paper: pretty paper. true stories. {and scrapbooking classes with cupcakes.}

In school, the biggest sewing project I had to complete was a set of pockets designed to hold a reading book, notepad and pen on the edge of a bed by tucking a long tail of the pocket beneath the mattress. A nifty idea, perhaps, but it was ironing rectangles of fabric and sewing them together, and I can’t say I’d ever sat in bed really searching for a place to keep my reading book. So when a reader emailed me recently to say her daughter wanted to learn to sew things for herself but was finding her school sewing lessons a bit less than inspiring, I totally understood. She is thirteen and just getting to grips with the sewing machine, so I thought this might be a good starting project, as turning an old t-shirt into a new skirt is super easy, and you don’t even need elastic or a zipper. All you need is the shirt, plus scissors, thread, iron and sewing machine (or needle and patience). Plus an optional second piece of fabric for the waist of the skirt, if you prefer a contrast trim. In case it’s useful for you or someone you know, I’m posting it here too!

A few Sunday reminders: There are two giveaways that close tonight: the butterfly prize pack from Jenni Bowlin and the Acrylic Photo Block from your own picture. Today is also the last day to enter to win prizes for April’s 4×6 Photo Love challenge both here and at Two Peas. And you can vote or play along with Scrap Factor over at UKScrappers. Who knew it was such a busy day in the crafty world?! And now, on to the ridiculously easy skirt!

You’ll need a t-shirt to start. I had this shirt that has been bothering me – the very first time I wore it, tiny holes started to appear in the fabric. Clearly I fell for a bargain price that wasn’t actually a bargain. But all the holes were at the very top of the shirt, so it seemed something could be done from the rest of the fabric. Make do and mend, as it were! Start by making sure the work surface is clean (which seems obvious, but I can’t be the only person in the world you might have inked or misted on the same surface where they lay out their fabric? Oh. Maybe it is just me.) and iron the shirt to make it easier to cut and sew.

Cut straight across the shirt, right under the arms, so now you have a tube with an unfinished top edge. Go try it on. The bigger the shirt, the looser the skirt will be, of course. Unless you’re sewing this for someone quite young, you’ll probably find the top edge of the skirt is way too loose for the waist, even if it fits at the hips. Make a note of roughly how much you need to take in by pulling the fabric at the sides and marking the spot that would make it fit.

Then take the skirt off, turn it inside out and sew a diagonal line on both side seams that will take it in to a good size for the waist. You don’t want to make this too tight, since you’ll need to get the skirt on and off without a zipper (we’re going to add a tie to keep it snug while it’s on). Try it on again to see if it’s a good fit. If not, rip out those stitches and sew again. When you’re happy with the fit and you’re sure these stitches are secure, go ahead and cut off the excess fabric.

Next we’ll add a sash-styled waistband. For this, you can use a piece of contrast fabric or you can use the leftover fabric from the top of the t-shirt. You need a length that will go around your waist and tie. If a measurement will help, grab some string or ribbon and find your own waist + bow measurement! You can also decide how wide to make your waistband. The fabric will be folded in half, so cut a strip that is twice as wide as what you want. If you use a different piece of fabric, you may be able to cut this all in one strip. If you use the t-shirt leftovers or scraps of fabric, you’ll just need to patch and piece it together to make the length you need.

Fold the strip in half, right side out, and iron in a crease. You can also hem the very ends if you would like.

With the skirt and the sash right side out, find the centre of the sash and the front centre of the skirt. Pin the unfinished edges together, then pin around the edge of the skirt if you like. Jersey will curl around the unfinished edge, so either pin or go slowly while you sew to uncurl those edges.

Sew all the way around with a plain running stitch on your sewing machine. You’re sewing the unfinished edges together, right sides facing – the sash is going to fold up from this seam when you’re done. Leave an inch or two unstitched at the back centre of the skirt. That will let you pull in the waist of the skirt when you tie the sash.

Trim any loose threads and iron the waistband so the join of the two fabrics are smooth. And that’s the basic skirt done! Of course, you can further customise it with patches, bling, embroidered butterflies… whatever your style may be.

And if you have extra fabric left over from the top of your shirt? You can cut that up to create fabric flowers or an alice band or something else lovely to match your new skirt from your old t-shirt.

…and I’m not sure which is better: super easy projects or projects that work for both youngsters and grown-ups!

So… what have you been making this weekend?

xlovesx

Comment [15]

This weekend, one commenter will win a stunning Acrylic Photo Block from Bags of Love.
Bags of Love is a personalised gifts and photo gifts company based in London, specialising in cute personalised birthday gifts and baby gifts. This custom prize will be made from your very own photo.

To enter, just leave a comment on this post describing what sort of photo you would like to treasure forever in a photo block.

Entries close at midnight Sunday UK time and the winner will be posted Monday evening, so be sure to check back to see if it’s your lucky day!

Good luck!

xlovesx

Comment [82]

I may have an unhealthy obsession with butterflies as craft embellishments. I know I use them when they are not really needed or thematically linked to the page at hand. I punch them and stamp them and cut them and glue them, and really if all my closest friends staged a butterfly intervention for me, with a big banner and heartfelt words composed in advanced to let me know that I’ve gone too far down this dangerous butterfly path, the truth is: I would still have a hidden stash of butterflies. They really aren’t going away.

Instead, I’m up for the challenge of taking one very favourite butterfly stamp from Jenni Bowlin Studio and using it for five very different projects. So while I may be an addict, at least I value variety.

(Also, if I were a true addict, I wouldn’t be able to give away butterflies – and that’s just what I’m doing at the end of this post, so don’t miss out.)

Mix with another stamp for a card
I love how the butterfly stamp is just the right size to make a dramatic flourish for a card, and it’s a similar size to the Flower Wood Background stamp by Hero Arts. For these cards, I stamped the butterfly in black ink on smooth white cardstock and coloured them with Copic markers for lots of rich colour, and spritzed them with Chalkboard Glimmer Mists for some shimmer too.

Embellish a scrapbook page
If you like pages where a bit of embellishment goes a long way, this stamp will be your best friend. I love how it looks when stamped in colour on white cardstock, and it’s easy to cut out with scissors. I thought it would be a ridiculous mess but really it cuts quite simply.

Make a butterfly garland
If you really fancy cutting out butterflies, try stamping and cutting two for each butterfly in a garland. You only need antennae on one in each pair. Then cut a slit halfway through the body – from the top to the middle on one and from the bottom up to the middle on the other. Then you can slot the two together for a butterfly garland that is both dimensional and delicate. Make several and hang them in a circle if you prefer a mobile to a garland, or make just one and attach it to a card or parcel with some pop dots to hold it in place.

Stamp and embroider
Stamps make perfect embroidery patterns, and it’s easy to customise any bit of fabric by stamping the design then stitching the outline of the design. For this design, I stitched the outline plus a little bit of detail from the butterfly, then filled the centre by pencilling in a word and stitching over that.

You can see more notes on this embroidery project here on the Jenni Bowlin blog and you may also want to check out this different take on embroidering another stamp by Kerry Lynn Yeary. It’s lush, even if it’s not a butterfly.

Stamp, repeat and quilt
I love stamps that are interesting even when they are stamped simply and even when they are repeated. This project is super simple but makes a great gift. Cut twelve squares of cardstock and stamp a butterfly on each. Ink or paint the edges if you like. Then sew it all together with a zig-zag stitch and pop it in a frame. You can create it in any colour scheme, so it’s a lovely housewarming or new baby gift.

Okay… so here’s the deal: to prove I can let the odd butterfly go, I have a butterfly giveaway today! Just comment on this post to be entered to win a gift pack from Jenni Bowlin Studio that includes this butterfly stamp, butterfly chipboard and some other butterfly goodness that can wing its way to you! (And I’d really appreciate it if you wanted to share this post with anyone you know who is also bordering on butterfly intervention. We need a group, right? Thanks.)

And this isn’t even the regular weekend giveaway – there’s one of those coming tonight too. Goodness gracious, giveaways!

xlovesx

Comment [115]

It’s Wednesday, so it must be time for a scrapbooking sketch? And there are three photos on this week’s page, and it’s not all that different from the March edition of 4×6 Photo Love. But with this little added detail across the bottom of the page:

this combination of something circular plus a label or rectangle below is something I’m using here and there throughout this particular album. Word stickers are perfect, but you can also customise your own word strips with your own handwriting, a typewriter or anything you want to print from your computer. Give it a try!

If you prefer smaller photos, you can make this same design hold six or twelve smaller photos in the same space or you could take it back to a single photo layout and use a panorama-style print.

As always, the weekly sketch is no-stress and just for fun! If you use it, I’d love to see, so please leave a link.

I’m loving the patterned paper explosion from last week with the quadrant design! These are a few of my favourites. Click to see any of these pages in more detail and say hello to these scrapbookers.
Top row, L to R: one, two, three, four.
Middle row, L to R: five, six, seven, eight
Bottom row, L to R: nine, ten, eleven and twelve.

xlovesx

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This weekend’s winner is Terri-Ann who wins a cute pendant from Cherry Loco.
Please email me (shimelle at gmail dot com) with your address!

There’s a new giveaway every Friday night, so check back next week for another chance to win just by leaving a comment.

Have a great week!

xlovesx

Comment [8]

Of those nine thousand pictures I took while we were on the road, I would say around a hundred have either of us in the shot. And probably only ten have both of us.

That’s 0.1% of our pictures actually indicate we were both there, in some foreign place where we’re unlikely to be again.

And that’s pretty pathetic really.

There are quite a few reasons why there aren’t more pictures of both of us. We had two lenses: one was too close to be held at arm’s length and the other was so wide it distorted us like a funhouse mirror. We had a Gorillapod and I’m all for taking pictures with the camera sat on a bench or the ground or whatever is available, but when you’re in tourist land, it’s not always the safest to be out of arm’s reach of your camera. It’s too easy for your most valuable item to end up in the hands of a pickpocket. Or a monkey (true story). Plus there’s also the fact that both of us pretty much crack up when we try to pose for the camera, so we end up with ridiculous expressions and in general: our self portraits really need some work.

I got to sit in on Corinne’s self-portrait workshop at Crop on the Rhine after our trip and as I was listening I found myself thinking how much I wish I had known that before we left. Clever but simple tips on making things look as flattering as possible, then she set everyone loose with their cameras to give it a try. I have much respect for ladies who can hold a heavy camera up in the air with one hand. That may be another reason why my self-portraits need some work. There’s a personal trainer that takes clients out on the heath in front of our flat. She has a sign that says something like What do you want to achieve? but I think she might think I was off my rocker if I said ‘I want to be able to hold my 2kg camera at arm’s length and above my head’. So I guess I’ll just have to get crafty with other solutions.

Last week I downloaded this e-book, The Art of Self-Portraiture, and it is very comprehensive without being boring or technical. It’s not the sort of book you can read and put everything into your very next shot – it discusses what the author learned from taking a self-portrait every day for a year, so there are lots of different things covered, including lighting, using a tripod or holding the camera, using the timer, cropping an image to make it more exciting. Lots of useful stuff and things I’m definitely going to use to try to improve our self-portraits in future. It isn’t free, but it is on an early-bird special this month so if it sounds like something you might like, this week would be the time to check it out.

***
In other news, I am heartbroken by the news in Joplin, Missouri, today. I went to uni in a nearby town and worked in a record store in Joplin while I was a student. It was the place to go for shopping, movies and was just a lovely place. So many of the places I recognise are completely gone and my thoughts are with all of those trying to get through today in such sad circumstances. I really don’t know what else to say – I think I’ve rewritten this paragraph six times already so I’m just going to finish here and hope today’s storms are not so destructive. Stay safe, everybody.

xlovesx

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I have to admit I am really superstitious when it comes to baby presents, and making them or buying them or giving them too early just makes me extra nervous. Just one of those things. So with new nephew all arrived and fine and healthy and happy (yay!), I decided to have a bit of a crafty afternoon with a baby theme, including this quick and easy customisation of a onesie or babygro or whatever you prefer to call such a one-piece-garment-for-infants. For the record, spellcheck likes neither onesie nor babygro. Spellcheck is much happier with t-shirt, and should you like this idea but not have an infant available as your crafting muse, you can use the same steps to alter a t-shirt for yourself. So I figured I’d share a little how-to for this easy sewing project.

You will need the item you want to customise (onesie/babygro, t-shirt, etc), a handful of fabric scraps (soft fabrics are good), scissors and an iron. You’ll also need a sewing machine and thread, and a seam ripper and ruler may be helpful. If your fabrics are creased, be sure to iron everything before you start.

Start by cutting your fabrics to size. I am not big on measuring, so I just cut one to suit the pattern…

…then use it as a template to cut all the other pieces.

Line up the blocks in the order you like, and make sure this strip is wider than the garment you’re going to alter (you will lose a bit of length in the seams).

With a straight running stitch, sew all the pieces in the line. When you’re sewing the blocks, the right sides of the fabrics will be facing each other and you’ll be sewing looking at the wrong side of the fabric.

When you finish that, they will all be attached but they won’t be very flat.

Turn the strip over and iron from the back, pressing the seams apart.

Presto – now the patchwork strip is flat!

This step is optional – you can omit these stitches and the patchwork will still hold together, but I prefer the extra stitching on either side of the seam. It’s just a straight running stitch like everything else, about 1/8” either side of each seam.

Double check that the length is still plenty to go across the garment. If not, add another square or two and repeat the steps for ironing and stitching. Then we can start to alter the original item.

The patchwork strip will go immediately below the point where the bottom of the sleeve joins the body of the shirt. Turn the garment inside-out and use a seam ripper or your scissors to unpick the stitches below the sleeve, using the patchwork strip as a guide for when to stop unpicking. There is usually a locked stitch or heavier stitching at the join of the arm to the side seam. If you can, avoid unpicking that stitch, so you won’t lose any strength in that stretch point. (If you do, don’t panic – you can just stitch more later.)
Repeat on the other side seam.

Triple check that you are looking at the front of the garment – it’s easy to get mixed up since it’s inside-out! When you’re sure you have the front, cut a straight line from the middle of your unpicked stitching on one side right across to the other side.

Fold the fabric back to create the size of window you want for your patchwork strip. The window should be slightly smaller than your strip, since you’ll loose a little bit either side for the seam. Press the folds flat with the iron – this will make it much easier to sew the patchwork in a straight line.

Line up the patchworked strip with the top fold, with the right sides facing each other. The edge of the patchworked strip will be in line with the crease you ironed. You can pin this if you like – I am a bit of a disaster with pins so I try to avoid them if possible! What is worth remembering is the knitted fabric will stretch and your patchwork strip won’t, so pull the knitted fabric a little bit when you sew – not lots, just a bit. Use that same plain running stitch along this whole seam.

If you flip it right-side-out after you’ve sewn that seam, you can see it’s starting to look right! But go back to inside-out for now.

Line up the bottom crease with the bottom of the patchwork strip and sew again – right sides facing each other.

Check that there are no gaps in the stitching and iron this flat. You can trim back bigger pieces of fabric and get rid of long threads at this point too.

Turn it right-side-out and check that everything looks how it should. If so…

…we need to stitch those side seams back into place. Make sure to sew backward and forward at the end of each bit of stitching, since side seams need some strength. You can pull on the shirt to see if any holes appear. If they do, sew some more!

You can leave it just like this and call that finished…

…or you can go back and repeat the stitching 1/8” either side of the seams, like before. These stitches can be a bit wobbly since you’re sewing through all those seam bits on the other side, but they are actually the seams I love, wonkiness and all. (Clearly I would be fired from a garment sewing factory. And I also keep this a secret from my neighbour who is a retired quality control inspector and kept men’s shirt collars in check for many years, apparently!)

And that’s that! Completely unnecessary in life? Yes. But also fun and super inexpensive and the whole project took under an hour. So I think that makes it okay! Especially as now I can make sure at least once in my nephew’s life, he can be clothed in both astronauts, VW Beetles and 1970s mushrooms. Yes indeed.

So have you been doing anything crafty this Sunday? Do share!

xlovesx

Comment [13]

This weekend, one commenter will win an awesome hand cut acrylic and crystal pendant from Lauren at Cherry Loco.
Either a cute teapot or key – your choice!
Cherryloco provides unique and colourful hand cut acrylic jewellery with a fun humorous edge. Each piece is simple in style yet striking in design. Lauren’s inspiration comes from the retro era of bold silhouettes along with old school tattoo design. Their aim is to create designs to make a statement and guarantee a smile.

Our other favourites in Lauren’s range are the
The cute glasses pendant.
The moustache ring.
and
This sparrow brooch

To enter, just leave a comment on this post and indicate if you would like the teapot or the key pendant.

Entries close at midnight Sunday UK time and the winner will be posted Monday evening, so be sure to check back to see if it’s your lucky day!

Good luck!

xlovesx

Comment [92]