Day 8 - Princess Finger Puppets

I decided I should be nice and make something for my two little cousins. The younger one is obsessed with all things princess so when I came across these cute princess finger puppets  I knew I had to make them for her! And then I saw the castle bag (which I love even more than the puppets!) and decided her sister needed some too because I'd never find an equally cute present for her! 

Pinterest led me to Made it on Monday where I found not only great ideas and pictures but patterns too! Then a bit more searching led me to A "Little" Journey and The Ulep Family and I had all the inspiration I needed! :)

I love love love these little bags. I was going to put a drawbridge type door on them to make then even more castle like but I think the letters look cuter. Super easy to make - two pieces of pink felt, cut out castle shape, sew together, turn the right way around and add a ribbon handle! 

I've only made Cinderella, Ariel, Belle, Aurora, Snow White and two princes so far but seeing as I've got an odd number I'll definitely have to make at least one more! I'm torn between Jasmine and Rapunzel. Realistically I'll probably make both so I'd better just find a third! 

Pretty happy with them. Although Ariel does look like an egg... and their eyes and mouth make them all look a little sad... and I really need to re-sew on the R... but... well I like them anyway! Oh and best part for me (apart from making the awesome bags, have I told you I like the bags??) was using fusible webbing to save on all the sewing! I just sewed the main finger part and used webbing for the rest. I'm not 100% convinced it'll hold up but its so much easier and quicker than sewing and feels more professional than glue! 

Things I've learnt:

- Its amazing how ingrained Disney is in our minds, just a change of dress colour and there's no doubt which princess it is. Scary really. Who says Cinderella didn't like pink? 

- Little armless finger puppet dolls are kinda creepy, cute as they are...

- Fusible webbing is amazing!! I wanna go make loads more felt projects now just to use it!

Oh and I have a super cute idea for how to post the girls their gifts, watch this space... :)

Linked up to these blog party - Creative Itch, Today's Creative, Threading My Way

*Update* Finally got around to making Rapunzel and sending the puppets to their new home - have a look here and see how I did it!

Day 7 - Sandwich wraps

I'm feeling pretty proud of myself for making it to the end of week one of this challenge! I'm not sure I could keep this up if I was working full time but for now its still fun! I just might have to cheat a little at the weekend when I'm away. I really shouldn't admit these things... :)

So today I finished off my fused plastic bag projects and made some sandwich wraps and snack bags!

I got the idea for the sandwich wraps from Chica and Jo's blog here:  http://www.chicaandjo.com/2010/02/01/fused-plastic-sandwich-wraps/ They are super easy to make and pretty useful! :)

If you're not sure how to make fused plastic (or have no idea what the hell I'm talking about!) have a look at what I was up to two days ago - http://beinginspired-blog.blogspot.ie/2012/08/day-5-fused-plastic.html





Make a square of fused plastic about 12" x 12". (Mine ended up being a bit smaller and it still fits a sandwich so don't worry if your melting plastic has other ideas!). Then cut a piece of fabric about 14" x 14". Put your plastic on the wrong side of your fabric and pin in place around the edges. Fold it over twice so you hide the rough edge.









Sew around the edges.

Then pin a 2" piece of fuzzy velcro on the plastic side at the top corner (12 o'clock) and a 2" piece of rough velcro on the plastic side at the  3 o'clock.










And pin a 1" piece of rough velcro at the bottom corner (6 o'clock) and a 1" piece of fuzzy velcro at the left corner (9 o'clock).

Then sew them on to secure them!

Make a sandwich and try it out! :)

I also made some little snack bags with some smaller pieces of fused plastic. I got the idea for the snack bags over at Owen's Olivia:  http://owensolivia.blogspot.ie/2011/08/olivias-snack-bag-tutorial.html

Oh but word of warning - if you're using fused plastic for your lining like I did then either use a stretchy jersey material (like my purple bag) or cut the fabric pieces bigger than the plastic so you turn them the right way out more easily! I ripped a seam or two on the little leaf one... :(

Things I've learnt:

- Don't try to sew self adhesive velcro with a sewing machine! It does not like it and may break multiple needles in protest!
- Blogging is way less fun when you have to put the photos in via html. ugh. Can't get my pics and text to line up properly. :( Hope Blogger gets fixed soon!!
- Plain white bread and butter ham sandwiches are delicious. And way under-rated. Yum. :)

Day 5 - Fused Plastic

So today I decided to try and make some fused plastic. Pinterest seems to think it's easy and useful and who am I to argue??

First collect up some plastic bags. This process takes a lot of trial and error so you'll definitely need to practice!









Prepare your bags by cutting off the handles and the bottom. Depending on the size of the piece of plastic you need you might cut the bag open.











Lay a few pieces of plastic on top of each other.










Put some baking parchment on your ironing board, place the bags on top and layer with another sheet of parchment. Apparently ordinary paper works too but I didn't test it.

Turn on your iron and iron over the parchment. Make sure not to iron directly onto the plastic or you'll have a sticky mess on your iron that will be no fun to clean off!
Peel up the parchment and see how its doing!

There seems to be a lot of different opinions on the number of layers and heat of the iron so I can only suggest doing what I did - try and see what works for you! My first attempt had a lot of holes in it which could have been because my iron was too hot or I didn't have enough layers. I found that a about 5 or 6 layers worked best but it depended on the strength of the bags.






You can cut letters off other bags to write messages on your plastic or cut up bits of plastic to make your own. Place another bag on top of the letters to prevent them from peeling off later.










But watch out for static ruining your fun!!

Here's my final products. Not quite perfect but good enough for a few projects I have in mind! This stuff is pretty strong and you can sew it and make all kinds of things! :)






Things I've learnt:
- Making fused plastic is not as easy as those videos look!
- Using the same type of bag works much better than just putting all the random bags you have together. Well worth buying some bin bags or something.
- This would have been way more useful/green/cheap a few years ago when we didn't have to pay for plastic bags in the supermarket!
- But... melting stuff is fun! :)


I've recently found a great blog where someone is doing pretty much the same challenge as me ... times 12!! I've linked up to her blog and you can to by clicking the button below!

Day 3 - Barnyard Animal Hand Puppets

Day Three -

Barnyard Animal Hand Puppets!

Well it's a good thing I have this little blog, otherwise I would have quit and gone to bed hours ago! But I've finally finished battling with the sewing machine and am proud to present my barnyard animal hand puppets!! They took way longer than I'd expected and there were a few touch and go moments where I feared I'd sewn the pigs ears on backwards and forgot to add the spots to the puppy's back but we got there in the end. :)

So first step was to cut out all the pieces I needed:

                        

Next I sewed the pieces to the front and back of each puppet. Which took f-o-r-e-v-e-r!! Those little paws? Ugh!!

Then I pinned the front and back together and sewed them up!

                                  

Moment of truth - turn them the right way out and hope those ears are on right!!

 Here's the whole crew from the front and back:

They're from a set of Old MacDonald puppets that I found patterns and a tutorial for here but I haven't made them all. Maybe I'll add to my collection another day!

Love these two the most!!

Things I have learnt:

- Sewing machines are the devil!
- Bad sewing can be fixed by trimming off all the excess felt from where your straight line has gone diagonal!
- Sewing takes forever!! Maybe doing one project a day was a bit ambitious!
- I kinda love puppets!
- Oh and some stuff about adjusting tension, replacing sewing machine needles, how to sew a bit more neatly and I made a pretty delicious strawberry, raspberry and blueberry smoothie today. mmmm... :)

Small project tomorrow I think!

Linked up to Threading My Way

Day 2 - Carved Initial Embroidery

Day Two of the 30 Day Creativity Challenge!

I had great plans for today's project, had everything cut and ready to be sewn but the sewing machine is broken!! So I'm going to cheat a little. I know, pretty bad for only day 2 but at least I'm keeping to the blogging each day part!

So I actually made this a few week's ago for a friend's engagement. I found a much nicer frame for it but forgot to take another photo before I gave it to them!!

If I was making another I'd do the heart a bit smaller but it did look better in its new frame! 

Anyway, it was a super easy gift to make, the only hard part is finding the tree bark fabric (this was a little square my mum happened to have). Then just draw on the heart shape with a fabric marker on the back and back-stitch over it with embroidery thread. Easy! :)

There's a more detailed tutorial here: http://www.thirtyhandmadedays.com/2011/10/how_to_embroider/

Knitting Bag

So what better way to start my little blog than with pictures of my first pinterest inspired creation!!

I wanted to give some of handmade Christmas presents this year and my mom really wanted a knitting bag so I found a great tutorial and set to work! Pretty pleased with the result. :)

Inside pocket :)

Here's the really easy to follow tutorial if you want to make your own:

http://versusmag.blogspot.com/2011/04/knitting-bag-tutorial-with-guest-buffy.html