written by threadslinger

Before I had a sewing machine I saw this awesome tut on flickr and immediately wanted to make it. The instructions she has are really complete for making either short or skirtalls, I ended up making skirtalls because the t-shirt I chose was a little too small to make into shorts. But, this is a super easy, fun craft and skirtalls = instant hipness.

Front:

Back:

written by marieann

This was super easy and addictive! Just think of all the fabrics you can use to make these for all your books and occasions. These don’t have to be for your journals, but for your books too. They are so easy there’s no reason not to make dozens of them.

Materials
A piece of fabric 4 times the width of your book and the height of your book plus 1 inch

Tools
Iron
Sewing machine
Needle & thread

Instructions
1. Sew under the edges of the fabric on both ends a 1/2 an inch to create a clean edge on both short sides.
2. Wrap the fabric around the book wrong sides out. Close the book with the fabric attached.
3. Snip the fabric on either side of the book binding until you reach the book.
4. Baste the cover together along the top and bottom with a hand stitch.
5. Slip the cover off the book and sew along the basting lines with your sewing machine. Trim the excess fabric off the corners.
6. Turn it right side out. Press the cover flat everywhere.
7. Put it back on the book!

written by marieann

Here’s what’s next on my crafting To Dos: Either use these as your own inspiration or come back over the next few weeks since you know that there are new things to enjoy!

• Sewing apron: I misplace my scissors and seam ripper all the time while I’m sewing and finally this will keep everything close to my body.
• Grey tape dress form: I want a dress form so badly but I cannot pay over a $100 for it. So I’ve red up on the techniques to make your own online. Wish me luck!
• Infinity Dress: This is a really cool dress made out of only three pieces of fabric but it creates a dress that you can wear in tons of different ways.
• Quilt board: I bought some beautiful fabric to make a board to keep inspiring pictures and other cute tidbits.
• Hoodies: I’ve seen some really cute hoodies made from knit and tshirts online that look easy to do and also really awesome.
• Fleece hat: I have an idea on how to make a really cute fleece hat but I don’t want to spoil the idea before I post about it. I just need to get to the store to buy some red fleece…
• Design on shoes: I got these cheap cute little shoes from the quilt museum that are made from red canvas. I want to put some sort of design on it but I’m not sure what.
• Skinny jeans: It’s actually really easy to turn your jeans into skinny ones with a little bit of sewing. Much cheaper than the trendy ones in stores.
• Magazine Jewelry Necklace: This has been in my head for years. It will be so cute!

written by marieann

I made these four pairs of boxers for Sean for Valentines’ Day. I thought I’d make the traditional gift much more special and I don’t like the pink heart ones anyway. This pattern was really hard for me to read. I used the seam ripper enough as I was learning how to make the fly. But once I figured it out, these were a quick project. I used the pattern Simplicity, 9958.

written by threadslinger

Sure, its 20 degrees outside and my shoulders feel like they will never see the outside again, but I was inspired to make this halter top anyway. Maybe I was trying to think warm thoughts and summer clothes help that, but also I am one of those people that gets an idea and wants to do it right away regardless of the logical objection to wearing a halter top in February. I did, in fact, wear this baby one day, it was under a hoodie, coat, and scarf, but at least I could show it off when I was inside.

Materials

T-shirt
fabric (enough to go around the edge of the shirt, preferably t-shirt fabric or something with stretch)
scissors
thread/sewing machine (optional, you could do this by hand too)

Directions

1. Cut off sleeves by making a triangle in the front of the shirt. Then cut across the back where it would hit the bottom of your shoulder blades.
2. Cut out rectangle strip of fabric, fold and sew together.
3. Sew the strip of fabric to the shirt edge leaving about 5 inches or so to make the tie.
4. Since this is a halter top it needs to fit tight to your body. Like this:

Modify the shirt by cutting two slits up the back and sewing them together so that the shirt fits tight to your body. Your done now, think warm thoughts and layer

written by marieann

I made these vegetarian enchiladas with mexi-rice/beans for my boyfriend on Valentines’ Day. He’d been wanting Mexican food for weeks but was too scared of the real Mexican restaurants nearby with the menus in Spanish. So with the help of a friend, I invented this recipe for enchiladas and they turned out fantastic. If you use no fat sour cream and low fat cheese, it’s not nearly as bad for you as real Mexican food either!

Ingredients
1 can of cream of cheddar soup
1 cup of sour cream
3/4 cup of chunky salsa
4 stalks of green onion
1 1/2 cups of Mexican cheese (the cheddar-jack blend)
1 red pepper, cut into thin strips
1 green pepper, cut into thin strips
8 large tortilla shells
1 can of refried beans
2 cups of cooked rice

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
1. Mix together the cream of cheddar soup, 1/2 cup of salsa, and the sour cream.
2. Set aside about 1/3 of this mixture.
3. Saute the peppers and green onion in a small amount of oil, until soft.
4. Add the cooked vegetables into the cream mixture.
5. Add 1 cup of Mexican cheese into the vegetable/cream mixture.
6. Spoon this mix into 8 tortilla shells. Roll up. (My secret way is to fold the ends in, this holds the mixture in, then fold in the sides. It perfectly keeps it all in.)
7. Spread reserved sauce over the enchiladas. Put in the oven (covered in foil!) Set 45 minutes on your timer.
8. Mix the cooked rice with about a 1/4 of water and 1/4 of salsa. Put the rice in one half (as in one end, not one layer) of a bread pan.
9. Stir the oils really well into the refried beans. Put the beans in the other half of the bread pan.
10. Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the cheese over everything.
11. Put this into the oven with the enchiladas (covered in foil!) when there is 25 minutes left on your timer.
12. When the timer goes off, everything is done!

written by threadslinger

I made this cross stitch for my boyfriend for Valentines day because I affectionately call him “fool” which he pretends not to like. It is from Subversive Cross Stitch which is an awesome website where this woman has a hipster take on cross stitching, something I always associated with my 70 year old grandmother. I bought the materials from her site because I like supporting other craftsters when I can. But, after I bought it my resourceful craft partner, Marie told me about this awsome site, Knitpro 2.0 where you can design your own cross stitch. I think this rocks because you get to be creative and make your own design, plus it is free! So, go and stitch your heart out!

written by marieann

My boyfriend treated me to orchestra seats (center, fourth row) for the Mary Poppins musical on Broadway for Valentines’ Day. It was fantastic. I cried and laughed and really had a great time. He offered to buy me a shirt but they were so pricey. And not as cool as I could make. So, after some craftster inspiration, I made my own.

Materials
Acrylic paint
Fabric medium
T-shirt to paint on

Tools
Xacto knife
Packaging tape
Printer
Stencil brush (that is, the kind with very short bristles, shaped like a circle; it is made for this very purpose)
Very thin brush

Instructions/Tips for Stenciling:
1. These are the stencil patterns. Print them on regular paper. (Click to view the large size)

2. Put one layer of packaging tape over the entire design. This is so that the paper doesn’t tear and so that you can reuse the stencil without tearing. Some people stencil in different ways but this is my favorite way (that’s why I’m giving it as my tip, hehe).
3. Cut out the design (leaving bridges in the letters, as explained in this post). I find that its easiest to cut out small things by making very tiny straight lines. Don’t try to curve the Xacto blade as it doesn’t turn out very accurate or smooth. But if you just make a small straight cut every chance you have to do so, it’s easier.
4. Tape the stencil to the shirt. I don’t use sticky adhesive spray but that is because I do dry brush stenciling. I put a rolled up piece of tape under the island still attached between her body and outstretched carpet bag holding hand to be sure that piece also stayed flat.
5. Mix one half paint with one half fabric medium. Dip the brush lightly into the paint. THEN, and this is CRITICAL, stamp out the brush on something else until there is barely any paint at all left on the brush.

See my paint holder on the upper right, and on the lower left, my paint dobber? Seriously, dob nearly all the paint off, this is why it is called a dry brushing technique.

6. Stamp onto the shirt. Because you barely have any paint on your brush, you’ll have to dip it back into the paint multiple times. But this is the way that you ensure you don’t spill outside the stencil.

7. Do that everywhere. You’ll probably dip and stamp out at least 10 to 15 times to paint everything. Leave the stencil stuck to the shirt for about five minutes to let the paint set up a little bit more before you remove the stencil.

8. Use your small paint brush to fill in any bridges or to smooth any rough edges.

9. This final tip is from other people and I have decided to start trying it. After the shirt is completely dry, layer a towel on top of the design and iron it. This will ensure that the paint stays attached and vibrant longer. I don’t usually have that problem with shirts unless they’ve been washed dozens of times but it’s definitely worth the extra effort.

written by marieann

Caro found this link from one of our favorite crafty blogs, curiously crafty. It’s a really simple pattern to make your own lined sort of skater-style hat.

I made two changes. First, in step 5, I fused both two layers of interfacing, as well as two layers of typing paper into the brim. I wanted it to be stiffer.

Second, in step 14, I both pined the peak to the hat AND also basted the brim to the hat. This was really important because I had a hard time pining thru all the layers in my peak and it wouldn’t stay pinned straight and slipped when I tried to just do the sewing in the next step.

Otherwise it’s a great pattern! It fits snuggly and is so easy to do!~

written by threadslinger

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I feel like my craft corner keeps on growing and growing and since I live in a tiny studio apartment I need to keep things organized. Instead of just using a shoe box to store my things I decided I would employ some crafting skills on the craft storage boxes themselves. This is a super cheap, easy and fun craft that will keep you organized.

Materials

Shoe box or any kind of box (the smaller one I used is a cookie tin)
Magazine clippings
Modge Podge
Paint brush
Paint (optional)

Directions

1. Make sure that box is clean and has all the tags off of it. Use magazine cut outs of various things, words, people, ect. Glue onto box and make sure that you smooth down each one (I sometimes use a piece of cardstock to run across the magazine clippings so that there are no bubbles but it lies flat.)
2. After your magazine cut outs are glued down cover with 2 coats of modge podge, make sure that you brush in the same direction or else it will look all messy.
3. If you don’t want to modge podge the whole box then you can just do the lid and paint the bottom on the box like I did here: