was out.

When all five petals were connected, I looped the needle and thread back through the first petal to finish off the flower.

With the flower complete, I selected a flashy button to add to the middle. I added it to the flower with hot glue, then hot glued each flower to a candle holder.

OHMYGOSHSOCUTE. If these don’t get snatched up at the fair, I might not be so upset.

I like how large the flowers are on the glass, the pink ribbon “leaves,” and the randomness of the dictionary scraps. These might be my favorite candle yet. Now I just need to remake them with aqua ribbon instead of pink ;p

Craft Projects

Yarn-Wrapped “S”

Jessica Smith

Good morning and happy Monday!

I showed you yesterday a quick and easy project my girlfriends and I made at our craft night on Saturday. Today, I’m sharing a not so quick and not so easy project that we tackled last weekend, too.

Inspired by many of the yarn- and twine-wrapped letters on Pinterest, Amy, Carrie and I set out to make pretty letters of our own. I made an “S,” Carrie an “H” and Amy a “T.” … we were one letter away from, well, use your imagination.

Anyway, instead of buying cardboard letters we chose to make our own to save some mulah. So, we destroyed several of Amy’s cereal boxes (her hubby was wondering why all of their cereal was in bags on the counter) and made letters of our own.

First, we traced letters onto the boxes, then cut out two of each letter.

Next, we cut thin strips of the cereal box and used them to create a 3D letter. We taped the thin strips all around on of the letters, before taping to top letter on top.

Mmmmm… Raisin Bran.

Once our letters were finished,  it was time to add our yarn and twine. I chose to wrap mine in a brown yarn with a little sparkle to it. Amy and Carrie wrapped theirs in twine. To start mine, I taped it onto the back and started wrapping. A couple of pieces of tape in, I realized two things. One: I needed hot glue, and two: I needed something to cover the tips of my “S.”

I cut out two small rectangles of fabric to glue on each tip of the letter, then continued wrapping and gluing yarn around and around and around. I used almost the entire ball of yarn — holy cow.

Hours later (yes, hours), I finally finished wrapping my letter. I think between the cardboard construction and the yarn wrapping, it took me about 2.5 hours.

Looking good, huh? Time to embellish. I whipped up a cute, fabric flower and a couple of leaves to glue to the letter.

Done!

Carrie had to go home before embellishing her flower, but Amy’s “T” got blinged out 🙂

So cute!? Just like her pup, Stover, who kept us company all night.

Once I got home from craft night I showed my finished product to the hubby — he was super impressed. Instead of hanging the letter up on a door or a wall, I put it on a shelf in our family room. It looks like it was meant to be there.

So what do you think? Will you be making a cereal box letter any time soon? I’d do it again!