Homemade Birthday Gifts

Next week, my niece Alexandria (Alex for short) turns 3. She's our Easter baby, and was born on Good Friday. For her birthday this year, my sister Brooke asked me to make her a wall hanging for her bedroom. I did- then I kept going, matching other items to it.

So far, I've posted all of them except the last two- which I only just did today.

First up today, I made her a banner for her bedroom. Alex has learned to spell ALEX, and loves anything with her name on it, or her first letter. I've focused on that with several of her gifts.

Name Banner


You'll Need:
Foam Shapes- Dollar Tree has many right now! 1 pack has 24 of 1 shape in 6 assorted colors for $1
Foam Sheets- Dollar Tree, again- 32 small sheets for $1
Hot Glue
Ribbon

1. Start by picking your colors. I chose to go with an assortment of bright colors, and mixed them all up together. 
2. Next, I used the shaped foam to make a template on the square foam, so I knew what size to make the letters. I just traced the top and bottom outline, since all the shapes were wider than the plain foam. Once I did that, I used a ruler to help make letter shapes- remember to do the letters backwards!
3. Cut the letters, and hot glue them onto the foam shapes.
4. To attach them, you could sew them together, or sew them to ribbon. I chose to cut small lengths of ribbon, and hot glue them each together. For the two ends, I made the ribbon much longer, and added ribbon tails to it with 3 other ribbons.

Tada- all done! I would say it took me about 30 minutes to do, but it really didn't feel time consuming. I had planned to sew her a banner with felt- this was MUCH faster, and so fun! Alex can use it at her birthday party, and then hang it in her room.

Costs-
Foam Shapes- 24/$1 x 2, 10 used for a total of $.42 worth of foam shapes.
Foam Sheets- 32/$1 x 1, 11 used (1 OOPS) for a total of $.34 worth of foam
Ribbon- $3.99/5 yards, 1 yard used- $1.25 worth of main ribbon
Ribbon 2- $1/3 yards, 1/2 yard used- $.17 worth of ribbon
Ribbon 3- $1/3 yards, 1/2 yard used- $.17 worth of ribbon
Ribbon 4- $.40/3 yards, 1/2 yard used- $0.07 worth of ribbon

Total Costs- $2.42 (yes, I was being nit-picky... I hate saying "on hand", when it was still bought whether I owned it before or FOR the project)


Next up... A Beach Bag!

I loved the beach bag I made over the weekend out of placemats, and thought Alex would love one as well. This one I made a little different. I had a hard time finding bright colored placemats that were fabric. The Dollar Tree had them in plastic, and those round wicker-y type things, but not fabric. So...

Beach Bag

You'll Need:
2 Dish Towels
2 Belts
Scrap Fabric & Ribbon
Sewing Machine

I loved those towels when I saw them!

1. The dish towel is going to be larger than you need, but it works out great- because they are also much thinner than you need, material wise. Fold it in half, and stitch up the open ends, to make 1, double the thickness pad of material. For me, it did not come out evenly shaped, so I sewed straight lines, and trimmed excess fabric.
2. Once both towels are sewn into the right size 'pads', I attached my appliques. MUCH easier when it's not already a bag, for the record. In this instance, I chose to do 2 appliques, one is the letter A, and the other is a pair of flip flops. I  used the paper pattern I created yesterday to make the flip flops again today. This time, I sewed it with a wide, close together zig zag stitch. I chose a purple fabric to match the purple straps. For the letter A, I stitched ribbon right onto the fabric. It worked beautifully, and brought in the colors yellow, orange, pink and green. I stitched it with a decorative flower stitch.
3. Once your appliques are done, sew the handles onto the fabric. I started on the free end each time, so that it would leave as much extra for the handle as possible. I used a zig zag stitch, though if you want a neat clean look, twin rows of single straight stitches would look nicer, in the same or contrasting color. For my belts, I chose to sew them on with the pattern against the fabric. It's still visible on the handles, and matches the colors on the towels, but it felt like too much running all the way down the straps.
4. When both handles are attached, pin the two sides together from the middle of the bottom, attempting to match the handle straps up as much as possible. Stitch the sides and bottom all closed, trim the excess fabric, and turn it right side out.

You're done!

It also worked as a wonderful "gift" bag for the items I've made for her! All of them are inside it, nice and neat!

This project took about 30 minutes, start to finish, but might be able to be done faster without the appliques. It is super cute, though, and I love how this one turned out. I'm tempted to start making these to sell. Tempted. Not sure I will, though.

Cost-
Towels: $1/each at Dollar Tree
Belts: $1/each at Dollar Tree

Total: $4

On top of these two projects, I made Alex

• A Magnet Board 
• Butterfly & Flower Magnets 
• A is for Alex sign 
• a Photo Clip, and a Magic Wand

She's going to just love these, and it's not another box to cut apart, and another toy to be forgotten in 2 days.

Posted at the following Link Parties!

Homemade Scarves & Hats

I have been making fun fleece hats for several years now. The kids love them, they're warm, and they are pretty cheap to make, if you shop right. At the bottom of the post, it tells you how I get my fleece dirt cheap, all year round.

This is an article I wrote a few years ago on Gather, and the original can be found here.

First things first- pick out 1 or 2 fleece fabrics. When you lay it out, you want the fabric to be laid out so that the stretch is what will fit around your head. Usually, that means using the raw edges as the top and bottom of the hat, not the material finished edge.

Next, using a tape measure, measure your head circumference- or the circumference of the person who will be wearing the hat. If it's for a gift, use a comparable sized head. ;)

Now, you want to measure the fabric. The general rule is to make the bottom edge the length of the head measurement, plus 2 inches. That gives an allowance for seams, while giving a snug fit.

If you want to use just 1 fabric, you'll want it to be 16-18" wide (tall) for an adult, or 14-16" wide (tall) for a child. If you use 2 fabrics, you want the adult width to be 14-16", and 12-14" for children.

If using the 2nd fabric, cut the contrasting fabric to be 4 to 4.5 inches wide, and the same length as the hat- your head circumference, plus 2 inches.

Next, we start the sewing. You want to pick a side of the fabric that you want to face "out". Usually, one side has a slightly fuzzier side. I usually put that side to face inward.

So, lay the fabric with the right side facing down on the work surface (which for me is the floor), then lay the shorter strip along the bottom edge (which can be either side if it's unpatterened, or without a specific direction to the pattern). This strip should also be right side down.

In comes the sewing machine! After it's lined up, sew a straight edge along the bottom edge of the two fabrics. Once it's done, snip the excess thread, and fold the flap so that both of the right side's are facing out.

Now, you want to fold the top edge of the 2nd fabric inward, and pin it into place. Sew another straight edge, this time along the top edge of the thin band of fabric to hold it into place.

You can sew another line under that one, and a third along the bottom half if you choose.

Now that this is sewn into place, you need to fold the fabric in half, so that the two side edges (the short edges) are lined up, and the hat is inside out again. Sew a straight edge down the side, but leave the top 3-4" of fabric unsewn.

From here, you'll need either yur scissors or a rotary cutter to fringe the top 3-4" of fabric. Turn the hat right side out. Gather the fringe, and take a spare peice of fleece fabric to tie around the top of the hat, gathering a "puff ball" of fringe.

Viola! You have a cute hat that took about 20 minutes, and only cost a dollar or two. To keep the price low, and your options high, I recommend scanning the remanent bins every time you go to a fabric store.

Anytime there's fleece, go ahead and pick it up. It's half the price it would be on the shelf for the same cut of fabric, and often, it's marked down even further. Joann Fabrics regularly has their remanents on sale 50-75% off the marked price, making it pennies on the dollar of buying it off the bolt.

And again, it gives you some awesome choices as you stock pile it. Of course, you eventually start to run out of room when storing it, but that's just semantics, right?

My favorite winter hat is a "Santa" hat I made- instead of a contrasting fleece, I used fake white "fur", which can be found at Craft stores. Instead of a straight hat, I cut it on an angle, to make it triangular. For the end puff, I made loops instead of fringe, and I attached a big jingle bell to it. The kids love that hat, and I get so many compliments on it!

Another thing I like to make in the winter are handmade fleece scarves. It seems like my kids are forever losing stuff, and these things can cost up to $5-6 at the store. This is a repost from an old Gather post of mine as well, found here.

What you need:

Fleece Fabric, 2 or 3 strips 60-80 inches long, 3-4 inches wide. Cut so that it is stretchy width wise, not length wise. I buy my fleece in remenents at Jo-Ann's & Wal-mart, and usually get it 25-75% off the price of buying the same cut from the bolt, and I get LOTS of patterns and colors to choose from this way.

Sewing Machine

Scissors

What to do:

1. Lay the fleece strips on top of each other. The edges do not have to match perfectly.
2. Sew a zig zag stitch straight down the very MIDDLE of the fabric, not the edges.
3. Use your scissors or a rotary cutter to fringe the edges. You can do it narrow or wide. Make sure you leave about 1/2 inch of space near the middle uncut, so the scarf doesn't cut apart!

Decorative Touches-

Use contrasting colors & patterns for the layers to make a full and colorful scarf.

Twist and pull the fringe to curl it.

Use school colors!

This project takes roughly 10 minutes, and can be done with help from little ones. Make sure to help them with the actual sewing!

One of the best parts of both of these items, are that you need almost no sewing "Know-How" to make them. You can even make them without a sewing machine, though it IS much faster with a machine. These make wonderful gifts for adults and children both!