Hand Embroidered Loved Tee

Riley had her Valentine's Day party at school today. I found this cute red and white polka dot fabric at Joann's on clearance recently and knew it would be cute on a tee.

I made this tee the way I make all my own DIY tshirt projects.

I begin by drawing or in this case tracing the design or lettering I want to use.  You could find an image you like and print it and cut it out to use as a template.  I remove the printing step and usually trace (carefully) right from my laptop or iPad screen.  This time I found a heart image, enlarged it, traced onto computer paper, and then cut it out.

I always use heat n bond when I make t-shirts.  Following the package instructions I ironed a piece of pre cut Heat 'n bond to the back of the red and white polka dot fabric.  After it cooled to the touch, I used my template and traced the heart onto the still papered side of the Heat 'n Bond (now with the glue side attached to the red fabric).   Because it was a symmetrical shape I didn't have to worry about tracing the mirror image - keep that in mind if you're making a shirt with words or other things that aren't the same front to back.

I cut out the fabric heart using my good Fiskars fabric scissors.  This keeps the edge neat and limits fraying.  Following the Heat 'n Bond package directions I ironed the heart to my pre washed tee.

Before I started the hand embroidery I lined the back with Sulky Stiffy Stabilizer tear away paper. I discovered this when I was shopping for the supplies for Riley's birthday tee and it makes a huge difference.  Cut the stabilizer to size and slip it inside your tee backing the area that you will be sewing on.

I use a 9" embroidery hoop to hold the stabilizer in place and help get a nice taut surface for my needle and thread.  I use embroidery thread and an embroidery needle.  You can find all of these items at any local craft store.

I did a simple, imperfect running stitch using a coordinating pink thread around the edge of the heart.  Notice I said IMPERFECT - none of the stitches are the same or even perfectly even with the edge of the fabric.

The original plan was just to sew the heart onto the shirt, but it was large and I felt like it was missing something.  I asked Tata for her opinion on some ideas I had and with her help I decided to stitch 'loved' on the heart.

Using a piece of chalk I hand wrote 'loved' in the middle of the heart.  The first go round it was sloping down so I wiped it with a damp paper towel and tried again.  Nothing I do is ever perfect and that's okay.

I used the chalk as my guide and a smaller running stitch to embroider 'loved'.  You can still see the chalk a bit even after a quick rinse cycle wash if you're zoomed in, but in person it is not noticeable.

Even though we're in an awkward posing for photos stage I think she is cute as can be.  And certainly well loved.

Vamos a La Fiesta

We threw Camden's party a week after his actual birthday which just happened to be on Cinco De Mayo. It was the perfect cause for a celebration! Originally, I was dreaming up a Shrek themed party (complete with a homemade donkey piñata) since he's been obsessed with Shrek 1-4 the past month. I even bought all green, orange, and brown party things and made Shrek invitations.



Then I realized the guest of honor could care less about the decor and made the choice to simplify.  Since I already had the supplies I stuck with the Shrek color scheme. I made a sign for the front door using left over foam board from my butterfly display, some green kids paint, and my trusty sharpies.  We were in the backyard so we had to let our guests know they could come in and on thru to the back.



 I borrowed a table from a friend and set up all the food in the backyard.

I used my mason jars and $1 containers from Walmart for everything. I stuffed the masons with tissue paper I got on clearance at Target for $.28. I made the labels at home using orange card stock and homemade baker's twine (just used some thread and an orange sharpie to make the lines).

We had chicken nuggets, fruit skewers, party popcorn (recipe on the blog soon!), and Twizzlers for the kids. We had Chipotle burritos, chips, salsa, guac and of course Coronas with lime for all the adults. I bought $1 bubble sticks and green apple lollipops for all the kids as party favors and tied them up with more homemade twine and thank you tags.

Our bubble blower and water guns added some fun!

Just in case the moon bounce we rented wasn't enough fun.  

Riley and Camden got the first turn. They were red faced and giggling within minutes.

TG got in there too because he just couldn't resist Camden's sweet (and repeated) requests of "Come on, Daddy! Come on!"  

Soon our guests arrived! We all got to hang out and eat while the kids bounced and ran around the backyard.  It was nice to relax, even if we didn't have exactly enough adult chairs and Uncle J had to sit in a purple kids chair.

Instead of cake we opted for pre-scooped (genius Pinterest idea) orange sherbet ice cream cones with green sprinkles. We put candles in Cam's and sang "Happy Birthday". The cool treat was just perfect for the warm day.


As usual any type of birthday entertainment is unnecessary when TG is around. At one point he was scaring our kids by running up to the bounce house and growling. Soon everyone wanted in on the fun.

This time he took them all by surprise with squirt guns!

There was a little more prep work involved with having the party at our home, but since it was outside clean up was a breeze and we were able to hang out for as long as we wanted.  At 2:15 Camden actually put his lollipop down on the ground, walked in the house and said, "I go night night?"  TG was able to put him to bed and watch the Caps game inside while my friends and I drank Coronas and chatted in the backyard with the remaining party goers.  Does it get any easier than that?

Just a little over two years ago, when Riley turned two, we didn't even own a home.  Now we have a place to call our own and celebrate the birthdays of our sweet babies.  We feel so blessed and couldn't be more thankful for such a wonderful day for our little man.

Butterfly Taxidermy

Almost a year ago one of my favorite design bloggers wrote a post about framed butterflies as art. There were people who loved it and those who didn't due to concern about using (once) live butterflies.

I was on the loved it side, but I knew I wanted to make mine myself somehow. I pinned the idea to Pinterest and forgot about it. Then I brought home my lovely Lucketts hutch turned craft storage and as I started to organize all my supplies I found a shadow box frame that I bought at a yard sale last spring.

Like all of my ideas once the light bulb finally comes on the process goes very quickly.

I thought about going old school and collecting butterflies and moths like I did for my 9th grade biology class, but then decided faux would be easier. I picked up 5 packages of fakies at AC Moore. The biggest butterfly was 2.99 and the rest were either 1.99 or .99 each.  I used three coupons to rein the cost in.  Did you know that most stores will accept competitors coupons?  I had 20% off a full priced item coupon from three different stores and was able to use all of them.

I gave the once black shadow box frame that was $3 in that yard sale a year ago a few coats of Rustoleum white in satin finish. I always have a can of white Rustoleum on hand.  I lined the back of the frame with a piece of white foam board.  I paid $2 for the sheet.

Using straight pins I had in my sewing supplies I carefully pinned through the body of each butterfly.

I'll concede my finished product is nowhere near as beautiful as the ones Jenny pinned as inspiration, but I love the color, texture and feeling of spring they add to my decor!  I'm sure mine is way cheaper too, coming in at $13.55 for the finished product.

AT Projects: The Playroom

So, here it is. The last of the alone time projects. I have to confess it's my favorite one.

Like most of my ideas it started randomly. A friend of mine had started finger knitting flowers and brought me some that she made. I had no idea what to do with them so I put them in a basket and left them there.

One day, several weeks later, while I was cleaning I came across the flowers and I knew what I wanted to do with them.   I got to work making several more flowers that became embellishments for my playroom tree.
 

I am not a freehand artist, so when I started the tree I used tape to make the outline.  I used regular brown acrylic paint and a foam brush to paint it in.  I'm sure you smart people quickly realized that there would be gaps where I made the branches.  When I pulled off the tape it looked wonky and did not at all have the look I was going for.


Enter twinnie.  She is an amazing freehand artist so she quickly got to work and used my original design to make it more free flowing and natural.  I drew the leaves with a pencil and used three shades of green acrylic paint to paint them in.  It seems tedious, but it was kind of therapeutic.  I watched my Sex and the City episodes on DVD while I worked.

After the paint was dry I used yellow and white push pins to put all the flowers on the tree.  I used a decal bird we have on the tree in Riley's room to trace the one on this tree.  I used two shades of blue acrylic to paint the bird.  The bird's nest is some raffia I got at Joann Fabrics and there is a clear push pin holding the  cluster to the wall.



A while ago I blogged about Riley's art work collage. It needs to be updated with her new work and Cam's work too.  In the meantime they both have one of those $2 IKEA frames that I put their recent artwork in.  Blue for him and pink for her.  I bought the multicolored craft supply cups and the metal rods at IKEA too.  They hold things like crayons, foam brushes, pencils, markers, and paint.  Underneath is a large whiteboard that has since been moved to the dumpster.  The kids often color off the board and I got tired of using Mr. Clean Magic Erasers.  I saved the frame with plans to make a chalkboard wall instead.



More $2 IKEA frames display Riley's artwork.  She has painting and coloring marathons and she loves for me to hang up her work.  The ABC's are paper scrapbook letters.  The mirror was at Home Depot in the college section 2 years ago for $4.  The kids love to sing and watch themselves in it.

The playroom is such a happy place in our house and even though it is valuable square footage in our small home our kids definitely needed a dedicated place for all their things.

Sewing and Mending: AT Project #8

Last summer I won a blog contest for $80 to CSN stores. I was so excited and after several days of browsing all the things CSN has to offer I finally chose my Brother sewing machine.

It has been the perfect little machine for use around my home. I am by no means a seamstress, but I enjoy doing small home projects and mending things if I can.

However, a few months ago I saw a little girl's dress at Joann Fabrics that I fell in love with. I got ambitious and bought the pattern packet and all the necessary supplies.

It's been sitting in my corner of craft store bags since the day I brought it home.

Enter alone time and the list. I wanted Riley to be able to wear the dress at least once this summer so I decided to tackle it.

I have to say, I much prefer sewing without a pattern. It took me so much longer to finish because I've never sewn from a pattern before and I had to educate myself on how to use it, via youtube videos and other online tutorials.

I also have to say I don't consider this OTC. I spent about $15 on the fabric, buttons, thread, and pattern. Factor in the amount of time that it took me to sew this and it would have been cheaper and easier to just get a dress from Target.

But the end product is pretty darn cute and one of a kind. Even if I can't get the right child to model it.

Ha, ha, ha.


Please excuse the mountain of clean laundry on my table.


A view of the back.


I was able to do some repairs to a couple of Riley's dresses and pillowcases too, including the little gray and yellow dress she's wearing in that photo.

Little Frame: AT Project #7

Way back in November, when I finished the last bathroom project, I went out looking for some little things to jazz the space up a bit.

I found a vintage glass perfume and jewelry tray at Lucketts, a gorgeous white frame I used for a photo of our two babies in the tub at Z Gallerie, two pretty vases at IKEA, and a sweet three window frame at Home Goods.

It mocked me for months, empty, except for the $4.99 price sticker.

Until last weekend when I finally decided what I wanted to do with it.

I used some scrap paper I had on hand and bought these swirly silver glitter scrapbook stickers at Michaels for $2.99.

I used the paper as a background and then spelled three little words on the glass.

Splish, Splash, Bath


This was an easy project, less than 5 minutes, for under $10, but I'm so thankful that frame is no longer empty. I'll be sharing our finished bathroom soon!

Throw Pillows: AT Projects #5 and #6

In March I began an overhaul on the colors in the living room. I loved the look I had going, but it was very dark and didn't fit my springtime mood. I went to JoAnns for some inspiration and stumbled upon this gorgeous print.



I pulled out the beautiful cerulean blue and made two pillows and a lampshade. Then I made a big move and pulled out the coral to make my new curtain panels. I picked yellow for our rectangular pillow for a pop of color. That's where I got stuck. I had two more maroon pillows to cover and was out of ideas.

Then one day I got an email from an amazing design blog I follow on pillow tutorials. I fell in love with her gathered flower and ruffle pillows and knew they would be the perfect finishing touch for my couch. Because all the other pillows were patterned I decided to go with solid colors. After a quick trip to Joanns and many hours of sewing (more on that in a second) later, I had this.



And this.


Looooove, right? They came out beautifully and they look gorgeous on our couch. And I made them both for under $10. Honestly, I've been pillow shopping before and that is an impossible price to beat. I got 1/2 yard of the sage green at $4.99/yard, 1/2 yard of the yellow for $4.99 yard, and 1/4 yard of the goldenrod at $3.99 a yard. I bought a two pack of crystal buttons for $2.50 and I already had thread and of course my lovely hot glue gun at home.

I'm not sure if I've shared with you before, but when I redo my pillows I just reuse my inserts and sew pillowcases. This way they are easy to wash (very important in a house with two small children) and easy to change out each season or as my mood changes. 1/2 yard of fabric is plenty to make a 14x14 pillow with an overlapping back panel so you can easily slip the insert in or out.

See?


Anyway, these pillows should have taken me an hour tops, but I learned the hard way and spent 2.5 hours on them. Here's a few tips in case you decide to try them yourself.

1. You need a sharp, sturdy needle to sew the gathered flower together. You are layering at least 7 petals together and a blunt needle is going to take a lot of work (and possible injury to yourself) to finish it.

2. Make sure you when you sew your ruffles that you use a heavy duty thread. When it is time to break the thread and pull the fabric so it will ruffle if it's not heavy duty it will snap. Easily. Many times.

3. You have to wait to sew the pillowcase until your ruffles are sewn on. I mistakenly made the cover first then realized I couldn't stitch the ruffles on with my machine without sewing the pillowcase shut. So I improvised and I hand stitched them on either side and then used my glue gun to stick them on the rest of the way. That worked fine, but they won't be as sturdy that way.

If you attempt these pillows yourself I would love to see them. Happy crafting!

The Kitchen: AT Projects #2 - #4

There is always a running list of things in my head that I want to organize (or reorganize), but at the end of the day I never seem to get to them. Partly because they are low on the priority list and mostly because they are not fun to do.

However, with three days and a quiet house, it was the perfect time to tackle some of the areas in our home that had been bothering me.

Project #2 - The Laundry Cabinets

We live in a small townhome and the original design had the washer and dryer on the bottom floor of the house. After living in a rental townhome with a similar design TG and I both knew right away that we wanted to move the w&d in our new home up to the kitchen on the middle floor.

Storage space is also extremely tight in our house so TG's dad helped him install two cabinets in the free space above the washer and dryer. Slowly over the past year those cabinets became a receptacle for anything I needed to access quickly, but not daily, including laundry supplies, home improvement tools, and our filing.

I wish I had taken a before picture, but imagine loose nails, screws, paintbrushes, soaps, rags, filing, shredding and the like jammed in there with no sort of order.

Almost two hours full of sorting, trashing, shredding and filing later on AT Day 2, I had this.



And this.



Ahhh. Much better. Paint supplies together, all our tools and necessities neatly stored in the toolbox, filing updated and new folders labeled "to be filed" and "to shred" so there are no loose papers in there.

Eventually our board games will be moved into the living room on a built in bookcase I'm dreaming of, but for now the cabinet area is so much less cluttered.

Project #3 - Junk Drawers

I'm fairly certain every home has at least one of these and I try to keep mine orderly, but eventually they become overrun. It only took me about thirty minutes to get them both done. They are still kind of junky, and just now looking at the photo I've decided I need to get a couple storage bins from Dollar Tree for the lip gloss and antibacterial, but for the most part Mama likey.





The last kitchen project was a small redo, but it's one of the things that always makes me smile in that space.

Project #4 - The V

Eventually we want to get an over the range microwave, but for now I was left with a huge blank space in that area. I randomly bought a wooden monogram on sale at AC Moore a few months ago for $2 and when I got home I knew it would be perfect in the kitchen. Originally I covered it in a more whimsical floral pattern, but after a month of that I decided it needed a more sophisticated look.

I picked up a piece of pink paisley patterned scrapbook paper for $0.59 and acrylic craft paint for $0.99. I painted only the sides of the letter that would be visible. I traced the letter onto my paper and then hot glued it to the front.

Cute, right?


Here's a view of the area so you can see our little "V" in all her glory.


I just used some left over 3M strips I had to hang it on the wall and now our kitchen has a custom piece of art all for under $5.

The List and AT Project #1

It's been 7 days post AT, aka my Alone Time days. We have had a busy and fun week as a family, but I've managed to keep up my enthusiasm and energy for finishing my home projects.

I wanted to come out of the gate full speed, and hit you with my favorite project but the entire thing wasn't done in the three days. I worked on some of the finishing touches tonight and hopefully will be able to share it soon.

Then I figured I should just start at the beginning and share with you The List.



It wasn't as wrinkled when I started, but after three days of being manhandled and toted around in my purse it was a little worse for the wear. You can see my "to do's" ranged from things as simple as thank you notes to more complex tasks like our master bedroom stencil (which I still haven't started). I didn't take a picture of the back, but it listed the items that fell under the organization/cleaning category like the laundry room cabinets, my kitchen junk drawer(s), the playroom, the garage, and my craft "corner".

With the Fourth of July in just a few days I decided that Project #1 should be my holiday wreath. I had searched at a few places looking for a festive wreath at a bargain price. When my search came up empty I decided to go OTC style and make my own.

I started with a 14" MDF wreath form for $1.99. I picked up 3" red satin ribbon for $3.99 and red, white and blue star garland for $1.99.

If you've never seen the MDF wreath forms before this is what they look like. They are available at most craft stores and some Walmarts. I got mine at Michaels. The wreaths range in size from 8" up to 24" and are thin and flat. I chose the MDF wreath because it's sturdier than the foam wreaths and I figured I can reuse it and recreate new wreaths year round.
























Armed with $8 of supplies and my trusty hot glue gun, 10 minutes later I had this.



I wrapped the red ribbon around the frame, overlapping just a bit and hot gluing every 2 inches or so. After the ribbon was on I simply wrapped the star garland around and tied it off at the back. Using a Martha Stewart bow tying tutorial as my guide, I used the remaining red ribbon to make a bow and added three rhinestones in the middle for some extra Fourth of July bling. Before I hung it outside I gave it a good coat of Scotchguard for fabric (just so it will survive the month in the elements), and now my door is ready for the Fourth. All for less than $10!

On The Cheap

Hello.

I'm not sure we've been formally introduced.

I'm Mama V. I'm a SAHM with two children. My amazing husband TG is a teacher. Our little family of four lives in one of the most expensive areas in the country. On a teacher's salary.

So I like to do things on the cheap. Side that is. Cheap, but fabulous.

Saving money gives me such a thrill. I love figuring out a way to make something expensive on the cheap. Like my roman shades. Completely fabulous, custom and a 1/4 of the price you'd pay for them in the store. LOVE.

My latest adventure?

Ribbon sticks.

Ribbon sticks are a hot commodity at our local library storytime. All the kids, boys and girls, aged 1 1/2 to 5, rush the poor lady when she pulls out the ribbon stick box.

So I figured I would get some for my kids. I didn't think they would be that expensive. Until I Googled them and discovered that one good ribbon stick cost upwards of $10.

Um...no. So off to my local craft store I went.

And for a grand total of $5.19 plus some craft glue, markers and push pins I had on hand I fashioned these little babies.

I had enough ribbon to make 4 sticks and I have 11 of the wooden craft rods left!

Do you do anything "on the cheap"? As much as I love doing it, I love hearing about your thrifty projects as well!