Baby Shower!

One of my good friends is due in February and a small group of us hosted a baby shower for her last month.  It was a lot of fun and I got to make some really cute stuff for the precious little girl that we are all anticipating.  I got to make the momma to be a three tier diaper cake, baby booties, baby legs, a ruffle butt onesie and a couple of bibs and birb cloths.  It was tons of fun buying all the pink cute girlie stuff!

Here are pictures of the things I made.
Diaper Cake

Booties

Baby Legs

Ruffle butt Onesie

Bibs and burp cloths

I also made the favors for the party.  I found a cute recipe online and had to give it a try!  They were really easy and quick to make!  They are little pink pacifiers!  Here is the link to a recipe that is identical to the one I used.



It was so much fun making all this cute stuff!

Jewelry Pouch - Tutorial

I got a neat book at the library yesterday that had all sorts of organizational items to sew. I came across a cute jewelry pouch that seemed easy enough to make. I didn’t like a few of the things that it suggested so I changed it up a bit and added a couple of things too. I also learned a way to sew a zipper that I never want to use again!

You’ll need your cast of characters (a.ka. materials):

Cut 1 of each:
14” x 7” piece of fusible fleece
14” x 7” piece of fabric
6.5” x 7” piece of fabric
2.5” x 7” piece of fabric
3.5” x 7” piece of fabric
4.5” x 7” piece of fabric
8.5” x 7” piece of fabric

4” x 6” piece of fabric
5.25” x 6” piece of fabric
5” Zipper (I used a 6” one and cut it donn)
4” velcro
42” double-fold bias tape, .5” wide
24” of grosgrain ribbon

Once your pieces are cut out it’s time to start!

Take your 8.5” x 7” piece and fold back along one side of the 7” side, 1/2” and press with iron. Now attach your zipper along the this edge using your zipper foot. Next take your 6.5” x 7” piece and fold back along on side of the 7” side, 1/2” and press with iron. Attach this piece to the other side of the zipper. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of this “easy” way to attach a zipper because I decided to try the way the book showed to attach the zipper. Something about basting then attaching the zipper along the baste then take the baste out and voila your zipper is there… um no it was not that easy!

Anyway here is the zipper attached the “hard” way ---

I seriously should have just done it the easy way, they way I already knew how but I thought I’d try a new trick… and I failed miserably. I think the zipper looks horrible! But oh well!

Now round the four corners. Set aside for a minute.

Now take your 3 pieces (

2.5” x 7”, 3.5” x 7”, 4.5” x 7”) and turn and press under 1/4” twice down one of the 7” sides.

Now top stitch each piece using 1/8" seam allowance.

Now take the piece with the zipper and place the largest piece at the bottom (the bigger/bottom side), then place the medium piece on top of that piece and finally the smallest piece on top of that.

Using 1/4” seam allowance sew the sides and bottom sides of the three pockets.
Now round the corners.
Next mark lines on the pockets at 2”, 3.5” and 5”. And sew along those lines.

Set this piece aside.  Time to work on the small jewelry pocket.

Take the 6” x 5.25” piece of fabric and turn under and press 1/2” on three sides.  Turn under and press 1/4” then 1/2” on the remaining 6” side.  Topstitch with a 3/8” seam on the top edge.


Now to attach the velcro piece.  Center and pin the velco (the hard part) to the top of the pocket.  Sew in place.
 

Set aside.  We are going to work on the top flap of the pocket. 
Take the 4” x 6” piece of fabric and pin the velcro (the soft part) 1/2” from the bottom making sure it’s centered.  Now fold the flap in half with the right sides together (the velcro is ‘inside’ now).  Round the corners and stitch the sides and down to the center making sure to leave a 2” gap so that you can turn it.  Cut excess bulk before turning.

 

Make sure that the opening is closed and top stitch all the way around the flap.

Now take the piece with the zipper and small pockets and make sure that the smaller part of fabric is at the top and the pockets are on the bottom.  Pin the pocket to the fabric above the zipper, 1/2” above the zipper making sure it’s centered.  Sew it on using an 1/8” seam allowance.

Next take your (small) pocket flap and lay it on the velcro make sure it lines up correctly.  Using a 1/8” seam topstitch it in place.
 
***I realized that this is where I should have added a lining to the zipper pocket since I had added the fusible fleece.  So you can cut out a piece of fabric that fits from top of the zipper to 1/2” below the top pocket.  Stitch in place at the top of the zipper.***

Now place this piece on top of the piece with the fusible fleece, wrong sides together.  Sew all the way around using 1/4” seam allowance

.

Now to make the bottom of the zipper pocket, stitch along the top of the small earring pockets making sure not to touch the pockets.

Sew the bias tape around the edges of the bag.


Last thing we have to do is attach the ribbon.
Turn jewelry bag over and center the ribbon on the end with the earring pockets with 8 inches hanging off the edge.  Stitch in place making sure it’s centered.
  Now fill it up with cute jewelry and go on vaca!



I love it!  Does it look familiar?  Well it should!  I made it with the same fabric as the flat iron pouch I made!  I like how it looks like a set!  Now I need to make a makeup pouch and I’ll be set!

Laptop Sleeve

Here is the laptop sleeve that I made my husband.  It really came out super cute!  I love it!  More importantly HE loves it!  He takes his laptop everywhere (for work) and he isn’t the best about taking care of it so this is perfect for him.

It was really easy to make as well.  I basically used this tutorial that I found online.  I changed it a little bit to best suit what materials I had around my craft room.  

Dollar Store Craft

I finally completed my first Dollar Store Craft.  I made a library tote out of two placemats and a belt all found at the dollar store.  It was hard finding two placemats of the same fabric.  Imagine if I needed 4 of the same one… they didn’t have many placemats that matched!

This is especially great because I have been going to the library a lot lately and usually get three or four books at a time.  Now I have a cute bag to carry them in.

 

Here is my final project.
 

This is definitely a great gift as well since it is such a quick and inexpensive craft.

So I lied…

 

 

Yesterday I said that my next project would be a fall wreath but actually I just sewed a camera case.  Today I decided to scope out Joann’s sale and bought quite a few yards of cheap fabric, some for specific projects and some just to have around just in case. 

Earlier I was looking through my sewing websites and I was looking on the Sew, Mama, Sew! Blog and came across this super cute project.  And I fell in love!  So I hurried upstairs to the craft room and started my own camera case.

  

Here is what the finished project looks like.

Here is a how-to.  I tried my best to get a picture of each step.

Cast of characters:
  
12” x 4.5” piece of brown lining
12” x 4.5” piece of batting
12” x 4.5” piece of fabric
Fastener (not pictured) – I used velcro.  You can easily use snaps or buttons.
*Please note that you can adjust it to fit your own camera, so you can add to make it bigger or subtract to make it smaller.

1.  Sew velcro piece to the ‘right’ side of the lining.

2.  Stack lining, batting and outside fabric piece in this order:
batting on bottom; outside fabric piece ‘right side’ up; lining piece on top ‘wrong side’ up.

3.  Next pin around the edges.

4.  Sew around the edges (1/4” seam) leaving about a 2”-2.5” opening for turning.

5.  Turn right side out.  Make sure to use push the corners out using a pointy object.  I used a pencil.

6. Tuck the opening in and then press.
7.  Sew both of the shorter sides.  Make sure you sew the opening that you left to turn it right side out.

8. Now it’s time to sew the other piece of velcro.  At the opposite end from the other piece of velcro and on the outside piece of fabric measure 1/2” from the edge and sew the velcro piece.

9.  Now fold bottom half up 4”. 

10.  Pin sides and then sew.
  
11. Now you are done!

Here it is in action:

It took me about an hour and a half to finish but next time it will definitely take less time since I won’t be reading a how-to.  I really wish that I had some white velcro but I didn’t.  I only had black because I had gotten it for another project.  It was super easy to do and I can’t wait to do more!

Oh and here’s a tip:  I used those fabric quarters that you can get at the fabric store for like $2.   So this was a super cheap project.