Fold Out Cards

I made these cards back in June but never got them published as I got busy with vacation and the like. The first one was for a teacher and the back had a spot the perfect size for a Sonic Gift Card! The second one was Scott's Father's Day card. It unfolded from the bottom. When I went to have Spencer sign his name, he added a hand drawn basketball player at the very top, which did peek out the top when the card was folded. Oh well! Someday I will cherish that little drawing!

Embellishing Disney Matching T-shirts

A few days ago,  I posted about how to make these fun matching Mickey Mouse Ears t-shirts using fabric of your choosing and you Mickey and Friends Cricut cartridge.  Today, let's talk about embellishing.  The top R Pooh shirt has no embellishment and the thread was a Pooh brown.  To me, it lacks pop, but it fits it's owner to a t!  The Princess shirt on the L however, has a nice bright hot pink border.  To add to the princess flair, I found tiara iron-on embellies at my local Joann store.

 

Let's talk for a minute about the zig-zag stitch.  You should be able to find a zig stitch even on the absolute simplest of machines.  If you look closely at the shirt on the left, you can see that the zig-zag produces a stitch similar to a satin/embroidery stitch done on a high end machine.  But that there are gaps and even some missed stitches.  The fun thing about the Mickey Ears is that imperfection on your machine's part adds only whimsy to the overall look!  So if you've never sewn before, this is a fun way to start!

 For embellishment here on Miss Tinkerbell, I added some individual iron-on bling that actually came in a large sheet of random iron-ons.  I cut them out from the big sheet and ironed right on.  Easy breazy!  The outline thread was a bright lime/Tinkerbell green and pops a lot more in person than this picture shows!






Finally, the classic Cinderella outlines in Cinderella pale blue with the same tiara iron on as the princesses above.  All of these t-shirts were easy to make because the owner chose popular characters with fabric easy to find!  But what to do for those who chose something a little less obscure?  The villain, perhaps?  Or a quirky side-kick?  Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!

Disney Mickey Ears Matching T-shirts: Step By Step Instructions

We just came from a Disney trip 12 years in the planning!  After seeing so many cute DIY Disney t's on Pinterest, I knew this was a project I HAD to do for our group.  But with 14 different personalities and favorite characters, I had to do more than just the standard black mouse ears on a t-shirt!

1.) I started by assigning each family group a color.  Easier said than done when you need to cover t-shirt sizes from youth x-small to adult x-large!  I ended up going with t's from our local Hobby Lobby.  They ran pretty true to size.  2.) I came home and pre-shrank the shirts using NO laundry detergent and NO fabric softener.  3.) I polled each person to get their top one or two favorite Disney characters and went to town shopping.  I bought 1/4 - 1/3 yard of each fabric.  you can get away with 1/4 yd on the little t's and also those that have a small fabric print where it easy to position your Cricut cut. 

4.) Using instructions from Melanie Brown's Courtney Lane creations blog, http://courtney-lane.blogspot.com/2011/07/cutting-fabric-with-cricut.html and my Mickey and Friends Cricut cartridge, I set about cutting out my ears.  By following Melanie's directions to a t (get it?), I had no problems.  For the smallest t-shirts (youth x-small), I cut my mickey ears out at 4".  For my young kids (youth medium size 8-10) I cut my Mickey's at 5".  For my youth large/x-large, I cut at 6".  For my regular adult med/large I cut Mickey ears at 8" and for the double XL's, 9".  I can't stress enough to follow Melanie's directions exactly!  You need the multi-cut to get all the threads of your fabric completely severed.  At that, I still had to snip some with my scissors.

5.) Once the ears were cut, it was time to position them on my t-shirt.  The key to making matching t's is to get your emblem to align at the same place on each shirt.  I started with my smallest shirt (shown above) and used the bottom of the sleeves as they attached to the bodice to align with the bottom of the Mickey ears.  To ensure I was vertically straight, I folded my t-shirt in half to find the line of symmetry and then ironed a straight line into the shirt.  Next, I folded my Mickey ears in half (wrong sides together) matching each half up exactly creating another line of symmetry.  I finger pressed in the my line of symmetry.  Finally, I overlapped my two lines of vertical symmetry on top of each other, using my sleeves as a guide for how high to put the ears on the shirt.  Following the directions on my Heat N Bond, I ironed the ears in place.

6.) You can stop here and be done, but I felt like the edges need some definition.  Using a zig zag stitch with a short width of stitch and a short length of stitch, I zig-zagged around the edges in a contrasting color of thread.

7.) I wanted just a little more pop, so I added some iron-on bling to a few spots on Minnie's dress and hair bows.  You could embellish in any number of ways!  I will show those in future posts.

Vinyl and canvas art on the bathroom wall

Last summer, I stripped the wallpaper in our half bath.  I got the small room repainted by Labor Day and decorated with towels and hand soap dispenser.  I had in mind what I wanted to do on the walls, but didn't execute it until February.  I created all the wall art myself and love the 3-D effect.  The swirls are cut from brown vinyl and designed by welding, inverting and enlarging the same swirl images in the Cricut Craft Room.  I then cut a second set of the swirls to go on the canvas pictures I had created so it appears that the swirl lays over the pictures.  It only took another 5 months after that to get the images uploaded to the blog.  Geesh!
So much crafting, so little time!  Hope this post inspires you to find new places to use your cricut and vinyl!

Crafting Party Update and PINTEREST CHALLENGE

Our first crafting get-together was small. I think perhaps the date didn't work well in many people's schedules. I ended up with 4 braided head bands and 1 scarf by the time day was over. I still have a pile of tee's in my dining room and some other things I'd like to make, but not bad for an afternoon's work.

I love the scarf. My husband and I like to go salsa dancing. Won't this be a fun accessory?

Ok, Pinteresters. I've got a CHALLENGE for you! I have two close people I know of going to do a couple months of missionary work this spring and summer. My challenge to you is to use your Pinterest Passion for good! I am aiming to collect 75 headbands for girls in Honduras by March 31st, 2012! You can use any pattern or style for any age girl, but the idea/pattern etc., must be either an original design OR come from Pinterest!

We will have a second push later this spring to support an orphanage in Peru. More details on that later!

What an excellent way to bestow some motherly love on these girls!

Playing on the Walls

I am embarking on a new project today. I took the 1980's wallpaper down from the last room in my house this summer and painted it instead. The bathroom now looks a little plain, so I am going to use some vinyl and original canvas artwork to spruce it up. I can't wait to get it done and to share it with you.

In the meantime, I have a couple of pics to share with you of some vinyl lettering artwork I did the middle of January over at my friend, Angie's, house. The first one is in her bedroom. We originally only did the "Wake Up" and "Wonderful" in the light blue, but it was a struggle to see them. Since I used the Cricut Craft Room to make the projects, all I had to do was "un"slant the lettering and cut again in brown. Now it looks like the blue is a shadow. The scroll work above was a metal piece she already had on the wall. The font is from Opposites Attract.

This one is on the back wall of her laundry room, which she completed as part of a remodeling of her home. I love the saying - it fits my friend's mothering style to a "t" (completely practical). It looks like the "n" in laundry is smaller than the other letters, but it isn't. All the letters were sized evenly in Cricut Craft Room, so it is an optical illusion. The scroll above the letters came from the Cricut Cake Basics. The center flower is from page 64 (filgree3). The trails to each side of it are from page 55 (swirl4). I used the "flip image" on the R one to create the mirrored images. The fonts are from Plantin School Book and Opposites Attract.

The two of us also did a Marilyn Monroe saying on the wall of her tween's playroom. The wall was brown and the vinyl was white and red with silver stars sweeping from the top L down to the bottom R of the wall. The saying was something about make-believe. She also has some hollywood glamour posters up in the room. I thought she was very creative in coming up with a way to update an older child's "play" area! Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of it.

Thanks for looking! Have a great day!

T-Shirt headbands

I created these headbands during my December crafting frenzy. There are two different styles. One us a 5 section braid and the other is a plain band with flower. I have worn the flower one a couple if times. It is very comfortable and stays in place nicely. I wish I would have made the band just a little smaller though as it stretched even more than I thought it would. My crafty friend, Melissa, and I are hosting a simple crafting time in which we will show you how to make these.

We will be doing this on Sunday, January 29 at 2 PM. Melissa and I are going to create a group that will get together somewhat regularly for varied crafting. Given the recent fascination with Pinterest, we think there will be no shortage of ideas. Again, we will do SIMPLE crafts.

If you would like to join us, please contact us directly. Please bring your own old t-shirts. Stained, printed, faded are all OK and will not affect your project. You will also need the head circumference of the one you are making your bands for and fabric glue of some sort. I like Aleene's or Fabri-Tac by Beacon Adhesives. If you have a portable sewing machine, matching thread, rotary cutter or scissors, please bring them.