Week 37: "Love Birds"

The 4th and final wedding was today.  Tawnee and I have been friends since kindergarten, my longest running friendship.  Her wedding was on the beach in Carmel, a setting almost as lovely as the bride.  

During the planning season, Tawnee asked for lots of crafting help, including some little love-bird cake toppers.  She sent me a few ideas from Etsy, but gave me the freedom to design something myself.  Love it. 

 I made the bird bodies like I did this time, with just a few changes...  First of all, I have my sewing machine again!  So I didn't have to hand sew the seams, but sewed them on the machine, with the right sides facing. I started with muslin bodies, and I added football shaped tummies in their wedding colors.  First I attached the tummies to each side of the body.  Then I sewed from the neck all the way around to the tip of the tail, and stopped there so I could flip.  I ironed out the creases, filled them with stuffing, and then hand stitched the openings closed.  

I used embroidery floss to add eyes, and to attach burlap wings.  (See other bird post for easy attaching.)

The legs were a fun adventure. I used jewelry wire (and the Leatherman, of course).  

I cut about a foot wire, and started bending one toe.  I used the needle-nose pliers to make a tight bend for the first toe.  

Then a made a fold for the second toe, making a "U" shape. 

I did the middle toe last, so that the leg could come out centered.

  Then I went around to the other end of the wire and made the other foot the same way.  

I had about 4 inches of wire between the feet.  

I pinched the middle 2 inches together and twisted.  This twisted part slid right into the seam between the base of the tummy and the tail.  

 

I had to pinch and wiggle the wire to find the right angle for the legs.  When I found it I added a bit of hot glue to keep it in place.

I love how those little toes came out. 

After I was all done, I sent the picture to Tawnee, only to find out that she didn't want a cake topper anymore, but wanted to use the birds on the welcome table.  

When I found out that she was using a birdcage as a card collector, and she wanted me to make a sign for it, I thought it was a craft-match made in heaven.

I wired the birds feet to the top of the cage, and got to work on a banner the birds could hold. 

I embroidered letters on the same fabric I used for the bags, spelling out the words "CARDS HERE."  I made sure to keep about an inch of space around each letter. I cut a little triangle around each letter, and strung them all on a string of floss, making a tiny bunting.  

I used a home-made fabric stiffener I found on one of my new favorite blogs, (I used the corn starch one).   Then I ironed them all flat.

Lastly, I used a needle to poke each end of the banner through the birds beaks, and tied them off with knots.

Tawnee's friend Janice found the beautiful ribbon. 

This might be my favorite wedding decoration ever.

Week 36: Flouncy Rosette Apron

I just love rosettes. 

I have another friend getting married this summer, and like all of my other girlfriends, I decided to make her an apron for her shower gift. Again, not because all wives should be in the kitchen, but because aprons make cooking, cleaning, hostessing, and all other activities cuter.

I made a bunch of little rosettes for this apron, all out of scraps of fabric I had. I happened to have a bunch of scraps in her wedding colors.  Score!

Each rosette was made with 2 inch wide strips, folded in half (hotdog style) and sewn using a basting stitch.  I didn't bother sewing inside out and flipping, because I was going to hide all the seams when I spiraled. 

The smaller rosettes were made with a 6" (ish) strip, and the larger ones were made with three or four 6"  strips. 

After basting, I scrunched by pulling one of the threads almost all the way out.  (Note: Make sure to back stitch at the beginning of your basting stitch, so the thread doesn't come all the way out.)

Once I had a pile of ruffly scrunched pieces, I started curling them into rosettes.  Once I liked the look of them, I pinned them into place. I sewed them on to circles of muslin that were just slightly smaller than the rosettes.  I machine sewed, starting with the outside round, sewing so that the folded edge of the ruffle overlapped the seam on the previous round, by a centimeter or so.

Once all the rosettes were made, I attached them to the body of the apron using buttons from my stash.  (The apron body was SUPER simple this time.  I took a piece of muslin about 2' wide, and 3' tall, folded it in half so that it was 2x1.5, sewed up the sides, flipped and ironed.  I left the top open, so that I could do all the hand sewing from the inside.)

 I embroidered her new name a few inches from the top of the apron...

 

used a basting stitch to gather the apron top (shrinking it to about 1'5 at the waist), and then sewed a ribbon on as the waist band.

Week 24: Alanya Painting

Before I get started... These past few weeks have been NUTS. Work ended, we packed up our whole home, best-bud-Di came for 6 days of awesome, and then we went on a 7 day cruise.  Then we made our 20 hour journey home yesterday.  Yikes.  I DIDN'T skip out on doing my craft goals. I just didn't post until now, because I didn't have internet access, and because I didn't want to spend any of my time online.  So I'm late.  I'm sure you understand.

Remember Week 7, when I decided to take up painting? I spent the day at the beach sketching one of my favourite views of Alanya. After that. The pencil sketch sat menacingly on a desk waiting for paint to be added.  I stalled for so long because I was really worried that I would ruin it by adding paint.  How was I going to paint such small details without buying a bunch more brushes.  How was I going to add layers of colour without losing the pencil sketch, and forgetting what it looked like?

But time was running out.  So I traced over the whole thing in Sharpie, so that I wouldn't lose the sketch, I packed up my paints and brushes, and we headed out to the beach at 6am (the only time of day one could sit on the beach and not DIE of heatstroke).

The view I was studying...

Two Russian girls watched from this close for the ENTIRE time I painted. 

I don't speak Russian, so I couldn't explain to them, or their mother, that I am not a famous artist, which they seemed to believe.

Finished!

The little fisherman is one of my favourite parts.

If you look closely, you'll see that the wind must have changed direction while I sketched, because two flags are blowing towards the right, and one is blowing towards the left.  Oops.

After painting at the beach, I came back and outlined buildings, structures, and roads in Sharpie again, because I refused to spend $10 on a super fine tip paint brush.

I love how the colours turned out. Especially the sunrise.

Something to gaze upon when I'm missing Turkey...

Week 23: Ruffled Bikini

Warning! This post contains pictures of me in a bikini! If you would rather not see this, stop reading at the stars.

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(Not these stars, silly.  You're safe until the next row of stars.)

So.  I decided to make my own bikini.  I had a vision while washing my face the other night, and it became an obsession.  I was sure I could do it. So instead of heading to bed, I went to Google, to see if anyone had any tutorials. There were a few recycled t-shirt bikini tutorials, boasting the possibility of a super adorable bikini out of only an old t-shirt, an old bra, and 2 hours. 

I. Was. So. Excited.

The next night I set to work, and a short 4 hours later, had a bikini top that I could only post on an x-rated website. Fail. Alan has been trying to convince me to post failed crafts so that people know that not everything is a success. This was not the failure to start with. 

The obscene bikini was thrown into time out, and a week later I was ready to tackle it from a different angle. 

Materials: Fabric from a dress (bought for a dollar at the thrift store), old bikini that has come to the can't-wear-it-in-water-because-it-sags-stage, needle, thread, and one bead.  

Fabric previously used in this headband craft.

My original plan had been to turn this bikini into a ruffly extravaganza with ruffles all over the butt and top.  I've been wishing for one like this since I grew out of mine 27 years ago. 

I started by cutting the gauzy material into 1 inch strips.  I did this by carefully folding and gathering the dress bottom into a tight little bundle, and then cutting all at once.  The fabric was super stretchy, and annoying to cut one snip at a time, so I just did it all at once.

Clearly it didn't make the neatest line, but I was gathering and ruffling, so I didn't care too much.

I took the long strips, and ran a gathering stitch through them.  By hand, because my sewing machine and I live in different countries.  A sewing machine would have been much faster. 

I churned out about a meter of ruffle in about 2 hours.  Thank God we decided to turn on a movie.  I was board out of my mind.

 

After all that work, I decided to only use a fraction of the ruffle I had made to do a border on the top, and the waist-line of the bottoms.  Sewing by hand is TIME-CONSUMING!

I tacked these borders down with a zig-zag stitch so that the bikini would still have stretch.

Then I used a left over ruffle to make a flower. I tacked down the center with a left over bead.

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Now! Avert eyes NOW! 

Close the window! 

Or see me in a bikini!

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Hip Flower...

Butt ruffle... (please ignore the waistband line from the PJs I was wearing prior to this photo shoot)

It was honestly beautiful luck that the colours of the bikini and the colours of the dress were such an exact match.  The stars aligned for this craft after all. 

Bikini top ruffle...

The bikini will remain in the category can't-wear-it-in-water-because-it-sags, because I didn't cover up the saggy parts. But that's OK.  I used to have a super sequin-y bathing suit (my Vegas Bikini) that wasn't great in the water. This will become my cruise-ship-deck-bikini.  Perfect timing since our Mediterranean Cruise starts in 2 weeks.  Woohoo!

Week 22: Beach Dominoes

 I've been dreaming about a sweet, summery, simple, home-made game: Beach Dominoes! Thanks for the inspiration Martha!

Step 1: Collect similarly shaped flat rocks at the beach (28 rocks).

Step 2: Mix lovely beachy shades of acrylic paints. (Or you can use a paint pen like Martha).

Paint a line down the center of each rock,  and then add the dots.  I started with 0-0, and then finished the 0 set. Then 1-1, and the 1 set, and so on.

I needed something to carry my new game in, so I sewed up a drawstring bag, using some fabric from an old shirt. I embroidered some dominoes on it, and used some left over ribbon for the drawstring. 

When I get back to America, and am reunited with my sewing machine, and fabric stores, I will make a new bag out of mesh material that will allow the sand to shake right out. 

But I needed to make something for the time being so that we could enjoy the new game on the beach...

Use the bag for carrying, as well as hiding the dominoes while in play.  The rocks have slightly different, shapes, sizes and colours, and you wouldn't want anyone to memorize the details and cheat.

Use the sand to stand your dominoes up like scrabble tiles so your husband doesn't peek. 

And use a stick to draw your scores into the sand.  So easy!

Now, I have a question for you... I would call this an eco-friendly craft because I used all recycled and found items to make it.  But as I was collecting my rocks, I couldn't help but think about how we shouldn't remove anything from nature, because if we all took something nothing would be left.  If I promise to return these dominoes to the beach some day (maybe another beach), am I off the hook for stealing from nature?