How to Make Ruffled Streamers

Hi friends. I helped decorate for an event during Mercer University's Homecoming festivities (Go Bears!). Part of the event was a make shift version of the ever-popular always-fun photo booth. With little time and a small budget, I opted to just hang some streamers for a backdrop. Streamers on their own are a little boring and remind me of birthday parties at Pizza Hut, which were fun as 10 year olds, but we can certainly do a little better for our grown up parties, right? So use this simple trick to turn inexpensive streamers into cool custom party decorations. 

All you need to do is make a few adjustments to your sewing machine settings. Set your bobbin tension to the highest/tightest setting (mine was 9). Then set your stitch length to the longest stitch (mine was 4). 

Now all you have to do is overlap the streamers by a half inch or so and run them through the machine. The streamers will ruffle automatically- no pulling threads and no ruffler foot required! Remember to backstitch at the beginning and end so the thread will not come out.

I mostly used two streamers at a time but you can add a third one on top and have it run down the middle of the two that overlap. Obviously, these are done in our school colors, but streamers come in so many colors and patterns that you could come up with lots of fun combinations for any event or holiday.

And take a look at these cuties in front of the finished product. I used my streamers for the photo booth they would make great garlands for Christmas or just use them to string from the ceiling for birthdays. 

One final word of advice: Don't forget to change your machine settings back to normal or you will rue the day you decided to ruffle streamers. And you probably want to change your needle after this little project because sewing though paper will dull it quickly.

Go forth and ruffle.
mel

Basic Sewing Supplies- Everything You Need to Get Started!

Anyone who has ever been in a fabric store knows that there are aisles and aisles of notions, tools, and supplies. It can be a bit overwhelming to navigate through it all to figure out what is necessary and what isn't. At the beginning of my sewing classes, I give each student a list of basic sewing supplies that they'll need. I love love love doing this because it reminds me of elementary school supply lists and going to pick out new crayons and pencils. Who doesn't enjoy picking out new supplies?

Anyway, the things I recommend for class are just a nice basic set of sewing tools that are really everything you NEED (in addition to a sewing machine!) as a beginning "sew-ist,"so I thought I'd share it with you today. Of course, as you learn more and discover what kind of things you like to sew, you can add to your arsenal of supplies accordingly.

::The Basics::

Fabric Scissors or Dressmaker's Shears- Invest in a good pair of fabric scissors and protect them at all costs! Only use them on fabric, because paper will dull the blades so that they won't cut fabric any more. It's a good idea to buy fabric scissors that are a different color than other scissors in your house. David kindly remembers not to use any scissors with blue handles. If you have kids, you'll probably need a good hiding spot.  

Hand Sewing Needles- Some projects require a bit of hand sewing to finish up. These are also useful to have for sewing on buttons and adding special details to your work.

Basic White Thread-It's always good to have. You'll accumulate different colored threads from projects, but white almost always works in a pinch.

Fabric Marker or Pencil- These special markers have ink that disappears with water. I use one all the time for drafting directly on fabric.

Hem Gauge- This is essentially just a small ruler, but it's used to create even hems. It's really convenient for sewing clothes and I use it on almost every project to make sure my edges are nice and straight. I like mine because you can mark your hem width for easy reference. 

Measuring Tape- A must have for making clothes...It also makes you feel very professional when you hang it around your neck.

Seam Ripper- Oh how you will use the seam ripper. It's the eraser for all of your sewing mistakes. I hate to use it, but I'm so glad I have it. 

Ball Head Pins and Pin Cushion- I like long pins, like these, because they're easy to grab quickly as I'm sewing.

Small Scissors- Having another set of small scissors will make your life easier. Keep these beside your sewing machine to clip all of those dang threads! Often you can buy fabric scissors and these small detail scissors as a set. 

In addition to those tools, the only other essential is a good iron. If you haven't done much sewing before, you may be surprised to learn that there is A LOT of ironing involved! The iron is used to "glue" fabric together before you sew and to finish seams to make a project look crisp and finished, among other things. Don't worry... it's not like ironing laundry. Promise. 

::Not Necessities, But Really Nice to Have::

If you do a good bit of sewing, I highly recommend investing in a rotary cutter, ruler, and self healing mat. I didn't have one for a very long time and then my mom got me one for Christmas a few years ago. I can never go back! These can be a bit expensive, but they regularly go on sale at JoAnn's or it would be a good use of your 50% off coupon. 

The Purl Bee has a great tutorial for using a rotary cutter HERE.

::Storage::

If you are just starting out sewing and have the basic supplies I've mentioned here (and even a few more) a cute sewing basket may be perfect for you. 

But friends, for serious sewing tool storage, you simply can not beat the fishing tackle box. Trust me. 

The compartments are just the right size, everything is visible- no digging around and getting stabbed with pins, and it closes up tight to be perfectly portable with no spilling. 

My love for tackle box organization runs deep. When I was a little tot I stored all of my art supplies in a tackle box that my dad gave me. Evidently I'm not the only one who knows its merits, because the same company who makes fishing tackle boxes sells the same box (only it's purple) at craft stores for this very purpose! 

What it lacks in looks it makes up for in practicality. 

Like a mini-van.

Hope this list is helpful in your sewing!

mel

Ford's Christmas Quilt

For Christmas this year, David had my wedding rings resized to fit my chubby post-baby-you-ain't-22-anymore fingers. I'm extremely grateful to be an honest woman again after months of walking around without my rings and a baby on my hip.

I gave David a ukulele.

That's right. A ukulele.

He didn't ask for it, but I had the sneaking suspicion that he would like a tiny, quirky guitar. 

And I was right! He loves it. He serenades Ford and me around the house with an eclectic mix of tunes ranging from "You Are My Sunshine" to Sufjan. 

The best gifts I've given David over the years have been, like the ukulele, risky. Probably 10 years ago, I gave him a bow tie...long before they graced the necks of nearly every fellow on southern college campuses. 

The first year we were married, I gave him a pipe. 

And now...the uke. 

Back off ladies. He's all mine!

I mentioned in my last post that we just gave Ford one gift from us for Christmas. I wanted to give him something special that he could keep forever as his first Christmas gift, but I also wanted it to be fun and useful to him (or us) now. 

Soooooo....I decided to attempt my first quilt for my first born. I've wanted to make a quilt for a long time, and this was the perfect reason to take on the project.

I think it turned out pretty well!

 

A quilt fit the bill for being something that was both a useful gift for a baby boy and a keepsake. I didn't use traditional "baby" colors because I want to able to use the quilt for many years. I chose fabrics that were bright and boy-ish but that also represent things about our family. Some squares have guitars, bicycles, and cameras to represent our hobbies. There are squares with travel scenes, starfish, and even wood grain to represent places we like to go. 

Here's a larger version of the above picture so you can see the fabrics a little better.

I added a stripe of leftover fabric on the back to jazz it up a little.

And I embroidered a little inscription on one of the back squares. I wanted it to look like it was carved into a tree trunk.

The quilt is about 72 inches square, which is a little shorter than a twin size quilt. I modified THIS PATTERN from Cluck Cluck Sew (a great quilting resource) for a baby quilt to make it a little bigger. I largely based my fabric choices on this quilt from Joy's Hope, another lovely blog.

This is a great pattern for a beginning quilter because you don't have to line up squares to make corners.  It only took me a couple of days to make this (with plenty of interuptions from an 8 month old and mostly working once everyone had gone to bed!) Once you cut out your pieces, you sew them into rows and then sew your rows together. 

Because I wanted my quilt to last for a long time, I decided to have a long arm quilter put it together for me, rather than doing the actual quilting myself. The result is a wonderful "old quilt" feel- it's just the right weight and delightfully crinkly. 

We are already enjoying cuddling up with Ford's quilt...almost as much as we are enjoying listening to David play his ukulele. I hope that they'll both enjoy their gifts for many years to come!

What was your favorite Christmas gift?

mel

Baby's First Christmas = Parent's First Christmas

Baby's first Christmas is a funny thing.

It's really fun and exciting to have this new little person to celebrate with and give things to, but the truth of the matter is that they are just too little to really "get" what's going on, even in the most basic sense.  Really I think it should be called "Parent's First Christmas" because this is when you, as a parent, get to figure out what your new normal is for the holidays now that baby is in the picture. And as a parent, you are so excited about having baby with you to celebrate and experience all that you love about Christmas.

It is still pretty fun to watch their little reaction to all of the decorations and activities. Of course, our family likes to watch Ford do anything-
The world stops when this boy chews on his toes.
We'll pause a movie to watch him play with a toy.
Everyone around the supper table will let their food get cold listening and provoking him to talk.
And if he sneezes?...Please. We die. (In our defense his sneezes are really cute. Like a puppy sneeze times 5 on the cuteness scale.)
So with that being the norm, Christmas was really just another opportunity for more of the same.

Anyway, since he really wasn't able to actively participate much in the yuletide celebration this year, we decided to keep Christmas pretty simple while we can still get away with it! And as Ford grows, it's easy to add to our traditions and festivities but it's quite hard to scale down what you've already started. We're not trying to be grinch-y. We just want to make decisions that make our celebrations more meaningful and less busy.

Here are 3 things that we did for "Parent's First Christmas":

First, we picked a few activities that Ford would enjoy or would be fun memories for our family but left out those things that didn't seem worth the hassle. For example, we took Ford to see Christmas lights and meet Santa but we didn't pay to go to an elaborate light display because to Ford, lights are lights. We didn't bake cookies because it would probably end in me being frustrated and tired rather than full of yuletide cheer.

Second, rather than giving Ford lots of little gifts from us, we decided to give him one special gift that would be a keepsake. This wouldn't go over so well when he's older and understands the concept of Christmas gifts, but this year it's perfect. And he'll always be able to say what he got for his first Christmas present. And don't worry... the grandparents had Ford covered in the present department!

Lastly, I love hosting and going to holiday parties but this year that all seemed a little daunting. It would be really difficult to plan something elaborate at our stage of life right now and going to parties is a little more difficult since Fordycakes crashes around 8 pm. In light of all this, we decided to host a neighborhood 5k! We called it the Hot Cocoa 5k and invited our neighbors, friends, and family to come  run or walk a 5k route that David mapped out and then hang out at our house to drink hot chocolate and eat snacks. We supplied the hot cocoa and planned the race and everyone brought a snack to share.  It was a easy, family friendly, low key get together with a fun twist that made it special. The race was also a really great way to get to know people in our neighborhood that we usually only speak to in passing. We hope to make the Hot Cocoa 5k a yearly tradition. It was a perfect fit for us.

And this is what our Christmas looked like-

We spent Thanksgiving in Florida with David's parents and in the little town where they live there's a huge Christmas season kickoff called "Light Up Mount Dora." They have tons of Christmas lights everywhere throughout the town square park.  This was Ford's first Christmas activity and he LOVED it. He couldn't get enough of the lights.

That same night, Ford also met Santa! Ford was unsure of both Santa and the outfit Mommy picked out for him. You can't say he wasn't festive!

Back at home, we went to pick out a Christmas tree- our first as a family of three! David and I have a tradition of going to get Starbucks and then going on a fairly extensive hunt to find the perfect tree. Our perfect tree used to come from a swanky tree farm...now it comes from Lowe's because we discovered the joys of the bargain tree.

Do you ever ask strangers to take your picture? It almost always turns out like this- drunk eyed dad or some equally non-frameable result. I know I'm imposing on their Lowe's trip, but come on! Look at us! Baby's first Christmas!

Then you inevitably resort to the phone self portrait. Sigh. 

And yes, Ford is wearing shorts whilst picking out our Christmas tree. Welcome to Georgia. 

Fordy liked the Christmas lights in Mount Dora so much that we decided to add a little exterior illumination to our own Christmas decor. The chicken coop got the full Griswold treatment!

We spent the week of Christmas at my parent's house. (Many of you have asked and yes, the farm house is done! I'll have to give you the full tour some time.) It was nice to be home with our whole family. 

Look at Papa and Mema...happier than pigs in mud. 

We went to the Christmas Eve candle light service with our whole family at the church that I grew up in and where David and I were married. It's funny to take Ford there now. 

On Christmas morning we woke up bright and early to open gifts! Here's our little family on our first Christmas morning. This is the present that we gave Ford...more on that later!

Everyone watched Ford open all of his gifts first. Babies are very entertaining. 

Here he is after opening all of his gifts! (See, I told you that the grandparents had him covered!)

That face.

After watching Ford open all of his gifts, we put him in this box while the rest of us opened ours! Just kidding...kind of. 

We spend the rest of the day playing, eating, napping, and hanging out together.

Christmas is sooooo different with a little nugget. I guess that stands to reason because our whole life is so much different. It's better, for sure, but changes are always interesting! We had a very merry Christmas and we hope that you did, too. I can't wait to see how our holiday traditions change and grow with our little family. I'm grateful for a chance to take things slow and easy during a phase of life that is a little hectic most of the time. 

Happy New Year!

mel

Handmade Christmas Gifts

Spoiler Alert! If you are on my Christmas gift list, don't read this! You may very well be getting one of these homemade gifts. Ignore this blog. Go click around on Pinterest or something.

To everyone else, I just though I'd share some of gifts that I made for people this year. It's probably not of much help to you this year, since Christmas is just around the corner (it's a sneaky holiday, isn't it?...creeps up on ya) but these gifts are not Christmas specific. They could be used for any gift-giving occasion. And perhaps some of you are like me and are still getting your Christmas gifts together and this might be helpful. 

Maybe my favorite little handmade treat this year are these super fun mini sewing kits in a jar. 

I bought these cute odd shaped mason jars a long time ago for this very purpose. Any mason jar will do, though. I bought small inexpensive ($2 maybe?) sewing kits from Wal-Mart and added a few supplies from my own sewing stash. I used some fabric scraps and batting to make the pincushion lid. 

I think this is a good gift even for people who don't sew much. Everyone needs a few basic sewing supplies for clothing repairs and this kit contains all of the necessities. With a mini sewing kit and a youtube video of how to sew on a button even the most sewing-impaired person would be unstoppable!

A friend of mine who just recently started sewing received a box of fabric scraps for her birthday from her cousin who is a fabulous quilter. She was delighted and has made so many fun projects already from her box of lovely fabric scraps. I thought it was such a thoughtful fun gift! Just passing that idea along...

Please forgive the series of horrid pictures that follow. Some are from my phone and some I'm just too lazy to edit. Life Naps are too short to edit photos.

This is probably my favorite little gift this year. I've been pining over these oh-so-fun hair ties from Anthropologie, but I just couldn't bring myself to fork over the $12 for them. Pinterest to the rescue.

I found a great little tutorial HERE on how to make them yourself. Really it's more of a source list of where to buy double fold elastic, since the only instructions are to cut and tie a knot. For the price of one set of hair ties from Anthro, I bought enough elastic to make about 80 of this DIY version.

I packaged them on stamped shipping tags to make them look a little festive.

These tile coasters are another Pinterest idea. There's a great tutorial HERE  but basically you just buy inexpensive tiles (these were about 3 for $1) glue felt to the back and mod podge scrapbook paper to the front. These are great because they can be easily customized for any person on your list. The two in the middle are for my Nana (note the nana-ish print) whereas the ones in the back and very front are for cousins (a little more modern). Scrapbook paper is so much fun and this is a great way to utilize it for us non-scrapbookers. Scrapbooking scares the ba-geezes out of me. 

This gift isn't really handmade, but is just a few small items collected in a sort of creative way. I made a mani/pedi kit for my little twelve year old cousin. I found a manicure set and some bath salts at Michaels in the $1 bin. To that, I added nail polish and nail polish remover.

I threw it all in a jar with cotton balls as a filler and packaged it up. Easy peasy tweener gift. 

This year I made another batch of my Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix for friends and neighbors. It's always a festive easy gift to make for a lot of people. 

One of the most fun hand made gifts that I made this year was a  FORT KIT!! I was so excited to package it up and send it off to our nieces and nephew in Texas that I completely forgot to take any pictures of it. I found the idea HERE for a list of supplies and then made a bag to keep them all in.

It's basically a few flat sheets (which I attached ties to), rope, clothes pins, suction cup hooks, flash lights, and a few glow sticks. Could anything be more fun, I ask you?

via

Ford and I tried to make this cute little project, but we failed miserably. Little did I know that trying to get a 7 month old to hold their hand out flat is nearly impossible. Can't win 'em all, I guess. 

Any hand made gifts under your tree this year? I'd love to hear about them!

mel

P.S. I've easily eaten 10 Peppermint Joe-Joes while writing this post. God bless you, Trader Joe.