{ Paper Snowflakes }

 

I have always been a very creative person, from the earliest of ages that I can remember.  If I could make it instead of buying it, I was all for it.

 

The past few years, I have been looking more into spending vintage, old timer Christmas as opposed to the newest trends or flashy snazzy decorations that some prefer.  There is something magical about the old way of doing Christmas, the homemade decorations, the vintage looking Santa and young kids holding presents in a snowy background, or old fashioned women in sweet aprons standing near a stove or a beautiful Christmas tree glowing with tinsel thrown about randomly.

 

That is the kind of Christmas that I remember from my childhood and the kind of Christmas that I prefer to celebrate. 

 

With that in mind, I have been making some cute decorations, and these snowflakes have been on my plans for quite a while.  I thought they would be really difficult to make but they are so easy and so quick to put together.

 

I have made 3 so far for my bedroom windows and 1 for my kitchen window.  I may make some more to place in different rooms throughout the house.

 

But I thought I would share, in case one of you want to give it a try, but also to keep it here on the blog for future years where I can come back and see the tutorial.

 

I found a few tutorials online and the first one I tried went horribly wrong because the lady didn't explain properly where to glue the pieces, but I found one that was wonderful and easy to follow, so here it is, hope you enjoy it as much as I did making these.

 

You are going to need 6 sheets of printer paper for each snowflake.

 

The firs thing you need to do, is to fold each paper up to make a square, then you're going to take a pair of scissors and cut off the excess.

 

Next, you will take each triangle and fold it in half again, as you can see below.  In other words, don't open up your squares yet, keep them as they are folded in a triangle shape, and fold them again in half.

 

Now take each triangle, and hold it, so that the folded edge is to the left of your hand, then make 3 cuts, just space them evenly, going all the way from the bottom to about half an inch from the fold, don't cut right through.

 

Once you've done that for all 6 sheets of paper, take each one, open it up gently into a square, it will look just like you see in the picture below.

 

Gently take the middle square, and bring each edge up and overlap it.

 

Using a glue stick as I am doing below, or you can use some tape, secure it in place.

 

You're going to do this two more times until all squares are secured, remembering to keep flipping the paper back and forth for each one.  So, secure the first middle square, then flip the paper over, and secure the next, then flip it back over again and secure, and flip it one last time and secure the last outer square.

 

This is what will give it the 3D look, and this what the first tutorial I found, forgot to explain, so I kept the paper as it was and just glued them all one over the other which did not work at all. 

 

Now flip the paper complete over to the other side, and again, grab the next square, and overlap the edges, securing them again with tape or glue.

 

Next do the same for each sheet of paper, you will have 6 final 3D looking shapes.  Now you're going to take each one, and line it up with the next, at one of the points, top or bottom it doesn't matter.

 

Just line up the points as best as you can, then staple them together.

 

 Just like you see below, all six secured together.

 

You will end up with something like this.  I know it doesn't look right yet, so what you're going to have to do now, is take each individual snowflake and staple it to the next, in the middle (or side rather of each one)

 

I hope you can see it in picture below, you're essentially attaching each snowflake to each other so it creates a big circle.

 

That is it.  You have created a beautiful huge 3D snowflake to hang in your home as a Christmas decoration.

 

I just love the way they look, and once you make the first, you will understand just how quickly they come together.  It is something you can make with your kids, maybe do all the cutting and stapling, but have them glue the inner pieces and help you put it together.

I hope you enjoyed this little tutorial and give it a try.  If you do, I would love to see how yours turned out or how you used them in your homes.  Be sure to come back and show me.

Angry Birds

Hello there :) I am sitting here with my cup of coffee and thought that I would come share with you my latest projects.

Please excuse his eyes, for some reason that guy in the back ended up with weird pupils....the kids say that he must have been hit on the head hard lol

I don't know if it's such a good idea to start the year off angry, but these birds sure seem to have someone to pick a bone with.  Haha

My kids have just recently discovered the Angry Birds and are loving them.  While looking for easy Christmas gifts to make at home, a few weeks back, I came across a pattern for felt Angry Birds.

Now while I didn't get a chance to make them for Christmas, I set it aside for another day, which happened to be today as I had my new sewing machine out.  Oh do I love this machine, the Singer 5500, what a relaxing way to sew, it threads itself, it has all these different stitches etc.  It IS a little intimidating at first, I was used to my very old one which clanked it's way through projects.

Anyway, I'm getting distracted.....let me just get right to the point and show you how I made the Angry Birds and also share with you the pattern I used.

While at Michael's on Friday, I picked up quite a bit of felt and now I'm thinking I should go back and get some more.....these are becoming quite popular and I plan on making quite a few, including one or two to give away on the blog :)

So I used this pattern over at Obsessively Stitching.  Her directions were very easy to follow and I only really paid close attention with the first one, the other came together in about 10 minutes, I kid you not.

With the two kids wanting one each, I went ahead and cut out double of everything.....

I just can't, they crack me up, I found myself giggling the whole time.

Pinned and ready for the beak to go on. 

No really, if your children love Angry Birds, you have got to give these a try, they are fast to make and they are just adorable.  I'm making the piggy, the black one, yellow one and a blue one this week, oh and maybe a few more, these are highly addictive....but I'll be sure to show you :)

Here is the other project I made, I started last night and worked on it for 3 hours.  I followed a pattern from Simplicity, or should I say, I STARTED out using the pattern and it irritated me so much that I gave up and winged it. 

Camera bag including a little pocket in the front for my Kindle.  Now let me tell you, I learned how to sew with my grandma Odete who is a seamstress, she used to make all sorts of amazing things, I remember many days sitting with her while she made beautiful wedding dresses.  She had me help her with alterations and all sorts of things and I treasure the moments I spent sitting next to her sewing machine, just watching.



With that said....I will tell you right now that this bag is full of imperfections, things that some many not notice but I do and if she were standing next to me, she would have frowned and asked me what I was doing LOL

But it's not for anyone, it's not for sale, it's just for me and I'm really happy with the results.  I have tons of room in the bag to be able to insert my purse organizers and make this a double duty bag when we go somewhere that I know I'll be using the camera a lot.....like the upcoming Renaissance Festival next month.

So all in all, this bag took me 5 hours to make and that was with a lot of stopping, thinking, rethinking, pulling stitches, winging it etc.

I plan on doing a lot of sewing this coming year.

I plan on doing a lot of things actually.....starting with my blog and as I previously stated, starting tomorrow I will be returning full time and I couldn't be more excited if I tried.  What a blessing to feel that I'm doing the right thing, following my heart and going back to what I love.

I do so hope that you will continue to follow me on my journey.  I thank each and every one of you who have stuck by this old blog even when I haven't been such a nice bloggy friend and haven't had a chance to comment on yours.  I will remedy that :)

For now, I'm going to head to Google Reader, hit Mark all read, and reorganize, get rid of blogs that are no longer available, move some stuff around, categorize others etc....plan to start fresh tomorrow.

Goodnight all!

Fabric Pumpkins

I started seeing these cute pumpkins pop up all over the internet in preparation for Halloween.  I can tell you that the minute I saw them, I fell in love and knew I just had to try my hand at them.

The first one I made is still adorable but not exactly what I wanted, but by the time I got to the second one???  Yeah I was head over heels in love.

I have four right now and two just waiting for me to finish, let me tell you, if you're looking for a quick project that takes but a few basic sewing stitches, then these are the ones to try.

I used a couple tutorials, like this one and this one as my guides, but I changed some of the steps in mine.

Can I say how irritated I am that Walmart is getting rid of all their Fabric Departments?  I mean really????  Anyway, I was able to find some fabric quarters in a basket near the sewing stuff, seems like they were the last they had.



I love my sewing machine, it's very therapeutic hearing the brrrrrr of the machine as it zips through the fabric.

So basically you're cutting your fabric into a rectangle, you can follow the sizes on those tutorials above, or you can just wing it like I did.  I did smaller rectangles for smaller pumpkins.

Fold your rectangle, right-sides together.  Stitch down the long-side (side to the right) with a regular straight-stitch.  Then run a gathering stitch around the bottom.  Pulling on the bobbin thread, gather the fabric as tight as you can, be careful not to pull too hard so you don't break the thread.  Tie your thread ends together.



Turn inside out and fill with fiberfill or whatever stuffing you have on hand.  I actually popped a cinnamon stick in two of mine just to give it a little scent.



At this point I made the stem, all you need is a small 4in x 2 1/2in rectangle.  Fold in half, right sides together and sew an "L" shape, top edge and side edge, leaving bottom open for stuffing. Turn stem right side out and stuff stem with fiberfill.



After I filled mine, I took some embroidery thread in a matching color, and sewed a running stitch along the top, leaving about half an inch edge. The way I do it is to leave a long tail and start sewing, when I get back to the beginning stitch I cut the thread leaving another longish tail.....then I grab both ends of the thread and start pulling gently to gather the material.  When it's as tight as I can get it, I tie a tight knot and cut the excess thread.



Take some twine or embroidery floss and wrap it around the pumpkin (very tightly).  Do this as if you were wrapping a present.  Loop it around, then cross-over, around and cross-over.  You will cross-over at the top and bottom of the pumpkin.  Go back and forth until you have sections on each pumpkin.  Finish by simply tying in a knot.
Attach the stem to the pumpkin making sure to cover the puckered edges where you gathered the fabric.  I used a blind hem stitch, or just do whatever, just remember that you'll tie a ribbon on afterwards to hide any imperfections.

I made these 4 pumpkins in 1 hour and that is because I kept having to stop to take care of the kids and dinner etc.  They whip up really fast.

I still have another two just waiting for the stems to be attached.  I think I'm going to go through my fabric stash and make a bunch more, I want a huge one and maybe some tiny little ones too.



Just have fun with it and if you do make some, please come back over and let me know so that I can come and see them :)