Fabric Rose Pins

My new label pin for my denim jacket

I had a yen for making some fabric roses into label pins. I did it but I have to tell you I'm not so impressed. I was looking to make something a bit bohemian that would look so great on my denim jacket that woman would stop to ask where I got it.

I was inspired by these fabric rose key chains done by InkyPinkies that I saw on Pinterest.  What's a bit different about her technique is that she just starts with a knot which becomes the center of the flower. Here also TatortotsandJello  has a tutorial on how to make them with the knot. Previously I've made fabric roses with a rolled center following the tutorial from My Sparkle. 

Fabric rose made with the rolled center

Each way works great but my personal favorite is the rolled look. The above photo is my first attempt at the rolled center rose. After comparing the two photos for me the rolled technique is the winner.

One of the hard parts for me about making these roses is the hot glue. I've tried all different types of glue but hot glue is the quickest and just overall works the best. Oh but the burnt fingers are not fun. So to save me from the burnt finger syndrome I devised a way to get it done without suffering. So instead of gluing as I go along I tried pinning. I would have two flowers going at the same time and would make about 1/4 of the flower pinning as I went. Once I was happy with it I would hot glue the underside and wait for it to set. Meanwhile I would do the same thing with flower number two. I believe this takes a bit more time this way but the saved fingers are worth it.

I made quite a bit of them

  
 I made a flower template that I sized to fit the rose and then made a cardboard pattern out of it. But first I spray glue some fabric on to a green felt square. Then traced my pattern and then just cut them out hot glued to the bottom of the rose.

 So it's back to the drawing board on the label pins. I might just do something a bit different.

Flipping A House 101

My mom loved houses and always dreamed of buying a poor rundown house, giving it new life and then selling it for a profit.

Mom

This desire filtered down into my brothers who have successful done what my mom would of loved to do. One brother has put his touch on residential homes and the other put his mark on commercial properties.

I also love the idea of fixing up a house and giving it some new life and of course making a profit while I'm doing it.

So come Monday September 10 I'll be closing on a house in a community called Kings Ridge   in Clermont Florida.

My Flip 

The home is 1333 sq ft and has 2 bedroom, 2 bathrooms, an office, an eat in kitchen, a living room and dining room. As I learn the ins and outs of Flipping Houses I'll share my knowledge with you.

It's Been Quite Awhile

I think March was my last post and back then I decided to quit being a blogger.

 It takes focus and a lot of work to make a blog successful and I lacked the drive needed. Part of the problem was I didn't have a clear vision for my blog and I just sort of followed what others were doing which contributed to my being lost and a quitter.

But now I have a big new project (that's all mine) that I'll be working on for the next four weeks and I'm looking forward to taking pictures and writing about my experiences. So stop back tomorrow to check out what I'm up to.  

Using What I Have Challenge!

The challenge that I have accept to take is to Use What I Already Have in my creative projects. This at first seemed to be a bit daunting but it turned out to be so much fun.

So for today my goal was to make some pillows out of cloth napkins.

Right away the opportunity came up to put this challenge to the test. 

I had already printed out this wonderful bird image from the Graphics Fairy web site and once that was done and ironed on the napkin I realized that the image was a bit too small for the size pillow it was going to be.  Normally I'd run to the fabric store frantically trying to find a solution, but nope the challenge was to use what I had on hand.

So hunting in my stash of stuff I found this wonderful ribbon (that I already had) that was perfect.  Not having any brown thread on hand to sew the ribbon onto the pillow I then decided I'd use some of that iron on tape I had saved from some Ikea curtains.  I was pretty surprised this challenge thingy wasn't really a challenge but was a way to get my creative juices going. 

I am so pleased with the design and to think that I had everything that the pillow needed. No running to the store wasting time and dollars, the pillow design ingredients were already there.

Oh yeah you see that line in the image but you are way too polite to mention. Yes it was a goof up on my part. I let the hot iron hit the image and it created that line. Another one of those lessons learned, such as protect your iron on image with cloth if using an iron near it.

This challenge for me is on going and with the stash of stuff I have I should be unstumped for quite a long time. 

BTW with that obvious line the pillow has found a home with me.

I'm Partying At The Following

Sunday's Best at My 1929 Charmer
Brag Monday at the Graphics Fairy

How To Tea Dye Fabric!

I love using fabric in my projects, I'm a bit of a fabricaholic, can't go into a fabric store without drooling and buying.

Sometimes though the newness of the fabric just sets me on edge a bit. It's the fabric stiffener and the brightness of the colors that I think does it to me and so I use tea dying to give the fabric a look of.... maturity. (that sounds so much better than old) 

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

Tea bags of course, lots of them. 

Picture Source

A Big Pot, Like A Pasta Pot! 

Picture Source

Water! 

Picture Source 

Fabric

Picture Source

FIRST gather your fabrics. Keep in mind the size of the pot and gather according to what will fit. I've tea dyed solid colors and all sorts of prints from muslin to decorator's fabric. All the fabric I do dye is washable and I've never done a dry clean only type of fabric. I then soak my fabric in clear water, usually in my kitchen sink. Once all the fabric has been completely wet I then wring out as much of the water as I can and place them waiting for the dye bath.  I've noticed that if I do this first step the fabric accepts the dye better and reduces streaks.

SECOND let it boil. Add the water to your large pot leaving room at the top so the fabrics won't cause your water to spill over.  Set it on the stove and get that water boiling.

THIRD  get your tea bags ready. I like to remove the little paper tag on the string just so the printed dye doesn't bleed into my dye. It probably wouldn't but just in case.  How many you ask?  Well I do about 30 bags for my big pot but I do like a visual tea dyed look.  Do a bit less for a less browny vintage look.  You will have to experiment to see what works best for you. 

FOURTH  add the tea bags. Once the water reaches the boiling point start adding your tea bags using a spoon to coax the bags into getting fully wet. With all the tea bags added to the pot and wet I let the water boil for about another 2 minutes to get a rich deeper brown dye. 

FIFTH  add fabric. Turn off the gas and then submerge the fabric into the brown dye using the same spoon you used to get the tea bags wet. You don't want to put your hands in boiling water, use the spoon. Yes!  I let the fabric and tea bags co-mingle. I've never had the problem of the tea bags bursting open and causing a mess. If you would rather remove the bags do so after the 2 minute boil and do it carefully. 

SIXTH relax and wait. Hard part is over now it's a waiting game. I usually don't start checking my fabric until the water has cooled down to lukewarm. That's about 2 hours. On occasion I've left my fabric in the dye bath overnight to get a real deep color but usually I'm happy with the results when I first check. Once the batch is done you could add more fabric to the cool water and the dye still works but it doesn't come out as dark as quickly. That's my observation. 

SEVENTH  Rinse and repeat. Your happy with the color keeping in mind wet it will look darker. Now back to the sink.  Your fabric needs to be rinsed of all its tea. I  fill my kitchen sink with clear water and swoosh my fabric around until I see the water turn brown. Empty the water from the sink and repeat, it usually takes about three times for the fabric to be totally rinsed out.. I line dry my dyed fabrics because I don't want to deal with fraying edges of the fabric that might happen in the dryer.

OOPS  Not what you expected.  There's always a do over here, just add your fabric to your bleach wash and it will be back to original color.

Now if I had to do large yardage of fabric I would have to find another way to do it, a pot even a pasta pot will hold just so much fabric. If I'm making a pillow I'll dye the fabric after the pattern pieces have been cut. I also find small scrap amounts of fabric that I have on hand and give them the bath also. 

 The top fabric on these pillows is a osnaburg fabric that I tea dyed to give it an aged look. The bottom portion of the pillow was an upcycled fabric from an aged seen better days pillow.

Tutorials are great but it's been my experience that you just need to get in there and get your hands dirty (try it)  If you have any questions let me know I'd love to help. 

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I'm In Love With My Ruffle Attachment For My Sewing Machine.

I always knew I like to sew but once I tried my new ruffle attachment LIKE turned to LOVE. Really, how come I never knew about this wonderful tool?

I went to my local sewing store and they weren't too sure on what type of foot I needed either a low shank or high shank foot, well neither did I.  I then strolled over to Ebay and came upon "Gone Sewin" Ebay store and there she was....... my ruffler.  Gone Sewin listed my Kenmore model number and I knew then it was a fit.

Gone Sewin says about this ruffler

"For sewing small pleats and gathering on a single layer of fabric, as well as
pleated ruffles. The ruffler is adjustable and becomes indispensable when the
amount of gathering needs to be controlled exactly. You can control both the depth
of each pleat and the distance between pleats. It is particularly useful when long
rows of gathering are required such as in Home Dec projects. You can gather or pleat
a single layer of fabric while attaching it to a straight, ungathered layer in one operation. Recommended for light to medium weight fabrics."

So once I started on using the ruffler I just couldn't stop. It was almost magical!

So here are some pictures of pillows I enhanced with ruffles. 

This one I did in the envelope style and just because....... I added the ruffle.

Okay this red and white check are actually two fabric napkins sandwiched together with...... you guessed it some ruffles. 

I went ruffle crazy by adding one ruffle on top of the other mixing different colors.  I'm doing a happy camper dance. 

More things are in the works for me and my ruffler. It's a marriage made in heaven I'm thinking. Okay I'm off to do...... bet you can't guess!  

BTW I've not been paid to endorse this ebay store.

 I'm linking up at these parties

Vintage Inspiration Friday at Common Ground

Feathered Nest Friday at French Country Cottage

Fridays Unfolded at Stuff and Nonsense 

Inspiration Fridays At The Picket Fence

Using Water Slide Decal Paper

After having read some of Carol's of Polka Dot Closet fame tutorials on water slide decals I knew I had to try it. 

She recommended the Papilio.com web site as a source for quality decal paper.

So I figured if Carol loved the Papilio water slide decals, I would to.  

One of the nice things about Papilio site is all the instructions they have.  I purchased the following additional items as they suggested.  

The decal film spray is used to protect the ink when you submerge your paper in water.

"The Papilio Decal Film is simply a superior product to any clear aerosol spray available on the market for arts and crafts use. It is manufactured especially to form flexible film that will work with water slide decal paper, a film that will "never" yellow and stay flexible for years."

I also purchased the rubber decal squeegee.

 "The rubber decal squeegee in an important tool when applying water slide decals to any substrate. Applying a water decal without using this or similar tool will not give optical results."

Plus I purchased their Mounting Fluid. 

 

"The Clear Decal Mounting Fluid is a water based product designed especially for use with our water slide decal paper. This mounting fluid will improve the application process of the water slide decal especially when working with larger decals."

So following the instructions that came with the paper I was all set to go. 

My first project using the decals was the child's chair pictured below.  

Look closely at the top of the chair for the decal

Because I was starting with just one project I didn't want to waste a whole sheet of the decal paper for one image so with my Photoshop elements I loaded the page up with different images that I knew I'd use some day. 

Like with all things there is ALWAYS a learning curve even with the best written directions.  

My first problem was I did not spray enough of the fixative on the paper and the first image I cut from the paper bled all of it's colors.   So resprayed the remaining images with a bit more of the fixative and waited a full day before I used it,  just to be safe.  In the future what I think will work better is to do a few short sprays on the paper letting the fixative dry in between sprays to ensure that all areas are covered with the fixative. Again I'd like to wait 24 hours to mount the decals.

Second problem I had is I used the squeegee a bit to hard and wiped off part of the image. As you can see from my close up photo one side is missing the flowing flowers.   More lessons learned. 

I love these decals and have a few more projects planned. Below are some of the dishes I did using the decals. These dishes were meant for display only. 

Graphics from the Graphicsfairy

Don't you just love The Graphics Fairy French images. This image really looks great on this plate. 

So this dish was so pretty on it's own but I thought I'd mess with a good thing. Jury is out on whether or not I like it. I actually had three of these dishes and did not let one escape my madness. So it's understood the pink flowers were in the original design of the dish I just add the black image. I know .....what the heck was I thinking?
  
 So if you haven't tried water decals I suggest you do, the images look like they are painted on which adds a bit of pizazz to your objects. Just think twice before trying to enhance an already pretty piece like I did.

I'm joining these parties   

WTF Wednesday at Shabby Loco 
Brag Monday at the Graphicsfairy
Vintage Inspiration at Common Ground