Ciao Italia! An Italian Birthday...

Ciao! It was just birthday party time around here, and my youngest wanted an Italian-themed party this year...one problem...almost every major party supply store in our area has closed.  But, I decided to look on the bright side and see this as another opportunity to personalize the event using decorations we made together.  Major bonus! 

This project started with a quick trip my craft room to gather up what we had in the way of green, red and white supplies (the colors on the Italian flag).  Well, we had lots of white paper of course, so my daughter started by making some flags to decorate the top of her cake using some watercolor paint, skewers and glitter.  Lucky for us, the Italian flag is very easy to replicate! The photo above is of the finished project proudly displayed on her cake which was served on a pizza pan.  The decoration is all buttercream, even though it kind of looks like m&m's on the top.  My daughter just took a cake decorating class this summer with my mom where she learned how to do this frosting technique using a round tip (#12), and dragging it to one side with a offset spatula.  Simple, but effective.  Oh, and speaking of simple, look in the background of the cake photo and you'll see in place of some flowers, I cut some Italian parsley from our garden and put it into spaghetti sauce jars.


Next, came the invitations.  As mentioned in previous posts, I use PrintShop 2...a lot. So, my daughter and I sat down and came up with this design.  We downloaded the free clipart from the internet of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and used the very cool font called "Draft Handwriting" for the large words.  The card stock is one of my go-to party items from Target, it's a box of 50 blank flat-panel cards (in other words, not a folded card) and 50 envelopes for only $9.99. The cards are 5"x8", and come in white and ivory. Such a deal!

Now, back to those DIY decorations...using some natural twine, Dollar Store streamers, and leftover Christmas tissue paper we made these cuties below for around the house...and, caped it all off with a personalized chalkboard in Italian for over the mantle with the evenings' menu! Antipasto trays, spaghetti and meatballs, Caesar salad, rustic bread, and our version of a cannoli cake (pound cake with mini chocolate chips) and ice-cream.  It was a great party, after all, you only turn 12 once! Ciao!

Custom Cards for the Dancer in Your Life...

     The kids are still asleep, so I thought I'd travel back in time a bit and share some greeting card designs I made to sell at the dance team's gift table during the competition they hosted a couple months ago.  These cards literally sold out within a couple hours, so either I priced them too low ($1 each) or everyone just really liked them... I think I'll go with that!  So, as long as you have a computer, a printer, white glue, glitter and toothpicks you can make some too.  Here's what I did...
     
     First, I found some inexpensive small (4"x 5 1/2") blank cards on sale at JoAnn's in white, ivory and natural ($3.99 for 12). Then using my trusty PrintShop2 program (I've mentioned how much I like this program before, but it's really handy!), I designed very simple layouts that I could then embellish with fine glitter. I printed all the designs in black and white, and used mostly silhouettes or straight graphics of dance quotes for the card covers.  As I'm sure you can imagine, you can find lots of dance themed or inspirational quotes with a Google search but I also added some slang terms for the teens.  For an added touch, I put a little logo on the back on the card since it was a fundraiser thanking customers for their support. Once they were printed, I used white Elmer's glue and a toothpick to 'paint' the area I wanted glittered. I've got to say this was pretty darn fun, and since I have a fashion design background it really had my creative juices flowing on the dress form designs in particular.  You'll want to practice a bit first, but for the most part I just went for it! The tutus are especially fun, just use a dragging technique with the toothpick by picking up a blob (for lack of a better word) of glue and dragging it in an outward direction.  I also had some loose sequins around and glued those on to some of the cards, which looked pretty cool too. And, of course, a satin ribbon bow made the perfect finishing touch on some of the tutus!  When designing all the different costumes, I tried to incorporate common costume designs for different dance styles to reach a broad audience...and when you've been to as many competitions as I have, that shouldn't be hard! For a professional look and to protect the cards from fingerprints, I slipped each one into a cellophane bag, also purchased at JoAnn's.  

    Oh, and when our end-of-year dance banquet rolled around, I made cards for the coaches with my daughter's team state competition costume on them.  Which got me thinking, next year I can make a set for the whole team to wish them luck!  So here's a look at a selection of the finished product...hope you make some of your own! 

Dance Team Bag Tags!

     Well, it's summertime (Yay!) and around here that means sleep-away dance camp.  So, I decided to reinvent some bag tags I'd seen on Pinterest for my daughter's team to take along.  I began by playing around on my PrintShop2 program with some design ideas incorporating their school colors, school name and team name.  I must say, I love this program because it's very easy to operate, and if you're looking to do some graphic design work without spending a small fortune on software, it's a good fit for making invitations, favors, etc.  Anyway, I used the template for business cards because it fit my bag tag sleeves that I purchased at Office Depot (there are cheaper versions available online in bulk, but I didn't have time to wait for shipping!) Once I settled on a cover design, I printed some full sheets onto card stock and cut them apart.  For the reverse side of the tag I wanted to personalize them with each girl's name, but since PrintShop2 only allows a full sheet of the same design within the business card templates, I would cancel the print after two were printed and that worked great (Hint: Rotate the page to fit two sets on each sheet of paper...less waste!)  Now, I have one set of names for the bag tags and I have a full set of the girl's names to use for something else in the future.
     Each laminating machine probably works basically the same, so you'll just want to be sure to set your heat setting to the right millimeter thickness for your project. In my case, the luggage tag sleeves are 5 mil thick.  Be sure to heat your machine up completely, and to place the sleeve seam side to the bottom of the protective sleeve that comes with the tags (it's the end with the stitching across it.)  So, I sandwiched one each of the front design and one of the personalized name design, centered it in the bag tag sleeve, placed it in the protective sleeve and let the machine do the rest. 
     Now, onto the cutesy part! I purchased some inexpensive grosgrain and metallic ribbon and some mini-bells (after all, it's the team's name!) at JoAnn's.  I used some heavy buttonhole thread to sew mine together, but I'm sure a hot-glue gun would work too. To adhere the bow and charm to the tag, I attached the loop first (they are included) then sewed it through the whole and ribbon.  I just felt like it was a bit more secure than hot-glue, but that's up to you as the crafter! Oh, and if you're wondering why there's a candle in the assembly photo...that's because I like to melt the very end of my grosgrain ribbon to keep it from fraying. Be very careful, it can go wrong quickly and melt too much or worse catch fire, so move quickly! A lighter works too, but only do this step if you're an adult please!
     I'm not gonna lie, it took a good two hours to laminate, prep the ribbon and assemble 16 tags (it would be faster to glue than sew) but I think you'll agree they are worth it.  Too cute! Can't wait to give them to the girls at camp!

Go Team! Bleacher/Stadium Seat Cushion Up-cycle

     Am I the only dance team mom whose family walks away from day-long competitions with a sore bum? Doubt it!  Since I'm usually backstage, I wanted to make my family's fan experience more enjoyable by giving them some bum comfort!  So, to continue on my up-cycle theme from my last post, I made over these mildewy old seat cushions from 2007 we had stored in the barn into darling seat-saving beauties!  Here's how I did it...the photos are in order of assembly, so be sure to follow along!

     I started by disassembling the old seat cushions using a seam ripper. I wanted to use the old covers as my pattern, and the zipper, foam insert and handles were still in good shape.  Of course, if you're starting with all new materials you'll need to do some shopping.  You'll need a foam insert, 14" zipper (depending on your foam insert size), double-fold seam binding, strap webbing for handles, and oil-cloth.  I bought 1 1/2 yards of cloth, which was more than needed, because I wanted to match the pattern. But, if you select an all-over pattern you won't need to do this. Of course, now I've got lots of scraps for more projects!  And, don't forget to add enough to each side of your square of oil-cloth to wrap half-way down the side of the foam and for the seam allowances.  
So, moving right along, you'll see in the photos above, that I used the original cover as my pattern (I photographed the measurements in case you're starting from scratch!)  Be sure to pin your pattern down in the seam allowance when using oil cloth, because it will leave a small hole.  Now you're ready to cut your pieces, you should have a front, back and pocket piece.  I used a remnant piece in a contrasting fabric to tie in the school colors, but of course you do what you like!  Now, to personalize my cushions a bit more, I added some school letters (simply print off a bold letter style as your pattern, pin to fabric and cut) and the narrow double-fold seam binding along the upper edge of the pocket.  Position the letters at high-center (allowing for wrap and seam allowance) and zig-zag around the edges.  Like any good sorority girl, I learned this technique in college for letter sweatshirts! Just be sure you stop at the corners with your needle down, then lift the presser foot to pivot the fabric.  The completed pocket now gets pinned to one side of the cover (right sides up, not facing!)  Now, insert your zipper.  I like to keep my projects flat as long as possible, so I put the zipper face down and sew using a zipper foot to each unassembled side of the cover. Turn over, and top stitch about an 1/8" from the fabric edge.  You're now ready to affix the webbing handles...be sure you don't have a twist! I just zig-zagged across the bottom edge of the webbing, and once again about an inch up from the edge.  At this point turn the whole project right sides together (leave the zipper open so you can flip!), and stitch around the three open sides. Now, the only sort of tricky part to explain is the corner...once side seams are sewn, you will pinch corners flat, and sew across them at a distance of 1 1/2" from the point of the corner.  Once flipped, this creates the box shape of the bottom.  Insert the foam insert, and you're done!  It turned out pretty darn cute don't you think...complete with a pocket for the competition programs.  Be sure to share pictures if you make one for your own team!

You're at the finish line...

Up-Cycled Denim Table Runner

     I'm the first to admit I have a problem...I can't seem to throw out all those bits of fabric left over from other projects, including all the legs I've lopped off jeans when making cut-off shorts for my daughters.  But, as you'll see in this post I'm really glad I didn't! 
     It all began when we decided to throw a BBQ themed birthday party for my oldest daughter.  Party planning is a favorite around here, and really gets my creative juices flowing.  So, I began where I always do by pulling out all the items we have around the house and barn that tie into the theme and color scheme and see what I'm missing.  In this case, I needed some sort of tablecloth or runner for the table.  Aha!  I remembered I still had all those scraps of denim!

To begin, I cut all the leg sections into 3 1/2" strips hori-zontally using a rotary cutter and a quilting ruler.  Then I simply cut open the loops of denim at one side seam and laid them flat.  Once I had lots of strips (I used 7 or 8 pairs of jeans' legs, but this depends on how big you want your finished piece), I started the assembly with the help of my youngest who's learning to sew, by making long pieces that had each section sewn together at the short cut edge.  As an aside, be sure you use a heavy duty needle for your sewing machine as the seams will be bulky! I also topstitched each seam with gold topstitching thread for that authentic look.  

     You'll see in the photos that I purposely flipped some of the pieces to the reverse side, and off-set the seams when assembling the long strips to each other.  I really like the random pattern and texture it created.  You may need to trim the assembled strips to equal lengths as the initial strips you cut won't be the same length.  As for finishing the edge of your tablecloth or runner, you can either leave it unfinished and frayed, or cover it with some seam binding (Wright's Notions has a denim-look binding at JoAnn's).  

     









   


     Below you can see the runner on the table...pretty cute, huh?! And the best part, I didn't have to buy anything but the thread and my scrap bin is just a little bit smaller!