Happy Winter Solstice & Merry Christmas

My oh my, where has the time gone?! Autumn was far too short for us here and winter arrived with a bang. And as soon as we had our first snowfall, we now are so warm in weather you would think it was spring time!

first snowfall

If you follow my Instagram (and you should!) I have shared everything from Halloween and cosplay props and costumes, to handmade gifts and DIY for all ages. Currently I have up several simple, all ages gift ideas. This week I shared some simple hair bows on bobby pins, made from velvet ribbon. 

velvet hair bow ribbon

finished in time for festiveness!

In the coming year of 2019 I hope to start up my YouTube channel once again. I've had a lot of requests for beginner sewing videos and tutorials. I'd love to share the basics of setting up a sewing machine. As well as simple, beginner projects that won't break the piggy bank. 

I also hope to share my many (many) pattern and sewing books! I have used ones, vintage ones, special ones from other countries ~ so many things to make, only so much in my craft budget.

newly acquired vintage book

So from our family to yours: warm winter blessing, Merry Yuletide, Blessed Winter Solstice, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and a very Happy New Year! 

Halloween paper lanterns DIY

It's almost here ~ one more week to Halloween! I love Halloween as a child, it was so much fun and perfect autumn weather. My mother would always have a project to make, be it a scarecrow or ghosts to hang from branches. Not only was decorating fun but deciding on a costume was too. We'd plan and often make our own - my mother would do our costume makeup.
I wanted to make a easy DIY project for either Halloween or autumn. It require minimal supplies and can be done in less then 30 minutes. I decided paper bag lanterns would be a fun, easy project!
What you will need for this project:
- an assortment of paper bags
- pen or marker
- scissors
- spray paint or spray glitter, color of your choice
- battery operated candles (I would advise against using actual candles inside paper bags)

To start: Pick any bag you please, I have this medium sized one collecting dust. Use your pen or marker and design any face you like. Remember, you are going to cut out the shapes, so you might want them thick. I just used scissors to cut my face out, poke the scissor gently into a shape - then cut around your outline.

design your bag using pen or marker

I made two bags, one medium one large. You could even use the small lunch sized bags too! Once you have the bags cut, bring them outside. Now, for this step I used spray glitter in orange. It is very messy, so I used dish washing gloves and laid plastic down. Spray the exterior of the bag in enough spray paint or glitter to cover any design printed on the bag. 

bring it outdoors to spray it with paint or glitter

It shouldn't take long for the project to air dry outdoors. Once it was dry, I cut points or triangle shapes, at the top of my bags. If you aren't going for a jack o' lantern design, you could also do autumn themes. Ideas I have in mind are: initials, house number, leafs, trees, gourds, almost anything you fancy. If you search online you will certainly find an array of design t pick from.

finished paper lantern

Use battery operated candles for safety, place a few inside the lantern. Here are a few pictures of my lit paper lanterns. I can't wait to put them outside for Halloween night! 

finished lantern bags

I also had a chance to go to a costume party this month. I think I had too many sweet treats, I swear I felt myself fall into a sugar coma that night. It was so much fun and I designed my costume after watching a tutorial online. I decided on a Fawn with a head piece crown I made from craft supplies (I added antlers and felt ears). Here is the link to the fun makeup I used by FreshBlush on you tube. Here are pictures of what I wore with it, which I had in my closet already.

my fawn head piece, with moss and felt ears I added

my fawn costume

Have a safe & happy Halloween!

Fabric charm bracelet - How To!

Hello everyone, welcome to Autumn! For a while there I thought it would never arrive, we had days of hot, muggy 80*F weather {yuck!} and I even had to dig out some capri pants. But after a weekend of heavy rains it seems Autumn has returned.
So sorry I am lazy at blogging, I just manage to be busy offline a lot. But as promised a short and sweet DIY How To project! All I used for my project was: fabric, sewing machine, metal snap, any metal charm you like.
Ok so lets this going, shall we?

I picked a blue cotton fabric, pink and solid ivory

Start by cutting some strips of fabric, one from each color. I cut about 8"s long and perhaps 1" to 3/4" in width. You may pick a different length or width depending on how wide or skinny you want your bracelet to be.

pick your metal charm for bracelet

I picked a metal rose colored arrow charm. It came from a store bought bracelet - but, it was far too small for my wrist. So I removed the pieces that attached to the ends of the charm. You can see this charm has holes at each end, which made it easy to use for a DIY bracelet!

my fabric strips - turned into a braid!

I took my fabric strips I had cut, folded them in HALF and just sewed them. Let the edges be raw for a chic cute homemade style! Then you simply braid your three fabric strips - as seen above. I then sewed my braided fabric to some ribbon on the back. Start at one end and just freehand stitch the braid to the ribbon - no need to be fancy. I used a pink shade of thread, it blended in and you couldn't see my stitches. 

Is yours all braided now and sewn to the ribbon backing? Good job! Now I just laid my braided piece out over my wrist - to get a measurement. I then laid my metal charm on top, I marked where to place the CHARM with some pins (as seen in above photo). 

all done - ta da!

Once you have the position for your charm, sew it on. To finish the bracelet I used small metal snaps for a closure. You can always just tie your longer braided pieces at the ends, or add a different type of closure. Here is an Etsy link for types of bracelet closures you could use. That's it!

I hope you enjoyed this fun fabric bracelet with charm. My coming posts are about my shop re-opening for the holidays {visit it HERE!} and my upcoming gifty-type projects I'm making.

Ribbon Powder Puff DIY

Hello, I hope this finds you well. And may I say to everyone ~ Happy Holidays! I simply can not believe it's already December. With all this gift wrapping, shopping and running around you might be feeling craft-deprived. So I put together a little something for an easy, simple and fun project. The supplies you need are: a 'puff' ball of your choice, ribbon of your choice, thread and needle, some sort of craft/fabric glue.
And if you are still shopping for handmade items, I offer *FREE* U.S.A. Shipping on all orders placed from my sewingB etsy shop. 
Let's get started on the DIY ribbon powder puff tutorial!

Step 1: pick your supplies out

Step 2: starting with the ribbon, cut length for the 'bow' part

Step 3: fold both ends to the middle

Step 4: pin ends in place

Step 5: we have our bow pinned, now cut a second ribbon

Step 6: pin both bow and ribbon in the middle, as shown

Step 7: cut a short piece of ribbon

Step 8: this short ribbon wraps around the middle (pin in place, sew)

Step 9: you now have a pretty bow, decide where you want it on the puff

Step 10: using your craft/fabric glue, glue the ribbon to the puff

Step 11: you are finished! one powder puff with pretty ribbon bow on top

Thank you for following, please return for more crafty blog posts!

To sew a travel sewing kit

Like that title? *laugh* Well a while back I think it was Zakka Inspired blog that had a really cute sewing kit mentioned. I remember asking Kat (the blogger and my distant crafty friend) about the kit and any tutorials she knew of. She shared this link for a DIY travel kit by Soap Deli News.

Image from Soap Deli News with permission from owner

You only need a few supplies for this DIY kit: felt, thread, fabric (if you want to mix it in) and the sewing supplies. You can easily make this as big or small as you'd like to fit your supplies. Below is my own version so you can see what I came up with.

My finished travel sewing kit, made with fat quarters fabric

Inside of my kit

I have a spot for pins and my scissors have a ribbon tie

A place for sewing needles, thimble and pocket for chalk

You can really go far with this simply design and have a lot of fun! You can do this by hand or machine. It's easy enough for beginners and those with experience can add more details. My kit gets a lot of use lately and really does travel well, so I'm happy to finally have one.

Bee, resident seamstress

I am pretty sure in the past 2 months I have had some seamstress work to do every week. This isn't a bad thing, I'm not complaining. But ever get so caught up in some work you have no time for your projects? Well that's what happened to me. I do comissioned seamstress work for a local karate dojo in our town. It's a wonderful places, family owned and run, students from ages 3 and up. I always feel welcome their and truly enjoy the sewing I do for them (which ranges from sewing on patches to hemming pants).
So I finally got around to my own projects recently ~ hooray! I finished one that had been begging to be completed and worn. It is an apron from a fabric dish towel *a new one* and scrap fabric. The apron (below) I plan to share in a how-to-make tutorial soon.

Now the other project I finally got to was a top from a new pattern book. I am gaga for this book I found on Amazon.com ~ it has stolen my little sewing heart! I can admit it, sometimes I stink at making clothes from traditional patterns. The lovely book is (find it here) called "One-piece wearables" 25 chic garments & accessories. It is single-pattern pieces, comes with the full size cut out patterns. It is very easy to follow even for a novice at sewing clothes. Many of the patterns only require 2 yards or less of fabric and often has you hem or use bias tape on raw edges. I may have been learning to sew from a young age but clothes always were the most dificult to sew. At least with these patterns I can easily adjust them to fit my size, like add length or tuck in at the bust some. Below is my first top from the book, pattern "one pocket top" which I think I finished in about 3 days and took my time with.

With the nice autumn weather moving in I forsee much blogging and sewing in the near future. I hope people stop by my Etsy shop as I continue the sale and try to get some orders by the holiday rush!