January Craft with Me: Rosette Frame {Mini Tutorial}

I got quite a few craft projects completed this weekend, and one of them is one I've been wanting to work on ALL month! Ucreate hosted a few "create with me" sessions in 2010, and they are planning to host one each month in 2011!  For those of you who aren't familiar with Ucreate you should go check them out--right now! 


This month's "create" session was to create a rosette frame. I bought a very inexpensive frame a few months back at Goodwill. Actually, to be more precise I bought two wooden frames for .69 cents each! I knew I'd make something cool out of it--I just didn't know what. With some mod podge, fabric, and a little help from the cricut I made such an awesome Valentine's inspired frame. I'm super happy with how it came out and of course I love the picture I choose! That's our dog, Lola, aka the furbaby (the closest thing we have to a child, and at times I feel can be even more needy than a child). 

Supplies: 

-Picture Frame

-Scrapbook paper

-Exacto knife

-Mod Podge paper

-Foam brush

Scissors

-Fabric

-Hot Glue Gun

-Picture

*Any other embellishments you please (I pictured buttons, but changed my mind at the end of the project)

First, you will want to cut out your paper leaving a few inches on each side. 

Next, you will want to apply a generous amount of mod podge to the front of the frame, then press down firmly. *If you want your paper to lay perfectly flat you will need to watch your paper and as bubbles pop up you will need to start smoothing the paper. I on the other hand did not want the paper to be flat and I wanted the little bit of added texture. After the paper has dried to your frame {about 5 minutes} you will want to carefully use your exacto knife and cut out the center of the frame. Cut a slit on each of the corners to make it easy to wrap the inner pieces of paper. 

Next you will want to wrap the paper around the frame, applying generous coats of mod podge. Once all the sides are wrapped you will want to start applying a few thin and even coats of mod podge all around the front and sides of the frame. *This is also when I applied the "love" cut out from my cricut. 

Next, you will want to plug in your hot glue gun, cut your fabric, and tie your knots. I follower THIS tutorial, from The Secret Stitch Club, on how to make the fabric rosette (can you believe this was my first time?)! Overall, it was pretty easy and I learned a lot! 

Next, you will want to add on your embellishments. I choose to use some of Jolee's Jewel's Swarovski crystals. I dabbed a little bit of hot glue to the rosette and with tweezers from my awesome hot glue gun helpers I placed the gems on the flower. 

Here is the finished product! 

Ruffle Fleece Scarf {Tutorial}

I found this tutorial the other week on Honey Scrap, and was instantly intrigued. We've had a rather cold winter here in Florida and I've been wearing my only fleece scarf day in and out. Since I recently organized my fabric I knew I had some fleece on hand, so this project essentially cost me anything to make! Whenever a project says it's going to take "x" number of minutes/hours. I typically tend to double the time projected! This took Honey Scrap 15 minutes--it took me about 30 minutes (but I can honestly say I was semi-distracted, so with that being said it actually might have only taken me 15 minutes)! 

Supplies needed:

-1 yard {cut} fleece for scarf 

-2 yards {cut} of fleece for ruffle

-thread

-scissors

-strait pins

First you will want to measure out your fleece. I made my scarf one yard long by 8 inches wide, and I trimmed up the edge to make sure that both sides were straight and even. 

Next you will want to cut out your ruffle strip. You can do this one of two ways. Use one yard with two 4-inch pieces OR use one consecutive 2 yard piece that is 4-inches wide. Since I only had one yard of the brown I used two 4-inch wide pieces to ruffle. I then laid out my ruffles the best I could, and began pinning it. I sewed right down the center of the ruffle with a straight stitch. *I had to sew this on my dining room table... the scarf took up the length of the table!

Next, you will cut {2}12-inches long by 4-1/2 wide to add a nice ruffle on the end of each side of the scarf. Place the fleece upside down, ruffle, and pin. Sew along the edge (I believe I used a 1/4 inch inseam). 

After your done sewing the ruffle edge; fold the ruffled end down and your finished! *You can finish off the tops of the ruffles by straight stitching on the edge of the red portion of the scarf.  

Here is a picture of myself and our Yorkie, Lola, modeling the ruffle scarf. 

*I actually made this one for a friend for her birthday! 

I made a unique scarf for myself that was a tad different; alternate colors, two rows of ruffles on the end with a little rosette embellishment. I used my pinking shears to add texture to the ends of the red ruffles. 

Here is a picture of me modeling my new scarf! 

Friday Features

Wow, 37 projects linked up this week! Great job to everyone who participated! Here are a few of my favorite projects from last week. Make sure you grab a "featured" button if this is your first time being featured and display it proudly on your blog! 

In no particular order... 

Baby Girl Buck from I'm Sew Lucky

This is SEW cute! I am super impressed you drew this free-hand, and I absolutely LOVE the purple tulle tutu! Mr. Woodsy loves this too! 

My Fabulous Creative Space from Backwoods Cottage

OMG! I thought my craft room was amazing (the one I've yet to blog about), but your cottage is beyond AMAZING! I can't wait to see the inside pictures!!! 

Easy Super Bowl Party Ideas--Steelers Theme Party from Entertain Exchange

hmmm... wonder why we are featuring this awesome Steelers themed Super Bowl party? I am going to definitely use some of these fabulous ideas for next weekend! 

Celebrate Seuss! Pillows x 2 from JAQS Studio

I love these pillows! They are awesome, and so much fun for kids! 

Wreath from Grocery Bags from Us and Them 

I love this wreath! Inexpensive, creative, and unique!!! If I get time this weekend I'm going to make this!!!

What's Up Wednesday's {Link Party}

Holy smokes... it's the last week of January! I had great intentions to get out a new tutorial or two this week, and work spent all of my energy! Even though I started the new year traveling I've still been pretty productive on getting {a few} projects completed this month! Within the next two months I have quite a few business trips planned... so please be patient! I'll try scheduling out as much as I can so that you really won't miss me too much, but in the mean time Mr. Woodsy will be hard at work... documenting and trying out some new projects! Enough of me blabbing... get linking!

*Also if you have a project and feel it would be a good fit for this blog please don't hesitate to email us, and if your lucky ;) we might just feature your project!

Rules for the link party:

-Please make sure your following us (we'll follow you back as long as you leave us a comment telling us that your a new follower)!

-PLEASE display our party button either on your home page or on your post. 

-Make sure your link is to your specific post and not your main URL & add a short description.

-Please try to view and/or follow at least two other participants. 

-You can enter as many craft projects as you'd like. (No recipes--go to Katie's Cucina for that!)

-No advertising please (that means etsy). 

-Entering into this party gives us the rights to blog about and feature your blog post. 

Heart Garland

Last year after receiving my sewing machine I was starting to practice on paper and scraps of fabric. I had scene this idea on a blog (forgive me for not knowing which one), and instantly went to recreate it. This blogger though, cut there hearts by hand. Since I had also received a cricut for Christmas I choose a few pieces of scrap book paper, choose the size of my heart and began cutting quite a few (a good 15-20 minutes worth of) hearts. Once I was done cutting out my hearts I stacked them in the order in which I wanted them to hang... a pattern of sorts. I then began running each heart through my sewing machine. I made sure to keep a good 12 inches of thread on each end of the garland so that I could hang it. 

Depending on your length will depend on how many hearts you need to run through your machine. 

 Last year I hung this garland above my kitchen window and sliding glass doors. This year I decided to decorate my living room shelves {the closest thing I have to a mantel}. Now, I just need to have enough time and energy to finish making some more Valentine's crafts to fill these shelves! *Pictured is the Believe sign that Mr. Woodsy created before Christmas. I'm hoping to replace this with a Valentine's inspired sign! 

These are easy to store year after year. Just cut a piece of card stock. Cut a slit at the top with scissors place the thread in the slit and carefully start wrapping your hearts! 

Features from Last Week

First off, on a personal note... our football team {Pittsburgh Steelers} made it to the Super Bowl!!! Which means... I must complete my Steeler's dress I started last year that I was supposed to finish in time for the game we went to see in September of 2010! 

For those of you who are football fans, you might recognize the amazing football player in the middle... the Rashard Mendenhall, number 34! We got to meet him and a few other players after the Steelers/Buccaneers game last September. (Mr. Woodsy is on the far right, followed by myself, Rashard Menedenhall, my parents, and brother). My dad is from Pittsburgh and all of his family still resides there. I pretty much was born with Black and Yellow in my blood, and I swear that when Mr. Woodsy asked my dad for my hand in marriage my dad made him vow he would be a Steelers fan for life! In any event this means you will see a few Steelers inspired crafts between now and the Super Bowl which is exactly 13 days away! 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wow, did we have some amazing projects linked up last week! Thank you for everyone who participated. I noticed we gained quite a few new followers last week, too! 11 to be exact! For those of you who are not familiar, if I've featured your project(s), please grab a button and display it proudly on your main page! 

With the help of some friends, here are my top 5 favorite projects (in no particular order):

Linned Zipper Pouch & Hooded Duck Towel from SewDad

 

Ok, so who said men can't sew? This ex-military/construction worker sew's on his free time! How amazing is this? I am still in awe by some of his projects... I am especially loving both of the projects I've featured above! I can not wait to try both of these projects. They will make for awesome gifts in the future! I also can't wait to see what other projects SewDad tackles!!!

A Sweet Frame from Simply Crafty

This picture frame is too darn cute! I love it and hope to be able to replicate something like this prior to Valentine's day! 

Headbands from Welcome to the Good Life

Although, this post is pretty much advertising for their shop {which is against the rules} these headbands are amazing, and I couldn't resist to not feature them!

 Monogramed Alphabet Tee from Sew Many Dreams

I think this is pretty darn cool! The letters came out crisp and clean and she just used freezer paper! Tanya gave a pretty good tutorial too! I've never used freezer paper, but now I want to give it a try! 

Bib Necklace from Simply Domestic

These necklaces have been all the rage in blog land (and the fashion world)! I have yet to try one, so I think it might be time I give this a go! 

Thank you again to everyone who linked up! I can't wait to see what new projects everyone has been working on come Wednesday! 

What's Up Wednesday's {Link Party}

Man, this month is flying by. The days, hours, minutes already gone and we are officially half way done with January! I hope everyone has been able to create a ton of new crafts! 

Rules for the link party:

-Please make sure your following me (I'll follow you back as long as you leave me a comment telling me that your a new follower)!

-PLEASE display our party button either on your home page or on your post. 

-Make sure your link is to your specific post and not your main URL & add a short description.

-Please try to view and/or follow at least two other participants. 

-You can enter as many craft projects as you'd like. (No recipes--go to Katie's Cucina for that!)

-No advertising please (that means etsy). 

-Entering into this party gives me the rights to blog about and feature your blog post. 

DIY Fabric Bolts {Mini Tutorial}

For the past 6 months we have been working on redoing our (well really, let's face it MY) craft room. I have looked at ALL things organization and a few months ago one of my favorite blogs, Smashed Peas and Carrots did a post on studio organization and mini fabric bolts. As soon as I read Maggie's post I knew this is what I needed to do in my craft room! Then, recently, I saw that Budget Wise Home who has kicked off the new year with all things organizational did a post as well. They featured The Little Green Bean who had cleaned up there fabric piles with DIY Fabric Bolts as well with a fabulous tutorial!

Coincidentally, over the Holidays I finally finished my DIY fabric bolts! Depending on how much fabric you have will depend on how long this takes! I had received some free foam core a while back when my office building was moving. The foam core had some dents in it and they were in a trash pile. Me, being the apparent hoarder I am, and knowing that foam core can get quite expensive piled as much as I possibly could into my car to bring home. It found a home in our attic, and we've used it for a few Halloween projects! A few months ago I cut up the first board of bolts, but with a dull exact-o blade they came out rough and rigid! I wrapped a few fabrics, and instantly was over the fabric organizational project! I'm not sure if it was me persuading Mr. Woodsy to do some cutting or at the fact that he was tired of looking at a mound of fabric, but on a whim during our holiday break he had {within minutes} cut up some foam core, and brought me a pile of "fabric bolts"... and within a half hour I had used them all up and needed more cut! Ultimately, I think I filled almost 50 bolts on my book case. 

I don't believe that there is a standard size for this project. Depending on your shelf space will depend on how large your bolt can be. I wanted to be able to see a little bit of the white foam core and I wanted it to fill the shelf from top to bottom. My foam core bolts measured to be just shy of 12 inches tall by 6-3/4inch long. I had a few that were smaller only because we were trying to use up all the foam core! I do have some extra left over in case I get more fabric; however, now having all my fabric neatly organized I can see that I truly have no need to buy more fabric any time soon. In fact, my goal is to try to use some of this fabric before I go out and buy any more (that's going to be the challenging part--fabric calls my name)! I have quite a few cute projects in mind, and if I ever want new fabric I better use what I already own!

Believe Sign {Mini Tutorial}

Mr. Woodsy's company closes every year during the last two weeks of the year. This past year he was more bored than ever! So bored, that he finally tried out his scroll saw that he got Christmas of 2009! He asked me to print out a font (CACpinafore) and phrase that I liked, and he would give his scroll saw a try! 

He basically cut out the white paper and pressed firmly with a pencil to outline the black lines so that it would transfer onto some scrap pine that he had laying around in the garage! *I'm sure there is a better way to do this, so if anyone has any tips... please feel free to share!

He cut the pieces out in sections although on his second time around at the sign he was able to make it all one piece! 

After he cut out the wood he then glued all the pieces together. Then he gave it a quick sand; however, after it was painted you could see where it was glued. Anyone have any good tricks with this as well? 

He mounted the "Believe" onto a scrap piece of wood, so it would be able to stand on its own. 

We both agreed to give it a nice coat of spray paint, so I picked out a metallic silver spray paint. 

He then sprayed a few coats of the silver spray paint. 

Here is the finished product on my shelf with other Christmas decorations. The Christmas decorations are now down, but the Believe sign is staying up year round. I'm not sure if I'm not feeling the silver either... might paint it white or green. What do you think?

Frosted Valentine's Day Vases {Mini Tutorial}

Last year, after receiving my cricut for Christmas (2009) I started seeing all of these blog post about cutting vinyl with the cricut! I was instantly intrigued, but at the same time quite a bit intimidated. I saw on a blog (and forgive me that I did not document which blog) how you could use etching cream, vinyl, and a plain vase to create a frosted glass! I cleaned my vases very well with hot water and soap prior to getting started on the project. I laid out newspaper on my kitchen island, and got to work!

Supplies Needed:

-Vases (I bought mine for a dollar each at the dollar store)

-Etching Cream (about $10)

-Sponge brush

-Vinyl

-Newspaper

-Sink with flowing water

In my mind I mapped out how I wanted this to look. I cut out individual phrases and shapes on my cricut using about 3 sheets of 6x12 vinyl. I can tell you that the person who blogged about this project had design studio where she welded everything together prior to cutting it out. I on the other hand still design studioless cut out each individual shape/phrase and applied it by hand to the glass (a little on the time consuming side). 

After I applied ALL the vinyl by hand I started rubbing a generous amount of etching cream to the vase. Well, I thought it was enough on the first vase--I later found that you really need to cake the stuff on and make sure it isn't streaky or that's the way your vase will come out. 

Me, concentrating on painting on the etching cream. 

Me, posing as I rub on the etching cream. ;) Once you have all the etching cream on you let it sit for about 20 minutes, wash the etching cream off in the sink, and then peal the vinyl off.

Here is a picture of my final product. You will see that they are all a little streaky, but I think it was a great first attempt! I used these vases for Valentine's day as a center piece on the table.  I had flowers in the middle vase, and I placed tea light candles in the other two--too not only set the mood, but give a nice glow to the table. Throughout the year (and to hold flowers throughout the year I use the LOVE vase and the Live, Laugh, Love vase to hold flowers. 

*All pictures were pre-DSLR and pre-blog. I merely documented my project to share with family and friends!

Friday's Features

Wow, another Friday has arrived! I can honestly say that although I was sick for the most part of this week I had some-what of a productive week crafting. I made not one but two ruffled fleece scarves, a birthday card, and cleaned up a little more of the craft room! I am one of the lucky few who have off on Monday (for MLK), and my plan is to get quite a bit of crafting done while Mr. Woodsy is at work! 

Thank you for everyone who linked up this week! Its definitely gotten my creative juices flowing--one could kind of say my "mojo" is back! I can't wait to work on a few Valentine's Day projects as well thanks to all the great projects I've scene in blog-land! 

Well here are a few of our favorites from this week's link party! This was a very difficult week for me to just pick 5 projects!!! I honestly wanted to spotlight ALL the projects this week! Keep up the great work, and remember if your featured please display our featured button proudly on your blog! 

Specimen Art with Hearts from Crafty Girls Workshop

Oh how I love my cricut and sewing machine... the combo to me is always a match made in heaven! LOVE this specimen art!  I can't wait to share (next week) about a similar project I did last year using my cricut and sewing machine! 

Epsom salt V-day candle from Trendy Pockets

Ok, I would never think to add epsom salt to a candle! I love the way you dressed this plain jane candle up and made it something magnificent!  

Country Style Kids Play Kitchen from Cat on a Limb

OMG. That's really all I kept repeating to myself when I saw this linked up! You have to go to Catherine's blog and take a look at the before pictures of this vintage children's hutch! I absolutely LOVED playing with my plastic kitchen as a child. This by far I think is way cooler mainly because it was DIY... what was trash to someone else was truly transformed into a treasure, that I'm guessing will one day be passed down! 

I Heart You from What Allie's Making Now

I absolutely LOVE this red glass stone wreath! It definitely looks a little on the time consuming side and as Allie mentioned... heavy, but it's AWESOME!

Be Mine Bargain from The Copy Cat Crafters

Ok, so by now all of you can tell that I'm really digging all the Valentine's day projects!!! I love how a little vinyl and some cricut love can truly transform something! LOVE this Valentine's day inspired platter!