DIY Dish is having a giveaway. Go here for more info!
“To celebrate the launch of this new show, our friends at Janome are letting us give away TWO (yes, TWO!!) dream machines! Someone is going to win the Janome 350e EMBROIDERY machine and a second person is going to win the Janome DC4030 SEWING machine! Now how cool is that?!“
My daughter went to a birthday party for a preschool friend (turning 4) and her sister (turning 3). I had to come up with not just one, but 2 gifts! One of the girls is into Hannah Montana and I don’t know anything about her, the TV show, or the music. So I decided to make the gifts.
I combined a couple tutorials, some inspiration and came up with reversible crayon aprons. One side stores the crayons and the other is just a regular apron with pockets (always a must for things I make my daughter).
Here they are, laid out flat…
…Apron Side
…Crayon Side
And on my daughter
And how I wrapped it up to give as a gift
Hopefully the girls like them. My work wouldn’t let me have the day off, and the party ran late, so we had to leave before cake & presents. I have no idea how well they were received. I’d bet they went over fairly well since my daughter kept thinking I was making them for her. Maybe I should make her one. She might like it better than the Small Crayon Tote I made a while back. She never even touches that one.
Here’s a couple tutorials for you to look at.
Art Apron from Dish Towel
Crayon Roll
Crayon Apron
Crayon Apron
Or doing a Google search will probably bring up tons of stuff.
Guess what I made? Bell Bottoms! What? You couldn’t guess that given the title of this post?
Please ignore my shoddy photography skills. My camera batteries died so I had to take these with my phone … in the bathroom mirror.
I started out with a regular pair of jeans.
I opened the seams up to the knee. Then I took my son’s outgrown jeans, cut them up, sewed them back together and inserted them into the sides of my jeans!
And some more views … because I am smitten with these bells!
And my favorite pic …
Hubby kept telling me how much he hated* them while i was sewing them up, but when they were all done he said he like them and they “are kinda cool.” What do you think?
*He likes to say he “hates” a lot of things I make because they are retro/hippie and girly. He’s mostly joking 
Yes, that’s right. From start to finish, I made a book. I was absolutely inspired by this post on Craftster.
So i searched out tutorials on how to make a book and got started…
First, I made registers and sewed them together.
Then, cut cardboard for the cover – I didn’t have chipboard, but i had a cardboard box.
I tried to pretty up the cover with some green tissue paper. I wanted to give it some texture so I crinkled it up. Now I’m not sure I like the textured look.
And … here is my finished book.
I am not 100% happy with the finished product. I can’t tell if that is because I am never really happy with anything I make, or if it really sucks that much. I’ll probably try it again with some small changes. I would make more registers so the book is thicker. I would also make the cover a little larger than the registers (I think you’re supposed to, but I didn’t remember until I had already cut them out). I would also make the cover prettier. Less texture, maybe find actual chipboard or thinner cardboard. The size isn’t too bad. Since I used regular printer paper for the registers, the finished book measures around 5.5″x8.5″
The two tutorials I used:
Basic Binding of Books
Daydreaming on Paper
And a few others I have bookmarked:
Bookmaking Workshop
Journals by Curiously Crafty
Journalling – a set on Flicker
All in all it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but I think I need practice to make it as neat and pretty as i would like it to be.
I tried my hand at making my own custom labels using this tutorial on Craftster.org. I used GIMP to design the label.
I decided to try screen printing with mod podge. I read a couple tutorials and decided to jump right in. I settled on the “Blue Sun” image because it’s something I can see myself making a bunch of (so far I have made 3 (the other 2 were freezer paper stencils).
I started with an embroidery hoop, some sheer fabric, mod podge and an image.
Here is a better view. The funny outlines are where the fabric paint stained the mod podge.
I tried using my homemade squeegee and fabric paint first. It didn’t work very well. The fabric paint did not want to go through the screen.
Next, I tried using a paintbrush instead of the squeegee. It worked better, but still left big gaps where the paint didn’t want to go through the screen.
I finally caved and bought some screen printing ink. Worked great! Well, except for one little bleed. See it on the bottom left? I didn’t put mod podge all the way to the edge of the embroidery hoop because I thought I would be painting in the image.
After fixing the problem area, I finally made hubby a t-shirt! He’s been waiting so patiently for so long. I did have to do some small touch ups, but nothing major. I probably also should have used a larger hoop – I had some trouble getting the squeegee to fit in the hoop above and below the image to evenly spread the ink.
My thoughts:
-Making a screen with mod podge is not any faster than cutting out a freezer paper stencil.
- Screen printing ink is expensive (at least it is at the crafty store).
- The process was actually enjoyable!
Verdict: For images that I will only be printing 1 or 2 times, I will just make a freezer paper stencil. For images that I will be using over and over again I would definitely make another mod podge screen.
Total cost: $7.50 Not bad for a custom printed shirt.
hoop: $1.50
shirt: $4.00 (could probably find cheaper; I got mine at the craft store)
mod podge: already had
fabric paint: already had
ink: $21 for 3 bottles. I don’t know how many images I can get from one bottle (at least 3).
Total time: 4 days. Between letting the mod podge dry between coats, letting the ink dry before I set it, and procrastinating/generally being lazy.
Resources:
Mod Podge Rocks
Screen Printing with Mod Podge @ Crafty Crow
ThreadBanger Instructions
Sorry for being so long winded. =)
