No Sew Hair Clip Holder

Here's Sarah Beth's hair clip holder.  You may have seen a variation of this before, but this is my take on it. 

Materials and Supplies

Open-back frame 16x20

1/4 inch thick foam board cut to 16x20

20x24 piece of fabric

2 pieces of 16x20 batting

Box of straight sewing pins with flat heads (no pearls or rounded heads)

25 buttons or cute brads from the scrapbook store

4 yards of ribbon, lace...

Glue gun and sticks

Thimble

Hammer

Small nails or brads

Spray adhesive

Directions

Cut out your fabric to 20x24 inches.

Cut your foam board to 16x20 inches. 

Test to see if it fits in the frame opening.  It will be covered with fabric so allow a little wiggle room. 

Trim if necessary.

 

Place foam board on top of the right side of the fabric and center as best as you can. (See illustration below.)

Trace the border of the foam board with a water soluble pen or chalk onto the fabric.  (This is the part that shows inside the frame.  The 2 inch border will be secured around the back.)   

Cut out 2 layers of batting to 16x20 (The same size as foam board.)

Use spray adhesive on the foam board to secure the batting one layer at a time.  Set it aside.

Create a grid (inside your 2 inch border) on the fabric using the water soluble pen by measuring every 4 inches vertically and horizontally.  See below.

 Draw diagonals as shown by the black lines in the illustration below.

The first square grid should be erased or ignored as shown in the figure below.  Only the diagonals are useful at this point.  These lines will be your placement lines for the ribbon and buttons.

Spray the back of the fabric and set it on top of the batting lining up your border with the foam board.  By now your layers should be fabric, batting, batting, foam board.

Wrap the extra fabric around the back side and hot glue it in place.  Keep it taut as you work your way around.

Line up ribbon on top of the diagonals drawn and hot glue them at the edges (as shown) and around the back side.  Be sure to secure them well with hot glue on the back side. 

Where diagonals meet, use a thimble and insert a straight pin through the ribbon, fabric, batting and foam board.  Turn to the back side and bend the left over straight pin down and hot glue it to the foam board.   The picture below is the straight pin glued to the foam board on the back side.  No one's getting poked here.

On the front side, a button is hot glued on top to cover up the straight pin.  NOTE:  Without the straight pins your piece would not hold hair clips well.  The ribbon would eventually sag.  Besides, they give a nice quilted effect to the piece.

When you have completed the piece, place your finished work inside the frame and nail small nails or brads into the sides to secure it in place.  For neatness, you can add fabric or a dust cover to the back but it's not necessary.

Add bows and hair clips, hang it up, and enjoy!!!

I hope this was clear and concise.  Please comment or email with questions.

Fashionable Plastic Bags

Ever wonder what to do with all those Wal Mart bags lying around the house?  With an iron, some parchment paper and lots of plastic bags, you could deck yourself out in full attire.  

If you're interested in how to fuse plastic bags together, scroll down past the pictures.

My workplace put on a contest which called for us to sport our best at a fashion show.  (I'd rather sit in the corner while someone else sports my creation.)  I had decided not to participate because I didn't want to "walk the runway" for my colleagues.  One of my coworkers volunteered to don my work.  She was a good sport and won a super cool bookmark for my two-hour plastic bag dress. 

A description: 

I apologize for the poor image quality.  These were taken with my iPhone, some in the dark. 

TOP

That's me (dark hair) in my office trying it on.

I tried on the top over my white t-shirt.  The top is a strapless corset that laces up the back.  The darts in the front (which are hard to see) were made by ironing the bags together on the wrong side of the fabric where darts would have been if it were sewn together.  (confusing I know)

SHOULDER PIECE

It's basically a piece of elastic sewn in a circle with the bag straps tied on to one end.  Lots of people make no-sew tutus like this.  The same applies to the top of the back of the skirt.  It was hot glued to the rest of the skirt.

SKIRT

The base of the skirt is made of single fused layers of Wal Mart bags - thus the blue and white motif.  The only reason the front is short is because it took less time than making a long front.  I wasn't going for a Guns-n-Roses "November Rain" wedding dress.  I hadn't even seen the video until after it was made.  I was going for more of an Elizabethan style getup. 

HAIR

I made a flower with leaves coming out from it and attached it to a clip.

Fusing Plastic Bags

It's a pretty easy thing to do. 

Materials: 

two large pieces of parchment paper (not wax paper*)

scissors

iron

ironing surface

plastic bags

Prepare your plastic bags by cutting off the bottom seam and the two handles and laying the bag flat.     Set the iron to a low to medium setting.  Place one piece of parchment paper on the ironing surface.  Put a plastic bag on the parchment paper then cover it with the other piece of parchment paper.  You basically have a  sandwich -- parchment paper/plastic bag/parchment paper.  Iron over the surface of the top parchment paper at a medium speed.  Don't go slow or the bags will melt. 

The key is to test the heat of the iron on a scrap bag.  (I know, they're all scrap bags.)  If the iron is not hot enough, the bags will remain separate.  If it is too hot, the bags will form holes like Swiss cheese and disintegrate.

I've ironed up to 16 layers of bags together at a time without a problem.  More may be possible.  You just have to get used to how your iron works.  Don't give up after one try.  Just keep the bags away from direct contact with the iron.  Nothing good comes from it.

SEWING

Plastic bags make a great sewing surface.  The surface is very friendly to the sewing machine and thread holds it together remarkably well.  There's no need to worry about fraying edges either.

PAINTING

Straight acrylic paint will eventually peel off but works great for temporary stuff.  Prime the surface if you insist on using acrylic paint.  Spray paint is permanent.  Alcohol Inks (used for scrapbooking) work well and give a nice leather effect.   (The clutch below has alcohol ink painted on it and has been sewn together.)

*Wax paper will melt onto the plastic and not come off.  If you want that effect, go for it.  It works too.  That's how the flower on the purse was made. 

Good luck.  Make a purse or something.  It'll be waterproof!

Great Party Favors

Ten Worst Party Favors:

1. Plastic frog with tab on butt that makes it jump.

2-10. Anything that makes noise or stains or is sticky.

I was trying to come up with party favors for SB's birthday that went along with the BIRDday theme, and I just thought I'd share my idea with you. The party favors will be part of my party decorations until they are taken home by the guests.

I'm a big fan of hair clips for my baby girl's hair, and I often get comments/compliments on the ones in Sarah Beth's hair. My bright idea - hair birdies for each of the girls coming to the party. They are much cuter than those birthday party dunce caps that used to be popular when I was a kid.

Something I say a lot is, "I could have made that for nothing!" after seeing something that would have been easy to do myself. Mind you, making 13 birdies is quite time consuming if you want them all to be unique. It's just plain fun and worth doing if you'd like to save a buck... or 50 bucks. Anyway, here's how I did it.

1. Get some Sculpey clay at your local craft store.

2. Roll into a ball and knead it into a slab the thickness of 10 playing cards. Hint: If you place 10 cards on the table under both ends of your rolling pin, you'll get exactly that thickness.

3. Cut out your shape. I like the tear drop shape for my little birdie and I made mine out of a piece of copper foil. If you don't have access to a stash of copper foil you could use an Xacto knife or pottery tool or a even cookie cutter.

4. Bake it in the oven according to the instructions on the pack of Sculpey. (I think it's about 15 minutes on 275 degrees.)

5. Find some stuff around the house and decorate to your heart's content!

6. Hot glue a clip to the back. You can get a pack of 100 from Sally's for about 5 bucks.

7. Take a picture to remember it.

When they're all complete, I will clip them onto a dead branch that I plan to spruce up and use as a tree. It may sound a little glum, so when I get that far I'll post a picture.