Giving TRICK or Treat New Meaning

My son has not been a fan of Halloween. This is his 4th Halloween and he's yet to really trick or treat. Last year he refused to even put on a costume and stayed home with my parents while we took Bug trick or treating.

On Friday, Baby Bear had his first Halloween Parade at preschool. Even though he'd talked about being Buzz Lightyear for months, he refused to put on the costume. He was the only child out of 100+ that was in the parade in street clothes.

Figuring we were heading for another year of a Halloween with Baby Bear at home while we took Bug out I decided to get creative. A friend's son was dressing up as Charlie Brown and I realized that was the PERFECT costume for Baby Bear, especially given that he best friend is a stuffed black and white dog, Buddy. So I went for it... I picked up a yellow polo shirt at Target and some black fabric spray paint at JoAnns.

I then planned out the zig zag around the shirt.

Masked it out and protected the rest of the shirt.

And sprayed away...

This stuff is messy. Very very messy. It dripped everywhere, and bled under the tape a bit.

But somehow... it worked, at the last possible second, thanks to some creative coaxing by a friend, he put on the shirt and actually went Trick or Treating.

Charlie Brown and his Snoopy.

Super Girl and Charlie Brown:

It's funny - the shirt was messy, it didn't turn out like I'd hoped... but it is my favorite project in a long long time. And tonight, was one of the best nights ever. Seeing my little boy trick or treating through our neighborhood, trying to keep up with the big kids. Then deciding he didn't care, he and I went at his pace and he finished the street on his own.

Amazing.

What I've Learned Wednesday: Scissors for Everything

You might have picked up on that I'm kind of freak about scissors. My husband fears for the day when I realize he's used my sewing scissors have been used to cut paper. If that happens, he's in trouble.

Scissor for fabric will be ruined if they are used to cut paper. But sewing scissors, good sewing scissors will make your fabric projects so much easier. Ok, we'll maybe not quite as dramatic as that, but once you've cut fabric with real fabric scissors, you'll never want to go back to general scissors again.

But - here is a bit of an ironic part, my favorite craft scissors - as a pair of embroidery scissors, yes, the sister of sewing, embroidery... Technically I should be ashamed of myself. Using embroidery scissors for crafts??? Paper crafts even??? 

In my defense, they were not bought for embroidery, they were bought for exactly what they are being used for. Cutting intricate papers. Nipping stretch magic. Look at the tiny tips on these:

Those little blades can get in and out of anything with ease. 

Now, if you're a fan of embroidery, I don't recommend taking your embroidery scissors to your paper crafts. But do pick up a pair of these little suckers for your paper crafts.

And get a pair of sewing scissors for your fabric crafts while you're at it, just don't let me catch you using them on paper. 

Stashbusting Remnant Rag Wreath

One of my favorite projects was the Valentine's Wreath from back in January. I've wanted to make another, something we could keep up year round. This is what I came up with:

The perfect part of this project - I just raided my remnant stash to complete it - the only thing I had to buy, was the wreath form. Even the glue was from past projects - I broke into Bug's last year schools supplies to find 3 containers of white glue that were almost empty.

Here are the supplies:

• Fabric scraps
• Styrofoam wreath form
• White glue
• Stick
• Scissors

Step 1 - Grab all your scraps of fabric and cut them into strips that are roughly 1 inch wide by 4-5" long. This is a bit different than what I did with the first, I used squares with the first 

Step 2 - Take the fabric and fold it over the end of a stick or pencil. Then dip it into the glue and poke it into the wreath form.

Then repeat over and over and over again...

Just keep jamming those scraps into the wreath. 

Once you have the front of the wreath covered you can move to the sides. 

And then you've got a finished wreath. 

Really - this is very easy, and while there is fabric involved, there is no sewing. So it is a really simple way to bring the texture of fabric into your home without having to learn to sew or drag your sewing machine out if you already know. 

I might add some orange strips of fabric to make it a little more fall-ish, without using the glue so that I can pluck them out when we move onto winter. 

Friday's Fail: The less than perfect pumpkin

The first pumpkin I made last weekend, didn't turn out all that well. I made 2 mistakes.

1. I didn't stuff it enough...
2. But more of a problem - I hadn't thought of using a button to use on the top and bottom. I just tried winding the string around the previous piece. I couldn't get enough tension, I kept pulling the other ridges out of place. It didn't go well.

Here is a picture of the less than perfect pumpkin:

He just doesn't have the right firmness to him. (Yes, it is a boy, don't let the shinny fabric fool you.)

And the underside of the pumpkin:

I couldn't get enough tension to really get it to work and it was just awful.

I almost gave up. Had I not thought of the button solution I think I would have given up.

But then, I thought of the button. Here is the underside of a button pumpkin:

So much neater... and just look at the tension I was able to get by winding around the button:

Now, THAT is a pumpkin!!! Isn't she beautiful???

And look at this little guy (yes, another boy.)

Ready for the funny part - what first seemed like a terrible fail, my less than perfect pumpkin. The one that almost had me ready to give up. Well, he now works in the collection of pumpkins. I wouldn't want to have him be the only pumpkin, but with all his friends and family around him - he totally works.

Just goes to show you - just because something didn't work the first time doesn't mean you should give up... and don't necessarily throw away that "fail" until you've really seen the total picture.

Pumpkin Love

I just love it when inspiration for a project and completion of the project are just hours apart. So often, especially with me, projects take weeks to go from an idea to a completed project...

But not this one. Or should I say, these ones...

Meet my little collection of pumpkins. I know, they aren't orange... I do have some orange fabric, and I'll make a few orange pumpkins, but these neutral tones, this mix of textures, they were my original vision that I just had to go with.

Here is how they started - by finding this silly little red fabric apply while shopping for supplies for another project at JoAnn's on Saturday.

I picked it up - and thought "too bad this wasn't a pumpkin."

Muahahaha...

Over to the remnant section I went to find all sort of wonderful textured neutral fabrics. I'll admit it, I didn't say limited to the remnant section, I did buy a few off the bolt... But I have another project to make use of all the scraps to it was well worth it.

Here is how I made my little collection of pumpkin love...

Materials:

• Fabric
• Paper (to make your pattern)
• Tread
• String, twine or yarn
• Sharpie, marker or pen
• Fabric scissors
• Paper scissors
• Streamers
• 2 buttons (per pumpkin)
• LONG needle. I mean LONG - The one I used was 4".
• You can ignore the twig pictured above, I thought I was going to use it. I didn't. 
• Hot glue (not pictured)
• Pins (not pictured)
• Polyfil (not picture)

Step 1 - Create your paper pattern. You'll need 6 pieces of fabric exactly the same size and shape, so create a pattern from a piece of paper:

1B - Fold the paper in half corner to corner. (This just maximizes the size of the paper, you're really welcome to fold it anyway you please... go ahead... go wild with the way you fold your paper. As long as it is in half.)

1C - Draw an arc along the fold.

1D - Cut the arc and open it to reveal your pattern shape. (Please use paper scissors... Don't ruin your sewing scissors on paper... don't do it.)

Step 2 - Pin the pattern to your fabric and cut 6 identical pieces. Depending on your quality of scissors you might be able to get all 6 of your pieces cut at once.

Step 3 - Pin the fabric in pairs, right sides together.

Step 4 - Sew the pairs, right sides together down the right arc.

Step 5 - With the 3 pairs sewn together, take 2 of the pairs and sew them together, right sides together.

Step 6 - Add the 3rd pair and sew it to the first 2, right sides together, being sure to leave about a 2-3" gap so you can turn it right side out.

Step 7 - Flip the fabric right side out and stuff the sucker full of stuffing. Hand sew the whole shut... (my least favorite part of any project where hand sewing is involved.)

Step 8 - Time to take this ball we've created (pictured above) and turn it into a pumpkin. Thread a button on the bottom of the ball where the 6 pieces some together. Then push the long needle through to the other side. I needed a pair of pliers to pull the needle through.

Then push the needle back down to the bottom of the pumpkin pulling the string as tight as you can so that the top and bottom buttons come together a bit and pucker the pumpkin.

It will look a bit like this:

Step 9 - Now it is time to make the ridges along the sides of the pumpkin by taking the string from top to bottom, around the button, then back from bottom to top, around the button and so on and so on. You can either evenly space the string, or you can vary it - whatever works for you.

Step 10 - Create a stem and tendrils out of the streamers and hot glue them to the top.

And there you - pumpkins!!!