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. 

Spooky Halloween Trio

Ahhh yes - another season, another look for the trio of frames above our bookcase... this time, Halloween inspired.

This little trio of frames has featured butterflies, toile, hearts...

And to think, I hesitated when buying these 3 frames, not sure I'd use them.

Here is how I created this version of the trio. Materials:

• Halloween Paper (actually left over from the BOO I created last year)
• 3 Square frames
• Dimensional mounting adhesive
• Scissors

This was a pretty straight forward project - I selected 3 background papers for each of the 3 frames:

Then, I browsed the other papers to decide what else I wanted to use with each of the frames.

The dimensional mounting squares were cut and sometimes layered to get the dimension I wanted for each part of the picture.

The paper was 2 sided, so pictured above is the back with the mounting squares. 

And here is the front.

That is pretty much it - the art was popped in the frames and we've got our spooky little halloween trio.

Know one of the best parts of this trio - it cost nothing. The frames are on their 4th different life and the paper was left over from a project completed last halloween.

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.

Fab-u-lous Fall Candle

My mom is hysterical - She loves all things sparkly, all things fab-u-lous. She wears sparkly clothes, loves sparkly jewelry and decorates her home with the same affection for sparkle and flare. (But note, she is NOT a girly-girl. My lack of a girly-girl gene was passed down from my mother...)

That makes our styles very different - and tonight - my mom came to help get Bug to and from dance and with her she brought supplies and a vision for this Fab-u-lous Fall Candle.

While my mom is creative, her talents are more with knitting and sewing, not general crafting... so she knew I could handle what she wanted a lot quicker and with a lot fewer glue gun burns than she could.

Really, this project was insanely simple. From start to finish was all of about 10 minutes, including taking pictures along the way. 

Here is what we started with:

• Wire edge ribbon
• Jar candle
• Glue gun
• Scissors

Step 1 - Cut a 10" length of wire edge ribbon. Gently pull one end of the wire and wrap it around the ribbon to secure it from come out.

Step 2 - Keeping the end of the wire that you just secured firmly in place, push the ribbon towards the secured end so that the ribbon gathers. (That seems like the single most complicated way to describe something very simple but I just can't find the "easy" words.)

Step 3 - Wrap the gathered ribbon around the wire you just pulled to form a flower and repeat over and over and over again.

The smaller flowers pictured above were created by first cutting the ribbon in half and then following the same steps as above.

Step 4 - Hot glue the flowers to the jar candle.

And repeat... Until you have a Fab-U-Lous Fall Candle.

What I've Learned Wednesday: It's fun being a girl

Yeah - this may seem obvious - but I'm really learning how much fun it is to be a girl.

I've long been convinced, that at some point during Jr. High or Sr. High they pulled the girls aside and taught them all how to be girls. Unfortunately, I had volleyball practice that day... or maybe was swimming. Either way, I missed that day and all the girly lessons that were taught.

The moment, 7 years ago, when I heard "It's a girl!!!" I realized - I'm in trouble. I don't know how to be a girl. I'm not good with make up, hair, nails or other girly girl things. Yes, I'm creative, but that was only going to get me so far. At some point my daughter was going to expect me to be able to help her put on make up and painting her face with costume make up was not likely what she would have in mind.

So I've been learning, step by step, a little more about being a girl in a more feminine way - and you know... it hasn't been so bad. I'm actually starting to like being more feminine. Don't get me wrong, I'd take being creative over being feminine any day, but it is nice to have both.

 And it makes some of the tutorials a little more interesting with the sparkly nails.

: )

Baby Bear's Butt Goes Here -->

Some how, over the past 3 and half years... my sweet baby boy, has grown up. How did this sweet little guy... grow up???

Another sweet adorable baby picture since I didn't have this blog when Baby Bear was a baby...

I mean seriously - a baby that cute? There should be a law against them growing up don't you think???

Well, it happened, he's grown up and that sweet little baby, is now a little boy:

Being a 3 year old little boy, it is time for preschool. Our preschool asks parents to decorate and bring in a wash cloth to be used as their "Sit Upon." They tell you the decorating is optional... at least that is what my husband said, I don't know about that. I stopped listening and started planning as soon as they said "decorate."

And so that is how, yesterday morning, I brought my sweet baby bear outside to snap this very first 1st day of school photo with his "buddy" in one hand and his big boy "sit upon" in the other.

Here is what I used to create Baby Bear's sit upon.

• Wash cloth
• Heat n Bond
• 2 Fat Quarter of fabric
• Ribbon
• Thread
• Iron
• Sewing Machine
• Scissors

Step 1 - Iron the Heat Bond to the wrong side of the fat quarters.

Step 2 - Cut out the desired shape... in this case, his name, out of one of the fabrics.

Step 3 - Remove the backing of the heat bond and iron them to the other fat quarter.

Step 4 - Cut around the letters and then iron the pieces onto the wash clothe.

Step 5 - Then, using a contrasting thread, a thicker one that I usually would be this is preschool, I zig-zagged around the letters.

Step 6 - Next, an orange ribbon around the edge because in our family, you can't have blue without orange. You just can't.

One more look at the sweet baby bear getting ready to head off to preschool.

*sigh* I love being Momma Bear to this little guy.