Wreaths!

So I was bored last weekend and couldn't sleep, so I thought about how I've always wanted to make a Christmas wreath, but it's summer. Then I was like well hey, an everyday/year round wreath would be a cool decoration to personalize the outside of my apt more. This particular one I made for a friend who loves animals, esp cats.

Materials:

foam wreath
yarn
hot glue gun
decorations (letters, numbers, flowers, etc.)

Instructions:

At the starting point, hot glue a piece of string to one side of the wreath. Press it down and make sure it's stuck. Then, begin wrapping the yarn in/out of the wreath.

This is a pretty long process (I used a 16" wreath and it took 3-4 hours) Once you've covered all of the foam, hot glue the end of the string to the wreath.

Now it's decoration time! For this one I used a bouquet of flowers (got them for 95 cents at Walmart) and cut the flowers from the stem. Make sure not to cut it too short though, because you're going to use the wire from the flower to stick it into the wreath. You could always hot glue it, but if you just stuck the wire into the foam you can always exchange it with different flowers as the seasons change.

I also painted some letters to add. The letters, however, I hot glued down.

And that's it! It's fairly easy (wood wreaths would be faster to make since the yarn wrapping is skipped and you just decorate it) and really thoughtful as a house warming gift.

I became a little obsessed with it so I'll prob have an overstock of wreaths lol. I plan on selling them either locally or on etsy. So look out for them!

Adrienne J.

Cut Out Shirts

I saw a shirt on Urban Outfitters with a skull shape cut out on the back, and I really wanted, but didn't feel like spending $40 on something I could probably do myself. Here's what i came up with.



(This is UO's)



Materials:

shirt (the material of the shirt can make it harder or easier to cut, cotton=hard; modal=easy)

box cutter (or scissors)

pencil (optional)

cardboard (optional)

Instructions:

First, lay the shirt down flat, and insert a piece of cardboard inside to prevent cutting through to the other side of the shirt.

Use the pencil and mark out what it is you want to cut. (For the skull shirt, or for a less structured design, just start cutting and do not mark where you will cut.  Sometimes random, less neat designs looks best.)

Grab your box cutter and start cutting away the holes

That's it!

(this is the back of the shirt, it was just hard taking a picture of my back so I put the shirt on backwards)

Cool idea for all those old family reunion shirts you have in the back of your closet.

Adrienne J

String Eiffel Tower

Second string art project.

Materials:
cork board
pins
string
scissors

Instructions:
I decided to paint a background for this one.  I used a sponge paintbrush and red and white paint.  I started with white, and then added a little bit of red with each new layer to create an ombre effect. I then let it dry overnight.

Pick out a design that you want your string art to be and place a cutout of it on the board.  Then outline it with pins.

(board fell over and half the paint got rubbed off)

There's no particular order in which you should wrap the string, random is easiest.  First, you'll need to tie a knot around your first needle then just go back and forth between and around other pins until you're satisfied.  Once you're done, tie a knot around your final pin to keep everything from unraveling.

Adrienne J

String Kite

I saw several types of string art with words and hearts, and thought it would be cool to try one of my own.
I don't have time to finish it just yet, but by Friday hopefully I'll be able to upload pictures of a finished product ;)

Materials:
cork board
pins
string
scissors

Instructions:
Pick out a design that you want your string art to be and place a cutout of it on the board.  Then outline it with pins.

Remove the cutout, and add additional pins as you see fit.  Then, start stringing!

There's no particular order in which you should wrap the string, random is easiest.  First, you'll need to tie a knot around your first needle then just go back and forth between and around other pins until you're satisfied.  Once you're done, tie a knot around your final pin to keep everything from unraveling.

I'm obviously not done yet, but you can see an outline of the concept.  Grass, sky, and kite lol. It needs more pins to fill in all the gaps and additional string.

Adrienne J.

Nautical Pillow

I also like sailor things, so i thought why not make a pillow of that too.
 

Materials:
2/3 yard of fabric
16x16 in pillow
needle
thread
scissors
package of fasteners/anchors (by the needles and thread in stores)
hot glue gun
marker
modge podge/spray glue
glitter
rope


Instructions:
Cut the fabric in half and place the pillow in the middle.  Sew the fabrics together as close to the pillow as possible (make sure you leave at least an inch or two of fabric hanging from all sides of the pillow.




My little helper Dutchess

Once you have the pillow trapped inside, fold the edges of  the fabric in to neaten the edges and sew them together.

Grab the scissors and cut out little holes where you want the fasteners to be.  Stick the more narrow fastener through the top of the hole, flip the pillow over, and push all the fabric down around the barrel.  Get the hot glue gun and circle around the barrel of the fastener, then place the wider fastener on top. 

Repeat for as many holes as you want.

Stencil out an anchor shape (or whatever you want).  In a plastic bowl mix a little bit of modge podge and a ton of glitter.  Fill in the shape with the modge podge glitter mix.  Once it's painted in, pour glitter on top of the glue.  Wait a little bit then shake it off.  Once it's dry, either put on a top coat of plain modge podge (it dries clear) or use a spray glue to seal the glitter in.

Grab your rope and thread it in and out of all the holes.  I also painted a life preserver using a mini styrofoam wreath.

Tie a bow/knot at the top and you're done!

Adrienne J.

Jigsaw Pillow

My current obsession is pillow making.  I've made one pillow case before when i was little, using leftover cloth from my sister's science fair project.  So I pretty much know how the whole sewing thing works. A kid can do it. Not that hard. Anyways, I'm not quite done yet.  I just started last night and I have 2 more to make in  order to finish the "picture/puzzle." Here's what I've got so far.





Materials:

3 yards total of cloth (depending on how big you want the pillows)

pen/marker that doesn't bleed

yard stick

scissors

needle

thread

4 12oz bags of polyester pillow fill

Instructions:

Draw up a sketch of what shapes you want each "puzzle piece" to be on a scrap piece of paper to help you keep track and have pieces that fit together.  Then fold your fabric in half (so you have the front and back of pillowcase aligned) and lay out flat, use the yard stick to measure out equal sections of fabric, and then outline the shapes you had decided on.

Once you have your shapes marked, cut them out. Then fold in the edges (so you don't have stringy edges) and sew 3/4 of the case. 

Then get some of the poly fill and stuff the pillow. Once you have enough stuffing in there, sew up the last part of the case and that's it!

 

Repeat for all cases.

It may seem/seam (haha pun) like a lot but it's really not.  The hardest part was picking out the fabric.  It is pretty time consuming though, prepare to spend a few hours (unless you're a master sewer).

Adrienne J.

P.S. I'll add a few more pictures when I get home of the finished product and some of the materials needed.