DIY Jersey Yarn

I love browsing the Wool and the Gang website.  Have you ever been to it?  They make knitting look so cool.

Anyway, they sell a jersey yarn that's made out of fabric roll cut-offs from fashion factories in Turkey.  It's a great concept because those cut-offs normally end up in the trash, so this yarn that they're selling is helping to reduce waste.  If you're in the market to purchase some yarn for a summer knitting project, I really think this is the way to go.

If you'd rather make your own, read on my friend...

Last week, I stumbled across a big square of pink(ish) jersey fabric in the sale area at Colorado Fabrics that I just knew would make an awesome ball of yarn and hopefully end up as a knitted tank top.

It was roughly 1.5 x 1.5 yards and it cost me less than $2, which is a total steal for yarn.

No-Sew DIY Bow-Back Tank Top

I love redesigning my old t-shirts for lots of reasons.  It keeps my wardrobe fresh, which keeps me from getting bored and spending money on new clothes.  Also, I like skating in edgy/cute/cut-up outfits.  Plus, imagining how to redesign a t-shirt is a fun way to spend a morning coffee break or an afternoon workout (or both).

For this particular t-shirt redesign, I wanted something with a drapey, open back, but I didn't want it to be so open that it would fall off my shoulders and bother me while I was skating. The simplest (and prettiest) answer was a bow similar to the ones I made on the sleeves of this t-shirt.

If you want to make this top too, you'll need an old V-neck t-shirt, a pair of scissors, and some glue (I used E6000).  

Make sure the shirt fits a little bit loose because creating the bow at the back will tighten it up a little bit.

Place your shirt facing down on a flat surface and follow these directions...

1.  Cut a half-circle out of the neckline that's about 4 inches deep into the back of the shirt. The lower you cut this half-circle, the lower the bow will sit on your shirt.  Next, start at the bottom of each armpit, measure 6 inches down the side seams, and make a little mark with a pencil. Cut straight across the back of the shirt between your two marks being very careful to cut close to the side seams but do not cut through them.  Those side seams will keep the horizontal slit you just made from growing and growing until the shirt isn't wearable anymore.

2.  Insert your thumb into the horizontal slip and your forefinger into the half-circle at the neckline and pinch your fingers together.  This is where your bow will be.  If you're not happy with the placement, now's the time to cut the neckline a little deeper to correct it.  Once that's all sorted out, cut a 4 inch x 2 inch strip of fabric out of the extra fabric that you cut from the neckline.

3.  Wrap the fabric strip around the spot that you pinched and glue it in place on the inside of the shirt.  To keep the glue from leaking onto the front of the shirt, place a piece of cardboard or a notebook in between the front and the back of the shirt.  Let the glue dry fully before moving on to the next steps.

4.  Turn the t-shirt over so the front is facing up.  Cut off the neckline just outside of the seam that was used to the keep the neckline on the shirt.  Leaving that seam on the finished product will help it last as long as possible.  Now cut off the sleeves, also cutting these just outside of the seam so that seam stays on the shirt for structural support.

5.  Cut two strips off of the scrap fabric that used to be the neckline.  Wrap each strip around the top of each armhole to hold the straps in place in an aesthetically pleasing way.  Glue them in place on the underside of the strap.   Let the glue dry completely before trying on your finished creation.

I put mine on and skated around a bit this afternoon.  This shirt definitely achieved the drapey look in the back without becoming too loose to skate in.  I can't wait to wear it on our warmup ice tomorrow before the shows!

If you decide to make this shirt too, I'd love to see a picture of yours too!

Happy redesigning!
xoxo
Laura

Washi Tape Christmas Countdown Chain

Now that Thanksgiving is over, it's time for Christmas decorating!  This makes me extremely happy.

I was lying in bed the other morning thinking about those old-school Christmas chains I used to make out of construction paper as a kid, and it occurred to me that a little washi tape could totally make one of those chains feel all grown up.  Washi tape can do that for just about anything, don't you think?

When I put my idea into action, I also realized that the washi tape makes the chains even easier to make than the construction-paper-only chains from my childhood because you can use the edges of the tape as a guide for cutting straight lines.

Another bonus is that this project only took about 15 minutes!

To make one of these washi tape chains, you'll need the following:
1.  Red and green construction paper (one piece of each color)
2.  A roll of washi tape with red accents and a roll with green accents.  I used striped tape because it reminds me of candy canes.
3.  Scissors

Here are the instructions:

1.  Place 13 strips of reddish washi tape across the width of a piece of red construction paper and 12 strips of greenish washi tape across the width of a piece of green construction paper. As you do this, leave an inch-long tail of washi tape hanging off of the edge of the construction paper.

2.  Cut out the strips of washi taped construction paper, using the edges of the washi tape as a guide.  You should now have a total of 25 red and green strips.

3.  Turn your first strip into a loop and use the washi tape tail to secure it.

4.  It will look extra-professional if you make the pattern on the washi tape tail match up with the pattern on the tape that you're taping over.  See how the diagonal stripes all match up with each other in the 4th picture?

5.  Now add the rest of the chain links one at a time by repeating steps 3 and 4 with each strip, making sure that you loop each new strip around the previous loop before you tape it closed.

6.  Once you've added all 25 links to you're chain, hang it up, you're finished!

I hung my chain in our cabin, and I think it compliments our porthole picture very nicely.

I'm looking forward to December 1st so I can start ripping off one of the loops every day until Christmas!

How are you counting down to Christmas this year?

xoxo
Laura

A DIY Engagement Present

My best friend is engaged to be married.

When she first told me about it, I was so happy for her that I was rendered completely speechless.  When the shock finally started to fade, it was replaced by an extreme excitement to make wedding crafts.  Lots and lots of wedding crafts!

That's how I show my love for my friends, by the way.  Some people show their love through food or through bear hugs, I show mine through knitting and crafting.  How do you show yours?

As a wedding-craft opener, I decided to make my friend and her fiancé a picture collage.

I already had all sorts of great pictures of the two of them because I was a little bit trigger happy when I went hiking with them and my new camera last fall.  Lucky for me, they always act  so adorably around each other that every picture I've ever taken of them is engagement-present-worthy.

To make a photo collage like mine, you'll need the following items:
1.  Pictures of the happy couple.  I used photoshop to make the pictures small enough that two of them fit on each 4"x6" picture that I had printed out at Target.
2.  Scissors
3.  Paper
4.  Pencil
5.  Tape
6.  Picture Frame

Directions:
1.  Cut out a piece of paper that is the same size as your photographs.  Fold the paper in half and draw a half of a heart on it.
2.  Keep the paper folded in half and cut along the line that you drew.  Unfold the paper to reveal a perfectly symmetrical heart.  This will be your stencil.
3.  Place the heart-stencil on the back of one of your pictures and trace around the outside of it with a pencil.
4.  Remove the stencil from the back of the picture and cut along the lines that you drew, turning the picture into a heart.  Repeat steps 3 and 4 for every picture until you have a pile of heart-shaped pictures.

5.  Now cut a piece of paper so that it's the right dimensions to fill your entire picture frame and serve as a backdrop for the picture collage.  I typed up the lyrics to a song that my friends like, printed it out, and used it as the background paper.  You could also use some colored construction paper or some fancy scrapbook paper for this step.

Once you've got your background paper all set, lay out the heart-shaped pictures on the background in the order/shape you'd like them to be in.  Pick up the pictures one at a time, place a piece of (rolled-up) tape on the back of them and stick them back down into place. Using tape instead of glue adds dimension to the collage because the pictures will pop out of the background a little bit.

When all the pictures are taped onto the background, place the collage in the frame, and you're all done!

Happy engagement, Karleen and Matt!
xoxo
Laura

DIY Arm Warmers

I'm so excited that it's finally September, which means I'm finally allowed to start acting like it's fall!  (Now it would be awesome if the weather started acting like it as well...)

Today I'm going to share with you an idea that my friend, Katie, came up with.  She was cold while she was skating one day, and she didn't have any gloves with her, so she made some quick arm warmers out of a pair of socks.  She's a genius!  And she said I can share her awesome idea here on the blog, so I made a pair of arm warmers for myself out of the cutest pair of socks that I had in my drawer.

Materials:
A pair of socks
Scissors
A needle and thread (optional)

Directions:

1.  Pick out a pair of cute socks from your closet.
2.  Cut a straight line across each sock, about 2 inches away from the heel, then cut a hole in the heels to make thumb holes.

You can now try on your new arm warmers and do any more cutting that's necessary to make them comfortable and personalized for your hand size.

If you want to make these more durable, I recommend folding in the edges that you cut and using a needle and thread to hem the edges.  If you leave the edges raw, they'll roll up or possibly fray, depending on what kind of fabric your socks are made out of.

I can't wait for it to get a little bit colder so I can wear these around town!

Happy cutting!
xoxo
Laura

Guest Posting

Today I'm guest posting over on The Bumbling Bee!  I used leftover t-shirt scraps from my last t-shirt redesign to make a fun hair accessory.

Check out the tutorial on The Bumbling Bee!

Happy crafting!

xoxo

Laura

DIY Sticky Note Calendar

Today I've got a quick and easy DIY for you inspired by my new blogging corner: a sticky note calendar!

This project only took me 5 minutes to make and another few minutes to plan out my month and write on all the sticky notes.

You'll need a blank spot on your wall, several colors of sticky notes, and a marker to make this.

Start by making an L shape on your wall that has 6 notes going up and down and 7 notes going across. Then fill in the rest of the box with sticky notes.  Lastly adjust the amount of notes in the top and bottom rows according to which month it is.  For June, I ended up with one lonely note on both the top and bottom rows.

I added a couple pieces of washi tape to the wall above the calendar and wrote "June" on it, just in case I forget which month it is.  ;-)

Once your calendar looks like the final picture above, it's time for the fun part: filling in the calendar with all your plans!  I color coded my month, using pink sticky notes for DIY projects, purple ones for food posts, etc.  This is where you get to be as creative as you want.  Place your color-coded stickies on top of the blue notes so your calendar never loses its shape.

My favorite part about this project is how easy it is to switch around the sticky notes when my plans change.  We're only halfway through June and my calendar already looks really different.  (When moving the color-coded sticky notes around, still keep the blue notes as place holders so the calendar stays intact.)

How do you keep track of your monthly plans?  Do you have a traditional wall calendar or something a little different like this one?  I'd love to hear about it.

Happy planning!
xoxo
Laura

DIY Side-Tie T-Shirt Remix

I was in Victoria's Secret last week and they were selling tank tops with the sides slit open and little bows holding them together at the bottom.  I thought they were super cute, but pretty expensive for a shirt that doesn't even cover your torso, so I busted out my scissors and made my own.

I made mine with rehearsals in mind, and I wore it yesterday and loved it.  It's the perfect shirt to throw on over a leotard.

You'll only need two supplies to make this look: a t-shirt that's a little bit too big for you and a pair of scissors.

Here are the directions:

1.  Starting just inside the seam where the right sleeve meets the shirt, cut straight down the side of the shirt until you're almost at the bottom.  Try to leave a little wing of fabric sticking out at the bottom; you'll use that fabric to tie a bow later.  Repeat this on the left side.

2.  Cut off the bottom of the shirt to make it your desired length.  Instead of cutting straight across, though, start at the bottom seam and cut a sideways D shape, as pictured above.  This way you'll have nice and long strips of fabric to tie the bows with later.

3.  This step is optional.  I cut off the neckline of my t-shirt to give it a more easy-breazy feel. Don't cut too low though, because you'll already be showing a ton of skin on the sides, and you'll (hopefully) want to leave something to the imagination.

4.  Use the dangling fabric pieces to tie bows at the bottom of the side slits.

That's it!  It only took me 5 or 10 minutes to make this shirt, and I can tell I'm going to get a lot of wear out of it between skating and beach/pool days this summer.  I think it looks really cute with a frilly swim suit peeking out the sides.  Maybe don't wear this to Grandma's house though, ok?

Happy cutting!
xoxo
Laura

The Great Gatsby DIY: Daisy's Earrings

Before I saw the new movie version of The Great Gatsby I was a little unsure how I would feel about it, given that it's my favorite book of all time.  (Did you know that I majored in English in college?  I read a lot.)  Anyway, I saw it yesterday and I absolutely loved it!  I loved that the script stayed so true to F. Scott Fitzgerald's words, I loved Leonardo DiCaprio's portrayal of Jay Gatsby, and I loved, loved, loved the aesthetics of it all!  Oh, the costumes!  The jewelry!!  The headpieces!!!

Image via Tiffany & Co.

I was particularly taken with the earrings that Daisy (a.k.a. Carey Mulligan, shown above with director Baz Luhrmann) wore for most of the second half of the movie.  Aren't they lovely?  I did a little digging and it turns out that Tiffany & Co created all of the jewelry for the movie in conjunction with Catherine Martin, who designed the costumes for the movie.  No wonder everything was so insanely sparkly.

Obviously I can't head over to my neighborhood Tiffany's and pick up a pair of those earrings, but I couldn't get them out of my mind.  I decided it was time for a good old fashioned DIY and I ended up making myself a pair of similar earrings for less than $10.

Supplies:
-  2 sparkly buttons (I got mine at Joann Fabrics where all buttons are on sale for 40% off right now.)
-  Silver lever earrings from the jewelry findings section of any craft store
-  Tape... I'll explain that in a minute.

Directions:
1.  Start with two buttons and two lever earrings.
2.  Place each button onto each lever earring, as shown.
3.  If the hole on the back of the button is significantly larger than the circumference of the earring like mine was, you'll need to use something to make the hole smaller so that the button doesn't flop around on the earring.  I tried several different fixes and realized that tape is the best option.  Roll a small log of tape with the sticky side facing in, then wrap that log in another layer of tape with the sticky side facing out.  Force the tape into the button hole.  Cut off the excess tape.  Push the earring through the tape-filled hole.  Now the button won't slide anymore.  There's an arrow pointing to the tape in the button hole in picture #3.  See it?
4.  Put on your earrings and feel glamorous like Daisy!

I thought it would be fun to model my new DIY earrings dressed in a full 1920s outfit like Daisy, but it just didn't feel authentic without a bob, and I am way too attached to my long hair for that.  I just modeled the earrings dressed as myself instead.

Have you seen the movie yet?  Did you like it?  How did you think it compared with the book?

Happy button shopping!
xoxo
Laura

No-Sew T-Shirt Bow Sleeves

I'm very excited to share this t-shirt project with you guys today! I came up with the idea a whole month ago while I was still on the ship and I didn't have time to execute it until now.

Now is a funny time, however, because it's snowing like crazy here (in May!).

I started this project yesterday, and while I was working on it, I came up with a fun idea to take pictures of it outside in the sunshine.  I wanted to let the glue dry overnight before I took those pictures, though, and man was I surprised when I woke up to a winter (spring?) wonderland this morning!  I took some pictures outside anyway, just for fun.

All you need to make these bow sleeves are a t-shirt, a pair of scissors, some machine washable glue (I used E6000), measuring tape, and about 10 minutes of your time.

Here are the directions:

1.  Cut a 2.5 inch slit from the top of the shoulder down toward the armpit on both the front and the back of the sleeve, making sure that you are cutting on the outside of the seam.  (This means your total slit length will be 5 inches.)  Once you've done that, there's a possibility that the shoulder seam might hang outside the shirt, like it is in the picture.  To avoid this, I cut the unsightly seam off of the shirt in the area where it was visible.  If yours doesn't hang out, there's no need to cut it off.  Repeat this process on the other sleeve as well.

2.  Carefully cut off the very bottom of the shirt, below the seam stitching.  Save this strip of fabric for step 3.  You'll be using it to make the center of the bow.

3. The strip of fabric from step 2 will be folded in half.  Unfold it and cut out two 2.5 inch strips.

4.  Use your fingers to pinch the center of one of the sleeves.

5.  Wrap one of the strips from step 3 around the sleeve where you pinched it.  Put a dab of glue on the end of the strip, where the star is in the picture.

6.  Fold the other end of the strip over the glue so that the strip becomes a circular band around the sleeve.  Pinch it tightly between your fingers to make sure that the glue is secure.  Repeat steps 3 through 6 on the other sleeve.  Let the glue dry before trying on your new creation!

I love my new shirt and I hope you like yours as well.  I can't wait for the weather to warm up again so I can wear it without the vest...

Happy cutting!
xoxo
Laura

Easy Embroidery Tutorial

Back in November I wrote a blog post about about chain stitch embroidery.  Since then I've moved on to (what I consider to be) the simplest embroidery technique ever.  It looks like this:

I used this type of embroidery on my little pink notebook and on the card I made for my friend the other day as well.

To do it, start by poking a series of holes in the paper with an embroidery needle in the shape of whatever you want to embroider.  Then thread the needle and tie a little knot at the end of the thread.

Now it's time to begin embroidering...

Step 1: Bring the needle through the 2nd hole, coming from the bottom up.
Step 2: Plunge the needle down through the 1st hole.
Step 3:  Pull the needle back up through the 3rd hole.
Step 4:  Bring the needle back down through the 2nd hole.

Repeat the process of bringing the needle up through the next empty hole and bringing it back down through the hole before it.

Once you've embroidered through all of the holes, tie a knot on the underside of the work and cut off the excess thread.  This is what the bottom should look like:

The front side of the embroidery should now look like the very first picture in this post; a neat and tidy embroidered line.  Easy, right?

Now that I've covered the basic concept, the less easy and more fun part of this process is thinking up new designs to embroider.  I've already embroidered one more piece that I'm looking forward to sharing on Friday!

xoxo
Laura

Robot Love Stamp Art

The other day I was playing around with my robot stamps and I made this funny little picture.  It was a really simple idea: make a stencil, stamp like crazy, then remove the stencil to reveal the stamp-shape.

Here's how I made my heart stencil:

1.  Fold a piece of paper in half.
2.  Draw half of a heart on the paper.
3.  Cut along the line you've drawn.
4.  Unfold the paper and you'll have a perfectly symmetrical heart.

And here's how I used the stencil and my stamps to make the artwork:

1.  Tape the stencil to a piece of paper.
2.  Stamp away!  The more you stamp, the better.
3.  Remove the stencil, and you're all finished.

I hung my artwork on my wall and surrounded it with a washi tape frame.  I got the idea for the frame from this post on Design Sponge.

Happy stamping!
xoxo
Laura

Last-Minute Christmas Crafts

Christmas is now less than a week away (yay!) and I've compiled a list of 5 fun DIY tutorials from around the web, just in case you have a hankering to sit by the fire and do a little more Christmas crafting.

1.  Fist up is this perfectly rustic burlap and felt Christmas tree pillow from All in a Day.

2.  Or you could make this unique Christmas ornament from Julie Ann Art.

3.  I absolutely love these holiday hair pins from Happy Hour Projects.

4.  Make your presents extra pretty with these paper bows from Paper Mojo.

5.  Or try on a wintery snowflake necklace from Lana Red.

All of the lovely photos in this post belong to the bloggers who created the DIY tutorials.  Click on the links to see more of their photos and to find out how to make their festive crafts.

I hope you finish up all your Christmas shopping in time to do some Christmas crafting!
xoxo
Laura