Roses Are Blue...

You Say Tomato, I Say Tiny Pincushion...

A while ago (and by "while" I mean years) I read about a couple crafters making pincushion rings from the inside pull-ring of drink containers. Immediately I wanted one and started saving pull-rings left and right. But I never got around to it at the time. I don't know, maybe the new baby had something to do with it (Willa would have been about 8 months.) But in the meantime, pretty much every time I pulled one of the rings out of a container, I would think to myself "Really need to make that pincushion ring..." So, yeah, once or twice a week for three years I had this thought. I win at procrastination.

Recently I started making a dress and found myself in need of a better pincushion and thought, IT IS TIME. I started out by needle felting a tomato. Or, more accurately, a traditional tomato pincushion. Side note: do you know why traditional pincushions are shaped like a tomato? I didn't know so I looked it up. Apparently  it used to be a custom to display a ripe tomato on the mantle of a new house for good luck. Since ripe tomatoes were often hard to come by people would use red fabric balls filled with sand. And then after a while they'd get pins stuck in them and become pincushions. The end. 

I chose needle felting because I like the way felted wool holds pins. But you could also stuff some fabric with fill or wool and glue it to the ring-pull. (There's a good tutorial here for that technique.) Needle felting is pretty easy to pick up and the supplies are simple and affordable. If you're interested in learning more check out this comprehensive tutorial I found.

I used Glue Dots (I swear I don't work for them) to affix the pull-ring but you could hot glue or probably use tacky glue too. Glue Dots worked because I was planning on felting over the plastic.

Gilding the lily a little, but it makes the ring more comfortable. If you use fabric you could glue or sew a cover over the plastic disc.

Voilà! I've been using it for a couple days now and it works great. I love the way it turned out.

Pincushion Power! 

Oh thank heaven...

Guess what we have for Christmas this year? Go on, guess! Give up? Ok, I'll tell you. We have not one but TWO little girls! And guess what else? (You don't have to guess, I'll just tell you.) They are each the perfect age! Mary Jane is still a teeny tiny baby which means A.) I get to eat her up and B.) she'll wear whatever I make for her! And my sweet Iron-Willa (Little Miss NO-I-DON'T-YIKE-IT!) is finally three (!!!) which means A.) she has HAIR! and B.) for those of you not in the know, three = teeny tiny toys!  Polly Pockets, Playmobil, tea sets AND barrettes and bows...I can barely contain myself. There are buttons, barrettes, fabric, tulle, and ribbons knee deep in the studio. I'm in heaven...

So the first project was for baby Mary Jane. The tutu ties on so it is a very simple project but I think it's going to look so cute with a pair of ballerina tights...*swoons* I cannot wait to smush her into this and eat her up!

If you'd like to make your own Tie-on Baby Tutu, I have put together a quick tutorial (I hope you all appreciate that I resisted the pun there):

First you want to cut a sash out of some nice wide ribbon. It needs to be long enough to go around the waist with enough left over to tie the tutu around the waist with a big bow. I cut mine 34" long for a 14" waist so my bow would have nice long tails. Then you want to cut a rectangular length of tulle. I cut mine about 12" x 42" but you can adjust this to any length and width depending on the size of your child and how long and/or poufy you want your tutu to be. You will be folding the tulle in half lengthwise so make sure you cut it twice as wide as you want your skirt length (waist to hem) to be (for example, my finished skirt is 6" long so the raw piece was 12" wide). The waist measurement is also variable. I made mine 42" (3x as long as the waist) so it would be super fluffy.

Once you have your tulle cut you need to add a stitch down the center lengthwise. Keep a nice long tail and tighten the tension on your machine as high as it will go and make the stitches as long as you can. You can also hold onto the thread at the spool to add extra tension (but don't hold it too tightly or it will snap which is kind of a pain). The high tension and long stitches will gently gather the tulle. You'll still have to make adjustments but this gives you a nice headstart. The center stitch can be done by hand as well. Just make a nice running stitch down the center with a long piece of thread.

Once you have your stitch in place just grab a thread tail and hold it as you slide the tulle towards the center, gathering it as evenly as possible until it reaches the pre-determined waist measurement (again, mine was 14").

Now take your ribbon and fold it in half to find the center (you can also measure but this method is way faster). Add a pin or a mark to the center and then center your gathered tulle on the mark. Pin if you'd like, making sure to adjust the gathers to your liking. I only pinned the ends so I would be able to adjust the gathers as I went along.

Now stitch along the edge of the ribbon making sure to get all the tulle as you go. Move slowly, tulle is squirrely! Once you have it all stitched into place you can go back and cut all of the long thread tails.

And that's it for the skirt! Super easy, right? I had originally planned to fold the ribbon in half to hide the rough edge of the tulle but i liked the look of the wide waistband so I kept it open. You could do either. It's really a very flexible project.

For the onesie, find some matching skinny ribbon, tie a bow, stitch it on and add some Fray Block to the ends of the ribbon. Even easier!

And so cute, holy cow. I'm dying to see it on her!

Ok, moving onto hair accessories now...stay tuned.

The Stitch Project

I stumbled upon this project while I was perusing the blogs from my giveaway comments (thanks, Lisa!) and I thought it was such a cute idea.  And since I um, have nothing but free time I decided to join in the fun.  This is a picture of her progress so far.  I know she'd love to have more squares if any of you out there are interested (it only took me about an hour to finish mine).  And it will be super cool to see the finished product (which will be a quilt, I think).  I love the internets.

It's been a long drought...

...but it's raining babies now!  Ok, maybe not raining babies.  Just isolated baby showers (bu-dum-bump!  Thank you, thank you, I'll be here all week).  Sorry.  Moving on.  So, there is one little baby boy baby on the way, expected by my dear friend, Jennifer & her hubby, and I got to co-host the shower here at my house.  It has been about 7 years since I last hosted a baby shower (that sweet little baby is in second grade now) so I was very excited to hang up the baby clothesline again (yes, I still have the 7 year old clothespins).  And luckily, one of my co-hosts, Azure, went a little overboard with her buying so we had TONS of adorable clothes and stuff to hang.  We pretty much decided to forgo a formal theme and just decorate with clothes, food and sweets.  We did have a few flowers and balloons but the cupcakes stole the show (yum!)

I have also been wanting to make a reusable felt banner for years now to use for birthday parties and such so I decided this was a great excuse to finally get it done (plus, I was really trying to keep paper and plastic waste to a minimum).  But then I started thinking that I should make the banner as a room decoration/gift for the baby instead of keeping it for myself (how unlike me!)  And since the Daddy-to-be is a huge (rabid) Cubs fan I decided to go with that.  (My own children are rabid Cubs un-fans so I got a lot of grief for hanging this up...Cubs?!  Are you kidding?  Mom!  Take that down!  I'm calling Papa & Sue right NOW!)  The baby's name will be Maston, in case you couldn't figure that out from the photo...(in which case you might want to put the malt liquor down).

The last gift I made for baby Maston was a little embroidered onesie (done mostly in the stem stitch for those who care to know).  I altered the traditional Cubs colors to make it look a little more babyish and sweet but I think the Dad-to-be will forgive me.  It's hard to tell how small this 0-3 month onesie is from the photo but I'll post a picture of the little munchie inside it come November so y'all can see.  I can't wait to hold him and kiss him and smell him and love him and call him George.

A Flower In Every Pot: The Tutorial

I'm not sure how many of you remember this craft that I linked to back in the early days of Roses Are Blue but I have had a hard time throwing caps away since I made my first cupcake.  I was looking at my bowl of caps thinking it was time for a new pin cushion so I started thinking about pins that I covet (what?  You don't covet pins?  Have you seen the button ones?!  So cute.)  Anyway, I have long had my eye on these sweet little pins so I thought, "Duh.  Flower pot." and started warming up the glue gun.  Once I finished my pot I put flower pins on my fabric store shopping list (yes, it was the only thing on the list and no, I can't be trusted to remember why I'm there) and headed out to run my errands.  When I got to the fabric store I discovered that one box of 100 pins was $7 (twice as much as online?) and I thought what any good crafter thinks, "$7 for pins!?!  Are you crazy??  I can make those!"  So I did.

And darn if they didn't turn out even cuter than I planned!  I love them.  So now I will share this tutorial with you:

First make your pot.  Any plastic bottle cap will do (2-liter, 20 ouncer etc).  You can even make varying sizes and have a little flower pot arrangement (cute!)  Measure the cap height and circumference and cut two strips of felt, one a little more narrow than the other to be the rim of the pot.

Then cut the circle of brown felt for the dirt.  You can eyeball the size but it should be about an inch larger in diameter than your bottle cap circle.  You can always trim it down later if you make it too big (um, like I did here). 

Use a needle and thread to gather your dirt circle into a little bag, fill it with stuffing and tie it off.

Get out your hot glue gun and glue the two strips of felt to each other, the more narrow one slightly overlapping the wider one to form the rim of the pot.  Then  bit by bit attach the two strips of felt to the bottle cap.  It's important to note here that the top of the cap will be the bottom of the pin cushion so pay attention to your gluing!  In the photo below I have the cap turned upside down but the strips are glued correctly.  You can also add a circle of felt to the bottom just to make it look more finished but that step is totally optional.  Ok, all of the steps are optional but you get what I mean.

Once you have your pot done it's time to fill it with your dirt.  Make sure your dirt pillow fits and make any adjustments to it before you start gluing.  Once you are satisfied, slather the bottom and lower edges of the dirt pillow with hot glue and carefully place it into the pot.

Now you are ready to plant your flowers.  Of course, if you are not cheap like me then by all means stop here, go get the flower pins and Bob's your uncle!  However, if you want to save $7, onward and upward.  I pulled out my fabric scrap basket for this part because the petals and leaves are so tiny but whatever fabric you use, iron it onto fusible interfacing to keep the flowers from fraying.  Then draw on a flower shape and a leaf shape and cut them out.

See how cute?

The last step is to poke your ball headed pins through the shapes and add a little glue if you want (if you use glue remember to add it last so you don't gum up your pins).  Voila! 

Cut out as many more flowers and leaves as you want for your pot (or as many as you can stand to make in one sitting) and then admire your handiwork.  I'd love to see photos if anyone makes one. 

Measure twice...or not...

My friend here in town had a little baby girl about a week ago and I am hoping to get to meet her this week.  She is a tiny little thing, only 6 lbs at birth!  Can you imagine how small and yummy she will be?  I can't wait to hold her and nuzzle her and smell her sweet little head...I'm actually drooling.

Anyway, I don't want to show up for my visit empty-handed so I embroidered her monogram on a little onesie and made a teeny tiny itty bitty little skirt to go with it (it looks like it's for a babydoll).  I have no idea if the skirt will fit because I was totally winging it on the measurements...and the um, pattern for that matter.  But I wrote down all of the raw measurements and seam allowances and took photos of the whole process (nothing is spontaneous anymore!) so I can make a little tutorial if it works out.  And if it doesn't, I can send the skirt to Willa for her babydoll and I have lots of that cute pink fabric to try again.  With the measurements this time...and maybe a pattern.  Or wait, maybe I'll just do a tutorial for a doll skirt...

Opa!

If you've been playing along at home then you know how much I love to make baby blankets, especially now that the opportunities are becoming fewer and farther between (and especially when they are for baby girls!)  This one is for my college friend, Kristin, who just (ok, 6 months ago) had her second daughter, Olivia.  She is about the sweetest little baby you have ever met and has a super girly pink room full of butterflies.  Lucky girl (Kristin, I mean).

Anyway, many years ago, I read somewhere that people with initials that spell something cool actually live longer than people who have either boring initials or really bad ones (like my brother-in-law who is DUM).  I'm not sure who paid for that study...or who even thought of it...but if there is any truth to the idea then I expect sweet little Olivia will live a good long time.

Old Hat, New Hat...

Wait, old dress, new dress.  No wait, new dress, new dress?  This alteration happened kind of by accident but I was excited to see that it is in keeping with this month's theme over at Craft, Wardrobe Refresh.  The dress I used is new but you could use the same idea on any old dress or skirt that you are tiring of (or that you are tiring of seeing on everyone else..."Cute!  Did you get that at Target?  I have the same one in pink!")

I bought this simple little tank dress online last month in preparation for my trip to New Orleans.  But when it arrived it was about 4" shorter than it appeared on the model.  Look at the picture.  It clearly hits below her knee (just ignore the description like I did).  Anyway, I figured it was an easy fix.  I'd just buy some blue jersey knit and make a ruffle.  I mean, I had an entire month before I needed it...plennnnnty of time.  Fast forward to the day before my trip (d'oh!) and there I was at the fabric store discovering that there was no blue jersey knit.  Ok, no problem.  Plan B.  I bought some coordinating cotton instead. 

I added a 4" ruffle and a 1" band across the middle...

...and voila!  A new dress!  I was so pleased with the result (yay!  My knees are covered!) that I went online and ordered another dress (in pink!)  I'll post more pics when I get the second one done.

Happy Easter! What?

I SAID, "HAPPY EASTER!" 

Ok, just one more interruption before we get back to the simple fixes.  It's spring!  Well, tomorrow will be anyway.  And that means Easter is just around the corner.  If you were with me last year then these perpetual chocolate bunnies will look familiar.  But since last year the boys were, um, less than impressed with my clever faux chocolate, this year I have made them for y'all instead!  Now they are available for you to have your very own!  That is unless you'd rather have a roa-err, palmetto bug for your easter basket? 

Shameless, I know, but if I don't plug myself then who will?

We interrupt this program to bring you...

...Perry, the American cockroach (periplaneta americana), and his diminutive cousin, Mini P, starring at an Etsy shop near you!  Both Perry and Mini P are sweet, sensitive guys who enjoy surprises, shadows, and quick scuttles across empty kitchens at night...they are eager to find the right person or persons to take them home.  I mean, because they are roaches and all, it will definitely have to be someone um, special...

I made the original Perry, who I call Pal because he's from the south, some months ago but I haven't been able to part with him (much to Kevin's dismay).  I can't help it!  He's just too cute.  He welcomes our guests from his perch on the guest bed.  I mean, what could be more inviting than a giant roach, err, palmetto bug on your pillow?  Come to think of it, we haven't had many visitors lately...  Anyway, I made Perry and Mini P to put in the shop but they are not palmetto bugs.  They are New York roaches.  You can tell by the coffee cup.