Make an Alice-style bow headband

My brother's girlfriend picked out this bag for me a couple months ago and when I was wondering what to be for Halloween it decided my costume.

I don't "go out" on Halloween but I do hang out with a friend and we give candy to the kids that come to her house so we like to dress up for them. And since I'm going to be Alice this year and I don't want to spend money on a costume I had to come up with something I could make with what I had.
I have to recant that a tiny bit because I did buy some Manectric eyeshadow from Shiro Cosmetics. It's beautiful!

I found an old headband and some sheets of black eco-felt.


Measuring how wide I wanted the bow to be, I cut a strip. Sometimes I use one of those rolling cutters (which for some reason I can't think of the name of...oh yeah I haven't had my coffee yet!) but they tend to stretch the felt and I end up with a weird angle on one end.


I glued my ends together with felt glue and held them closed with clothespin/bag clip things.


So that it will look like one continuous piece.


When it's dry, pinch the center to get your bow shape.


Then dab in some more glue and...


...clip it to hold while it dries.


And it would seem some of my photos went missing. Drat. Lemme 'splain. I cut a second strip of felt - slighter less wide than the first - to be the "tails" to my bow. I v'd the ends and pinched and glued it in the middle as well.


Because I've never made anything like this before and had NO clue what I was doing I'm going to let you learn from my mistakes. :)

In the photo you see I've got two pieces, one bow and one tail. My bow already has the center strip glued around the middle and my tail has a bulky center of it's own to contend with. Let me suggest that you hold off on the center strip on the bow until the very end.

Also let me suggest you cut your tail piece into two pieces, tapered at the center end, so you can just glue them under the bow (you won't even see the ends) and you don't end up with that bulk. Also this way your center strip can be glued around the whole headband and help secure it.

As it were, I glued my bow against the flat side of my pinched tail and then glued the tails straight against the back of the bow. Sounds complicated and I completely forgot - in my frustration - to photograph the process.

I did, however, get it all worked out in the end.




I hope you have an easier time of it. :)

UPDATED: Click here to see it in action.

How good is your memory?

Okay, MOPS leaders, I'm going out on a limb here and guessing you're visiting this page. I see you showing up in my site statistics but I can't see what you're saying about me because I don't know the secret handshake to your leader's forum. But I'll say, "hi!" anyway, and just hope you're saying something good about me. :)

Can you remember the last time I posted? Ha! That's what camping will do for blogging - throws a wrench into the whole works. :) That and I had to catch up on some reading. And some projects. And some gardening...

My latest finished project is a gift for my friend Megan's daughter - she doesn't know I made this yet so I'm sure she'll read this on facebook and be surprised! :D

I knew she was looking at a memory game and I knew I had all the supplies to make one myself!

I started with some 1 and 1/2 inch squares of wood - I have a whole plastic drawer full in my craft space.

Then I gathered up a handful of nature-themed small stamps.


I grabbed my black ink pad.
And made sure it was non-toxic.


And stamped four of each design. Quick and easy and cute! I actually played with it for a while. Now I'm going to have to make one for myself. ;)


Linking to:

The Shabby Chic Cottage

Creations by Kara

Everything Etsy

And because I used up these wooden pieces I've had forever I'm counting this as a Destash Project!

How I did it: little girl's first birthday

Whew the birthday part is over and it was a success! I felt like I was running around to get decorations completed on time but it was really a lot of fun.

I've been seeing pennant/bunting style banners all over the place and wanted to try one. The theme was lavender and pink and, borrowing from my mom's and Judy's stash of fabric (and using Martha Stewart's template) I cut 13 triangles using the pinking blade rotary cutter. That way I wouldn't have to worry about fraying or adding another layer to the back. I'm lazy when it comes to sewing, what can I say? :)

Now for the hard part. I needed a binding and I needed to sew it together. If I shared some of the sewing machine stories I had, you would completely understand why I don't like to sew. So I did what anyone would do in this situation: I asked my mom. :)
She has a super nice Bernina and I think she was glad to have an excuse to use it.

Originally I had plans to cut some fabric letters to spell out "happy birthday" on the banner, but I got to thinking that, since this is fabric and reusable, maybe she'd like to use it for a tea party someday or maybe she'd like to hang it up in her room after the party. That in mind, I used my scallop circle punch to cut some white paper which I stamped. Then I Scotch taped them on. You couldn't even tell they weren't permanently fastened. Total easy fix.

Using the same scallop circle punch and my larger smooth circle punch I cut pink and lavender paper and embossed the birthday girl's name using some "Vintage Rose" Distress Ink embossing powder.

I punched holes in each side using a regular old hole punch and ran ribbon through the holes. Super easy and I already had all the supplies.

On pretty much every party website and blog I've ever seen in the history of ever they are making the tissue poms and they look so fantastic. I knew a frilly girl's party wouldn't be complete without them. I used some leftover floral wire I had sitting around and I made a little noose looking loop so I'd have an easier time hanging them with the fishing line.

For the how-to, I used Martha's instructions here. Mine didn't turn out as well as hers. My cousin Mario helped me with them and mine didn't turn out as good as his either. I'm a failure at poms? Good grief!

The other dangles in the window were made using more ribbon-on-hand and some pretty paper cut out with my paper punches and layered. These seem to be popular in party decor as well. They are so simple and I really liked the extra touch they added to the window.

I also found out by accidentally gluing my hair into one of them that tiny paper punches can be glued back to back in your hair and they totally stay as long as you don't yank on them. :)

I also put together a couple of dishes made from dollar store stuff because I've seen it done everywhere and just really wanted to try it. For some reason my dollar stores (yes every single one in my area) hate me and don't sell the same stuff they appear to sell in every other state and I had to make do with these.

The birthday girl's mom bought dishes at Ross and Dollar Tree to use for platters and bowls and I brought along the cake plate I scored in a garage sale free box along with the candy dishes I made.

You can see the name banner on the wall along with some extra circles I punched out of leftover paper and simply Scotch taped to the wall (by making it double sided and sticking it to itself, I didn't leave the tape visible. Just had to clarify that)

Aside from the Snowballs and the foil wrapped candy my friend made all the food - meringue cookies made with food coloring, popcorn balls colored with strawberry and grape Jell-O. Cupcakes she made and frosted by colorinng white canned frosting, and the candy-dipped pretzels she made using colored candy melts. Lots and lots of pretzels.

Of course we had goodies left over and since I stayed a few extra days to clean up (and to have fun and visit) there was much sampling of the leftovers. So much so that I was inspired to make a little drawing.

All in all - this was a pretty inexpensive and easy party that was handmade but I think it came together fabulously. And when we took it all down, all the decorations were perfect to put up in the little girl's room - now she can look at the pretties (which she kept pointing at with enthusiasm) every day.

For more detailed pictures of all the pink and lavender goodness, see yesterday's Mosiac Monday post.

My decor and the sweet birthday girl even got photographed by Ober Digital Media. Check out the photos here.

Linking to:

Making the World Cuter

The DIY Show Off

A Soft Place to Land

Felt Conversation Heart ring

Give your Valentine a little sugar without the cavities!

Materials:

-Two colors of coordinating felt (I used craft felt but wool felt would also be fantastic)
-heart and circle templates
-scissors
-hand sewing needle
-embroidery thread (approx. one 8 inch length for the entire project), divided into three groups of two strands each
-tacky glue
-hair elastic
-pen
-clothespins

To make my template I used a tiny cookie cutter and traced around it on the back of a cake box I dug out of my recycling bin.

When I compared the size of the heart to the size of my finger I knew it was too big so I simply used it as a guide to draw the size I needed within. The heart I used ended up being a hair shy of an inch wide and about 5/8 of an inch tall.

I have a huge bag full of felt scraps and as you can see it's not going to take much to cut out the heart.

I traced my template onto the felt using a regular ink pen but be sure to trim just inside your markings so you don't end up with this dark fuzz on your final product.

Once the heart was cut out I also cut two circles - one approx. 3/4 of an inch (18mm) and one approx. 1 inch (22mm) - out of my coordinating color of felt. (I used two cake decorating tips as my templates)

The hair elastic was an old one I had my bathroom drawer and was one that just didn't hold my hair back very well. I wasn't sad to put it under the knife, so to speak. :)

To make the ring, cut a section of the hair elastic just a bit smaller than the actual size of the finger (remember it is going to stretch when you put it on). Use the smallest of the two circles and tacky glue it to your cut section of hair elastic. I secured it with clothespins to hold it in place while drying.

While you're waiting you can make the "conversation" part of this project. Conversations hearts have brief and horrifically spelled messages so I chose "Luv U" for its brevity and because I knew it would be easy to stitch. :)

You could probably draw on a guide for yourself but I didn't want to chance there being dark marks not hidden by the thread. Freehanding is possible (as evidenced by mine!) but make sure to start in the top center and stitch the "u" for "luv" - this will assure your word is centered. Of course there's always the chance of a little crookedness (I knew you'd be too polite to bring it up yourself) but just remember that real (candy) conversation hearts aren't perfect either!

I centered my messaged heart onto the center of the large (1 inch) circle and stitched around its border.

Once the glue on the small circle and hair elastic was dry, I took a leftover scrap of embroidery thread and put a couple of stitches across the elastic. I don't know that it's necessary but it made me feel better.

Then I applied plenty of tacky glue to the top of the small circle and placed it in the center of the large circle (this should hide all of your stitches from securing the heart). I again used clothespins to secure it while drying, placing four total around the circle.

When it dries you'll have a sturdy, wearable token of affection for your Valentine made with humble scraps and throwaway items, but more importantly made with love!