Blooming Easter Eggs

WOW! This 70 weather has been crazy here in PA!  It's only March and I have been wearing shorts!   One of my favorite things about spring/summer is my flowers and my garden.  I love going outside and seeing buds on the trees and little flowers starting to appear!  These little Blooming Easter Eggs were inspired by those little flowers :) 

Materials:

Easter Eggs

Scrapbook Paper

Hot Glue Gun

These directions are super simple. About as simple as my Elmo Goodie bags found HERE!

Cut out your desired flower shape.  Break your Easter egg in half.  I decided to use the smaller end of the easter egg, it looked better with the size flower I cut out.  Hot glue your egg to your paper.  For the Easter egg holding the candy, just simple hot glue the rounded end down and fill with candy!

Happy Crafting!

 

Elmo Party Goodie Bags

The {Homemade by You} link party is still going on......If you want to link up some of your projects CLICK HERE

Let's go back to our preschool/kindergarten age. Remember how we would proudly get out our box of crayons, new scissors ( that our moms wouldn't let us use---but now since we are in school we can) and our stick of glue! Well, this project is really THAT simple! 

My son is turning ONE in just a few weeks and he LOVES Elmo!  It seems like most kids his age do :)  We decided to do a Elmo & Train theme party. Jacob has 3 little buddies coming to his party. I know, I know--his parties will get much bigger when he starts to go to school, but for now, while his parties are small I decided to do little goodie bags for the kiddos.  ( I'll have a tutorial for what I am going to put inside the bags in a few more days )  These three bags took me less than 20 minutes and cost less than $1 a bag!

Materials:

Red paper bag

( you can find these at ANY craft store...I actually found mine at a party store

---they were like .50 cents a bag)

Small piece of black, orange/yellow and white construction paper

Glue Stick

Ready for the O' so difficult instructions......

Cut out TWO white eyes, ONE orange nose, TWO black pupils & ONE black mouth

Glue to your bag!  {Wipes the brow} that was a toughy!

( If you have kids that are a little bit older than ONE, this would be a perfect craft for them to do for their own party---you can make some of the other sesame street characters or maybe even make funny looking eyes and teeth for a monster party?! The bags come in all sorts of colors!  Have FUN!

HAPPY CRAFTING!

 

{ Homemade By You #4 }

It's time for another { Homemade By You Wednesday }

WOW! 88 Entries this past week!! Let's get past 100 this week!!  I am so inspired by all of you and so enjoy looking through all your tutorials!!

Here is the most clicked on tutorial for the past week!

Glitter Easter Eggs from Sew and the City

Here are some of my favorites....

Monogram Pillow from The Winthrop Chronicles

Spring Decorating from The Latest Find

Magnetic Pin Dish from Color Me Domestic

Easy Painted Vases from How To Nest For Less

Burlap Flower Bouquet from Snug As a Bug Baby

Perfect Little Pom Poms from A Girl and Her Needle

If you were featured make sure you grab a button from over on my sidebar!!

I am so excited to see what you all have in store for this weeks link party!  Let's review the rules before we get started......

Just Three simple rules:

1. Follow my blog and grab my button
2.  Link to a specific tutorial, tip, craft, recipe, etc, not just to your homepage

2. Comment on some of these other bloggers links and follow them... Lets share the love ladies :)

<center><a href="http://www.pincushioncreations.com/" target="_blank"><img alt="Pincushion Creations" src="http://i1255.photobucket.com/albums/hh637/pincushioncreations/7243_-_Polka_dot_-_sky_blue_background.jpg"/></a></center>

{Sew Simple Series #1} Dust off your Sewing Machine with TUTORIAL!!

Welcome to your first sewing lesson! :)  Before I even start, I want to get a few things out in the open!  

#1.  I am NOT a professional sewer.  I honestly wouldn't even consider myself to be a super advanced sewer.  Everything I know I have either taught myself, learned from my grandmother or searched on the internet till I found the answer.  Believe me when I say... I have much more to learn!

#2.  This is NOT going to be a "deep" series.  This is mainly to teach you the basics.  Basics, that can allow you to make lots of projects and hopefully, learning the basics will inspire you to want to learn more!

#3.  My goal is to inspire you.  I love to sew and I know that sewing can seem scarey.  I want to show you that it's not and that you can do it!  I feel so honored to have had some of you tell me that little ole' me  has inspired you so much that you have decided to buy a sewing machine!  That makes me smile and giddy :)

#4.  I want your comments and questions!  If something inspired you let me know!  If something was confusing...definetly let me know.  If you want to learn a specific tip or project let me know that too.  If I don't have the answers myself...I will go find them!  Hearing from you is what makes me keep this blog going!

Now....go get your sewing machines.  Dust them off.  Turn them on. 

Put a smile on your face and lets get going!

STRAIGHT STITCH & ZIG ZAG STITCH

STRAIGHT STITCH: is your main stitch, it is used to stitch two pieces of fabric together and for topstitching.

TOPSTICH: a form of a staight stitch ( or decorative stitch, if you have a machine with those options) and is used for a finished look.
BACKSTITCH:  a few extra stitches at the beginning and end of a Straight stitch, used as an extra reinforcement on your stitches, mainly used when leaving an opening to turn a project right side out.  (THIS STICH IS ALL THE WAY ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE DIAGRAM)

ZIG ZAG STITCH: mainly used for applique and finishing edges of a seam allowance.

Most machines have a BACKSTITCH button that you can hold down while sewing.

On your machine, you will have two buttons one for STITCH WIDTH & one for STITCH LENGTH.   These two buttons will change the size of your stitches ( take a piece of scrap fabric and play around with it----when using a zig zag stitch for applique, I ALWAYS test out the size on a scrap piece of fabric before I start to sew on my project----this will prevent you from having to use that nasty seam ripper :)

Now....let's practice these stitches we just learned!

Materials:

Fabric

Batting or a piece of Felt

Sewing machine

Seam allowance for this project will be 1/4 inch.  ( I already included this in the measurements)

Cut one piece of fabric that is 5 1/2 in. x 5 1/2 in. ( This will be your back piece)

Now you can either cut another piece, which will be your front piece, that is 5 1/2 in. X 5 1/2 in.  or you can do what I did and make the front piece with a contrasting band in the middle.  If you do the band you will need the following pieces:  1 1/2 in x 5 1/2.....2 in X 5 1/2 in.... 2 1/2 in. x 5 1/2.

Take two of your band pieces and lay them wrong sides together ( ugly sides) and sew using your 1/4 in seam allowance

Press your fabric out and repeat the above step with your other band of fabric.

Top stitch on both sides of your middle contrasting band piece.

Cut a piece of felt or batting that is 5 1/2 in. X 5 1/2 in

 Place your two pieces of fabric and batting/felt wrong sides together. Make sure your batting/felt is on the bottom or top of your project and not in between the two pieces of fabric.

Sew around all three sides of your coaster.  TIP: When you get close to the edge, stop sewing. Make sure your needle is down and turn your fabric matching the edge of your project with your presser foot and continue sewing

When you get on the fourth side of your coaster, sew in a few inches. Stop. Backstitch. Leave a small opening and start sewing again.  ( Backstitching helps keep your thread from breaking while turning your coaster right side out.)

Clip your corners and turn your coaster right side out.

Press.  Fold your opening closed and top stitch around your coaster.

Now go make a few more!  What do you think?  Was that easy?