"Big Kid's" Pink Couture-Style Headband

Ok, this time I REALLY did it. For real. I produced something that I am really proud of and (probably) saved myself a whole lot of money to boot. You know those gorgeous couture headbands they sell for the adornment of females from birth and on up? The really big ones, with clusters of all manner of wonderfully constructed fabric flowers accented by things like pearls, gems, lace, feathers, marabou and any other sort of prettiness you can imagine? The kind of thing that features prominently in newborn photography and seems to be under strict regulations to be larger than the baby's head, taking all attention away from the actual baby and consequently begging this question: why go to the trouble of undressing the baby, taking the risk of all surroundings getting soaked in a warm and non-cleansing liquid, getting the baby to fall deeply enough asleep so she will lie still in all sorts of unnaturally contorted positions on top of or inside all sorts of odd objects of all sorts of odd shapes, colors, and textures, often perched in ways that appear frighteningly precarious, as appears to be de riguer these days, merely for the sake of getting the oblivious baby in the picture when all you really want is the ginormous HEADBAND??? Raise your hand if you're still with me, because I'm not quite sure what it was I was originally talking about at the beginning of the world's longest run on sentence.

So anyway, if you still don't know what I mean, just google images of couture headbands. You're bound to figure it out quickly, if eye-poppingly. Google RULES, y'all. These things are trendy, and mostly expensive. I've seen some over $40! For a single hair accessory! Insane, right? But...but...but...I wanted one! Because I like to be trendy. No, scratch that. My wardrobe is a cross between an elderly toad and an explosion of black shapelessness. But, man, I like my offspring to be trendily dressed. Oh how I care about their appearance. Rather foolishly, I imagine, because all THEY seem to care about is comfort, playing in the dirt, and colorful ice pops. See where this is going. Yeah, obviously I ought to just keep them in soft dark-colored garments at all times, and often I do, though I try to ensure, as much as possible, that those are stylish and nice-looking soft dark-colored garments. But I do so love to deck them out all spiffy on occasion. So, lacking a tiny moldable girl baby of my own, I determined that my half-grown girl child must have a gorgeously decorated headband, which, while not quite outshining her entire head in size, could be constructed to come rather close.

So I spent some time planning this (okay, full disclosure: I spent an insane amount of time googling approximately three gazillion pictures and tutorials until I finally made up my mind on what, exactly I wanted it to look like and then attempted to reconcile that with what I felt I was capable of creating). But then I got to work, and after a full set of burnt fingers, a couple of mess-ups, frustrated stomping-offs, and subsequent re-dos, I DID IT! I copied the experts and produced something that is, in my humble opinion, awesome. And I am just so totally blown away by my own awesomeness as the creator of such, well, awesomeness. And may I tell you, (I'm not really asking permission here, despite how it may seem) I used only a few pieces of ribbon, a headband, some beads, feathers, lace trim, felt, a lot of hot glue, and that aforementioned set of burnt fingers to accomplish this, although admittedly said fingers were not, in fact, burnt, at the beginning of this project. I'll leave you to figure that out with your awesome (there's that word again) sleuthing skills. You will notice (or I will make sure you do)  that I did not mention the word "flowers" in that list of supplies. That is because I did not use any. While my design prominently features four, count 'em, four lovely blossoming blooms of varying colors, styles, and sizes, I did not buy even one of them ready-made. I want you to know that I actually made all of these flowers all by my little old self, and I can hardly believe they turned out at all. And because I am so absolutely insanely proud of my handiwork, this time you get a picture. Make that two pictures. But being of the cell-phone variety, the quality of them is not very good. Still, my work is thus preserved for all time, come what may. Also, I wish to assure you that it looks significantly lovelier upon my darling's precious head than it does perched on top of the unfinished wooden banister post, but the darlings are currently gainfully employed at their place of education, which is the one crucial factor that enables the crafting and subsequent blogging to occur at all.

Come, now, you must admit that this is a fairly nice piece of work, especially for this admittedly non-crafty crafter. And, well, I myself love how my kiddo looks in it, so there's that. But most of all, my (big) little girl feels like a princess in it, and that's really all that matters, isn't it? Meh, who am I kidding.

Off to call the newborn photographer.

Updated 2/2014 with a somewhat better picture, of the non-cell phone variety:

Pink Satin Flower Headband

Yesterday I produced something so cute I can't stop looking at it and smiling. I made a yummy little headband for my tiny niece. I made a satin flower headband, in princessly pink of course. (What? I have just as much right to make up adjectives as the next person, y'all!) I found the most gorgeous pale pink super-soft elastic with a decorative twist running down the center while browsing at the store for ribbons. I don't know what it's actually intended to be used for, but it was calling my name and demanding to encircle a precious soft little baby head, so home it went. Then I kept it lying around for a while because I just couldn't decide what would be special enough to top something so pretty. Yesterday I finally got down to it and just did it.
 I used this tutorial as the basic idea for how to construct the flowers. You cut out circles, uneven is fine, and then you use an open flame to melt the edges so they stiffen and start to curl. It seems most people use a lighter as their heat source, but I don't keep lighters around the house and always use a tealight for such purposes. It's also handy when using grosgrain ribbon for anything, to seal the cut edges so they don't fray. Now I want to point out something that wasn't clear to me from the tutorial. If you hold the circle so the outer rim is nearest to the flame, the edge will harden and maybe shrink if held long enough, but it won't really curl up into the bowl shape you are aiming for. Good for sealing edges of things you want to keep flat so they don't fray. If you want the edges to curl up, you need to hold it so that the part of the circle that is on the bottom and on the edge is nearest the flame. So figure out which side of your satin, if it's different on both sides (mine had a more shiny side), you want to have showing at the top of your flower, and hold the bottom of the fabric so it faces the heat source. I like to make use of the side of the flame as opposed to the top, because I find it easier to avoid burning myself, so I'll hold my fabric by the side of the flame, not above it. You want to have the outer edge of the BOTTOM part of the circle turned to face the flame, not the actual outer edge of the circle. So you are melting a ring shaped area on the outer edge of the bottom of your satin circle. Make sense?
 I changed it up in a few ways. I used a soft pink satin ribbon, very wide, because I didn't have any satin fabric. I used fewer layers than the picture shows, and I burnt them for a short enough amount of time so that they they didn't get quite as curled up as on the photos in the tutorial. I felt this gave it a softer, daintier look, since it's for such a tiny princess. In the center, I glued on one of the pearls I bought on my trip to Michael's. I was going to use a large one, but when I tried it out, I felt the smaller one looked better. My kids agreed, so that's the one that went on. I also didn't bother with the leaves. I wanted more of a clean, minimalist look for this. I don't know why. But I'm glad it worked out.
I cut a piece of the pretty pink elastic 3/4 inch larger than the baby's head measurement. This turned out to be 15 inches, which happens to be a typical size for most newborn headbands, as I discovered from snooping about online a bit. I sealed the cut edges by melting with my trusty tealight. Then I sewed them together with a 1/4 inch overlap. I'm hoping I made it large enough to still fit her for a little while yet as she grows. I think it will, because the elastic is so soft that it's pretty stretchy without being constricting when stretched. Come to think of it, it might be just a tiny bit loose on her for now. Oh well, if it is she'll grow into it. So I hot-glued the flower right on top of the seam, then glued a felt circle under the elastic and to the underside of the flower to sandwich the elastic between the circle and the flower. This way, it lays nice and soft and smooth against her little noggin, with no bumps or rough areas to irritate her, and none of the glue or stitching shows. Maybe one of these days if I can overcome my aversion to uploading photos I'll post a picture, because I'm just so thrilled with the way it turned out.

I Took the Plunge

I finally took the plunge and bought some fabric for upcoming sewing projects. Until now, all I used were scraps of clothing and bedding that were going to be gotten rid of otherwise. Repurposing is great, but some times you just need to pick out a brand spanking new piece of cloth. I haven't been willing to spend money on fabric when my previous sewing projects were just for learning or practice. I didn't want to risk wasting the money if the project were to turn out to be a flop. I didn't know if I was capable of producing anything usable. But now, I think I might be there. To me, this is validation that I have finally learned to operate a sewing machine capably enough to construct a brand new garment that my kids can actually wear out in public.  I decided it was now or never, and mustered up the confidence to go pick something out for me to sew.
The project I decided to attempt was a pillowcase dress for my daughter.  I figured that was simple enough for me to manage and easygoing enough that my small errors wouldn't be a catastrophe. And let's not forgot, they are so, so cute and fashionable right now.
Browsing in the fabric store was delightful.  I spent an inordinate time in the store looking at and feeling the different beautiful fabrics before making my selection. My original thought was to use a denim or chambray type of fabric, and use navy blue ribbon. Then I thought perhaps a nice floral would do. And then I spotted some pretty seersuckers, and thought I could do something with that. I finally settled on a lovely piece of grey and white seersucker with extra thin stripes, to be paired with white ribbon for the shoulder straps. Then a light bulb went off in my head: I could do the dress for my daughter and use the same fabric to whip up some matching elastic-waist shorts for my boys to wear with white polos! What a cute family portrait that would make! I plan to get started ASAP. I'll let you know how it all turns out. I'm so excited about this project and really hope I don't mess it up.

A Crafty Shopping Trip

Yesterday I spoiled myself a little bit. I made a trip to Michael's craft store to find supplies for my crafting projects. I try not to spend much money on my hobbies at all, so everything I bought was within strict limits. I love going to craft stores. I feel like I'm in a toy store for grownups. I just want to buy everything and try everything all at once. So I try to buy only stuff that can be used to make actual useful items. I'm not on the financial level to make art just for art's sake, so I'm going with things that can actually save me money on something I'd otherwise have to buy ready at the store at this point. If I buy it, it's got to serve a purpose, and I prefer if that purpose is more than just decorative. I'm not yet a skilled enough crafter that I'd want to decorate my home with stuff I've made myself, and when you're on a budget, useful ought to come before decorative. So I would buy supplies to create or embellish clothing for my children to actually wear, but not stuff like polymer clay, which I love working with, but serves no practical purpose.
So what did I actually buy? First of all I bought some elastic, as I've got some sewing projects in the works, which I'll share later on. Also, I bought a navy blue Sharpie marker. I wanted a fabric marker, truthfully, but I couldn't find a navy blue colored one that wasn't part of a larger multipack, which cost more than I was willing to spend when I just needed the one color. I needed it for two reasons, one because I have an awesome shirt embellishment project in mind to use it for, and two because I had a little bleach spatter accident involving my son's best pair of navy blue shorts and I'm hoping to use the marker to repair that damage and save the shorts. I hate hate hate bleach and try to avoid using it at all costs. The smell makes me nauseous and no matter how careful I try to be, I seem to come to grief very frequently when using it. But in this case it was unavoidable, hence the nasty byproduct.
I also bought some tiny jewelry making parts (findings) called crimps. These are little metal tubes used to seal off the ends of beaded jewelry so the beads don't fall off the wire or cord. You slip them over the wire and pinch them closed with a special tool that creates a groove down the center and then pinches the two upper edges of the groove together so it's a round tube again, with the wire pinched in the groove at the center of it. I have some beaded pieces that have fallen apart, and I'm thinking that this way I can repair them by myself rather than throw them out or have them done by a professional repair place.
I had so many other items in my shopping cart as I walked around the store, but before checking out I forced myself to give up some of my project ideas and pare down to the bare minimum. There were some things on my shopping list that I didn't end up finding, so I'll have to go somewhere else if I want to use those things. But I did buy some things I was planning NOT to buy. I was checking out the clearance aisle and there were some rolls of colorful striped ribbon on sale for $.49 a roll, so I bought two, a wider one and a narrower one. I know they'll make adorable hair accessories. Then, I found myself in the ribbon aisle. I was going to pass right through, because I have a nice stash at home now, but then I happened to notice 3/8" wide grosgrain ribbon in many colors on a 10 yard roll for $2. At my local trimming store, this kind of ribbon sells for $.85 a yard. Ribbon is something I use a lot lately, since I like kids' hair accessories to match the outfit they're wearing, and bows and such tend to be really expensive - $4 for a simple grosgrain ribbon bow, and upwards from there, at least around where I live. As mentioned previously, I'm working on learning to do ribbon sculptures, and have also done quite a few bows and flowers with ribbon. So ribbon gets used a lot, and at that price, I wasn't going to leave it there. I originally snatched four rolls, but one must have stayed behind in the shopping cart, because I didn't find it when I got home and unpacked, and the receipt shows I only paid for 3 rolls. Too bad.
I also got a little package of fake pearls in different sizes. I plan to use them as centers for fabric flowers. Ditto for a pack of rhinestones. I also got two more sheets of felt, in white and pink, for making hair accessories and other stuff. My local store sells them for $.69 a sheet, here I got them for $.33. And they are a nice heftier variety than the type I've bought before. I also threw in a roll of double-sided scotch tape, useful for so many things.
One crafty thing I've done quite a few of is woven friendship bracelets, also called macrame. These are made by knotting colored cord in different patterns to create different designs. I learned to do it last year and found it very enjoyable, and a relaxing way to kill time, especially on long car rides and other situations where I tend to get edgy. I use the method to create other things as well as bracelets. I made a wide chevron patterned one to use as a pacifier holder for my baby, for example. I also think they would make great shoulder straps for handbags, belts, shoelaces, and headbands. I'm been planning to teach my daughter to make them also. I  think maybe by now she might just be old enough. I like to use colorful six-strand cotton embroidery thread for my designs, and on my shopping trip I found a package of 34 skeins of thread in tons of colors for $3.99. I've already started a bracelet to match my daughter's new purple t-shirt. It's a plain, basic candy stripe, the first type you usually learn, but with a nice pattern I thought would look really interesting. Six strands, two dark purple, two light purple, one black, one white. I'm doing the two purple rows near each other, resulting in one wide purple band. then one black, then one wide light purple, then one white. Looks cool so far!
I also (finally!) bought some fusible adhesive. I've wanted this for a long time, and have a few uses in mind for it. My local store doesn't carry it at all. In addition, I bought a gorgeous cream-colored burlap flower clip, just because I loved it. Some people splurge on shoes, clothes, or jewelry...this was mine. For $2.99, I don't think it was unreasonable. It'll make a nice hair accessory.
I also picked up some goodies for the kids - a pack of initialed notecards with  matching envelopes for my daughter to write letters on, and some washable watercolor paints for my son. He's been desperate to paint ever since my mother-in-law sent my daughter an art kit containing watercolors. I wouldn't let him try them because I don't trust him with non-washable paints, and though he got his own present, all he has wanted was to paint like his sister. And now everyone's happy.

More Hair Clips

I made two cute little hair accessories yesterday. One was a simple black ribbon twisted into a military braid with the ends tucked in. I glued it to a plain snap clip, using a piece of rubber shelf liner for no-slip grip on the inside, of course (see previous hair accessory post for more on this). In the curves of the outer edges of the braid as well as in the center of the two ends of it, I stuck some big rhinestones. It looks nice, though I would have preferred smaller ones. But I had to use what I had. It still looks pretty in the hair, though I did not do a very neat job and had a lot of glue drips to pick off, not all of which were willing to separate from the ribbon. I colored over the stubborn ones with a black Sharpie, and that made them somewhat less obvious. Oh well, I'm not selling these or anything, so if it's not perfect, chalk it up to practice, right?

The other clip I made was a red and white candy in a wrapper. In the lollipop and candy clip tutorial I linked to in an earlier post, it instructs you to use several colors of ribbon and roll them together as a spiral. I felt I could do better. When all the ribbons are rolled together and all you see is the thin edges of them, it really takes away from the effect of the colors. So I decided to improve on this. I prefer to use just two colors for a really sharp contrast, and stack two pieces of the same colored ribbon before rolling, instead of using four colors of ribbon. So I put a white ribbon on top of another white ribbon, then a red ribbon on top of them and another red on top of those. In this way, when I roll the spiral, the stripe of each color is twice as thick and therefore shows up more. You can actually see a swirl of two colors, instead of tiny bits of color all jumbled together that look like one dull color when you don't look at it from close up. I wrapped my pretty candy in a piece of wide sheer organza ribbon just as an edible candy would be wrapped in clear cellophane. I used a piece of white thread to knot around the two ends to create the typical twisted wrapper edge, knotting the thread tightly and trimming the excess so it's invisible. A dot of hot glue made this easier. Since I was using ribbon and not fabric, I didn't need to do anything to prevent the upper and lower edges of the candy wrapper from fraying. For the two cut ends, I brushed on some clear nail polish to prevent them from unraveling, something organza does very easily. Trim the edges and hanging threads, stick on a white-covered clip, and voila! Sweet enough to eat!
I will try to remember to upload a picture of that one.

Sewing for My Boy - Stuffed Friend from a Child's Drawing

My son wanted me to sew something for him, too. He brought me a drawing of some kind of person or monster creature, and asked that I make him a doll that looked just like it. This tutorial helped make it happen. The original drawing was very small and I wanted to be able to actually trace around the picture for accuracy, so I asked my son to draw a picture as large as a sheet of copy paper. He did and I cut it out and used it as a template. He wanted it blue, so I cut the pieces out of navy blue felt. The character has lopsided eyes made from mismatched buttons, a red felt mouth, and a triangular nose made halfway of blue and white gingham fabric and halfway of red and purple print. I topstitched all around the nose and down the center dividing line between the two different fabric halves with pink thread (because that's what was loaded in the machine and I was lazy to change it) using a tight zigzag buttonhole type stitch. I know it's a buttonhole stitch only because the button on the sewing machine that produces this stitch has a drawing of a button on it, but I really know absolutely nothing about making buttonholes. I would love to learn, thought, because it seems like it would be useful if I'm actually going to be making a variety of clothing. My son did not mind the pink thread at all, he actually loves pink. None of this detail was based on my own creativity at all, as I was working from a drawing, so any lines or seams are based on what the drawing showed. But he did not color the picture, which was a good thing because then I could use whatever fabrics and colors I had available. When sewing together the front and back of the doll, I left the top of the head open to put the stuffing in. I then made several zigzag seams from contrasting red thread to both close the gap and serve as hair. I did not have any batting to stuff the little guy with, so I got creative. Remember in the previous post I told you about those bed sheets I had that had gotten very thinned and worn out over time? Well, I cut them up to little pieces and crumpled them up to use as stuffing for my son's little friend. I also add a bit of dryer lint - it's clean, so why not recycle?
The funny thing was, when my husband first saw what I'd made, he had some criticism - he wanted to know why I had made the head so lopsided, the eyes mismatched, etc. Why hadn't I straightened the details that didn't turn out nice on the drawing? I explained to him that our son wanted me to copy what he'd drawn, and that's what I'd done. But his theory was, our son is just a little kid, and obviously his drawings aren't going to be perfect, but that didn't mean he wouldn't want them to be. He drew mismatched eyes not because he wanted a doll with lopsided eyes but because that was all he could manage, and I should have understood that and done a better job than he had. But it was done, and I wasn't going to redo it.  We'd just have to see what the kid said. Well, when I showed our son the doll, the first thing he did was ask where his drawing was. I gave it back to him, and he immediately laid the doll on top of the picture to see if the shapes matched. I could see him comparing the features of both. Then he wanted to know why the doll lacked an odd random corner he'd drawn into one side! Ha! I explained to him that I'd tried, but I'm not that good at sewing and the corner turned out more like a curve after I'd sewn the two halves together. Satisfied that everything else was in perfect order, EXACTLY as he'd drawn it, he fell in love with his new friend, talking to it, and carrying it around everywhere. Score one for Mama!

Peasant Dress-style Nightgown

Continuing my adventures in sewing, I was brainstorming what to do with some old bed linens I had lying around. It was a complete set with twin sheet, pillowcase and duvet cover for two beds, and the fitted sheets were all worn out, thin and getting holey. I figured the rest of the pieces would make great free fabric to practice my sewing on, without having wasted money if anything turned out to be a total flop. It's the kind of fabric that I can't really see anyone actually wearing as clothing, as it just looks so...I don't know, "beddingy". So I thought of making sleepwear out of it. A nightgown for my daughter sounded like a great way to practice making dresses later on. I asked her about it, and she was really excited to give me her specifications for how she would like it to look. She made sure to request that I make it larger than her normal size so she could wear it next year, too. I based the style on this tutorial, of course with my own twists. I made the neck opening smaller, and made the gown long enough to brush the floor, because my little girl informed me that that would make it truly princesslike. She also requested short sleeves, and bows or roses on the sleeves and front. I obliged with little sleeves just above the elbow, with a ruffled edge. I did that by sewing a seam all around about 3/4" from the edge of the sleeve with elastic thread loaded in the bobbin, using a zigzag stitch. This is a something I learned about on the make it and love it site, where she teaches how to shirr fabrics this way. I would have never thought the machine could sew with the thicker elastic thread, if I hadn't seen it there. I decided to see if I could use it to form the sleeve ruffle, and amazingly, it worked. I then sewed on the sides of the sleeves, on top of the ruffling seams, a little pink bow made from grosgrain ribbon, and left the streamers hanging long, which delighted my daughter. On one side of the chest area, I sewed on a little fabric flower made by folding a fabric strip in half lengthwise, joining the cut edges with a long basting stitch, pulling the threads to gather the strip into a ruffle, and rolling the ruffle into a medium-tight spiral. These are things I learned to do by reading about them in various places around the web, so I can't credit any one site with them. Sometimes you learn a concept from one place, master the first step from another, but need yet a third to explain the following steps in a way that crystallizes in your brain. Know what I mean?
Another thing I did with the nighty was to cut my fabric in such a way as to use the selvage edge as the edge of both the bottom hem and the bottom of the sleeves, which eliminates the need to hem anything. That's because I hate hemming. It takes me forever and I don't really know what I'm doing and I'm horrible at it. I was lucky that my fabric, after unpicking the duvet covers, didn't have a visible selvage edge - it was just kind of sealed for 1/4" at the edge but the original print continued to the end of the selvage, if that makes sense. So all I had to do was iron the edges because the selvages were folded inward, and I had professionally finished edges all ready to go.
I must say that for me, the hardest part of the whole thing was measuring and cutting out the fabric. For some reason I always have a hard time with this part. The pieces always move around and the edges don't cut straight. And I can't seem to draw straight lines. So it took a really long time to get it all done, but I did it.
The idea to do a peasant dress as sleepwear came to me from those doll catalogs I used to obsessively pore over as a little girl. One of the dolls had a nightgown you could buy that was sewn in just such a style. It was white, or perhaps, off-white, and had a small red bow at the neck with the streamers hanging down. When I stumbled on the peasant dress tutorial online, it brought back memories of that little doll in her little nightgown in the catalog, and I thought I might just be able to make that happen.
I confess I made the nightgown a bit too long as it's even longer than floor length, but I categorically refuse to hem and my girl says she's happy it'll fit her for a longer time, so it's all good. I figure she's only going to sleep in it, as we don't walk around in our pj's all day (or even half the day) in this house, so there's little opportunity for her to trip. And if she does trip, and it bothers her, she can always put it away to grow into, right?