Tutorials

Baby Headband Tutorial

I started with a purchased, crocheted headband.  For the first step in the embellishment I used glittered pink tulle.  The strip I used was 6" wide and 24" long.  I sewed the two 6" sides (with right sides together) to make a big circle.  I then folded my circle in half, wrong sides together, and ran the open, bottom edge through sewing machine at the widest gather stitch.  Then I gathered the tulle into a tight circle and folded it in half, for a fan type shape.

Next I used pleated tulle with satin trim and I just rolled it into a flower shape and hand stitched it together. 

I laid the "flower" on top of the "fan" and sewed a fancy pink button in the middle, stitching through both layers.

These are some hand-dyed feathers I had.  The feather on the right shows how the feathers looked before I shaped them with a pair of sissors. 

After using hot glue to secure the feathers where I wanted them I cut two felt circles to match my embellishment and headband.  Using hot glue again, I secured the pink felt circle to the back of just the embellishment.  I then glued the white felt circle to the inside of the crocheted headband, over the seam.  Finally I used hot glue to hook the two circles together.  And thats it! 

Isn't it beautiful!  My daughter just called and she loved it!!  (now hopefully the baby will love it too)!

 

 

Spray N Bond Tag

I love the look of lace covered anything, but hate the mess of Modge Podge on something as small as a tag, so I decided to see how well the Spray N Bond would stick lace to paper.  First I cut two tags out of heavy weight cardstock and ink both with Distress Ink using a piece of make-up sponge.

Then I cut two pieces of lace fabric slightly larger than the tags.  Next, (per directions on the can), I liberally sprayed the back of the two lace piece with Spray N Bond.  I let them sit for a few minutes and ironed the lace onto the tag fronts.

Once the tags cooled I trimmed the lace around the edges.

As you can see the Distress Inks showed nice color through the lace.  The edges were well sealed, no pieces unstuck or falling off!  After trimming the tags, I cut a slightly smaller piece of white card stock and inked a vintage corset stamp with dark rose and stamped it.  Using a glitter embossing powder on the image I hit it with a heat gun to melt the powder.  I ran the stamped image through my Grand Calibur with a medium sized rectangle die to get a fancy edge.  Then I used a little more Distress Ink in pink (victorian velvet) to bring all the colors together.

I wanted the tag to have a little more layering so I added a two strips of coordinating decorative paper over a piece of wide organza ribbon.  After attaching all the pieces I added a big pink bow to the front.  On the back I used just a plain piece of pink cardstock and a journaling stamp to add a writing space and YEAH!  It looked so beautiful!

Glimmer Mist

For anyone who doesn't know Glimmer Mists are a wonderful spray from Tattered Angels that adds a hint of shimmer to all your papercraft projects.  They are beautiful, but they are also (on average) $7.00 for a 2 oz. bottle. and they come in more than 50 colors.  I will save you the math, thats $350!  And if your anything like me one or two colors are not enough!  My solution was to make my own.

So I went to my local Walmart and found 2oz. spray bottles for .92, sadly only two of them were clear, but I settled for those and a few tinted ones.  Next I needed some metallic paint.  I chose Folk Arts Metallic in 9 colors for $1.77 a bottle and one bottle of Folk Arts Extreme Glitter.

  A lot of tutorials are adding white glue or Modge Podge to their homemade mists, but I decided to go ahead try making them without it.  I filled each bottle to just above the top of their labels with really warm water.  Then I squeezed in enough paint to more than cover the bottom of the bottle.

As you can see the paint went straight to the bottom, making the amount easy to see even in the colored bottle.  I then added a few (three to be exact) beads to each bottle to help act as mixers.  YOU NEED TO SHAKE THESE EVERY TIME YOU USE THEM!  And depending on what you are working on, probably repeatedly while you are using them!

So, how did it all work?  I love them!  I have some pictures here of tags I sprayed.  There was lots of shine from every color I made except the Extreme Glitter.  The Extreme Glitter was a huge disappointment and I won't be buying it in any other colors! My camera had a hard time picking up the shimmer, hmmmmmmmmm could it be the overcast, cloudy weather again today?   But I wanted you to see them anyway!

These along with some blue and silver were among my favorites.  After spraying a few I had a puddle of extra on my table and I layed a few of my embossed tags in the extra, face down and managed to color only the embossed areas! So in the end I spent $25.13 on paint and bottles.  I figure I can easily make 5 (probably more) batches from each bottle of paint.  So that works out to just under .56 a bottle!  Enjoy!