Felt flower headband

Have you noticed how many headband tutorials there are out there in blogland? I've seen them everywhere; too many places to note as inspiration for my own. I don't wear a lot of headbands but I thought I'd make a cute neutral one for when the mood strikes me.

I had several of these rubbery sport headbands lying around. I like the stretchy kind, rather than the plastic type, because they don't poke into the backs of my ears and they don't slip around. Especially these grippy guys. I decided to use one of my thinner ones as the base for my felt flower.

I cut out a few circle templates using my handy dandy Martha Stewart circle cutter and then traced them onto my felt with a Sharpie. Then I cut each circle out with my pinking shears. I layered them and glued them together with some washable fabric glue. My flower looked a little unfinished until I added a little teal bead in the center.

This was a fast and easy little project. I'm quite pleased about having something a little nicer looking to wear when I've had enough of my hair in my face on a hot day.

Spruced up cardigan

Here's the finished product. I liked the pale pink sweater that I found for pretty cheap from Old Navy but I felt like it needed a little something extra; enter some felt flower embellishment. (I can see now that I should have taken my sweater out of the dryer before it got all wrinkly. I think it's still pretty cute though.)

A few weeks ago I bought these shoes at Payless and I was inspired by the cute flowers on the toes.

I have seen lots of fun felt flower ideas on multiple blogs recently and thought I would make some of my own. It was super simple too and very quick; just the right project to complete while one little boy took a nap. I looked through the clip-art available in Microsoft Word (I know, what a strange place to look for a template for crafts, but it totally worked for this). Once I found a flower I liked I made several copies (again, in Word) and scaled them so the largest was 3" in diameter. I scaled down the rest of my copies by 1/2" from the previous size. 

 When I cut out all of my templates I was ready to cut them out of my felt. I liked the contrast of the bluish-lavender colored felt and the pale pink of the sweater. I wanted more of a pop than tone-on-tone flowers offered. I stacked and re-stacked my layers until I was happy with how the flowers looked.  When I was satisfied, I glued all the layers together using Fabri-Tac permanent adhesive since it's washable.

Originally I planned to use all six of the sizes to create my flower, but once I stacked them I decided it was too much. For the large flower I ended up using the five biggest flowers and for the smaller flower I used the four smallest sizes. When the glue between the layers was dry I was ready to add the centers. I just used a few glass beads that I had on hand and stitched them on making sure to go through the layers for added support. (I have a small baby around so I don't need to be dropping anything small, glass, and swallow-able onto the floor.) After adding the centers, I was ready to glue the finished flowers to my sweater. I pinned them in place until I liked the placement. I thought the flowers looked better when slightly overlapped. I glued them to the sweater using the same glue as before.

The finished product has been successfully washed and dried and everything is still in place. And now I have a spruced up cardigan to wear since I'm not wearing  necklaces anymore due to a strangulation hazard (from the baby strangling me when he tries to rip the necklace off my throat).

Small project, big result

Until recently I had never thought about making baby clothes. I sew occasionally, when the whim strikes, but I am no seamstress. The thought of sewing tiny clothes seemed ridiculously difficult; working with small pattern pieces, folding over tiny seam allowances, and pressing little cuffs and hems. Why then start now, you ask? Because my adorable son has the body of his father; shorter than average legs with an extra long torso. This combination of peculiar measurements makes it hard to find clothes that fit him. Bodysuits that are the right size for his weight are typically too short for him to wear for very long and pants are always in need of serious hemming or large cuffs. Forget about t-shirts (for both the baby and the husband); none are long enough to keep the torso covered if he's bending or stretching in any direction. So, this is the boat I was in when I decided to try to make him (the baby that is, the husband will have to wait) some long-enough t-shirts.

I started out by making this simple blue tee (which my little guy promptly drooled all over; you can see the damp shadows in the pic). I was happy with the fit and length, but only after I added an additional inch to the pattern I used. As I tried to think of an interesting way to decorate the shirt I stumbled across the blog i am momma hear me roar! I was totally inspired by this shirt.

I decided to make an applique instead of a stencil for a little added texture. After I sketched my design and cut out all my pieces I glued them to the shirt where I wanted them. Originally, I planned to use some fusible interfacing to hold everything in place, but in my haste to assemble my cute little robot I forgot that I was using ecofelt and when I applied the iron this happened:

So, once the glue was dry I sewed the pieces in place. My husband came up with the idea of adding the "text" to the robot's screen. I think it's a fun little touch.


Here's the little man modeling the finished product. I love the result and more importantly, so does my little guy.