Hair Elastics with Duct Tape Hair Bows

Last night my 9 year old was attempting to make a hair bow out of duct tape. After I figured out what she was trying to accomplish, I gently suggested we look it up on google to see if we could find a better way, so it would look like she wanted. Ten seconds later we found a great You Tube video to watch telling us exactly how to make these adorable hair bows. We immediately put one together, which she wore to the game. Lucky for us we have a bunch of duct tape laying around from the bag we are working on.

 

This project took us about 5 minutes from start to finish. Good thing to because we had about 10 minutes before we had to leave for parents night at the game and a benefit taco dinner.

Today, while out doing our errands we stopped at the Dollar Tree to pick up some more hair bands. We also needed to get new Halloween themed duct tape. It took my 9 year old about 10 minutes to put these two hair accessories together for her and her friend! Love this craft for girls to make on their own.

Tutorial to come soon, I see many of these in our future.

Happy Crafting!

Heather


 

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Reusable Sandwich Bags

Tonight I decided to finally make the reusable sandwich bags that I have wanted to make for the last year. Just over a year ago my husband and I decided to take a class at our church called Financial Peace. This is a course in managing your money by Dave Ramsey. After beginning the class I decided to pack lunches in order to save money. A few months into my lunch making frugality, the number of plastic baggies I was using started to bother me. At the time I was only packing for my 9 year old and myself. Between the two of us I was using about 6 baggies a day, not too bad. Over the course of a week that is 30 baggies, a month 120, a year 1200. That is a lot of garbage over the course of our lives.

This year my youngest is going to preschool. To make the lunch lady's job easier I try to open all of her food and put it in easy to open bags. The number of baggies has jumped astronomically! Time to finally use the tutorial I dug up last year and the special fabric I bought for the project this spring.

One evening from start to finish - eight reusable lunch baggies. There are only 6 in the picture because 2 of them are already in lunch boxes, holding our cookies for tomorrow. If you would like to make some of these for yourself you can find the tutorial here http://www.craftbuds.com/make-reusable-sandwich-bags/.

 

Happy Sewing

Heather

 

 

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Finished Placemat

After all of my griping and moaning, the placemat is finished and all I am scrounging for is 2- inch and 1/4 by 12 inch strips to border the block in the second placemat. This project was super easy and will create homes for some of the block of the month squares that would otherwise continue to live in a drawer as UFOs.

 

Now that this project is finished and I am waiting for two small strips to finish the partner, I think I need to make up some of the reusable lunch bags that I have been wanting to make.

Happy Sewing!

Heather

 

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Placemat Using a Lonely Quilt Block

 

As I said yesterday, there is a whole drawer full of unfinished block of the month projects. When I saw the kit for this placemat, a light came on and I thought about this heaping drawer of unused quilt squares. Now that I have finished this placemat, maybe these unloved beauties will find a home in a placemat.

O.K. As I am sewing this placemat, I am learning or relearning a valuable lesson. Sometimes a deal isn't a deal! Luckily, I bought the last two kits they had since there wasn't enough fabric to make the solid green border around the block. Then while assembling, I discovered the measurements were not correct in the pattern. It would have been handy if I had figured this out before I cut, but no. After cutting I discovered all the pieces to set the block were 1/2" short. My first thought was "Could I have stretched it that much?". After checking the math, the answer was no. Again, very grateful I bought 2. While ironing the second setting fabric, much to my dismay I discovered a lovely pen mark on the fabric.

Ugh......I know I shouldn't ask, but what now? After all my grumbling, I had just enough fabric to make all of the setting pieces. Now to dig out some green from my scrap bins for the border on the second placemat.

Maybe tomorrow I will be able to get it quilted and bound with a little more success:)

Heather

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Mystery Project

How much sewing can I accomplish in about an hour of interrupted sewing?  Well, this evening I constructed the focus block for my most recent project.  The colors are not something I would have chosen, but it was a kit, and deeply discounted.  The main reason I purchased this kit was that I wanted the measurements that finished the project.

I don't know about you, but I happen to have a plethora (over abundance) of lonely block of the month blocks.  There are some that I only made 3 or 4 before my life overwhelmed me and I threw in the towel.  Hopefully tomorrow night I can show you the rest of the project.  Any guesses about the setting?

Heather

It's Been Awhile

This summer has brought many things here in the Busy Mama house. My oldest daughter graduated and is off to college. I moved my classroom to a new building (same district). I changed grades and added two new subject areas. At the beginning of the summer, I thought I would have oodles of time to sew. Ha, ha, boy was I ever wrong! Well, now that school is back in session, I have made a little time for my sewing again. The one project I did make this summer was a Mondo Bag. If you look closely, you may recognize some of the fabrics as left overs from a little girl dress.
My 17 year old loved the bag and wanted one for herself. I had just the right fabric collection to use for her bag squirreled away in the bottom of my stash. She is a horse lover that rides almost daily. I finished the bag last night. I love the fabrics and the pieced handles.

Here's to hoping I have time to sew every night. With my new shorter commute, I should have a few extra minutes, but you never know in a busy house like mine.

Heather

T-shirt Knotted Bracelet

To say that I have a few t-shirt scraps would be an understatement. After finishing my oldest daughter's memory quilt, there were many pieces left over. Well, I have a hard time throwing things like this away. So there will be several scrap shirt projects in my future.

On my evening scroll through Pinterest I found a really cool knotted bracelet made from leftover t-shirt. So a few nights ago I decided to try it out. First I had to cut strips from my leftovers at about 1.5". These particular scraps were 12.5" long. Once the strips were cut they had to be stretched and then knotted. There is a great video tutorial found here.

These were originally made for the graduate, but we all thought they were so cute we all needed one.

When I first gave my oldest her bracelet, I wasn't sure that she liked it. She came to me the next day with scraps from 3 other shirts and asked me if I would make her one from each. Success!

More to come soon!

Heather