Making a simple table runner ...

As cyber Monday draws to an end

I decided to pull out the sewing machine

and do a little creating ...

 

A simple table runner

for the Christmas season.

With two boys who have to

touch everything it seems ...

Less is More in our House. LOL!!!

 

 

First I found my fabrics ...

 

I first ripped my fabric on the long lenth to give

it a raw edge as you can see in other pictures. I failed to

grab a photo of that. :(

 

Then I folded down one short edge and ironed a straight edge.

 

Then I set my straight stitch as shown ... IMPORTANT NOTE ...

as you are sewing with this setting pull the back end of the fabric

as you sew so that it doesn't gather up on you.

 

Sew along the ironed edge as shown. REMEMBER pull

the fabric through as you sew so it doesn't gather.

 

 

Then I trimed the extra off with my

Pinking shears. You could do a PROPER hem

but I wasn't worried about that

for this project.

 

My pretty stitch ... LOL!

 

I now cut my "ruffle fabric" to the width I

want...

I left my sewing machines setting

at the same. Now WITHOUT pulling, I sew a stitch

down through the center of my "ruffle" fabric.

After every few stitches I do a "back stitch" to  lock

the ruffle in place. You don't have to do this,

but I like to do it.

 

 

what I have when I'm done...

 

I just love the glitter and snowflakes on this fabric ..

Now line up your edges as shown ...

I wanted my ruffle to be on the edge,

and I lined up the raw edges.

I didn't mind leaving edges raw on this project.

No one will be close examining it in my house. :)

 

I didn't get a photo of the next step ..

you now want your stitch to be a "normal"

straight stitch. Now sew the "ruffle" to the runner

straight down the same seam you made when you

ruffled up your "ruffle" ... this masks the 2nd seam here.

Sew all the way down.

Do this to both edges...

 

I had planned to do an Over the Top centerpiece this year;

however, the past several days has shown me

Less is More!

I have two boys that want to touch and play

with everything I have put out.

 

 

Plus this makes it easy for dinner. The girls

can strip the table down easily so we have enough

room at our table.

Maybe next year will be BIG!!!!

 

So how many Santas do you have in your house

RIGHT NOW!!!!

I have way too many. Teehee

 

**I also didn't give any measurements. All tables are different obviously.

You want to make sure you have a long enough piece to go across your

table plus some extra to hang if you like (I did it that way).

 

You also want to make sure you have a long enough piece to ruffle up;

you can however sew pieces together to get this length.

 

Wishing all y'all a Merry Christmas season.

 

 

 

 

 



Oh Christmas Tree ...

Merry Christmas everyone.

 

With over 200 ornaments collected through the

past 15 years ... here she is.

*yes we forgot the garland* will fix that ...

 

Our tradition (ever since I can remember)

is to put our Christmas tree up

the day after Thanksgiving.

 

So even now with 4 kiddos

we carry on the tradition and the kids

ache with pain all through

the month of November in

anticipation of that one day after.

 

Who doesn't love a light up

Coca-Cola polar bear ...

we have 4 (each different of course)

 

and we even got a visit

from our Neighborhood

SpiderMan last night.

ELVES ... Yes we have three elves

hidden in our tree.

I think this is the part the kids

look forward to the most.

They ask and ask

about these elves until they appear.

Santa of course ... we have soo many

Santas I'm not sure how

they even keep track of themselves.

Yes, even a UGA Santa...

Go Dawgs.

Best be a Dawg fan in our house

or you may not get

visited by Santa.

Yep ... ELF #2 tucked

away ... I hope

he doesn't get into too

much mischief ...

and his pal ... ELF #3 ...

oh boy, it might be an interesting

month ahead.

 

A little bit of Christmas Sparkle

going on up in that tree...

oh my, look there, another Santa.

teehee, they are al so cute.

Who doesn't need a Sparkly

jet to fly around

during Christmas ... we got one!

We even have a few that have

traveled all the way

from Australia to spend

Christmas with us.

and what do you know ...

Santa and his trusty

Snowman.

 

 

**After we got about 50+ ornaments hung

we realized we forgot to put on the garland first.

 

Our tree is missing that extra pop of garland

color. So I will be crocheting some garland with bells

to carfully run through the branches and

ornaments. I will share a final

photo once done.

Going to use this tutorial I did up for y'all -

HERE

 

Wishing all y'all a Wonderful & Beautiful Christmas Season!!!!

 

 

 

 

Been up to ...

Hello everyone ...

It is the eve of Thanksgiving.

 

How many of you are NOT ready yet?

Teehee, I'm not.

 

Up until last night I was going to be hosting

Thanksgiving at our place. However

we will be going to the parents

this year. BUT all we are doing

is taking the food there.
Mom will still be preparing the usual as

we had planned.

 

They have a yard for the kids to enjoy.

AND just bigger overall.

 

What have I been up too lately .....

creating a Unique basket liner for Photographers.

 

 

I am still working on naming it ...

But SHAG comes to mind.

Will be offered in many size and color

Options.

 

I actually plan to create a livingroom

size rug like this ..

that will take me a while to complete however.

But will be worth it once I start

and complete it.

 

One has already been sold to Ms Mallie with

Photos by Mallie ...

Can not wait to see what she does with it.

 

**A pattern will be created for this.

 

Happy Thanksgiving all y'all wonderful People.



Early Christmas ... Crochet Jingle Bell garland

I can not wait for Christmas to get here. I love everything

about the season. The colors, smells, decorations, Christmas trees, ALL OF IT.

 

I was trying to come up with an Early Christmas project to kick

things off in September. Heehee, just don't want to wait.

My hubs starts next week getting all the lights and decorations

for the town started (yes you read that right - next week already)

We live in a small town (not even a Wal-mart & not even one craft shop) ...

it is a sad fact. :(

Well Christmas is a HUGE deal here however. We are well known for our

street lights and for the Christmas lights (I say it this way

cause I swear we have more street lights than Atlanta.

You could probably see our town from space on a clear night.

 

Okay so back to point. I LOVE CHRISTMAS and want to make something

festive. So, I was browsing Pinterest (heehee) for an easy & fast

idea. Just a little something to do.

 

Here is what I found -

click photo to original link for this project

 

I knew immediately I have everything needed for this project.

I had just recently rediscovered a baggie full of bells

and I knew I wanted to use my Shimmer yarns in Red and Green.

 

Shiny silver bells and sparkle yarn - how festive.

This project is quick and easy. Chain stitch is all it takes.

The hardest part was pushing the bells down the yarn

CONSTANTLY, only cause I used 20+ for mine.

I plan to make several of these both in red and green yarn to

drape on our Christmas tree OR to decorative elsewhere.

I will also use smaller strands to wrap around presents.

That will be so festive under the Christmas Tree.

 

 

what I used

I used some floss, tied it on the yarn to aid in

threading the bells onto my yarn. It worked perfectly.

To attach your first bell -

create a slip knot and bring the first bell up to the knot.

chain 15 and bring the second bell up to the hook.

as you see.

chain 15 more and continue this process

until you have all the bells on that you want.

another view of bell sandwiched between a chain 15 and

the beginning of the next chain 15.

at the end tie on a last bell,

pull tight and cut off extra.

Do the same at the beginning.

 

I can't wait to get more of these made up in both red & green.

 

Christmas will be here before we know it and I will get to

decorate with these. Can't wait!!!!

 

Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells

Jingle all the way.

Oh what fun

it is to ride

in a one horse open sleigh,

hey.

 

Wishing y'all a beautiful day,

May God bless all y'alls hearts.

Jme



Abstract Butterfly Art

It is Tutorial Thursday and I am so excited to share with y'all what I worked on last night after the kiddos went to bed. It is another project for Bree's room redo and I LOVE it (and she does too)!!!

My finished piece ... tutorial follows below - lots of pictures for y'all!!!

What inspired this project ... yep, again Pinterest to the rescue. Oh my goodies, I love Pinterest y'all. Took me forever to get into it and now I am just overwhelmed with ideas to make stuff. ha ha

Inspiration

 

What you need to create my version -

*Foam core board (I had this on hand so that is what I used - really anything would work - wood, canvas, backer board from a picture frame, cardboard, even a piece of poster board would work). I like to use what I have on hand and recycle. :)

*Mod podge or homemade "mod podge" - equal parts Elmer's glue / water & mix well

*tissue paper (mine was left over and had glitter on it - Dollar Tree purchase)

*scraps of fabric or large enough pieces to cut up at the size you need

*piece of paper to make your circle template

*paint brush or whatever you want to use to spread out the "mod podge"

*sharpie - I used a black one

*acrylic paint - I used 8 shades I had on hand from other projects we have done - baby pink, citron green, bright orange, turquoise blue, bright yellow, white, purple cow, royal Fuchsia - all are Americana brand

 

To get started -

This tutorial is picture heavy ... LOTS of PICTURES!!! :)

Yes that paint brush is rough looking ... it is one of my kids ... perfect for a project like this. :)

I ended up tearing them into roughly 4x4 to 6x6 or so - not exact of course. Heck most wear in crazy shapes. But that makes it more interesting ... you will see as you "glue" them down.

You can make your own by mixing equal parts Elmer's glue & water.

Cheaper and just as good. Works wonderfully.

 

After you cover the whole board you can go back and either cut the extra off, tear it off, or do what I did and "glue" it down as well.

You can just add more as you go if you didn't cover a large enough surface for your piece of tissue paper.

I didn't bother washing my fabrics before hand or ironing them. There was no bleeding from the "glue" and the wrinkles went out as I pressed the fabric down onto the "glue".

There is no need to put "glue" on top of the fabric unless you want to just to do it.

 

I didn't photo the following steps but I will explain them ...

*After I "glued" them all down I then took another lid I found that was slightly larger than the fabric circles - maybe only 1/4" to 1/2" larger (didn't measure it) - I laid it down on top of the fabric circles - not perfectly centered as you can see, but each one slightly different and used a sharpie in black and traced around it. Doesn't have to be perfectly traced ... mine aren't.

*Next I took a smaller paint brush and dipped the tip into the shade of paint I wanted to use and painted a random shaped circle around each one. DO NOT BE PERFECT. IT isn't meant to be. This step can be hard for some ... hahaha - I like things to be perfect, so it was hard for me. Not to make the crazy imperfect circles, but not to go back and fill them in where the paint ran out. ha ha, no kidding it was killing me. But on some you may need to, but don't fill in completely ... you can see how mine are.

*I wanted more at this point, so I laid out some crochet flowers, then some satin blossoms ... but neither was giving me the look I was after. So then I saw a stack of butterflies she had handed me that afternoon - literally. She was cleaning her closet and came across them. They were bought at Hobby Lobby a few years ago to do something with and I guess we obviously never used them. :)

So this was perfect ... more Blooming Butterflies RIGHT!

So then I laid them out and got a look I liked and hot glued them down. I really tried to do this step randomly but I was having a very hard time with that. So as you can see I ended up with an X form. I think this step took me the longest. ha ha ha

 

A few more photos for y'all to look at ...

 

 

We haven't hung it yet, going to get the hubs to discover the best way to do that. Thinking I will attach some ribbon to the back and hang it from a ribbon bow. Will show pictures when I get this step finished. For now it is propted up on a stand in her room.

 

I hope you enjoyed this project. Get inspired and create one of your own.

Would love to hear from you and see how yours worked out.
you can comment below or email me - craftingwithasouthernheart.blogspot.com

 

Wishing y'all a beautiful day.

May God bless all y'alls hearts.

J-me