Tag Archives: tutorial

Tutorial: Reversible Circle Skirt

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Since I’m busy with a bunch of different projects this week, I thought I’d repost a tutorial I did for Amy‘s Spring Fling series last month.  Most of you have probably seen this, in case you haven’t, it’s a super easy and versatile skirt that I’m sure you and your little one will love!  Hope you are all having a good start to your week!

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Spring is something that I am very excited about.  I live in San Francisco, so I’m pretty spoiled by mild weather, but the gray and the rain get me down just as much as anyone else.  I’m ready for some warm sunny days spent playing outside and going on picnics!  So that is what has inspired the project I’m sharing with you today.

I call this The April Showers Skirt (because, you know, April showers bring May flowers!) and it is a reversible circle skirt.  Of course, you can use whatever material you want for yours, but I chose to make one side gray and cloudy and used a bright floral print for the other to represent the changing of the seasons and the sometimes erratic weather patterns of spring.  The best thing about this project is, not only is it SUPER simple but, you get 2 skirts in one!

So let’s begin!  Here’s what you’ll need:
About 3/4-1 yard of lightweight cotton fabric in 2 coordinating fabrics
Elastic
Bias tape
Safety pin
Sewing essentials

For optional applique:
Scrap(s) of fabric
Fusible web

A couple of notes about choosing fabric:
1. Since you are layering two pieces of fabric and adding bias tape for the hem, you want to keep the fabrics lightweight so you don’t weigh it down and it’ll still have that bouncy, twirly effect that circle skirts are famous for.

2. Also, you’ll want a print that looks good from all angles since that’s how the fabric is going to lay.  If you pick something that has a clear up and down, your print will appear upside down on one side of the skirt (and sideways in other parts of the skirt).

3. Lastly, when choosing fabrics, hold them up against each other to see if one will show through.  Since I picked a light gray and a bold print, you can see a little bit of the print from the gray side, but I was ok with it.

To begin, you’re going to need to know how to make a circle skirt.  I used this awesome circle skirt tutorial from made to help me figure out how to make my circle skirt pattern.  You’re going to need the waist measurement and the desired length of skirt and a little bit of math to make this pattern, but Dana did a fabulous job of breaking it down, so go over there and make your pattern and then come back here!

(Note: In Dana’s tutorial she attaches the elastic to the outside of the fabric and leaves extra fabric in the length for hemming.  Here, we’re not going to hem the bottom, but we’re going to make an elastic casing from the material, so I figured it kind of balances out.  I cut my fabric exactly the way Dana described, and it worked fine.  If you plan on using a wide elastic or just want to be cautious, add an extra inch to the skirt length and you can always trim it at the end.)

Ok, so now that you have your custom circle skirt pattern, fold both of your fabrics into fourths and cut out your circle.

This is what it should look like when they are still folded.  If you unfold them, they should look like donuts.

If you’re going to add applique, which is optional, now is the time to do it.  Cut your scrap of fabric to the approximate size you’ll need and then cut your fusible web slightly smaller than that.  Follow the directions that are specific to the fusible web you have.

The one I use most often is Pellon Wonder Under and I love it.  It has a rough side and a paper backed side.  Place the rough side down on the wrong side of the fabric and iron it on.

Now draw your design on the paper side and remember to flip your image since you are drawing on the wrong side of your fabric.

Cut it out, place it on the skirt where you want it to go (at this point, there is no front or back to the circle skirt, so you can put it wherever you want).  Cover it with a damp cloth and iron it on.

It should be nice and adhered, but I always zig zag stitch around my entire applique to make sure it stays put!

Repeat with any other appliques you want to add to either side of the skirt (I decided to add the second cloud later, but I should have done it all at once).

Now to sew the two sides together, place them on top of each other right sides together.  Pin the inner circle together and sew all the way around.

Take one layer of the skirt and push it through the center of the circle turning it right side out.  Press.

Now we’re going to make the elastic casing by top stitching another circle around the waist leaving an opening to insert the elastic through.  Make sure your casing is slightly larger than the width of the elastic you’ll be using.

To insert the elastic, separate the two layers and find the opening that you left.  Attach a safety pin to one end of your elastic, and push it all the way around the circle back to the opening.  Sorry, I didn’t photograph this part, but take both ends of the elastic and sew them together, trim the extra off and sew the opening shut.  We’re almost done!

(At this point, you can measure the length and trim off extra fabric if necessary).  Pin your bias tape around the outside of the circle.

Leave a few inches of bias tape at the beginning unsewn, then top stitch all the way around.  When you get back to the beginning, you should be able to measure out where the bias tape needs to be sewn together.  Sew the two ends of the bias tape with the right sides together.  Press open and then finish top stitching the bias tape on.

And you’re done!!

Now your little one has two skirts to skip around in during the upcoming spring months!

I love both sides, but I think it’s extra fun to catch a peek of the colorful flowers on the underside of the gray.  So fun!

I feel like the possibilities are endless with this reversible skirt.  I might just have to make one for every season! 🙂

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Oh and don’t forget, if you make a skirt using this tutorial (or any tutorial or project on this site), I’d love to see it!  Just add it to the you & mie flickr pool!!

Tutorial: Asymmetrical Circle Top

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It’s here!  My first top tutorial!  I’m so glad that I asked if anyone was interested in this tutorial because so many times I fully intend on doing a tutorial, but I get caught up in other things and let it pass.  You motivated me to follow through on this, so thank you guys!

I’m sure this is a bit premature, but since I’m working on adding more tutorials to my lil library (and I’m hoping people actually use them), I thought I’d create a you & mie flickr group so you can share your creations if you use a tutorial or are inspired by a project you see here.  I really would love to see your projects and I know I’d be inspired by you guys too!  I added some icons on the right and the flickr button will to take you over to the group (it’s the middle icon with the two little circles).

Oh, you like my new buttons??  I downloaded them for free HERE.

Ok ok, on with the tutorial!

So this, like most of my projects sort of evolved as I was creating it.  It wasn’t originally going to be asymmetrical and I intended it to be a shorter top, which is why I keep calling it a top, even though it’s more like a dress or a tunic.  The idea is pretty simple, so I hope I can explain it clearly.  If not, please feel free to ask me for help!!

Here’s what you’ll need:
Fabric (about 1-1.5 yards)
Buttons (I used 5 total , one large and four small – but you can use whatever you’d like)
Sewing essentials (thread, ruler, pins, scissors, etc.)

I used Dana’s Circle Skirt Tutorial to make the body of the top, but before you head over there, we’ll need to make a few adjustments.  Instead of using your kid’s waist measurement, you’ll need to use their chest measurement.  In Dana’s formula, she takes the waist measurement and adds 2 inches before dividing it by 6.28.  I suggest taking the chest measurement and adding 3 inches to give you a little extra fabric.  As for the length, you can make it as long or short as you want.  Just remember that you’ll need an extra inch for hemming and it’s always safer to cut it longer than you think you’ll need and trim it before hemming if it’s too long.  If you’ve never made a circle skirt, all these numbers may be a little confusing, but head on over to Dana’s tutorial because she explains it all quite nicely!

So now you should have your fabric cut and it should look like this when it’s still folded in fourths.

Go ahead and open it up and cut a straight line from the outside to the inside of the circle.

Besides the circle, you’ll need to cut 2 rectangles for straps and one for the bodice.  I cut my straps 12 x 2.5 inches in order to make 1 inch straps.  12 inches was plenty long enough for my 19 month old, but if you’re making your top for a older/larger kid, you’ll probably want to add a couple of inches.

For the bodice, take the chest measurement and add 3 inches for the length.  The width of this strip should be about 5 inches.

(ooh, try to ignore how wrinkled my fabric is!!)

Let’s start with the circle.  On one side of the straight edge you cut open, fold and press your fabric about a 1/4 inch.  If your fabric has a right and wrong side, you’ll want to fold it in towards the wrong side.  My fabric didn’t, so I actually folded my button placket towards the right side of the fabric.

Fold it in another inch, press and pin.

Top stitch as close to the pinned edge as possible and as an optional step, top stitch on the outside edge as well for symmetry.

Alright, now that you have one side of your top finished, we’ll do the other side and this is where the asymmetricality or asymmetricalness comes in. 🙂

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I never intended for this top to be asymmetrical.  It was just going to have the buttons go straight down the front.  But when I looked at the top, it had a bit too much fabric for a top (in my opinion).  I wanted to cut some of the fabric out, but not lose any fabric at the inner circle because then it wouldn’t fit around my daughter’s chest.

I held the fabric together where the fabric met on the top and then pulled the bottom of the fabric over until the plaid lines matched up.  Of course, if you’re not using plaid (or even if you are), you can decide how much of an angle you want the front opening to be.  Just remember not to overlap any of the fabric at the top, just the bottom (oh man, I hope this is making sense).

Once you’ve decided on the angle, mark it by adding pins along the finished placket.  Measure about 1 and 1/4 from your pins and cut from the bottom to the center.  Be sure not to cut the other side of the circle, just the one on top!

Finish this edge the same way you did the first one.  These two one inch hems will overlap and are the button plackets for the front of the shirt.

Now we’re going to prepare the straps.  Take the two rectangles for your straps, fold them in half lengthwise right sides together and press.

Sew down the side with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.  Turn the straps right side out and move the seam to the center.  Press and top stitch down each side.  Top stitching is optional, but trust me, it’ll look much better.  Set the straps aside.

Take your bodice piece and fold it in half lengthwise wrong sides together.  Along each long side of the rectangle, fold and press it in about a 1/4 inch.

On one end, fold the fabric about a 1/2 inch and press.

Alright, so now we’re going to put it all together!  Measure the width of your top with the button plackets overlapping and it should be slightly larger than your final chest measurement.  Gather the top until it measures the same as the final chest measurement.  To gather, set your machine to the longest stitch possible (usually a 5) and sew a basting line along the edge.  Do not backstitch at the beginning of the end.  Gently pull on one of the threads to gather fabric.  Mine was oh so barely gathered.

With your body piece opened up, lay it in front of you right side up.  The top of the fabric (slightly gathered) will lay straight, but the finished edge will lay diagonal.  Unfold your bodice piece and place it on top (right side down) lining up the edge with the top of the skirt piece. The corner that you created when folding should be lined up with the edge of your skirt piece.  Sew along that fold all the way around to the other edge.

Flip the bodice piece up and iron the seam open.  It should look like this.

With wrong side facing up, your top should look like this.  Fold the ends in half an inch (trim if necessary).

Fold the bodice piece in half.  The folded edge should just cover the seam.  Pin in place.  Keep in mind that while the body piece edges are angled, your bodice piece edges should be vertical.

Top stitch on the right side just slightly above the seam.  Go slow and make sure to catch the fabric on the wrong side.  Since you’re sewing above the seam, it should be fine.

Now it’s time to add the straps.  Measure out your placement by trying it on your kid, if possible.

You can attach your straps however you like, but this is how I do it.  The straps should be long enough to hang past the bottom edge of your bodice piece.  I trim them so they hang past the bottom of the bodice by about a 1/4 inch then zig zag stitch along the edge.

Fold the end under a 1/4 inch and sew right along the top stitching you did earlier.  This will secure the end of the strap nicely and the stitching will blend in and be barely noticeable.  Repeat with the other 3 ends of the straps.

With your straps still pinned in place, top stitch around the rest of your bodice piece.  I like to do extra stitching over the straps to make sure they are very securely attached.

Almost done!  Hem up the bottom by folding it in a 1/4 inch and then another 1/4 and sewing all the way around.

Then make button holes on one button placket and attach buttons to the other.

All done!!  Step back and admire your handy work!

I really hope that this process made sense, but if you need me to clarify any part, don’t hesitate to ask!  It really was supposed to be a simple tutorial, but sometimes I tend to over explain things and make them seem more complicated.

If you use this tutorial to make a top, please load it into the you & mie flickr group so I can see your awesome work!  It’d mean so much to me!

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Tutorial: Lucky Chevron Skirt

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I made this skirt for St. Patrick’s Day and though I realize it’s a bit late for you to make one, it’s really a great skirt for any time of the year.  This has been a pretty popular idea recently and my original inspiration was a skirt I saw a little girl wearing.  Hers had bunch of different colors (maybe 10?) in skinny stripes, pieced together to make a chevron pattern.  I wanted to recreate that skirt exactly (and maybe I still will), but for this holiday, I had these three lovely shades of green and greenish-yellow so I made some adjustments.  I decided to make my stripes different widths to make it more interesting, but you can make yours as skinny or wide, and all the same or all different, as you want.  And use as many colors as you want too!

Before I begin, I must add that I was just making this up as I went along and it may not be the best or the “proper” way to do things.  In hindsight, I definitely would have started out with more fabric, because I ended up with BARELY enough.  You need a lot more fabric than you’d normally need for a skirt because you cut away a lot (bummer)!  Anyways, here we go:

What you’ll need:
About 1.5-2 yards total in different colors
1 inch wide elastic
Safety pin
Sewing essentials

First cut your fabric into strips.  Like I said, you can make them as wide or narrow as you want.  I didn’t know how much fabric I’d need when I started, but as an estimate, I’d make sure you have enough strips to form 2 rectangles that are 1.5 times your desired length, by 2 times the waist measurement.  For example.  Yuki’s waist is 19 inches and I wanted the skirt to be about 9 inches long.  So I’d need two rectangles that are 38 inches (19×2) by 13.5 inches (9×1.5).  Again, this is just an ESTIMATE, so please go bigger if you can and don’t blame me if it’s not enough! 🙂

Here are the strips I cut.  The first one was about 1.75 inches wide, the second was 2.75 and the third was 2.25 inches.

The bottom strip in the picture is the waistband.  You’ll need a rectangle that is 3 inches wide and twice the waist measurement in length.

Start sewing your strips together by pinning them together along the long side of the strips, right sides together.

Continue adding strips to form one rectangle.  Then start again in the same pattern to make your second rectangle.  Because you want all your rows to line up perfectly when you piece them together later, try to sew your strips together keeping your seam allowance straight and consistent for all your strips.

I zig zag stitched each seam as I went along to prevent fraying.

When you’re done sewing all your strips together, your rectangles should look something like this.

Press all the seams in the same direction.  To keep those seams laying nice and flat, I top stitched along each strip in coordinating thread.  This step is optional.

Now we’re going to make an angled cut on each end of your rectangles.  The larger the angle, the sharper the chevron V is going to be.  I could already sense I wasn’t going to have enough fabric, so I made my cut at an angle smaller than 45 degrees.  This made my chevron V wide.

Whatever you decide, make sure you cut it exact on each end of your rectangles to form two isosceles trapezoids that look something like this.

Place them on top of each other, right sides together, make sure that the seams match up as closely as possible.  Pin and sew.

The line you just sewed is now the front center and back center of your skirt.  Press the seam open and it should look like this.

Chop off the top and bottom (along the white lines) to make them straight.

Next, you’d want to cut off the sides to make a rectangle.  My skirt was getting tiny at this point and since I didn’t want it to be a mini skirt, I cut mine at a slight angle to leave more room at the bottom.  Ideally though, if you have enough fabric, cutting it straight will give you a nice angle for your chevron pattern on the sides of the skirt.

Place your two rectangles right sides together and sew up the side seams.

Now to create your waistband, fold your strip in half, and sew the ends together to make a loop that is the same as the width of the skirt.

Move seam to the center and press open.

With right sides together, slip the waistband over the top of the skirt, lining up the seam with the center of the skirt in the back.  Pin all the way around and sew.

When you flip the waist band up, it should look like this.

Fold the top of the waistband in about 1/4 inch and press.

Now fold it down again to create a casing wide enough to fit your elastic.  The folded edge should come down just past the bottom of the waistband, covering the seam ever so slightly.

Pin the waistband in place.  Starting in the back, about 1 inch right of the center, start top stitching around the waistband, making sure the casing is wide enough for the elastic.  Sew all the way around and stop about 1 inch from the center, leaving a 2 inch opening.

Attach a safety pin to one end of your elastic and push it through the casing.

Sew the ends of the elastic together and finish top stitching the waistband to close the casing.

You’re practically done!  Just hem up the bottom of the skirt by folding and pressing it 1/4 inch and then another 1/4 inch to hide the unfinished edge and sew all the way around.

Done!

Unfortunately, I didn’t get very many good pictures of Yuki wearing the skirt since we were running out the door to go somewhere.  But she was definitely all decked out in green for St. Patrick’s Day!  And now she has a new bright skirt to wear through spring and summer.

There are so many variations of this skirt that would be fun to make.  What combo of colors and strip widths will you use?

Now I gotta come up with a project where I can use all the poor pieces I had to cut away from this skirt so they don’t go to waste . . .

Tutorial: Easy Sticker Pins and Hair Clip

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Oh, I just had to slide one more super fast and easy project for St. Patty’s Day.  Green is not a very common color in my wardrobe, so I like to have something really easy on hand to wear to avoid being pinched and still be festive in a very low commitment kinda way.

So when I saw these cute foam stickers in the $1 bin at Joann’s (love/hate those dollar bins right by the register that you’re forced to rummage through when you’re waiting in line!), I decided to just glue them onto some pin backs and be done with it!  Then I happened to see this post on A Couple of Craft Addicts and decided I should make a hair clip for Yuki too!  This is definitely a nap time craft.  It’ll take you 5 minutes or less!

For the pins, I wanted a stiffer straight back, so I put the stickers on a sheet of cardstock.  I used two stickers for each pin and pressed them on really hard to make sure they wouldn’t fall off.

For the hair clip, I thought it might be better if it was a bit more flexible, so I stuck it on a piece of scrap fabric.

Carefully cut the paper/fabric around the stickers.

Then just heat up the glue gun and apply a generous amount of glue to the pin back and/or hair clip and attach the sticker.

Let it cool and you’re done!  Now we’re ready to rock some green for St. Patrick’s Day!

(I’m quite certain this will look much cuter in my daughter’s hair, but she was taking a nap)

There’s my green for tomorrow.  Hope I don’t get pinched! 🙂

Yuki’s Nursery: Last Day and a (sorta) tutorial

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(click the button to see the whole series!)

So we made it to the last day!  I just wanted to share a couple more things and a super easy and cheap home decor idea.

First is this quilt.  My first real hand-quilted quilt ever.  Probably the last 🙂

Don’t you love how the 2010 creeps upwards?  Hah!

It was a fun project and I’m pretty proud of it, but I really don’t know if hand quilting is for me.  I love quilts though!  I think, from now on, it’s either machine quilted or knots. 🙂

This next project was a mobile I made after Yuki was born.  I realized that it would be handy to have one hanging right above her changing table to keep her distracted during diaper and clothing changes.  We had a hand-me-down mobile but it wasn’t right for our room.  So I decided to make some black and white cards and attach them to the mobile frame with fishing wire.

It was great because it still had the music and rotating mechanism, but she LOVED the black and white designs.  This was, by far, the most practical and well used item that I made.  And it was so cheap and dinky!  It was literally white pieces of cardstock that I drew on with a black marker.

She loved it for a loooong time, but eventually was able to sit up and then grab them and since they were just paper, they didn’t last long after that.  I plan on making them again when we have another baby, but I’ll probably make them with felt (or at least laminate the cards) so they are more sturdy.

This next piece is a combo of a fun find and a DIY project.  While in Portland we found this awesome gift shop and I picked up these super cute postcards.  I can’t remember how much they were, but I’m assuming pretty cheap.  They fit perfectly with the feel and theme of the room.  It’s hard to see, but they are copies of oldish dictionary pages with hand drawn and colored ADORABLE illustrations.  Birds, rabbits, a dear, a bear and a squirrel?  Yes please!

So here’s where the sorta tutorial comes in.  I wanted to show you how I painted these cheap-o frames to look vintage-y and distressed, but I didn’t have the time or any extra frames to demonstrate.  So I thought I’d just describe it, since it’s pretty simple.

Just go and pick up a 3-pack of these RAM frames from Ikea for $1.99.  They are unfinished pine and have a plastic sheet instead of glass making it totally safe for a kid’s room.

All you need is acrylic paint in the color you want the frame, and white.  Paint a few coats of your main color to make sure it’s nice and well coated.  In my case, I did about 2-3 coats of brown paint.

Once the frame is completely dry, take a dry brush and dip it very lightly in the white paint.  You can brush some of the excess paint off if you need to, because you really only need a tiny bit.  You want to lightly brush the white paint along the edges of the frame a few times all the way around.  Do it on both the outside edge and inside edge of the frame.  You can very lightly run it over the rest of the frame too.

The nice thing about this, is if you accidentally get too much white on the frame, you can always take another dry brush with a tiny bit of your base color and brush it over.  Keep going until it’s got the amount of distressing you like.

And that’s it!

Thanks so much for coming on this little tour of Yuki’s room.  For me, it was a trip down memory lane!  Though some of this stuff is still up in the room, a lot has changed, and most of it has just become part of the mess.  I don’t really appreciate it anymore.  But looking back, I remember all the love and thought that went into it AND it makes me a little excited to plan another nursery!!  Not that we’re ready for that yet . . .

And in case you want to go back and see the other days, here are the links:
Day 1: Fabric Wall Decals
Day 2: Bird Mobiles
Day 3: Punched Fabric Flowers
Day 4: Fun Finds

Anyways, have yourself a great weekend!!  I’ll see you next week for some fun green activities in honor of St. Patty’s Day 🙂

Yuki’s Nursery: Day 3 and a Tutorial: Punched Fabric Flowers

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(click the button above to see the rest of the series)

It’s Day 3 of Yuki’s Nursery Tour!  Sorry this post is later than I hoped because not only is Yuki sick, but she got me sick too!!  Last night I went to sleep BEFORE Yuki and only woke up today because she was up and Hideko had left for work.  I slept for over 12 hours but I feel like I could have slept forever.

Anyways, continuing on with Yuki’s Nursery Tour, I’ve got more pictures, projects and a tutorial.  These are the only photos I could find of the whole room.

We used a lot of colors for her room, but the main colors were yellow, orange, gray and a splash of turquoise.  One of the first things I made was a bunting using a variety of yellow, orange and gray fabrics and sewed them to a gray ribbon.  I really love it and actually took them down to use at her birthday party (6 months ago) but never bothered to put them back up 😦

Another big project for the room was reupholstering this rocker.  It was a hand-me-down from Hideko’s sister and we love it so much (and still use it!), but the original cushion covers were not really my style (yes, that’s putting it lightly ;)).  I was really proud of how it came out.  And then I saw a photo of a friend’s reupholstered rocker and they had repainted the frame too!  Why didn’t I think of that!?  Oh well, maybe that’ll be one of my nesting projects before baby #2 comes along.

For today’s project, I’m going to show you how I made these fabric punched flower branches.

The flowers are made out of fabric that’s been made stiff with fabric stiffener and then punched out with flower punches.  Sounds easy right??  Well IT IS!

Here’s what you need:
Scraps of fabric
Fabric stiffener
Paint brush
Craft punches (in flower shapes)
Awl, ice pick or other pointy object
Artificial flower stamens (I’m not sure what they’re really called, but you can see a pictures below)
Hot glue gun
Fallen branches
Vase
Yellow (or other color) permanent marker (optional)

Take your fabric and apply the stiffener following the directions on the bottle.  I like to use wax paper on a cookie sheet to lay the fabric out on.  I usually apply a few coats to make it nice and thick but not unbendable.  Let it dry completely.  I didn’t have time to label these photos, but you can see the regular fabric on the left, the fabric stiffener and brush in the middle, and two sheets of already stiffened and dried fabric.

Here are the two sheets of stiffened fabric up close.  They are pretty hard, like cardstock, and you can bend them a bit to give them shape, but they don’t crease like paper.

Now take your stiff fabric and punch out a bunch of flowers!  I used cherry blossoms here, but you can use any shape flower.  In fact, if you don’t have any flower craft punches, you can just freehand cut some out.

The white ones on the right are Martha Stewart and the cherry blossom punches on the left are Carl brand.

Fun!!!  Because the fabric is thick and stiff, these suckers were pretty tough to punch out.  I recommend putting the punch on a flat hard surface, like your desk, placing your fabric in the punch and then using your palm and your body weight to push down into the desk.  Yeah, it can hurt after awhile.

Use your awl to create a small hole in the center.  You’ll need to make it a bit wider than in this picture to fit the stamens in.  Press gently or else you’ll tear the fabric.

These are the stamen.  I bought them at Michael’s I think, but you can find them at most craft or hobby stores.  This is optional, but I took a yellow permanent marker and colored in the bulb of the stamens to give them some color.  You can probably also buy colorful ones, but these are the only ones I could find.

Cut them in half (the stamens come with two on each end of a string) and pull them through the center of the flower.  Decide how many you want.  I used between 2-4 depending on the size of the flower.

If you want you can bend the flower petals up a bit to give them more depth.  Now trim the ends of the stamens in the back, apply a generous amount of hot glue and stick it on to your branches.  The glue is going to hold the stamens in place and adhere the flower to the branch.  I found that placing the flowers in the nook where one branch splits into two was a good place for it.  Here is what it looks like from the back.

Not super pretty, but not too noticeable either.  But knowing that there was going to be a back, I put all my flowers facing the same way and put the back side up against the wall.  If I wanted the branches to be pretty from all angles, I’d probably place two flowers back to back to cover up all the glue.

I did simple one-color, one-layered flowers, but if I were to do it again, I’d probably play around with layering flowers that are different sizes and/or different shades.

And looking at these, I realize that they don’t just have to be home decor, but these would make awfully cute hair accessories too!  In fact, I’m going to glue these extra ones to pins right now!

Thanks for stopping by!  I’ve got a bit more to show you from Yuki’s nursery later this week, including other DIY projects, some fun finds and another tutorial.  Hope you’re all staying warm and healthy!

Tutorial: Fabric Wall Decals

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See the whole series here:
This week I thought I’d share Yuki’s nursery with you. I noticed someone had asked about the rest of the nursery a couple weeks ago when I shared this tutorial on delia creates. Most of you have probably seen this post, but I wanted to share it here as well.

So today I’m reposting this tutorial, but later this week I’ll take you on a little tour of the rest of the nursery and share some of the other projects I did. The best thing about these projects is that even though I used them in the nursery, they can really be used in any room of the house!

Anyways, here we go…

These fabric wall decals were my favorite part of decorating the nursery. I can’t say that this is an original idea of mine. I first saw it on How About Orange, and she had seen it on another blog and so forth. But today I’m going to show you how perfect these decals are for a sweet little nursery.

When we found out we were having a baby we moved into a 2 bedroom apartment so our daughter could have her own room. But our building has strict rules about painting the walls so I knew removable decals were the way to go. There are some amazingly cute ones out there, but they can be pricey and I thought it’d be fun to make my own. Not only do you have the freedom to create any image you want, but it’s easy and cheap! You probably already have all the materials you need and it’s super safe for your little one.

And it’s completely removable. Perfect for renters OR people who want to have the option of changing up their decor every once and awhile. I’m going to show you two ways to do it. I’ll call one, “the easy way” and the other, “the easier way.” 🙂

Here’s what we’ll be making today . . .

and here’s what you’ll need:
Paper, pencil and scissors for making your pattern (or you can download this hedgehog, mushroom and grass one I made HERE)
Fabric (lightweight cotton works best)
Fabric scissors
A tub, tray or baking sheet
Towels (to protect your floor)
Disappearing ink pen (optional)
Sponge brush (optional)

And lastly,
for the easy way: cornstarch
for the easier way: heavy starch spray (used for ironing)

The first step (and hardest, in my opinion), is deciding what you want to make and where you want to put it. Once you’ve decided, measure out the wall space. Mark the placement on the wall with pencil if necessary. On a piece of paper, measure out the appropriate size and draw out your pattern.

If you need help with the design, you can do an image search and it helps to use the word “silhouette” in your search, for example, “squirrel silhouette.”

Once you’ve drawn out your pattern, cut it out and trace it onto your fabric. Remember, if you are drawing it onto the wrong side of your fabric, you need to turn your pattern around too!

Cut out your decal pieces and you’re ready to make it stick!

First wipe your wall clean of any dirt or oil and dry it. Place towels on the floor under where you’ll be working to catch any drips.

I’ll start with “the easier way” because, well, it’s easier! This method requires the heavy starch spray.

Place your fabric onto your tray, baking sheet or small tub. Just use whatever you have around your house, but for bigger pieces of fabric, you’ll want a bigger surface. Lay it out flat and spray it with the starch spray. You want it to be well saturated. Using your brush (or your fingers), spread the liquid and remove any excess starch (you want it to be wet, but not necessarily dripping wet).

For small pieces of fabric, you’ll be able to just place the entire decal on the wall and then move it slightly if you need to adjust. Smooth it out using your brush or fingers. Using some of the excess spray on your tray, brush over the entire decal.

For larger pieces, start with one corner or edge and slowly work to the other side smoothing the fabric and pressing out any air bubbles with your brush or fingers. For REALLY large pieces (like the tree), see the helpful hints below.

Your fabric may start to fray a bit around the edges. Just use your brush or fingers to gently push the threads back along the edges of your fabric.

Repeat with all your decals. Use a damp towel or sponge to wipe any excess cornstarch away from around the decal (it may leave a white residue if it dries on the wall). Let it dry for a few hours or overnight, depending on the size of the decal and voila! You’re done!

Now, for “the easy way,” the only difference is that you’ll be making your own corn starch solution out of water and corn starch instead of using the spray. There are a few extra steps involved, but there are some great benefits. 1) You probably have cornstarch at your house and it’s cheap! 2) This method is totally natural! If you are concerned at all with unnatural products around your baby, this is perfect for you. You know, if you’re afraid that your child will, say . . . lick the wall (what!? whose child would do that!?). I don’t know if the starch spray is actually bad for you, but there are ingredients listed that I don’t recognize. There’s no question with corn starch and water. 3) And avoiding aerosol cans is better for the environment!

To make the solution:
Mix 3 teaspoons of corn starch with 2 tablespoons of cold water in a medium bowl. Add 1 cup of boiling water, stir and let cool. The solution will be cloudy and very thin.

The rest of the process is the same. Brush the solution onto the fabric and place it on the wall making sure to smooth out any wrinkles or air bubbles. Wipe away any excess drippings and you’re done!

Step back and enjoy your unique wall decals!

TIPS AND TRICKS:

Fabric – Lightweight cotton fabric will be the easiest to adhere and will stick to the wall the best. Medium weight fabrics can work too, but it might be a bit trickier.

Placement – These are removable, even for little fingers. My daughter enjoyed peeling any leaves she could reach from the crib off the wall, but she hasn’t messed with any of the other ones that she can reach. Just something to consider when deciding where to place your decals.

Extra large decals – For large images, cut your fabric into several smaller pieces. It will make it MUCH easier to put up. Just try to line up each piece right up against each other so it looks continuous and no one will be able to tell! The large tree was cut into 5 pieces and the deer was 3.

Removal – You can easily peel the decal off with your fingers when they are dry and then use a wet towel to wipe away any starch residue. This may cause the fabric to fray. For even cleaner removal, dampen the decal with water and it’ll slide right off. These decals CAN be used again if you remove them gently. Rinse the fabric, pat dry and then adhere them the same way you did before!

And really, the possibilities are ENDLESS! I’m already brainstorming new ideas for when I get tired of these. I hope you have fun making yours!

Tutorial: Twisted Petal Flower

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Yes, another fabric flower!  This is the one I used to decorate Yuki’s Blossom by Blossom Dress.  I just made the flowers and stitched them directly to the dress, but you can use this to decorate just about anything – a shirt, a bag, or you can stitch it to a headband, a pin backing, etc.  It’s called the Twisted Petal Flower because you make it by cutting out petals, twisting them and stitching them together.

You’ll need:
Fabric
Scissors
Thread and needle

I used a sheer fabric and I would recommend something thin (though sheer is not necessary).  Since you’ll be twisting the fabric, both right and wrong sides will show, so you may want to keep that in mind when choosing your fabric.  Also, depending on what kind of look you want, you may want to pick something that won’t fray too much since you’ll be leaving the edges raw.

Here we go!

First you’ll need to cut 2-3 fabric squares about the desired size of your finished flower (yes, there is only one here, but you will need 2 or 3.  If you cut 3 squares you will have more petals.  More on that later).

Take one square and fold it in half and then in half again, so it is in fourths.  Making sure the folded tip is in the bottom left corner, draw and cut out a petal shape like so.

It should look like this when it is unfolded.

Next you will need to cut petals from the other squares.  Start by cutting the squares in half so you have rectangles.

Fold the rectangle in half and cut it out in the shape of a petal again.

So you should have one 4 petal piece and two or four 2 petal pieces.  In the flower I’m making here, I only ended up using 2 of the petals.  But if you want a more full flower, you’ll use all four.

First you’ll want to thread up your needle and tie a knot at the end.  Then take one of the 2-petal pieces and twist it in the center.  You only need to twist it 180 degrees so that one side will be right side up and the other half will be wrong side up.

Do the same with another 2-petal piece and place it on top of the first one creating an X.

Place that X on top of the 4-petal piece at an angle so that all 8 petals are showing (no twisting necessary).  The two twisted petal pieces go on top of the 4-petal piece.

Just to show how the petals should be place on each other, I’ve drawn Xs.  The blue X is the 4-petal piece on the bottom.  The pink X is the 2 twisted petals on top.

Starting from the back of the flower (ignore the picture), put your needle through the center of the flower and stitch it 2 or 3 times.

It will look like this, and you could very well be done . . .

but I wanted the flower to have even more dimension, so that all the petals would stick out from the dress.  So, fold the whole flower in half (doesn’t matter which way) and stitch the center of the flower a few times (where my thumb is).

Open the flower and fold it in half the other way and repeat.

By pinching the bottom of the flower and stitching, you’ll get the whole thing to pucker up a little bit.

At this point, I decided I was done with this flower and just hand stitched it onto the dress with the remaining thread.  If you want to add more petals, just repeat what you did with the first two petal pieces (twist them in the center and make an X), and stitch them on to the BACK of the flower making sure to place the petals at an angle where they’ll be seen best.

And that’s it!  Like I said, you can easily stitch these onto clothes, or attach them to a pin, or a headband, a purse, etc.

Here are the flowers in action.  Some I made just like this, some with more petals and some were just single petals stitched on.

Hope you have fun adorning things with flowers!  I sure did 🙂

Nesting with Delia – my first guest post!

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Good morning!!!  Guess where I am today!?  That’s right, I’m doing a guest post, and not just anywhere, but for Delia from Delia Creates!

I’m am so honored and thrilled to be an add-on to her fantastic Nesting series with my spin on fabric wall decals.  Delia’s blog is one of my absolute favorites and you’ll see why if you take a few minutes to browse around.  I guarantee, you’ll be hooked!

Check out the tutorial and you can download my first free pattern for this sweet hedgehog and mushroom decal set!

So what are you waiting for?  Come join me for some nesting with Delia!

Tutorial: Felt Flower Pin

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I didn’t originally intend it, but I’ve been posting a tutorial from a piece of each of my Project Run & Play Sew Along outfits.  I’m a little late with this one, but I thought I’d share how I made the pin for the blazer I made 2 weeks ago.

Now I know there are a billion fabric flower tutorials out there, but why not one more?  I’m really sorry for the horrible pictures – I work at night in my poorly lit crafting area.

So here’s what you need:
Wool felt
Hot glue gun
Pin back
Scissors, thread and needle

You can definitely use different fabric or even polyester felt, but I LOVE wool felt for this pin.  It’s nice and thick and gives the flower great shape.

First you’re going to need to cut your felt into little 5-petal flowers.  These are actually going to be the petals.  You’ll need 4 that are about the size you want the finished flower to be.  Then you’ll need 2 that are slightly smaller.  You’ll also need 2 circles – one that is smaller than your flower pieces and then one that fits inside the pin back.

(ignore the finished flower, but you can see how the smaller circle fits perfectly inside the width of the pin back)

Here’s how I cut the 5-petal flowers shapes.  First I cut the felt into circles slightly larger than I want the finished flower to be.  Then I slowly go around the circle and cut 5 little divots to make the petal shapes.  If you want, you can draw the design on first and then cut slightly inside the line.

Before you start, you may want to thread up a needle and tie your knot at the end, so you’re ready to sew.  Now take one of your large petal pieces and fold it in half.

Then fold it in half again.  It should look like this (side and top view).

Take the larger of your two circles and place the tip of your folded petal piece in the center of the circle.

Starting from the back side, put through needle through the tip of the folded flower and stitch it in place.  Don’t tie off or cut the thread, continue using it for the entire flower.  Repeat with the other 3 petal pieces arranging them around the circle to cover the entire circle.  It should look something like this.

Now take one of your smaller petal pieces and place it on top (without folding).  Put the needle through the flower (from the back) slightly off center and then back down a millimeter or two over.

When you pull your thread tightly, it will pull the center of the flower in and the petals upward (because of the small space between the stitch).

Now, for the center of the flower, you’re going to take the last petal piece and fold it in half.

Then roll it into a cone.

Insert your needle back through the center of the flower and through the tip of the cone.  Pull the needle through the cone and back down the center of the flower.  Stitch it into place a few more times, then tie off the thread at the back of the flower and snip.

The back of your flower will probably look something like this, messy stitches and knots all over.  Heat up your glue gun and adhere the pin back to the center of the flower.

Take your smaller circle and hot glue it to the back covering the pin back (and all those unsightly stitches 🙂

At this point, I didn’t totally like the shape of the flower and it’s petals, so I took some scissors and trimmed it a bit.  Then you’re done!!  Add it to anything for a fun finishing touch.  I used it on this blazer, but I love that I can add it to any other coat, or a bag, or a headband, etc.

There you have it!  One more flower tutorial for ya!