Raid Your Yard: Lovely in Lavender

April 11, 2015September 16, 2016 spcountrygal Accessories, DIY, Flowers, Quick Project, Spring Craft DIY, Flowers, Home Accessories, Quick and Easy

What is growing in your yard right this very minute? If you don’t know, run and look. I’ll wait. At this spring time of year it seems like everything is in bloom and looking beautiful.

Here are some areas in my yard that I am absolutely loving right now:

Azalea

Iris

? Only yellow in Spring

Lavender

Rock Rose

Today I decided to get all Martha Stewart-like and bring some of my outdoors…indoors. Some people like to gather a bit of every kind of flower that they have in bloom and put them in a vase. Me? I prefer only one type of flower in each arrangement. That’s just me, though. I decided to gather lavender since we have absolute TONS of it in our landscaping.

Let me share a story that I always think of whenever I see lavender: My friend was wearing the color lavender when she was approached by a guy who, in what must have been his best “designer guy” impression, said to her, “You look lahv-ly in lah-vender.” Cracks me up every time. Just trust me when I say that this stuff is buzzing with bees. Buzzzzing like crazy

Since we have absolute oodles of lavender, I decided to make a few arrangements with items that we already have on hand. Ready to see?

I think that this is an actual Martha Stewart pitcher. I like it. I like it a lot.

This is a tall, modern vase that I like to keep in my kitchen window above the sink.

This funky, modern looking vase was purchased at Michaels a couple of years ago. My daughter likes to keep it in her room.

And lastly, this one:

Just a simple jar that everyone, and their neighbor’s dog, has. A drop of blue and a tiny drop of yellow food coloring makes the perfect aqua water. A touch of raffia completes the look.

I’m loving having the outdoors, indoors today! Four new arrangements and it didn’t cost me a dime. Love that, too! My home is lovely in lavender. (Snicker!)

Now, why don’t you grab some scissors and a vase and go raid YOUR yard! I promise you will be glad you did! (Just watch out for bees!)

(Check out the Link Parties that I like to link at)

Recycled Jeans Satchel

April 2, 2015April 9, 2015 spcountrygal Accessories, Craft, DIY, Girls Camp Crafts, Quick Project, Recycling, Super Saturday Accessories, Craft, DIY, Fabric, Girls Camp Crafts, Quick and Easy, Re-use, Recycling, Super Saturday

At this very moment, do you have any jeans in your home that really should be in the trash? I’m talking holey, stained, terribly out of style jeans that you know will never be worn again? I recently came across some jeans destined for landfill and I decided to check out Pinterest (of course!) to see what I could make with them instead. Although I found some really fun projects, I didn’t see anything that screamed, “Make me!”. Not knowing what I was going to make, I started cutting and this is what I ended up with.

I kind of love them! Think of it as a satchel for putting your phone, lipstick, or whatever you need, in. Do you ever find yourself wearing an outfit that doesn’t have pockets? Maybe a dress, skirt, yoga pants? It’s kind of a pain. Make one of these simple satchels and you won’t need to carry your stuff in your hands or have a full on purse when you really don’t need it. Ready? Set? Go!

First step, cut off the pockets. Easy! Cut only the bottom layer (not the finished pocket edges) and leave a bit of fabric on the top.

Flip it over and hot glue the top edge down so you can have a finished-looking front. Back doesn’t look too bad, either.

For the flowers I did an internet search for “flower template”. Here are the two that I used: 4-petal-heart-template and Flower-Pot-Card-Template. It is best to have at least 3 different sizes, so I had to do some re-sizing in Word. Once you have a paper pattern, cut it, then trace it on your fabric,

then cut out the fabric. Might as well cut out two layers at a time, right? I wanted the denim to looked a bit frayed, so I just scraped the fabric edges with my fingernail to get that effect.

To assemble the flower, grab some thread, a needle and a button and sew the button through all of the layers…or…hot glue each layer and add the button to the top. Then just hot glue the flower to the pocket. Play around with positioning before gluing.

For the strap, cut out the inseam starting up one leg and once you reach the crotch, going down the other leg, then back up and down the other side. Most, if not all jeans have double stitching for the inseam so just cut near the finished edges on each side of the stitching. Easy-peasy!

And this is what you get:

At this point, determine how long you want your strap to be, cut to size, then hot glue on the back like so:

Done! Check it out!

I have been asked to be in charge of crafts for a young women’s camp this summer and this is definitely one that we will make. My goal is to have the girls create items that are useful, not something to shove in the back of a drawer once they get home. I think that they will like them.

What do you think?

Linking up to these awesome parties!

Giant DIY Satin Flowers

March 13, 2015March 13, 2015 spcountrygal Craft, Decorating, DIY, Home Accessories, Pillow, Super Saturday, Thrift Store Craft, Decorating, DIY, Fabric, Home Accessories, Pillow, Super Saturday, Thrift Store

Remember this post where I showed you how to make adorable satin flowers? Well, I love those little flowers so much because they can add cute touches to anything from hair, to clothing, to home accessories, to purses, to gift packages. To be honest, though, they are a bit small to add a lot of WOW to a room. You know the theory that “bigger is better”? Well, it is if we are talking about bigger budgets, bigger backyards, bigger pieces of chocolate cake. Bigger thighs? Maybe not so much. An-y-way. I thought that I could take this idea of making satin flower up a notch and make one, well, bigger. The process was pretty much the same except I added more layers. Eleven, to be exact:

For a base, I covered a circle shaped pieced of cardboard with fabric (to keep it pretty) to add stability:

Of course I glued the flower layers to the ugly side so the bottom looks nice and finished.

This finished flower turned out to be about 8 1/2 inches wide. Big enough to make a statement in a frame that I backed with unpainted textured wallpaper:

I thought that it turned out pretty good, and I’ll admit that I excitedly thought, “I MADE that!” every time that I walked past it. The above picture just doesn’t do it justice. The satin is so beautiful and I love the color that the fabric turns when the flame melts the edges. Come to my house sometime and you will see.

After I had walked past it a hundred times or more I got thinking again. Dangerous! I adopted a new theory, ” If bigger is better, gigantic is the best!”. Are you with me?

I looked in my fabric stash and found this lovely blouse that had been purchased and cut up for my daughter’s school project last year. This little number set me back probably $.50. Way cheaper than fabric store fabric. I didn’t want to ruin good fabric if my big idea didn’t work.

I totally know what you are thinking. “How could you cut up such an stylish blouse?” I know, right?

As I started cutting I realized something awesome, this 100% polyester fabric tears really easily. In no time at all I had a large stack of fabric squares. The largest squares were cut out of the back of the blouse, but I was amazed at how much fabric was in each sleeve. I didn’t even try to count how many layers this flower has. I just know it was a lot because I wanted my gigantic flower to be nice and fluffy.

Using the same process that I showed you in my Super Simple Satin Flower tutorial I started melting my edges. Unfortunately, my hubby was working at home when I made this and I knew that he would not welcome the thought of me putting fabric over a flame in the house so I did it on my front porch. Trust me, it is much faster to do indoors. Every little breeze makes the candle flicker.

I made a cool little video to show you a way that I found to speed up the process, but ding-dang-dong, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to add it in WordPress. I will keep trying to figure out how to add the video, but basically, just take one side and simply fanfold the edges (maybe a 4-6 inch section) and hold the fanned area vertically about the candle’s hot spot to melt a larger section at a time. Quickly spread out the fanned out area just in case parts fused together and then melt any sections that might have been missed. Again, don’t put the fabric IN the flame, just OVER the flame. We are melting, not burning the edges. It probably took me an hour to melt all of my edges.

Once all of your pieces are melted, start stacking, largest on the bottom and work your way to the top. Many of my pieces were similar in size and that is okay. Just do this:

See how I put the glue down and scrunched the fabric to make sure the layers beneath can be seen. This also adds wrinkles which help add volume.

When I got to the center area, I took 4 of my smaller melted shapes, pulled the center down to form a cone shape and glued them down to hide all of the hot glue spots. At this point, I still had some extra melted fabric sections so I folded them in half and glued in the bare areas.

Ta-dah! This baby is about 14 inches across! It’s gigantic!

Here, you can see how I added it to a throw pillow:

And here I attached it to a framed mirror:

In all honesty, this bright blue doesn’t go with anything in my house, BUT, my daughter is going away to BYU this fall and this BYU Blue gigantic flower will go with her. Now that I know that it IS possible to make a Gigantic Satin Flower, I’m making one for me!

So, whadda-ya think? Was my $.50 investment + 1 1/2 hours of my time worth it?

(Here is a different blouse makeover project that I made)

DIY: From Blouse to Pillow in 10 Minutes Flat

February 26, 2015September 19, 2016 spcountrygal Craft, Decorating, DIY, Home Accessories, Quick Project, Sewing, Thrift Store Craft, DIY, Home Accessories, Quick Project, Thrift Store

Do you have pillow forms hiding at your house? Maybe in your garage? Closet? Craft room? Yeah, me too. And when I say “pillow form”, I am also referring to ugly throw pillows that just need to be updated. Like the ugly hunter green checkered pillow that I adored in the 90’s. It has been hiding in the garage for the last 10+ years. Well, I resurrected it today with this:

I know what you are thinking… that is one stylish blouse. Am I right? Or am I right? Or am I right? The fabric is a really shiny rayon/polyester mix that doesn’t photograph well, but you get the gist. This blouse came from my local, small town thrift store that likes to do deals like “as many clothes as you can stuff in a bag for $2” sales. Yep, I shoved this in my bag, knowing that I wanted it for the fabric only. I wanted to see if I could use it to make some of these silk flowers:

Unfortunately, my gray shiny blouse was an epic fail for that project. Caught on fire! Luckily, I was near the kitchen sink. I know that polyester fabric melts, so I just “Bing”ed the question, “Is rayon flammable?”. The answer, “Yes. Very much so.”. Perhaps I should have checked before I lit it with a candle. Hmmm…you learn something new every day.

I couldn’t let the blouse go to waste, I mean, it cost me a quarter. I got my thinking cap on and thought of my ugly hunter green checkered pillow hiding in my garage and out it came. Remember this pillow tutorial where I made a heart-shaped pillow out of a sweater with buttons? Same concept here. I just cut out two rectangles just a bit bigger than my pillow form using the front and the back of the blouse and then sewed around all four sides. No need to leave an opening so I could shove the form in and hand sew it shut. No way… that is where the buttons come in handy. Check it out:

Can you see how I made the buttons (which were purposely hidden on this particular blouse) off center. Much better than sticking them smack-dab in the middle. Don’t you agree. I made a floppy bow using one of the sleeves and just safety pinned it on. That way I can reposition it later if I want to. I will show you how I did the bow some other time. Promise.

Since it is a rectangular pillow, it can sit either way:

Now you can see why I just pinned the bow on… I might want to change the position depending on which direction the pillow faces.

I seriously spent more time getting my sewing machine set up and then put back away than I spent making this simple pillow. You have GOT to try one for yourself. Resurrect an old pillow of your own. Time to do some blouse shopping.

DIY: Super Simple Satin Flowers

January 24, 2015September 19, 2016 spcountrygal Craft, Decorating, DIY, Gift Idea, Home Accessories, Quick Project Craft, Decorating, DIY, Fabric, Gift Idea, Home Accessories, Quick and Easy, Super Saturday

There is something incredibly awesome about being able to take a flat piece of fabric and turn it into something 3 dimensional, useful and beautiful. I don’t consider myself to be an expert seamstress, but I still love to create with fabric. I’m in no way the inventor of this simple satin flower, but I thought that I would share how I make them.

First of all, you will need some sort of a polyester satin-like fabric. You can find it everywhere. Since you don’t really need very much fabric for each flower, it helps to check the remnants section of your fabric store. I have even cut up items of clothing to make these. Check out your own fabric stash. Or, someone else’s fabric stash…with their permission, of course. Seriously you only need a tiny bit of fabric. How much depends on the flower size that you want.

I had a few different fabrics that were satiny that I quickly found they weren’t polyester. To see if a fabric is polyester, just place an edge of the fabric above (not into) a candle flame. Polyester will melt on the edge, which is just plain neat-o. This melted part will darken in color, which makes a pretty cool effect. The fabric will pucker and bend, making the previously flat fabric more flower petal-like.

To get started, cut out your fabric. If you are a perfectionist, you might have a problem with this, because it really doesn’t matter how you cut the fabric. I usually just roughly cut squares, but circles or cloud-like shapes will work. Play around with it…that’s half of the fun.

For each flower you will cut 4 or more shapes in descending size and a thin rectangle for the back so you can attach a hair clip. The more layers you add, the fuller the flower will be.

See how imperfect my cuts are? I will admit that the white fabric isn’t satin, it is more of a sheer fabric, but it must be polyester because it melts. It is fun to see what fabrics will work.

Next step, grab a candle. I prefer small-ish candles in jars. Think dollar store. I’m not going to lie… when I first started making these, I just used the flame on my gas stove. Works seriously fast. If you are worried about fumes, I haven’t really had a problem with this… maybe do it under the stove vent.

The process is simple. Run the entire edge of each piece of fabric above- not inside- of the flame. As you get going, you will notice that there is a hot spot and that is where you want to place the edge of your fabric.

The fabric will curl up as it melts, and that is great. I like to have the shiny side of the fabric facing me as I do this, but play around and see what works for you. The cool thing about the square edges is that they seem to disappear, get rounded, as they melt. I like to mess around a bit and even allow the heat to “cut” in a bit. Experiment with it… it is seriously fun.

Here are my same pieces, after melting the edges:

Now it is time to layer the pieces. Start with the largest one first, add a drop of hot glue to the center, then place the next smallest piece, and so on until you have used all of the pieces except for the thin rectangle that goes on back. For the center, you can get creative with buttons, gems, beads, whatever. As an alternative, just scrunch up a couple smaller melted pieces of fabric to form the center of your flower (see brown flower at the top of this post).

Of course you can be done right here and just hot glue the thing on a frame or pillow or whatever, but if you want your flower to be a hair clip or easily moveable, add a hair clip to the back. Michaels has them, but a beauty supply store (Sally’s) seems to have them cheaper and of higher quality.

To attach, clip the center of your melted thin rectangle piece, with the flat side of the clip facing down, then glue onto your flower like so:

Now flip it over, ooh and ahh over it, run to the mirror and put it in your hair and admire it…

…or grab the closest nearby child (with this excitement, it doesn’t matter if it is a girl or boy… well, I’m sure it matters to the boy). Doesn’t it look great?

What else can you do with these beautiful flowers?

My Scriptures bag that I take to church gets changed out regularly now:

Here’s how I packaged a pair that I made for a baby gift: I just printed up the words on cardstock and cut to size.

Classy, huh? Or you can make it the “bow” on your gift. Get your thinking cap on… I know that you will come up with a hundred ways to use these awesome flowers that you made. What was once a boring, flat piece of fabric is now an awesome accessory. How simple was that?

Stay tuned to see how I took this project and amped it up for home décor. You’re gonna love it!