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Chiffon Flower Tutorial

January 30, 2014 By Erica Deuel 10 Comments

DIY_chiffon_flowersSometimes we just need a safe project. Something we know and can do in our sleep. I love dreaming and creating new things, but there is a sweet comfort that comes with a staple that I have done for years.

To me, making chiffon flowers are something that I have come to find as a quick downtime activity. I love the many color options and variations you can do with this flower by the types of buttons you give them and how you decide to use them. I am going to show you how I make them, and then give you a few easy ways you can use them.

Start with getting some chiffon fabric, sharp scissors, thread, needle, and buttons together. Once you have all your supplies out, you are ready to start!

supplies for chiffon flower1. The first thing I do is cut some strips of chiffon about 1/2″ to 1 1/2″ inch wide.

2. I then double thread my needle and weave it in and out of the chiffon strip all the way down.

3. I then push and scrunch my fabric close together

4. I then knot the ends of the thread as tight as I can to the other end of my thread, so the fabric has turned from a strip into a flower.

chiffon_flower_tutorialI like to make several of these with the different widths and lengths of stripes. The longer strips will create a more ruffled, full flower. I usually do a 1/2″ wide strip flower as my first flower and then a 1″ flower, and then a 1 1/2″ flower on the base and I tie all three-layered flowers together. Then for the final embellishment I add a button in the center of my top flower. Use your needle and thread to attach the button by going through the flower four or five times.

chiffon_flowersTying several flowers together will give it a taller, fatter look that I love. This can be the hardest step. But don’t stress. Most of the time I go back and add a little hot glue to reinforce my layers and make sure it all stays secure.

DIY_chiffon_flowerThere are lots of ways you can use these flowers. I love to make them as baby shower presents. You can easily glue a clip to the back of your flower and clip it to a headband like I did here.

DIY_newborn_headbandsFor newborns, I love my DIY newborn headband. It’s soft and doesn’t leave marks on the baby’s sweet head.

There are lots of other ways to use these flowers! Glue them to plain picture frames as a fun embellishment, or you can make a bunch and glue them to a wreath.  Those are just two ways to use these flowers. I know they would be cute glued to baskets, cards, etc. How would you use them??

ways_to_use_chiffon_flowersThank you so much for stopping in! Friday is coming! I hope you have a great weekend and get to use your imagination! The possibilities are endless!

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**I shared this project over at my friend, Wait ’til Your Father Gets Home‘s blog.

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DIY Felt Hair Bow

January 6, 2014 By Erica Deuel Leave a Comment

DIY_felt_hair_clipImagine walking down the hair bow aisle at one of your favorite stores and realizing that you can make some of the same pretty items that are marked for $5+ for just mere pennies. You can. You don’t have to imagine it. You can create this simple felt hair bow quickly.

Pieces of felt are about $0.20/$0.25 a piece at craft stores. If you get a few colorful sheets, a handful of buttons, and pull out your hot glue gun, thread, needle, scissors, and some clips you are ready to start a masterpiece (or at least a little fun piece :)).

felt_hairbow_suppliesThe first thing you need to do is to cut out four circles that are the same size. I eye balled mine, but you could easily trace the rim of a cup onto your felt and cut that out to get a perfect circle that you can be sure to have four of equal’s in shape and size.

cutting_felt_circlesNext step, is to fold your circles in half and place them intertwined with each other as shown in the picture below. This step may look harder than it actually is. Have you ever folded a cardboard box top closed where each flap had one corner sticking up? It’s kinda like the same concept. With all four of your felt circles folded in half, stack them while rotating each one so they have that intertwined affect. By the time you have all four folded and pinched in your hand it should look like a complete circle with half of each felt piece facing up. It gives your flower a fun 3D kind of texture.

creating_felt_flowerI then used my thread and sewed stitches all around that caught all four circles and bound them together.

felt_flower_tutorialBefore completing knotting my thread and cutting the threads off, I cut out a scalloped circle and sewed that and a button on top of all my first ugly stitches.

felt_flowerI then knotted the thread and cut it off my felt flower. I wanted to add another color to my flower, so I cut some leaf petals and hot glued them onto my clip. I then simply glued the felt flower on as well, and it was done!

felt_hair_clip

making_a_felt_hair_clip

little_girl_felt_hair_clip

felt_hair_bowOne of the beauties of knowing how to create these felt hair bows is you can make as many as you want and personalize them to each child or outfit and not break your bank account. Giving hair bows is a fun personal gift and you can also use the same steps of creating this felt flower to make a bunch of flowers and glue onto a wreath, sew onto a shirt or bag, or even glue a small one onto a greeting card. There are lots of possibilities, if you just use your imagination!

felt_flowersDo you love felt too? All these cold winter days make me crave a good felt project. Something like this would be an easy Valentines gift to make your little girl or use as party favors!

What would you do with some felt flower creations?

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Hello Pot

June 3, 2013 By Erica Deuel 6 Comments

decorate flower pots

What do you think of when you read that title? An earth toned flower pot repainted in a sizzling purple with a greeting for guests as they walk up to my front door? Yes, that’s exactly what I thought too! Glad we are on the same page.

I’ve always thought it was odd that when people come to your front door-they wipe their feet on the normal welcome greeting. I decided to go a different direction. It was really simple and I want to show you how you can make one of your own. But maybe a “Hello” pot isn’t what you are looking for. You could go with a “Love” Pot, “Happy” Pot, “Peace” Pot. Again, we are talking flower pots, stick with me people.

taped off flower potAfter I got my flower pots and taped off the area I didn’t want to paint, I was ready to add some color to these dull pots. I decided to go with purple because it’s my favorite color I thought it would look pretty with the gray/dark tones in the rock on my house. It took a couple of different coats of paint till I found the right shade of purple I wanted. That is the beauty with paint-you can keep covering it up with a new color if you don’t like it at first!

painting flower potsOnce I liked the color of my flower pots, I printed off an oval from google images and cut it out. I taped the edges of the paper to my pot and spray painted the inside a nice creme color. Note: the spray paint will stick to the pot now that it is going on top of the acrylic paint and not just trying to stick to the pot instead.

painting an ovalI then used some black acrylic paint and free-handed “hello” into the center of the oval. I really liked the look, but decided it was too coloring  in the lines for my taste. I wanted to rough it up some, so I used 60 grit sandpaper and sanded over the whole pot (including my hello design).

helloThis might sound crazy, but I used a wood gray stain next on my pots. I painted the whole pot with the stain, and then started rubbing it off right away. I love how it stuck to the unpainted part of the pot. It made it kind of seem iridescent. It added a slight color, but still shows through to the natural finish of the pot.

DIY flower potMy last step was to spray the entire pots with a shiny clear finish. This step made them look more finished. I love how just a little paint and time totally changed the look of these cheap flower pots. They add a sense of warmth, color, and sweet welcoming touch to my front porch that reflects us better than the brown clay pots. Now, if I can only keep these flowers alive, so I don’t have to plant my burlap flowers in these new pots!

painted flower pots

I think the purple looks really good with the rock on our house. It blends in nicely, but adds a fun color pop as well. These pots help accent the purple in our wreath too. I spruced up the wreath I made for our last front door and will be sharing more of those details tomorrow, so I hope you will come back to check it out!

front door appeal1

Note: The winner of the Mohawk Home rug is A. Bearchell!!  Congrats friend! I will be in touch!

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Ruffled Fabric Bag

December 29, 2012 By Erica Deuel 4 Comments

Now that Christmas is over, I can show you some things I made as presents and gave away this year.  I’m not a fan of surprises but people I love are, so I have been withholding showing these presents.  I am excited to start with a walk through on this ruffled fabric bag!

Do sewing patterns scare you?  They scare me!  I have used sewing patterns twice with my mother-in-law’s assistance, and I’m still intimidated.  I think there is something with how they have to be precise and accurate that keeps me away.

Instead of buying a simple sewing pattern with canvas material, I preferred to buy a canvas bag for $2.99 (that I got when it was 50% off) to use as my template.  I would rather see what it is supposed to look like finished and take the time to deconstruct the bag by literally picking all the stitches out, just to sew it back together later.  Is this messed up?  Probably.

After taking apart a brand new bag, I picked out the fabrics I wanted to use as my ruffles.  I wanted to make the ruffles fun but also not too bright since this gift was for Matt’s aunt.  I cut my fabric into 3″ strips, and I then lightly folded the fabric slightly over every inch or so.  This created a ruffled look once I sewed a line at the top on the fold.

Once I had several ruffled fabric strips, I started pinning them onto my bag, leaving a little overlap of the two ruffles to cover the seam.  I started at the bottom of the bag and worked up.  Once they were all pinned on both sides of the bag, I was ready to sew the strips on.

After the strips were all sewn on the bag, I trimmed the “extra” ruffles that were hanging off the side of the bag.  Those you can just throw away.  The next step is to turn your bag inside out and sew up the edge of the bag to join the two sides of the bag together again.

inside out bag

To have the feminine flare at the end of the bag like mine, simply push the last two ruffles up so they do not catch in your sewn seam down the side of the bag.  An easy way to measure this is to fold the bottom of the bag back to what is was like and leave your ruffles out of that fold, so when you sew down the edge of the bag they are not caught.

I went back and added a ruffle on the top of my bag.  Since my bag was already closed all the way around, I simply overlapped the ruffle at the top and ended the new ruffle edge folded over so it looked like a ruffle.  I think the edge is pretty hidden this way.

edge in ruffle

I also covered the straps of my bag with a matching fabric.  To do this, cut two 2.5″ wide strips.  I then ironed my fabric strips to create a fold like this…

My bag’s straps were 1″ wide, so I ironed the fabric strip covers with a 1″ margin, so they would wrap around the original strap and could be sewn down the middle.

bag straps1

I literally then sewed down the middle of the strap, so my fabric covers were attached to the original straps.

Where the fabric covers started and ended I added a row of stitches to seal the fabric closed (as shown above).

It was not the prettiest finished look, so I hand sewed some big buttons over the handles’ edge to cover up the transitioning seam of fabrics.

I really liked it with the buttons, But I decided to pin on a big floppy flower I found at Old Navy for $2.99.  The bag can be worn with the flower, or it can easily be taken off for a different look.

I really love how it came out!  Now, that I have completed one bag, I think I could make it a lot faster a second time and might be brave enough to try just buying some canvas rather than a bag to add that destroying step at the beginning.

What do you think?  Do you ever add steps that seem to make your project easier, but they might actually make it harder?

Did you make any Christmas gifts this year to give away?

I hope you have a great weekend with your family and enjoy the last of this year!  If you have not entered my Year in Review Giveaway, please do!  It’s not too late!

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