Birthday Decoration

My circle of birthday goodness for under the cake stand. Simple and doesn’t take that long at all. I am almost done with the party decorations. These are two sided just like the table toppper. You can  make the other side anything really. I have a boy and girl. So, why not make it for both. I can put it up until it’s time to celebrate.  I think next year, I will be using the cupcakes on my birthday. I love it.

I started with a 1/4 yard of 4 different fabrics. Scissors and a cake fplate. A water soluble pencil to trace it. I kept the scraps for the banners. Some scraps of batting. you could use craft size batting.

Dinner plate here. Just your average plate.

I cut out 4 of the cupcakes and 3 of the pink coordinating fabric. I did think about making the center pink. It’s really just a design choice.  I also cut 4 of the sports fabric and 3 greens for the back. I cut 7 batting circles. I pinned the fabric circle  to batting  as a template for cutting batting.

These are my sandwiched pieces. I took it to the machine and sewed 1/4 inch around. I left an opening of about 3 inches for turning it right side out.

I clip just a bit around the circle. This helps the fabric lay down. Then, I folded the opening in and sewed it down with topstitching and continued sewing all the way around the circle.

Once I laid the circles out, I pin them for sewing. The pins are marking the place where I am going to sew.  At this point, you could choose many different options. You could hand tack these pieces together. You could put something here like a bow to hide the tack.  I saw in a magazine that they did a table runner of circles and they were attached with buttons. Then, you could use them individually as placemats. Maybe some other time I will try to make that runner.

I have the fabric ready to be tacked here. I have widened the zig-zag of the machine and made sure that it will reach side to side. Now it just takes a couple stitches to secure them together.

I pinned a couple together at a time. I started with center and then worked my way to the next one. Above, the bottom circles is tacked. I am pinning the next circle to the middle and side.

Now, I am tacking down 3. It was finished in no time at this point.

It’s really cute, and I just got this cake stands. Perfect! It will look good in the photos on birthdays too.

All I gotta do now is make some banners.

Birthday Party Table topper

I found this really yummy cupcake fabric. It was so pink and pretty. I knew that I had to make something special for a party. That being said, it sat there through the curtain and pillow projects. It was waiting on me to come back to it. I wanted to do a table topper, some banners. Maybe, a table runner. I wanted to show off the cupcakes.       

        I was at the mil’s (mother-in-laws) and I know that she has tons of magazines for idea. So, I brought up the idea of table runner. Then, we started talking about yardage and what about the table in the living room. Oh that would be great. Perfect. So, I come home and get to cutting out the hexagon pattern for the table. Once that was done, I took it back over to mil’s house. We were trying to get in the pool, but it was raining. Rainy days are the best days to sew. Just in case, I brought the fabric. Why not? I should carry them everywhere. (not obsessive at all.)   Once I laid the fabric out and cut it. I was like what about a banner?  A center piece too? I was thinking circles. It just came together. My favorite part is, I got to raid mil’s stash! I should take a snapshot for you. Mine is very small in comparison. I am green with envy….oohing and ahing over all the pretty materials. They can be expensive, and a quilt can be costly.

I got this yard and half of cupcake material. I don’t have newspaper. I’ve been renovating-so I used construction paper on the small roll from home depot.  It worked. I just taped pieces until they were the right size.

Cupcakes, they are so cute! In the background, you can see the curtains and coordinating fabric on the pillows I made as well.

Here is the template that I made from the coffee table.

 

I was running low on batting. I really didn’t want to make a trip to Joann’s, Walmart, or A&E. So, I used my leftovers. Now, some quilters in the sewing world don’t like to piece together batting. There are products out there that is some kind of tape for piecing . Hey, I am not that fancy. I have used this many times. It has never failed me. You can’t even tell. I pieced it together, once it is quilted. I overlap them just a bit and zigzag. You can also butt them up to each other. It works too. So, five pieces. Yes, it would have been quicker if I had the batting the right size. I used my template as my guide.

 

This is the back that I got from the stash. It’s all different sports like baseball, basketball, and soccer. Jared’s favorite color is green, and there wasn’t quite enough fabric for the whole back. So, I made a square 28” of the sports fabric and added 12” border on the sides. I sewed the borders on with the serger. I have never used a serger. It was so fast and tidy. It cut the edge off to make it all neat and clean. I could see some projects going wrong. I have my oopsie moments. I know how to use my seam ripper really well.

I decided to do pillowcase style. Binding all the corners, not on my top ten list of things  to do . Corners can be tedious. Go for it though, if you want too. I have marked both middles. I need them right sides facing each other. Then, I put a pin in to mark the center. Like so, in above picture. Please don’t forget you put it there. (Like I did.)

I have the batting, sports then cupcakes. I have pinned it all the way around to make sure that it’s flat. Try to smooth it out all the wrinkles. I promise you, this fabric was ironed. Ugh.. That green just won’t stay flat. Don’t worry about it though, I’ll get to it. Once this is pinned, I am going to take it the the machine. Using the cupcakes as my guide and stitch all three together with quarter inch seam. At the end you will need to leave an opening to turn the fabric right side out. Again, I was sewing along and forgot. So, I had to open the hole. It happens.

*Side note. If you have the top and bottom the same size. It doesn’t matter which one is on top when pinning them all together. They just have to be facing each other and the batting on one side either is fine on this too. It just cannot go in the middle of your top and bottom.

This is just my pincushion top from a jar that I made. I like useful projects.

This is just a close up of the fabrics sandwiched and pinned together.

I have turned it and pressed it at this point.

Here’s my nice pressed edge.

The green side has been ironed 3 times now.

This is just a different angle to get a better view of the fabric. Now, I am going to take it to the machine and sew right around the edge to stabilize the quilt. Then, I am going to free motion quilt it. Sometimes, I get in a rhythm and it goes smoothly. Just remember to watch out for wrinkle and smooth out the fabric as you go when sewing. Pinning is essential to keeping the fabric from shifting.

 

That’s it. Table topper for parties. The kids love it. I love it. I still have the banner and small decorative mat for the cake to make soon. Blog at ya later.

Kids Crayon Initials

 

I saw these initials framed on pinterest. I decided to give it a try with Terrie Campbell (sister-in-law) and her daughters. First, we had to get the initials printed.  We used this website. http://printerprojects.com/alphabet/letters.html. I also used word to find a font and size. That would’ve worked as well set at 700.

I picked up some light blue cardstock at joanns for .64. I cut it down to 11X14. I intend to get some shadow boxes for the finished product.  It took quite a bit of crayons. I cut them on a cutting mat with a sharp knife. I rolled the crayon as I cut them, and they broke pretty even.  I used craft glue. Terrie used Elmer’s glue. They both worked well.

Here’s the M for Mackenzie. I cut this out.

Here’s the J for Jared.

After I cut it out. I centered the J on the paper and used pencil to trace it out on the blue background.

I didn’t take a picture of this part. I took the white cut out letter and used this as a cutting guide and laid the crayons out on it as well.

Here is Jared’s finished product. He even spread the glue.

Here’s Kenzie laying down the crayons.

She is spreading the glue around to make sure that they stick to the cardstock. I love getting messy.

It didn’t take that long at all to get them all laid out.

Here is Kaitlynn (Kenzie’s cousin) making hers.

It’s complete.

 

They all did a great job.

Me and Terrie are trying to do a weekly project with the kids during summer. I know that they get bored. I like to include them in some activities and play dates. It gets me and them out of the house.

I just got this flower fabric for $3.00 yard at joanns. I turned these into curtains in a few hours. I love them. They turned out really well.

Here they are set up in the living room. I just have to make some pillows to match. I mean, why not? The fabric was so cheap. It really is starting to turn into a home. Home sweet home. Blog at you later.