Spring Wreath

Create your own Pussy Willow Wreath!

Materials:
Pussy Willow (you can get this from your back yard, or maybe even a nearby river area... being legal of course)
A thick wire (an old wire hanger will work)
Hot Glue gun
Thin Floral Wire
Wire Clippers



Step 1. Form a circle with your wire. I used a thick gauge wire, but an old hanger would work great too!
Step 2. Wrap the stems around the wire, secure with wire. (you only need to use wire for the first layer)
Step 3. Repeat the process. You will want to weave the branches in and out of each other to hold



Your wreath will start to look like this. Just keep weaving in and out and making sure all sides are evenly full.



As you get closer, use your glue gun and smaller pieces of the pussy willow to fill in gaps and hide any unwanted wire. When you're finished you'll end up with this! I hung mine up inside so that I could bring the spring in! I love it.



I made two. One for me: below and one for my mother-in-law: above.



Do you like the bow? Check back later this week... I'm going to have a tutorial on bow making!

Check out other great crafts:

Bow Tutorial

Remember the post I did on my pussy willow wreath, and I told you I would do a tutorial on how to make the cute teal bow in it? Well, today is that day! I am going to show you how to make a classic florist bow. There are a lot of variations on how to make this bow, but I'm just going to show you how I make mine

First off, you will need the following materials: Ribbon, scissors, wire, and wire cutters

 

For this tutorial, I am using a single faced satin ribbon. It is the most common type of ribbon found at your local craft store. Mine is 7/8. You can use any size ribbon though. Let's get on to making it!

How to Make a Bow

1. Hold the ribbon between your thumb and fingers (I'm right handed and I do so in my left hand). Have the shiny satin side touching your fingers and the dull side facing up.

2. Make a loop around your thumb. The looser you make it, the bigger your loop.

3. Twist the ribbon under your thumb. (if you are using a double sided satin or a sheer ribbon, you can skip this step)

4. To get the shiny satin side facing up.

5. Make your first loop. The wider the ribbon you have, the longer you want to make your loop. Just make sure it looks proportionate.

6. Twist the ribbon behind your thumb again to get the shiny side facing up.

7. Make your second loop.

8. Repeat as many times as you would like. This particular bow is a 5 loop, meaning there are 5 loops on each side of the bow.

9. Stick your wire through the middle thumb loop and twist around all of the ribbon.

Fluff out your bow by adjusting the loops to how you want them, and you're done with your 5 loop bow!

This is what a 3 loop bow looks like.

For those of you that learn better by seeing it in action, I created a video tutorial! Can't wait to see all of your beautiful bows on projects!

One man's TRASH is another woman's TREASURE!

Literally.

Last weekend my husband was taking out the trash (yes, he does that occasionally) on his way out. He gave me a call and said, "There's a crate in the trash that looks pretty cool, you should come down and look at it." So I went out and sure enough, it was cool!

So, we reached in and pulled it out of the big dumpster. It smelt disgusting. But, we hosed it off and it's looking pretty good. It is from 1953! And, milk only cost .25 cents. Now, what to do with it??

I know it's been a long time. We were homeless for a month. Then with moving in, job searching, and life, I was pretty busy! We're getting settled in though and I am happy for that!

Burlap place mats and matching napkin rings!

Burlap Place Mat and Napkin Rings

Materials you will need:

1 yard of burlap $2.95

Thread

Scissors

Sewing Machine

Wire

Glue Gun

Paper Towel Roll

Lets get started on this tutorial!

Step 1: Cut your fabric. I cut mine 19in x14in. The straighter you cut, the easier it will be to sew. Use a ruler and draw a line and then cut.

Step 2: Sew around the boarders, 1 inch in. I tried this cool feature my sewing machine has, double needles! It was a quick way to do a double stitch. If your sewing machine doesn't have this feature, just sew around twice!

What's great about this sewing project: it's just a one time sew around. When you get an inch away from the end, lift up your foot (while the needle is down) and rotate your fabric. Like so:

Then, you will get beautiful corners that look like this:

Step 3: Fray the edges.

It does get a little messy. Hmm... what to do with all of this?

Step 4: Now that the place mat is done, it's time to make the napkin ring! Cut your paper towel roll into a little less than an inch. Cut some left over burlap an inch thick and wrap it around your paper towel ring. Zigzag your hot glue, making sure to reach the ends, this will help prevent fraying.

Step 5: Make the flower from the trash. Gather a few different strands of different thickness. Hold the end between your thumb and your forefinger. Make a loop above your fingers and then make a loop of the same length below. Repeat.

Step 5 B: Then, take a wire and twist it around the middle. It will look like this.

Step 5C: Use your fingers to spread out the loops to make a flower. You might have to play with it for awhile to get the look that you want.

Step 6: Glue the flower to the napkin ring. I do it on top of the seem, to hide the raw edge.

You're done!

You can make 4 of these for $2.95. Pretty sweet! What type of dinner party would you use these for? I'm thinking about a beach party!

Have you ever wanted to make your own favicon (the little icon next to the website url)?
Visit my tutorial here to find out.

Pleated Pillow

This is my pleated pillow. I don't have a tutorial for it, but I will include a lot of detail  pictures so you can figure it out on your own.

The pillow is 16X16. It took a lot more fabric than that though to make all of those pleats! 

I bought my fabric at Home Fabric in Idaho Falls for about $5

Pillow Form $5.45

Invisible Zipper .99

Total: $11.44

Here is the pillow and the form

 

These are the pleats. Yum.

In order to keep the pleats down when the pillow form is placed inside, I sewed across underneath. The pleats overlap each other to hide the stitching

Invisible Zipper. I love that it has an invisible zipper. All you see is the handle.

The inside. There are no raw edges, they are all surged.