Notes from the Patch

Tutorial Tuesday # 63 - Patriotic Paper Party Pockets

Lately I've been a bit obsessed with making these treat pockets. I don't know about you, but I just love them!

I've seen them around for different holidays and special occasions but never tried to make them.

How hard could they be. Right?

Like with so many of my ideas the inspiration came from Pinterest. Lisa Brown over at Stampin'Up has a great tutorial on making these and she made them look so easy.

But my problem was that I couldn't find double sided patriotic paper and when I tried to roll the plain scrapbook paper that I had it was too heavy and stiff and I felt like I was all thumbs! Arg

Then I remembered the old book pages that I had safely tucked away for projects like this and so, here is my version of

Paper Party Pockets

You will need a square of paper. It can be any size. Lisa used 4" squares in her video. I used 5 1/4" squares for my smaller ones and    6 1/2" squares for the bigger ones. (Remember you will need to fill these so if you are doing a large number like I did here for Bernina Club you may want to keep them on the smaller side).

If you're using book pages the size of the pages will determine how big a square you can get from each page. Old sheet music, comic books and newspaper works too.

I tend to buy unusual doilies and doo dads when I see them and now that my craft room is organized I can actually find them. (Sorry. Had to throw that in here because I'm just so dad-gummed happy with my organized craft/sewing room).

I love these tiny white doilies from Martha Stewart (still available at Michaels) and they were the perfect size for this project.

I recommend using an adhesive roller to make the cone. Just roll a strip along one edge

and roll the opposite corner toward the strip, forming the cone. You may want to practice a bit but it really is super easy with lighter weight paper.

That's all there is to it. Now just decorate and fill.

You can use hot glue or glue dots to affix the embellishments.

I antiqued the paper a bit to make it slightly aged looking. You could also add GLITTER! gasp

Cupcake flags were from Hobby Lobby.

I think these would make darling inexpensive wedding favors filled with chocolate bon bons and decorated in colors of the wedding.

Encourage one another,

 

Still Crazy after all these years

This post is dedicated to my son who called last week to say,

"Mom, I just read your blog. You might want to throw in a post about sewing now and then. You know, just so your readers don't think you've turned into a CRAZY CAT LADY"! 

CRAZY? I'll show you CRAZY!

Making fifty gift card holders! Now THAT'S CRaZy!

But I'll let you decide. I'm:

a. indeed crazy

b. overly ambitious

c. totally grateful to the ladies who support us and one another by attending Bernina Club regularly throughout the year

d. all of the above

I'm "C" for sure, but truthfully "D" probably describes me more accurately.

This time of year we like to show our appreciation to all the ladies who so faithfully attend Bernina Club by giving them a little gift. I had originally intended to give them a kit to make these card holders, but it didn't seem enough so I got busy and sewed them for everyone.

 

 

I used the Silhouette Cameo to cut the wool felt mistletoe leaves. Although they needed a bit of coaxing to cut cleanly it was a real time saver for sure since using the Silhouette eliminated the need to trace the shapes. (We offer the Silhouette Cameo machines for sale and have classes on some fun ways to use them).

 I appliqued the mistletoe and sewed around the edge of the mittens with my sewing machine and Valdani #8 Perle Cotton Variegated thread. Although I normally prefer to do this kind of work by hand I knew that with the number I needed to make I just wouldn't have the time to do them all by hand - and after all, it is Bernina Club!

I think they turned out pretty cute.

I used a heavy sewing machine needle 100/16 and the Valdani as the top thread.

You will need to prewind the perle cotton onto bobbins then use it as top thread since it won't feed properly directly from the ball.

I found using matching regular 50 weight thread in the bobbin worked best for both the blanket applique and the blanket edge stitching.

My machine adjusts the tension automatically when I select the blanket stitch, but if yours doesn't you may want to loosen your top tension a bit (mine is normally set at a tension of 4 and automatically adjusted itself to 3).

I used my embroidery bobbin case with the pig tail for extra tension in the bobbin. If you don't have a separate bobbin case you might want to tighten your bobbin tension screw slightly. (All this just pulls that heavy thread to the back or under side of your fabric more).

The edge of the mitten on the left was stitched with regular sewing machine thread - the one on the right was stitched with Valdani Perle Cotton Variegated thread. I think the heavier thread adds a lot to the finished look although it's a little hard to see here.

That's really all there was to it. If you'd like to try some I've included the PDF below. You could also make some as an advent calendar by appliqueing numbers on each mitten and adding a hanger - then tucking tiny surprises inside.

I think they make quick, inexpensive, personal gift card holders for sure.

For those that asked for the recipe for the ooey gooey Pecan Cheesecake concoctions we served, you can find them here. (You may want to adjust your bathroom scales to minus 10 lbs after consuming these).  =)

Download Gift card mitten PDF here

One last photo - this one's for you Bryan.

Encourage one another,

AKA The Crazy Cat Lady

You can find me on facebook and now on instagram between posts where I promise to annoy you almost daily with photos of new fabrics, shop news and                                                                                  Lucy    =^..^=

Tutorial Tuesday # 61 - Toilet Paper Pumpkins

We survived our Harvest Shop Hop at the store this past weekend which included hundreds of toilet paper pumpkins as our make-it take-it. I'm sure the nice folks at Costco thought the ladies at Strawberry Patches had a serious problem because we were there five times in two days buying more cases of TP!  =)

To say these were a hit would be a gross understatement.

Although the idea for these has apparently been around awhile, they were new to me (and by the reaction of our hoppers they were new to most of them too).

I've had a few requests for a tutorial so in an effort to please,  here it is.

Things you will need:

: A full roll of toilet paper

: One or two sheets of newspaper

: A fat quarter of fabric (18"x22")

: A twig 4" to 6" long and about 1/2" thick

: 18" of 1 1/2" wide ribbon

: Optional embellishments - raffia covered wire (available at Hobby Lobby and Michael's), leaves, spiders, tags, jewels, etc.

: You will also need wire cutters, scissors and pruning shears to cut the twig

: A chop stick and wooden spoon for poking

If you notice there is no mention of a glue gun. This is probably what I like best about this project - no glue gun or sewing machine is required. This is a craft for all ages and you don't need to worry about anyone burning their fingers or needing sewing skills. I have this fantasy of pulling this craft out after Thanksgiving dinner with the children and adults gathered together around the table, all making a Thanksgiving pumpkin to take home. It's quick and super simple yet you can goo-ga it up as much as you want (like I always tend to do).

Because nothing was glued, you can unwrap the TP after Thanksgiving and use it for what it was intended and the fabric can go back into your stash. Talk about repurposing!

Here's how it's done:

Wrap the toilet paper roll with one to two sheets of newspaper. This is important because it, well, makes your pumpkin look less like a wrapped roll of toilet paper and more like a wonky roundish pumpkin.

Don't worry if the paper tears a bit.

Use the handle of the wooden spoon to poke the paper into the core of the cardboard roll.

Once you are happy with the shape wrap the fabric piece around the paper, poking the ends into the hole. You will need to tuck in the short sides of the fabric so no raw edges are showing.

Continue to shape your pumpkin as you work.

Poke the stick into the center hole.

Tie a bow with the 18" of ribbon and using the chop stick, poke in place.

Wrap about twelve inches of the wired raffia around a wooden spoon handle to form tendrils and poke into place.

Add any additional embellishments that you would like.

Any fabric works but keep in mind that all the excess fabric gets stuffed into the center hole so if it's too heavy & bulky it's hard to get it all in there. This burlap was a booger to stuff into that hole.

Here's one with decorator weight fabric. After showing our hoppers how to do hundreds of fabric pumpkins last weekend we decided the crazy, unusual fabrics were the most fun.

I thought they might make cool place card holders/party favors...

as long as you don't think wrapped toilet paper rolls on the dining room table is weird...

What would Martha say?

I hope this encourages you to try these with your family during the up coming holidays.

Oh, and if you are interested, you can see how I made the ruffles on the candle holders here.

Encourage one another,

You can find me on facebook and now on instagram between posts where I promise to annoy you almost daily with photos of new fabrics, shop news and                                                                                  Lucy    =^..^=

 I'm linking up with the Party Bunch for Thirty Handmade Days

Tutorial Tuesday #60 - Power Cord Wraps

 

I'm posting this on Sunday (I know it's not Tuesday) but thought the tutorial might be easier to find in the future if I put it under Tutorial Tuesday.

Customers are always bringing in their sewing machines for service with cords dragging and dangling. I'm sure we're not the only ones bugged by a bunch of tangled-up electrical cords so we decided it was high time to somehow try and tame the tangled beasts.

This project is quick and inexpensive and just by switching up the fabric, can be made for men, women or teenagers. It works for curling irons,

computer cords, sewing machine cords,

phone cords (since phone cords are smaller you will need to take 1" out of the middle of the wrap pattern) and

pretty much anything that has a cord.

Here's how:

Fuse Iron-on Fleece to wrong sides of two pieces of 3 1/2" X 7" fabric. Trace cord wrap pattern (to follow) onto one side of fleece

and sew on the traced line (right sides together) leaving an opening for turning.  Trim seam allowance 1/8" from stitched line. Turn right side out. Press. Top stitch - sewing the opening closed as you go. Sew a 1 1/2" piece of Velcro to each end on opposite sides of wrap (you will have one piece of Velcro on the top of the wrap and one on the bottom - on opposite ends).

In Bernina Club we used the #38 Piping or Uneven foot for this step. Here's a cool video showing that foot:

 

Download Power Cord Wrap PDF here.

I love making little party favors for our Club members because I never want them to forget how much they mean to us. I thought these felt cookies would be fun to do. They ended up being a bit more time consuming than I'd planned (but then, fifty of anything usually takes some time). I think they turned out pretty cute.

The pattern is out of, Zakka Style. The cookies are from one of my favorite bloggers, Amy Sinibaldi of Nana Company. If you don't already read Amy's blog you really must. She's just darling and I love her attention to detail.

Amy shows them as gifts for little girls for their play kitchens. 

I packaged them like this.

 

 

Warm from the oven chocolate chip cookies a la mode seemed the perfect dessert to serve for Bernina Club and of course I found a yummy recipe on Pinterest. This one's from Blue-Eyed Bakers. You can find the recipe here. Since I baked them in small jelly jars they were just a couple of bites. Everyone knows anything that small has absolutely no calories so they were perfect!

That's it for now. I hope your day turns out extra sweet!

Encourage one another,

If you live in the Bakersfield area and sew on a Bernina we invite you to join us for Bernina Club on the third Wednesday evening of the month and the following Thursday morning. It's free and we'd love the opportunity to spoil you. Call us for details (661) 835-1738

 

Tutorial Tuesday #59 - Gift Card Holders

Who doesn't love getting a gift card for their favorite store? Although easy to give and get, gift cards can sometimes feel a bit impersonal. So we've come up with these adorable gift card holders that let you personalize your gift a bit.

We designed these for a Bernina Club make-it & take-it where we wanted to feature the #18 button sew-on foot. You certainly could make these by sewing on the buttons the old fashioned way, with needle and thread, but the sew-on foot does the job lickety split.

Here's what you'll need:

One 4" x 11" piece of  felt or wool felt

Two - two hole buttons

A piece of decorative ribbon or tag

Scalloped scissors or pinking shears

10" Baker's twine

Mark a 3" x 10" rectangle on a piece of felt. We used wool felt for this project.

At one end trace an arch. I used a spool of ribbon for the half circle.

You should have something that looks like this.

Now cut with scalloped scissors just inside the drawn line. You won't want to see any pencil line on the scallops.

Measure and mark in 1.5" from the long side edge and 2" up from the bottom (straight edge). This will be the placement mark for your bottom button.

Measure and mark 1" from the curved end for the top button. Both buttons should be 1.5" from the long side edges (centered).

Dig through your button collection and find two matching buttons with preferably just two holes.

Some of the newer machines have a button sew-on function. If you do, select it. If you don't drop your machines feed dogs, set the stitch width to 4mm and the stitch length to zero. If your machine has this function everything will be done for you automatically. Did you know that almost all buttons, regardless of their size and age have holes that are the same distance apart? They do. Trust me.

Place the button sew on foot on the top of your button and hand turn the fly wheel so you can check the placement of the holes. It goes without saying that you won't want the needle to hit the button. You may find it helpful to put a bit of glue on the bottom of the button to hold it in place.

The newer feet have these little rubber feet which holds the button firmly in position. Now sew. The button sew on stitch does a nice securing stitch, a few side to side stitches and then another securing stitch. You may want to repeat the series of stitches to be sure the button is secure. See how it sews over that silver pin in the middle of the button? That creates a thread shank which allows fabric (or in this case twine) to fit smoothly around and under the button.

Once you've completed the series of stitches slide the stitches off the pin of the foot and clip the treads leaving a long tail. Turn your felt piece over, pull the threads to the back  and tie the treads off to secure.

Repeat with the second button.

Now dig through the tangled mess that you call your ribbon stash looking for the perfect ribbon to use as a tag or use one of these.

Fold the bottom up 3.5 inches and sew the side seams catching the cute ribbon or tag in the seam as you sew.

Tie a piece of Baker's twine to one of the buttons and that's it. Done.

 Here's a card holder for Valentines Day

 For teenagers

men

sweet treats

birthdays.

 

The possibilities are endless.

My thought was to do one for every month of the year. Little gifts all year long. A kind of gift of the month if you will, that you can start in December. Wouldn't that be fun to do for someone who is hard to buy for? Who wouldn't want to receive a different gift card for twelve months in a personalized holder made by you?

If you're local we hope to see you at Bernina Club.

Encourage one another,

 

Tutorial Tuesday #58 - Mug Rugs

 

I don't think I've ever been busier...or more challenged to find and keep my creative mojo working. I'm loving the excitement and energy that each day brings! (Isn't it great I can say that after all these years)? Love it!

When I look at my schedule for the next four months I break into a cold sweat then remind myself to just take it one day at a time.

To add to the craziness I've started getting up a four dark thirty to walk for an hour before work. I'd like to think the exercise helps me better cope, but now I find myself stressing over getting to bed early enough to get in my seven hours of sleep, which in turn makes me anxious and causes sleepless nights.

Oye.

One thing I know for sure that helps with stress is spending a day (or preferably two) on the weekend in my Happy Place sewing and creating.

Last Sunday I came up with these:

The idea came from one of my very first tutorials way back in 2009 - in the Olden Days when mug rugs were called coasters.

If the technique could work for five inch squares, why not ten inch squares? This project is great for those left over Layer Cakes and you can make them in no time. They are perfect for last minute hostess, teacher or girlfriend gifts we always seem to need at this time of year and the best part is that the folded layers create a little pocket in which to tuck a surprise.

Here's how:

You'll need -

6 - 10" squares (they can all be different fabrics and one of the six won't show at all)

1 - 10" square of flannel or batting (a great way to use up bits and pieces you may have been saving)

1 yard 5/8" wide ric rac (optional)

Circular Embroidery Attachment* for your sewing machine or a plate or circle that measures about 9 3/4" across.

*A Circular Embroidery Attachment is a cool tool that attaches to the bed of your sewing maching and acts kind of like a compass. You stick your fabric onto the pin on the arm of the attachment and the fabric rotates in a circle as you sew. No need to measure or mark, you just sew in perfect circles.

You can pretty much use any foot you want with the attachment - a walking foot, bias binder - any foot will work. Way cool!

To Make:

Layer lining, batting and backing in this order

Lining - on the bottom,right side down

Batting or Flannel - in the middle

Backing - on top, right side up

Using a Circular Embroidery Attachment or drawn circle, sew on optional ric rac to backing fabric through all three layers as shown above.

Press four of the fabric squares in half and layer as follows on top of backing fabric

with raw edges even and fold to the center.

Sew all layers together. If you are using the Circular Attachment you will want to sew this next step by making your circle one tick smaller. If you are not using a Circle Attachment you will want to flip your fabric stack over and sew just inside the stitching line that attached the ric rac.

Turn right side out so lining is hidden inside and backing fabric is on the back. Just reach into one of the fabric folds and pull the whole thing inside out. It's easy, you'll see.

Press and top stitch.

That's it. The thing that takes the longest is deciding on your fabric combinations. So easy!

We'll be making these Wednesday night and Thursday morning at Bernina Club. We hope you can join us!

Love you guys!

Encourage one another,

Tutorial Tuesday #57 - Jelly Jar Lids

 

Annette and I are always trying to come up with inexpensive quick projects for Bernina Club that show a sewing technique. This month we wanted to do something with a blanket stitch and came up with these jelly jar lid covers. Our thought was that our customers might want to make them as gifts for homemade preserves during the holidays.

Before I show you how we made them I want to tell you about my shopping experience for the little jars of jelly for everyone.

Since we hadn't canned our own homemade jelly this year (or any year for that matter) we needed to buy commercial jelly for our Make It and Take It. The jelly jars couldn't be just any jar of jelly, they had to be cute. (Being French certainly didn't hurt)!

I fell in love with these at Von's, but they were a bit out of my price range at $5.49 each. After a bit of research I discovered that Walmart of all places sold them for only $3.98 each. They would be perfect!

It took a while for us to draw up the patterns, make the samples

and cut and bag the kits, but once that was done

I was off to Walmart to buy me some jelly. Twenty five cherry, twenty five strawberry. How hard could that be?

Apparently Walmart isn't restocking Strawberry Preserves* by Bonne Maman anymore and each of our four local Walmarts only had a few jars left waay in the back of the tippy-top shelf. Imagine me, balancing between the bottom shelf full of Smuckers and my shopping cart, hanging on for dear life, coaxing the last french strawberry jelly jars from the back of the top shelf by using the leg of my sun glasses! (Why do the french always have to be so difficult)? I repeated these acrobatics at all four Walmarts!

Where's the camera (and the customer service) when you need them?

* Some of our Club members will be getting French Raspberry Preserves instead of Strawberry so they'll just need to pretend the label says Strawberry. Sorry - best laid plans...

So anyway here's how you make our cute little jar covers.

Download Jelly Jar pattern here

You'll need:

• 8" square of felt
• 1 yard 1/4" double face satin ribbon
• scraps of felt for fruit and leaves
• Seed beads (optional) or embroidery floss for french knots
• Tiny white flower (Michaels) optional
• Thread to match felt appliques
• Large eye needle
• Needle and thread, ruler and pencil. Scissors
• Jelly jar
• Applique foot for your machine (Bernina #20, #39 or #59)
• Good quality scalloped edge scissors
• Small wad of stuffing and wooden skewer for poking in stuffing

You'll want your felt circle to be about four inches larger than the diameter of your jar lid. My jar lid measured 3 1/2" across. I used a plate that measured 7 1/2" across to

  trace a circle on to my piece of felt. Every jelly jar is different and you will need to adjust your felt circle accordingly. You'll want to play with proportions if you use a different size jar lid or if your jar is shorter or taller.

Using scalloped fabric shears if possible, carefully cut out the circle, trying to cut away your pencil line as you go. I have found that it's important to be precise so your circle is completely round.

Fold the felt circle in quarters and mark the center.

Place the jar in the center of the felt and draw a circle around the lid. You will want all your pencil marks to be on the wrong side of your felt so if you can see any pencil marks from tracing around the plate, that will be the wrong side.

Measure and mark a stitching line 3/4" from the circle.

With a sharp, large eyed needle sew 1/4" wide ribbon along your stitching line. I like the look of larger, consist stitches - about 1/2" apart (but as you can see from the following photos I don't always achieve them).

You will want the ends of the ribbon to enter and exit on the right side of your felt.

Temporarily put the sewn felt circle on your jar and pull on the ribbon ends to tighten slightly.

For placement, position your larger/main felt piece (fruit not leaves) and pin in place. (Do not glue or iron-on because we're going to stuff them a bit later).

Remove from jar and flatten the circle enough so you can applique it. Using an applique foot, stitch the fruit body down with a blanket stitch. (This can be done by hand but because this project was designed for Bernina Club we are using a sewing machine. Besides, it's much faster by machine).

The above photo shows the bottom of Bernina's #20 foot. It has a large cut out area on the sole which allows thick bulky stitches to pass under the foot without building up and getting caught on the foot. The open area between the toes of the foot gives a good view of the needle and stitching area.

Select the blanket stitch on your machine then move your needle position all the way to the right so the right toe of the foot follows along the edge of the applique. I set my stitch length to 3.1 and my width to 2.0. You will want the needle down function engaged.

Start stitching near the top of your fruit, keeping the right toe of your foot next to the applique. You will need to pivot frequently to keep the stitches close to the applique and invisible on the white felt background.

With your needle down stop stitching about an inch from where you started. Raise the foot and stuff a tiny amount of stuffing into the berry. Do not remove fabric from the machine - just stuff it while it's still in the machine. You won't need much stuffing, just enough to add a bit of dimension. Sew to the point you began and secure the threads by using your securing function or pulling the threads to the back and tying off.

For the cherries I did a straight stitch to secure the leaves after sewing the stems by hand.

For the strawberry I added seed beads by hand. You could do french knots instead of beads if you'd like.

Put the cover back on the jar and tie snuggly with a bow.

To prepare the strawberry and pumpkin leaves take a few tiny stitches down the center to give them dimension.

Position and hot glue in place. Add a flower to the strawberry if desired.

The tiny strawberries at the ends of the ribbon are kind of fussy but cute I think.

To make them fold a 1 1/4" x 2 1/4" piece of felt in half (you will need two pieces).

Sew with a close together 1/4" seam. Trim seam to 1/8"

Cut an arch from seam to fold. Turn right side out.

With strong thread run gathering stitch 1/8" from edge of felt around top. Gather slightly and stuff.

Trim the ends of the ribbons to the desired finished length and sew the ribbon ends into the tops of the strawberries. Add beads if desired. Hot glue on leaves (four on each strawberry).

For the cherries gather a 2 3/4" round (I just traced around a spool of thread that was the right size) circle 1/8" from the edge.

Stuff and attach as in the strawberry directions. Hot glue on leaves (two for each cherry).

Well, there you have it. They are really pretty fast to make (probably faster than reading these wordy instructions)!

Bon Appetit

Encourage one another,

Bernina Club is free to anyone who owns a Bernina. We meet the third Wednesday night of the month at 6:30 and the following Thursday morning at 10:00. We hope you'll join us!

 

 

Tutorial Tuesday # 56 - Felt French Macarons

This was my inspiration for today's tutorial.
French macarons from Laduree. 

For me no trip to Paris is complete without a visit (or two) to Laudree for these  delectable little gems. That slight crack you feel as you bite through the thin outer shell into the soft flavor filled center and the explosion of flavor as the filling oozes out and dances on your tongue. Oolala. It's a dance party in your mouth for sure.

To be honest I think I may love the boxes as much as the macarons. Laduree is the master of packaging and window display - always changing, always exceptional.

I thought it would be fun to do a French inspired Bernina Club and make our guests macaron party favors. So I started with  2 1/2 inch rounds of wool felt in some fun flavors.

and whipped up several dozen of these diminutive confections.

Then packaged them in their own tiny boxes


with a note, Merci because we can never say Thank You enough to our wonderful customers who love and support us!

For those who would like to make some:

Add cardboard round

You will need two rounds for one macaron.

Aren't they adorable? And unlike the real thing - sugar and calorie free, but very high in fiber!

Bon appétit!

French paper shred French Hen Etsy

Clear boxes Paper Mart

Wool Felt Strawberry Patches

Ribbon Strawberry Patches

Merci Rubber Stamp Paper Source

Foil Mini Cupcake Papers Michaels

Encourage one another,

 
          

Tutorial Tuesday # 55 - Baby You're a Firework!

Some of you have asked how I made the dynamite party favors I blogged about last week so I thought we'd take a closer look.

My original plan was to use toilet paper rolls but after I collected them I decided they looked an awfully lot like, well, toilet paper rolls. So I ordered these from Paper Mart.  (I dunno, putting candy in TP rolls just seemed wrong somehow, but you totally could. Just say'n).

Paper Mart is an amazing source for paper products in bulk. Their delivery is super fast, they are competitively priced and guarantee inventory to always be in stock. The only problem for some is that you do need to order in bulk. These came in boxes of fifty (perfect for me) and cost fourteen cents each. They measure 1 1/2" x 6" and are very thick and sturdy (unlike TP rolls these days - have you noticed? They just don't make them like they used to - they're so flimsy now!).

Anyway...

The above photo shows TP and paper towel rolls since I had used all the Paper Mart tubes before I photographed this tutorial

The first thing you need to do is cover the tubes with something. I used fabric because fabric is what I do, but you could use cute scrapbook paper. Just cut a piece of fabric the circumference and height of your tube and affix it with Mod Podge. Just a side note: I loved how easy and pliable the fabric was to adhere to the cardboard tube - I'm pretty sure I would prefer fabric to paper even if I didn't sell it.

Next you'll need two circles of colored card stock, one for each end. I found the paper and matching (important - I think) ribbon at Michael's. I happened to have a 2 1/2" circle punch that was perfect for this project but you could cut them by hand if you needed to. You will want the card stock circles to be 1" larger than the diameter of the roll. I rimmed the circles with a bit of Martha Stewart fine glitter to match the paper. This step is certainly optional, but I think it added a nice touch of sparkle while it finished the edges.

Using  a hot glue gun, affix* the ribbon to each end of the tube.

*Am I the only one that thinks of Martha every time I use the word affix? Gosh, now I'm even talking like her! Scary.

Glue one circle to one tube end using Elmer's Glue. Once dry, turn up side down and fill with your favorite candy then glue on the second circle to close.

The "explosives" are pipe cleaners wrapped with wired stars (both found at Michael's).

I added wooden stars painted with glitter paint (both purchased at Michael's), sprinkled with additional glitter then hot glued to the pipe cleaner when dry.

You could probably leave this part out because it was really messy and I'm not sure the glitter stars added that much, but once I started I was compelled to finish.

To attach the pipe cleaner just fold in half and insert into one end of the tube. I punched a small hole in the cardstock circle first with the point of a small pair of scissors. I added a dot of hot glue to the hole just to hold the pipe cleaner in place.

You can tie on a note of your choice. You MUST use Baker's Twine for this step! = )

I think these would also make fun hand delivered party invitations too - don't you?

I loved making these.They were relatively fast and cost less than fifty cents each.

Oh, and every stick of dynamite needs a match to light its fuse. So...

Matchbook needle cases!

We hope to see you all at Bernina Club June 19 & 20th where we'll be celebrating summer.

Encourage one another,

          

Tutorial Tuesday #36 - Hair Bows

One of the blogs I enjoy is Kelly's Korner, a sweet blog written by a young mommy from the south. Kelly has two darling little girls and loves dressing them in matching  smocked dresses and huge hair bows.

                                                      Photo by Kelly's Korner

Reading her recent post about hair bows reminded me I hadn't shared bow making techniques since this post and since we have so many adorable ingredients for making hair bows I figured it was time.

Since I am a California girl my bows certainly can't compete in size or complexity of those from the south, but my techniques are pretty basic and could easily be adapted to more elaborate styles.

What I really love about making these is that this basic style costs less than a dollar to  make and can easily be completed in less than a half an hour. If you follow the links on Kelly's blog you'll see that some of the bigger more elaborate bows can cost nearly thirty dollars!

Here's what you'll need:

1 yard 1 1/2" wide grosgrain ribbon

hair clip

hot glue

water washout pen or other marker

ruler

needle and thread

embellishments optional

Let's get started.

Starting with 31" of 1 1/2" wide grosgrain ribbon, measure 3 1/2" from one end and mark with a dotted line. (I prefer using a washout pen because it bleeds through to the wrong side of the ribbon - you'll need to be able to see that line on both sides of the ribbon)

Next you'll measure and mark a line 6" from the first line.

Continue measuring and marking every 6". You will need to mark a total of five lines.

You should have 3 1/2" inches left beyond the fifth line.

If you are using a pencil or some marking devise that isn't visible on both sides of your ribbon then you will need to mark lines 1, 3 and 5 on the right side of the ribbon and lines 2 & 4 on the wrong side. Whatever marker you use, the line will not show on your finished bow because it will be in the middle of the bow, under the ribbon that attaches your bow to the hair clip.

With a double threaded needle (and a really big honk'n knot) start sewing with a running stitch along the first line, bottom to top of the ribbon.

When you get to the top of the first line, match up the second line with the first and continue to stitch. Notice you will be stitching this second line on the wrong side of the ribbon.

Continue stitching all five marked lines together, paying close attention to have the ribbon folded back and forth, right to wrong as shown below.

Once you reach the top of the fifth line

gently pull the thread (needle still attached) so as to gather the ribbon along the stitched lines. Shape the bow as you gather it in the center, paying special attention to keep the right side of the ribbon facing out.

At this point you will have two loops and a tail on the left and two loops and a tail on the right.

Wrap the thread around the center a few times and take a couple of stitches to secure. Cut off excess thread. (The center of your bow should be tightly scrunched).

Take the five inches of left over ribbon (remember you used only 31" of your 36" piece) and fold it into thirds, lengthwise and make a loose knot in the middle.

Here's what it looks like on the right side.

Put a tiny dab of hot glue on the back side of the knot and secure it to the front center of your bow.

Wrap the ends to the back of the bow securing the hair clip as you glue.

Trim the ends and that's it!

You can eliminate the knot and just wrap a narrow piece of ribbon around the center to hide the stitching and to attach the clip then add an embellishment to the top side of the bow.

I love that the clips can attach the bows directly to the hair or to hats and headbands. By simply changing the clip you can totally change the look of your hat.

This technique works well for any size ribbon. You will need to adjust the distance between the marks and may want to add loops depending on the width of your ribbon. The chevron ribbon is just 7/8" wide so my loops were marked 4 1/2" apart instead of six inches apart.

 

Encourage one another,