Twelve Weeks of Homemade Gifts: Week Seven - EAR MUFFS!

Hello, welcome to your double dose of Homemade Gifts for the week!

Today, we're talking earmuffs:

Scroll to about :45 for the good part

This girl [delia creates] is the Pinterest guru of all things earmuffs. So naturally, I ran out to the fabric store, bought some fleece, and ended up with last week's horrible failure attempt:

Today's project also involves a sewing machine, but you can do without. Just go to the store and buy a plain fleece headband and scroll down until I start making a cute bow.

What you need:

1/2 Yard of Fleece (this will make about 5 or 6 earmuffs with extra for decoration)

1 Button

1 Hair Tie

Sewing machine, needle, thread, the usual suspects....

[Step One] Now, time to cut out your shape. I measured my head from my forehead to the brain stem [too anatomic? The corner of your neck and noggin.] This was about 25 inches--I have a huge head. So I wanted to make sure my 'finished' length [length after sewing the seams] was at least 25 inches. I grabbed a piece of big paper and measured 13 inches for the length. I want the thickest part to have a width of 5.5" and the thinnest part to have a width of 3.5 inches. So I made some measurements and it came out looking like this:

When I figure out how, I'll upload a pattern for you to download.
But you kinda get the picture here.

So I put the thickest end on the fold of my fleece and cut around the edges. My cut piece looks like this:

I'm horrible at cutting, which is why you see that bowed edge on the bottom.
Yours will not have that because you probably learned how to use scissors properly in Kindergarden. 

 Time to sew your seam along the long sides. Pin around the edge so you have about a half inch seam. A thicker seam is good for this because it will make your earmuff more sturdy:

Pins!

 Now, deep breath. Sewing machine time. Sew a straight line [yep] along your pins. I used a wider seam since fleece is kinda stretchy. I have no idea if there is any logic to this, but it worked really well for me.

YOU DID IT! Now, same thing, but on the ends:

YES!! We have a headband. Now, for the super fun part. Measure how big you want your beautiful bow to be. I decided I wanted mine to be the length of my pointer finger.

Cut a piece of fleece to your desired length and width. For a bow, I picked a piece that was about 4" wide and 12 inches long.

Fold the two ends to the middle [I believe this is called a barn door fold]

And bunch it together until you have something that looks like a cute bow:

Hand-sew the bow together. Start at the top of the bunch and straight down to the bottom. Do this really tightly so your bow keeps shape.

Now take a little scrap of fleece [1" wide or so] and wrap it around the middle. Sew the back together. Now you have a bow!

Take your pretty bow, and attach it to your headband. Put it wherever you want. I wanted mine to be a little off to the side, so I put the center about 8 inches from the end.

Make sure to sew each little corner of the bow in addition to the center knot.
This will make sure you won't have floppy ears hanging off your cute earmuff.

 Now, we're attached!

I have no clue how to sew a button. Zero clues ever. So I decided to attach this one similar to how we did our coffee sleeves a couple weeks ago.

Sew your cute button about 1.5" inches from the end.

Cut a hair-tie in half and sew that into the other end:

 AND YOUR'E DONE! And by done, I mean totally ready to make 5 more to finish off your half yard of fleece!

I made a million of these this weekend. Once I got the hang of sewing a stretchier fabric [like fleece] I was on a role. I made a yellow one with a double-bow [very similar to the one Delia made on her blog] that was a huge hit at the High School Youth Gathering I volunteered at this weekend:

This is my mentee, Luke.
He wore this all weekend.

I want to offer up a little help for anyone in the Portland Area that is intimidated with sewing: I will help you! Contact me via my email [on the side of the page] and we can set up a time for us to sew together! I'm no expert, but I'm a big believer in getting over the initial shock of using a sewing machine.

Twelve Weeks of Homemade Gifts: Week Six - Box-o-hot-chocolates!

Sorry about my sporadic posting lately. Life has officially caught up and I am WAY too busy. Looking to find a better balance this week.

Last week marked six weeks until Christmas. I promised a project that didn't involve a sewing machine, so here we go!

Gift baskets are fun and can scratch that creative itch without getting tangled in a hot glue gun, scissors and an iron.

Hot chocolate is the quintessential holiday drink. This basket can be as DIY as you want to make it.

I grabbed a good hot chocolate mix, but you could easily make this homemade with cocoa and sugar. The other key ingredient is crushed candy canes. I chose to use mini-canes because they have a better white-to-red ratio when they're crushed:

Keep the candy canes in their little packages, and crush about 13 of them with the bottom of a glass. Then use the packages as little funnels into a cute little jar or container:

Spoon your hot chocolate into a similar container:

 

Now, accessorize! Get a cute mug, find a cute box, grab some extra fabric and start packing:

 This gift is great because you can make millions of them easily, and under any budget size. If you have a higher budget, get an awesome mug from a local artist, grab cocoa from Godiva, go crazy with a silver spoon. If you have a lower budget, grab a mug from the dollar store and call it good.

Tomorrow: Week Seven of homemade gifts! This one involves a sewing machine...but can easily be done without!

Failure of historical proportions

Soooo tonight was the night of,ultimate project failure.

Chicken-lime soup?

Disgusting.

Cute ear warmer?

Lumpy.

Ugh. Tomorrow is another day.

Election 2012

I'm writing this post as polls begin to close in the middle of our country.

I don't want to get political on this blog, and to be honest--I'd rather you not pay attention to this blog tonight.

I hope you took the opportunity to exercise your right to vote in our democracy.

I hope you took the time to educate yourself on the issues.

But more than anything, I hope you understand the importance of an educated electorate. I hope you understand that the success of our country depends on you caring about your government at all levels: local, state and federal. Politics aren't annoying--they're important. Debate is important. Disagreement is important. Above all, civility is important.

I hope no matter who or what wins tonight, that we all wake up tomorrow ready to work toward a better country for everyone. I hope that we are able to all work toward a better place for all of us: poor and rich, black and white, gay and straight. Nothing good will come from continuing a culture of polarity and separation.

OK. I've been stressed.

For the past seven days, I have slept for a total of 24 hours.

Yup. I'm averaging 3-4 hours of sleep per night.

Why?

I'm stressed. Super stressed.

About what?

The election. Hurricane Sandy. Iran/Israel. Israel/Palestine. Midwest drought. Zombie Apocalypse.


You name it, I'm probably worrying about it. Especially if I have little to no control over the outcome.

But, in the midst of my sleepless existence, I have been extremely productive.

At 4:30am on Saturday morning, I started with this:

ew.

 I ended with this:

Oh. Yeah.

My perfect little laundry nook isn't done--yet. But, it has taken a 167 degree turn for the better [saving the extra 13 degrees for when I put in a counter top...]

More specifically, I started like this:

This was before we moved in.
It was NaStY. The mop was there for good measure.

I ripped those doors off. I filed in gaps with good putty. I sanded that puppy down [at 4:30a] and I got to painting. Specifically, I got to priming.

One good coat of oil-based primer.

I then painted it with a really good paint. I swear by Miller Paint, especially the Evolution line. I used a semi-gloss white.

Now, time for fun. I started with a potato stamp:

But that turned out RIDICULOUS:

Ew,

So I graduated to taking a foam brush and spinning it:

YEAH!

Then, I got to work:

I specifically did not want these p-dots to be perfect. Why? Because.

Then, my favorite part: Accessories.

I needed two areas for this little cabinet: A place to hang junk, and a place to store ugly things.

So...ugly things:

Kirkland, why you gotta make such ugly red boxes?

Lauren, why you gotta have so many candles?

Hanging junk:

Basket on the bottom is for dirty clothes. 

Perfect! These pictures really aren't doing it justice. Laundry nook is perfect.

Well...close to perfect:

This is where we all laugh at how I'm so picky about some things but have
mis-matched lightbulbs hanging from my ceiling.
womp. womp.

Twelve Weeks of Homemade Gifts: [Week Five] Cosmetic Bag

Here we are. Already at week five.

Every week I get a little more excited--mainly because the gifts are getting a little more...well...exciting.

Today we're back to the sewing machines again. [For those non-sewers, don't worry--I'm going to mix in easy sew/no sew projects from here on out. I'm just too excited about my new skill and can't wait to show this one off.]

So without much ado, let's get started: The Cosmetic Bag.

I really need a good camera. This looks horrible.

So here's what you need:

• 1/4 yard of fabric for the outside of the bag [I chose a laminate-type fabric because I wanted it to be easily wiped off.]
• 1/4 yard of fabric for the inside lining [pick something cotton or soft]
• 12" Zipper
• Scissors, thread, pins, measuring tape and your sewing machine. The usual suspects.

Let's get started:

[Step One] Cut your fabric. Cut 2 pieces of each fabric to 9x12 [if you got a 1/4 yard, you should just have to cut across...because your fabric is 9 inches wide already...I love shortcuts!]

[Step two] Attach your zipper. Apparently this is supposed to be difficult, but I didn't know that until I was done. Why? Because it isn't hard. Just pin your fabric to your zipper [right sides together] and sew. One straight line. Both sides. You can do it.

See? Not a big deal. Don't be scared. 

[Step Three] Time to sew the bottom. Put your fabric with the right sides together and the zipper at the top. Sew a straight line about 1/4" away from the edge.

[Step Four] Time to sew the sides. Flatten your  bag so your zipper lines up with the bottom seam you just sewed.

[Step Five] Unzip the zipper a little bit so you can easily turn the bag inside out when you're done. Sew each of the sides [1/2" from the end.] Trim the zipper if you need to after you're done sewing.

After I unzipped the zipper, I pinned it so it was easier to sew.

Now you have this pouch-thing.

[Step Six] Time to make some awesome corners. Pinch the corners to make little baby triangles:

Now fold these corners to the middle on both sides to make sure they're even:

Mark your edges with a pencil/pen so you know where to start/end your stitch:

Now, sew! Do this to all four corners.

[Step Seven] Now you're done sewing. Trim off the excess fabric points.

[Step Eight] Turn that thing right-side-out.

[Step Nine]

For the lining, just repeat all the steps except for the zipper step. Hand-sew the lining into the zipper/opening of the bag. 

Want another picture?

Oh, yeah.

Another?

Ok...that's enough. 

Oh, and on a completely unrelated note: Happy red-cup day at Starbucks! As I mentioned here I'm a total advocate of the "Christmas doesn't start until after Thanksgiving" political party, but I do love a red cup. And this year they're super cute. I need to rapid fire make a new reusable sleeve to coordinate with my habit....