Bath & Body Works Bottle Wraps

I have some extra bottles of lotion and shower gel left over from Christmas, and wanted to make them festive for either a Valentine's Day gift, or for Raegan's Easter Basket, and came up with easy wraps.

Measure around the bottle, and add 1 inch, then cut a 1-2" wide strip of felt in the length needed. Wrap it around the bottle, and find a good spot for a button, and sew it to one end of the strip.

Once the button is in place, figure out where to add the slit, and cut a small slit into the felt for a button hole. Once it's fit to the bottle, take it off, and embellish the felt!

I had some felt circles I had gotten a while ago, so I made "flowers" by stitching a smaller one to the center of a larger one, then I added 2 large and 1 small "flower" to the wraps.

The lotion bottles are smaller than the shower gel, so measure the bottles individually. I wound up cutting the slit to the lotion wrap too long, and it did not want to stay up, so I went back and stitched the end of the hole closed. You'll notice in the photo, it's sitting pretty low on the bottle, these were taken before I stitched it up.

I thin they turned out cute. They don't disguise what the item is, but they do disguise what scent they are. I used Blackberry Vanilla, which is purple, and used lavender felt for the wrap itself.

I love that these are totally reusable, and cute. They could be customized for baby showers (I always include a gift for the mom, not just the baby), bridal showers, birthday parties, or holidays.

It took me about 10 minutes each, but I did all the stitching by hand, so that was part of the length of time. These can be used for so many items, too, not just bottles of bubble bath! I even considered making these for Gilly's class for Valentine's bracelets, but quickly discarded that idea, but I may do a similar idea with elastic for that.

Linked up at the parties listed here.

LOVE Banner

As many of you know, I've been off my feet (and subsequently, my rear as well) for the past 11 days now, with a broken tailbone. It's allowed a lot of time to read, watch movies, grow increasingly antsy, with bouts of cabin fever, and, lastly, nurse my creative bones.

For instance, when I craft, I normally handle almost all my stitching by machine. I'm not a patient girl. But, I've discovered over the past week- if there is no other place pulling me to be, nothing else that needs to be done, I can be a very patient girl.

And thus started "The Great Banner Project" of 2010. It's not all that grand, or large, and certainly, if I had been up to long bouts at the machine, I probably would have done a lengthier word than LOVE. However, doing it by hand means it takes longer. I must say, though, that I love the look of the contrasting thread stitches. They look folksy, or countryish.

So here it is, the hand made (by actual hands) LOVE banner. I only used the sewing machine for a frustrating 30 minutes last night to stitch all the pieces to the ribbon. Frustrating because my machine was acting out. Probably feeling ignored and petty. Pfft. It's such a child.

I used felt in red, white, and light pink. I used red and white thread, and added red and white pom poms to the tips of the triangles and the hearts. I tried to add sequins, but they glitz did not look right, so I ripped em off.

I stitched it all to a length of light pink satin ribbon, and on the ends, I added a length of wider red satin ribbon for the hang-downs. To hang it up, I used clothes pins to pin it to my curtain.

All in all, this project is easy, and inexpensive. I used about 2 sheets of red felt, 2 sheets of white felt, and half a sheet of pink felt. The ribbon was a cast off left over I had on hand. The pom poms were left from Christmas projects. All in all, it was done with on-hand items. Price wise, I got the sheets of red & white felt in large packages from DT. I used 2 of the sheets each, and there are 14 sheets to a package. Those sheets were $.07 each, or $.28 for the red & white I used. The pink was $.47 a sheet at Walmart, but I only used half, so $.24 for the pink. The poms were in a package of around 30 of them for $1 from DT, and I used 7, so roughly $.23 for 7 puff balls. The ribbon was from a $1.99 roll of 9 yards, but I only used about 2 yards, so about $.44 for that.

Total cost would be roughly $1.19 for the banner. This project can be made with a variety of on-hand items, and the length can be adjusted up or down. I could have used less ribbon and felt had I left out the hearts, for instance.

 

 After taking a few photos, I decided to add the Ribbon & Tulle wreath I made last week behind the banner. I love it! It's so festive! Later this week, I'll photograph my new, hand decorated place mats I made while laying in bed.

 

I am hoping to be out of bed for longer periods of time this week, and to try and tackle some decoupage. I have some wooden hearts, and 1 fiber-board heart plaque I found at DT, and I want to get them done soon. I'm itching to do more crafts, and it's bothering me that I'm fairly limited in just what all I can do from bed.

 

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Linked up at the parties listed here.