Clips and Pins

I had a little extra time yesterday so after I finished packing for our trip, I decided to make clips for Andrea out of fabric scraps.

ITEM 1: Fabric roses from t-shirt scraps

ITEM 2: Red velvet clips with a gold rhinestone center. These are for Andrea.

ITEM 3: Need I say this is for Andrea? It's a hair clip/pin.

For ITEM 1, I pretty much followed the instructions from Trey and Lucy except for the dimensions and the type of material. I used scraps from t-shirts I cut up. The gray one is about 3 inches in diameter and the smaller one is around 2 inches in diameter.

ITEM 2 is very simple. I used:

• 2 3-inch strips of red velvet
• 2 rhinestones
• 2 clips
• glue gun
• needle and thread

Overlap the edges of one of the red velvet strips and sew. You should end up with a loop or velvet ribbon. Flatten, make sure the overlapped sewn edge is at the center. Gather the center and sew. Sew in the rhinestone. Attach to the clip using hot glue. Ta-dah! You're done.

ITEM 3: It's a hair clip/brooch for Andrea. This one is also very easy and perfect for dressing up hats, shirts, bags... anything you can think of that needs a blast of color.

You will need:

• Ribbon, around 8 inches
• Colorful satin flowers (I got mine from the scrap booking supplies section)
• rhinestone 
• brooch pin
• hair clip
• needle and thread
• circular piece of felt with diameter around the same size as your fabric flowers

Sew the ribbon around the edges of the felt circle. Create small folds in the ribbon as you sew to create ruffles. Layer your fabric flowers and sew. Sew the rhinestone at the center. Attach the clip and pin at the back using hot glue. And you're done!

I hope my instructions made sense. I will post pictures of Andrea wearing these soon. Happy crafting!

EDITED 1/6/2011:
I posted this at Tea Rose Home's Link Party!

Another Anthro-Inspired Necklace

It's been more than a year since I stopped making jewelry and since I started again recently, I realized how much I've missed it! So now, my jewelry-making is competing with my learning-how-to-sew for my time (which is uber limited as it is). And here is another jewelry post.

Anyway, I was attempting another Anthro-inspired necklace last week. I saw this in Anthropologie and thought to myself that I have the beads that look similar, and I've done something similar in the past so it should be easy:

Anthropologie - Connected Worlds Necklace

 Those glass beads that look like small disco balls... I have a necklace with beads that look similar:

Necklace I made 3 years ago

Then cut the wire from this necklace to get the beads and then I bought a yard of gray ribbon similar to the necklace. However, when I got home and looked at the photo of the Anthro necklace closer... the ribbon was ruffled! I didn't notice before. Given my sewing skills... ruffling that ribbon will take a while so I lost interest. I just decided to make a different necklace and this is what I came up with:

The other beads came from a layered necklace where the string of one layer snapped. I forgot to take a photo of the before. Anyway, I love how the smaller beads look like petals when clustered. I wish there was  more of them but I used all for this necklace.

3-Fold Felt Kiddie Wallet

This project came about out of need. Andrea likes playing with my purse... and my wallet. She would pull out my cards, money, photos and generally scatter the contents of my wallet around her. I got the idea to make Andrea her own wallet last night while thinking of her as I was working on another shirt project which was taking forever. I stopped working on the shirt and started making the wallet since I figured it won't take me long to finish.

3-fold kiddie wallet

Then I placed it beside her pillow before I slept so she can find it when she woke up. And found it she did!

Andi checking out the contents of her new wallet.

 It's very easy to do! Here's how...

You will need:

• Felt in different colors (for a colorful wallet, I used 3 colors for mine)
• sewing machine (or needle and thread)
• Velcro
• Buttons, ribbons, fabric flowers... anything you want to use to decorate your wallet.

Step 1: Measure the size of your paper money and credit cards to see how long and wide your wallet needs to be. See illustration below to see how I measured mine.

Length of section A is equal to the length of the paper money plus 3/4 inch allowance to the left and right. Section B is roughly 1/3 the length of section A (this requires a little Math, sorry!)

Width of both sections is equal to the length of your credit card plus 3/4 inch allowance at the top and at the bottom.

Step 2: Cut a piece of felt equal to the size of Section A + Section B. This will just be one piece of felt.

Step 3: Cut another piece of felt in another color equal to the size of Section A.

Step 4. Cut smaller pieces of felt to be used as inside pockets. You decide how many pockets you want and what kind of pockets they have to be. I decided to put in 2 pockets for cards on mine, and a pocket to display photos.

Step 5. Sew the pockets on to piece of felt you cut from Step 3. Note that this piece will soon be folded in half so make sure you leave room at the center for the fold. Here's a simple diagram of how mine looks like with the pockets:

 

Step 6. Next, sew the piece you cut from Step 1 to the piece with the pockets. Sew on 3 sides only, see diagram below. Sew along the dotted lines. Leave the top open. This will be opening for the bills.

Step 7: Decorate! I was too tired last night because it was late so I only sewed in a button at the flap. I'll make a more fabulous one next time

Step 8. Attach the Velcro.

And you are done! Then I cut a picture of her to put on the photo pocket. And cut out little cards and "play money" (colorful pieces of paper from a toy catalog we got at the mall).

here it is again

Wallet, inside

Look, she has a 'Boots' credit card!

I linked up here:

Bead Jewelry Post

I'm going to post all the jewelry I've been working on in one post so they don't pile up in my drafts folder.

WARNING: This post will be picture heavy and long. Read only if you're into jewelry :)

Ok, so most of these are still part of my DIY gifts... and some are for me.

A bag charm

Heart drop earrings. The heart is made of real jade.

 

 

Agate teardrop earrings. Both beads are made of real agate and I embellished the drop bead with silver filigree.

A closer look at the filigree.

Red drop earrings I made for me.

Necklace with filigree-and-ceramic bead pendant.

Here's a closer look at the pendant.

Classic Victorian cameo necklace.

I really loved how this turned out so here's a closer look. I gave this away as a gift but I think I want one for me :)

Necklace with pearl beads, ceramic bunch of flowers and pink ribbon.

 

Pearls and chains necklace I made for me.

I had fun making these. I also had fun editing the photos. It reminded me of my previous business's heyday. I hope everyone's having as much fun with their Christmas preparations!

Felt flower obsession - Part 2

I've been meaning to post this last week but Christmas time has always been busy and stressful for me and since I'm getting ready to take a 10-day vacation, I needed to finish a pile of things at work before I leave (this is me being a responsible employee ;)

Anyway, I decided to DIY some of my gifts this year. I can't DIY all... I love shopping :D I already mentioned in a previous post that I am loving felt flowers right now. I've been meaning to make some for Andrea but my to-do pile (i.e. old clothes I want to re-fashion) is getting higher and there are gifts to DIY. Maybe next year. For now, these are for her cousins:

I added a matching felt pin/clip to the shorts and top we got for one of my nieces.

Our gift for our other niece, a felt flower pin/clip and an owl brooch.

You can make your hair clips into brooches at the same time by attaching both a pin and a clip at the back (trick I learned from the ones they sell at the store).


The templates are from:

• Whimsical Flower template (the pink one) from 3 Four and Under
• Peony flower template (the yellow one) from yoonie-at-home
• Owl template from HoneyBear Lane

Extending the life of a Onesie

Andrea is almost 14 months old this month and she stopped wearing onesies at 6 months, I think. However, we still have a couple of big onesies that still fit her, though I have noticed that she is not too comfortable in them. So I decided to cut off the pants part and turn them into t-shirts.

I worked on one last night and put it on Andrea when she woke up this morning.

 Oh  is that mommy's company's logo??? Yes it is!

See I started with a red onesie I got for my niece as souvenir from Monterey Bay 2 years ago.

Errr... at the time, I didn't know she was going to be a niece. My sister was so convinced she was having a little boy so... Anyway, my niece outgrew this and gave it to Andrea. The pirate print in front is already faded so I was planning to do a reverse applique.

First things first though... I had to cut off the pants. I didn't want to hem (plain lazy, no other reason), but after I finished, I think it won't survive one cycle in the wash so I might work on it again tonight to hem the bottom. After cutting of the bottom... I started searching through my stash of old shirts and other fabric to find something I might  use as applique. We don't have a lot of red anything in the house so I ended up cutting the company logo from an old company shirt that doesn't fit me anymore. At least the company logo is red and will match the shirt.

Since I had to sew the logo behind the front of the shirt to do a reverse applique, I had to make sure the position was precise (i.e. right side up... exactly on the part of the print I wanted to remove...). It took a while but I wasn't confident enough to start sewing so I just decided to sew it over the print I wanted to cover. Harder still!!! I had a difficult time sewing curves to form the circle and the result is a really uneven circle... good thing I used black thread, it won't be so obvious :)

Here's another look at my finished shirt (not too close!! so you won't have to see how uneven my sewing was):

Bottom of the shirt not hemmed see? But I will work on that tonight. By the way, the final design of the shirt does not comply with our company's branding guidelines (you know, how the logo should appear if background color is such and such, etc). Anyway, Andrea will only be using this with her pajamas anyway so no one else except me, my husband and our nanny will be seeing much of this shirt.

Anthro-Inspired Necklace: Winter Sparks

I've been reading a lot about Anthropologie-inspired items from several blogs the past 2 weeks. That got me curious about what Anthropologie is (no Anthropologie stores in my part of the world and I just realized how sad that is) so I browsed around their website. They do have a lot of nice stuff! I looked at a few necklaces for ideas and here's what I came up with last night:

My version of the necklace, 12/06/2010

This Winter Sparks necklace from Anthropologie was my inspiration:

Anthropologie: Winter Sparks $48

I couldn't copy the design exactly, I didn't have the exact materials on hand last night. So I only copied the basic elements combination of brass, clear crystal and pearls. Here's what I had on hand:

From left to right: Brass-toned ring I got for P42 (less than $1) at Quiapo (price tag is still attached, see?), pearl necklace with brass pendant I made last year, brass rose pendant I got in NY 2 years ago which broke but I couldn't throw it away because I think it's so pretty!

This necklace took me around 15 minutes to make and the hardest part was prying the brass flower from the ring. Note to self, next time, just look for brooches or pendants. I must admit, I totally forgot about the clear Swarovski crystals on both sides of the brass flowers while I was making mine. Anyhow, I like how it turned out. Here's a closer look:

I wore it with a black tunic top to work today.

And no, my hair is not messy... it looks that way all the time because it's wavy and I gave up trying to keep it neat. I have a couple more inspired designs I want to work on. Hopefully, I can finish them and post everything before I have to leave for vacation for Christmas.

This project is linked up to the following link parties:

CraftOManiac Monday at CraftOManiac | Lovely Crafty Weekend at Lovely Crafty Home | Strut Your Stuff at Saturday Mornings  | Making Monday Marvelous at C.R.A.F.T  | Just Something I Whipped Up at The Girl Creative  | Made by You Mondays at Skip to my Lou  | Market Yourself Monday at Sumo's Sweet Stuff | Craftastic Monday at Sew Can Do | Take a Look Tuesday at Sugar Bee Craft Edition | Handmade Tuesdays at Ladybug Blessings | Get Your Craft On at Today's Creative Blog | Show Me What Ya Got at Not JUST a Housewife | Show & Tell at Blue Cricket Design  | We Did It! Wednesday at Sew Much Ado  | Wednesday Link Party at Tea Rose Home | Strut Your Stuff Thursday at Somewhat Simple  | Keep it Simple Sunday at The Tattered Tag | Sunday Scoop at I ♥ Naptime   | Free for All at Young and Crafty | Think Pink Sundays at Flamingo Toes | Sew Crafty Saturday at Wildflowers and Whimsy | Made with Love Monday at Sew Chatty |

For Him Boxer Shorts

Isn't this a great photo?

You might be wondering what's so great about it. Well for one... I MADE IT!! My first time to make a pair of shorts. I basically followed the steps in this tutorial from MADE except for sewing on the elastic part. According to Dana... it's supposed to be easy to make. But given my skill level... it took me a while to make this. Quite a while.With the seam ripper seeing a lot of use.

You know what's even more amazing about this project? The elastic! I was able to put in the elastic! I didn't follow the tutorial when I was putting on the elastic. I didn't just want to insert the elastic... because I was using a wide elastic and wide elastic tend to bunch and fold inside. I wanted to sew it in, like the one on the boxer shorts I was copying. And after breaking off  one needle, and almost breaking my sewing machine because of all the pulling, I did it! Sewing elastics have always been my weakest spot when it comes to sewing. Since the early 90's... I have tried, tried and TRIED so hard... and failed every time I had a sewing project at school that requires me to sew an elastic. My mom always had to come to my rescue for this part.

This is actually for my husband. He might feel a little left out since I've been working on stuff for me and Andrea for a while and none for him. Now, I'm thinking of making matching pajama shorts for Andrea and me.