DIY Totes

Alright, well I "got my craft on" today. I decided to work on a DIY tote bag to carry my little man's stuff in when I don't feel like looking like I'm carrying a diaper bag, but don't need much.

I bought some blank pre-made totes at Michael's (it came with three) and did one for my Mom for Mother's Day. For my Mom's I found a cute owl stencil at Michael's that I knew I could alter a little bit to look the way I wanted, and got some felt poms. 

I did this bag with Sharpies, instead of fabric markers or paint because I wanted a slightly fuzzy look. The sharpies bleed a bit on the canvas, and since I was using felt balls (which are also fuzzy) and was putting an owl on it, I kind of wanted an unkempt look to the whole thing. 

After fiddling with the owl stencil a bit, and then picking colors that would match the felt, I traced it onto the bag. Then free handed the branch he'd sit on. Once he was down, and I let him dry for a bit (maybe 20 minutes), then I placed the felt balls on the bag. 

I didn't want to hot glue them down (although that would have been a huge time saver) because I wanted them to be on there really well so you could use the bag without having to worry about them falling off. Sewing them on made the bag much more durable. 

Bam! There is the finished bag. I liked it so much that I bought a second set of felt balls so I could make one for myself at some point. The longest part of this whole project was sewing the balls on. But I felt that it was worth it in the end.

Then today, while my little man took his afternoon nap, I decided to make a quick tote for myself. This one was much faster and didn't require much in terms of supplies. I still had some canvas totes left over from my craft run at Michael's, and my sweet sister-in-law bought some fabric markers for me for my birthday. BTW, birthdays and Christmas are awesome times to ask for things to build up your craft supplies, plus it gives people an easy gift to get you, and most are inexpensive - especially around the holidays.

So, masking tape, fabric markers and a blank tote and you are set. Now you can do any design you want, but chevron is really popular right now, and easy to do. I've seen some really cute geometric designs, like triangles, and abstract looks done with masking tape as well. 

I decided that I wanted a chunky look, so I spaced my stripes out a lot, but it would be easy to do a smaller look. First, you tape the bag out. I did it the easiest way I know, and it helps keep the points in line with each other. You just put the tape down in diagonal stripes all over the bag, and don't worry about trying to tape in a chevron pattern.

Then once you have the whole bag patterned out, then you go back through and cut the extra tape bits out, leaving a chevron pattern. The most important part is making sure the tape it securely laid on the bag - no bubbles, or open parts - especially at the points.

Then taking your fabric markers you get to coloring - and stay in the lines this time. I choose fabric markers for this project instead of sharpies or paint because fabric markers are permanent after 24 hours and can be washed. While I was using one color, I set the other marker upside down so that the ink would be ready to go when I was done with a stripe. It helped it flow easier and made the project go faster.

The most important part of doing this project is to get the edges crisp and thoroughly painted in. The better you do on the edges, the more defined your chevron pattern will look.

With fabric markers just make sure you have a set look you want to do, because how you color it in, is how it will look. So my green/teal area is kind of spotty looking and my blue area is stripey looking because that's how I colored it. So keep it consistent.

Then once you get the whole thing colored in - let it dry with the tape still in place to help prevent it from bleeding.

Now it said to let it dry for 24 hours, but I waited five before I took the tape off, however I won't use it till tomorrow just in case. I don't want it bleeding onto my clothes or arms.

Peel the tape off carefully and admire your new bag!

I'm Back!!

Alright, after a much unanticipated hiatus, I'm back! I've decided that since I'm now a stay-at-home mom that I've got time here and there to show what I'm interested in, making, crafting, cooking, reading etc. 

Since it was the Fourth of July just a few days ago, and since I have been on a crafting kick, I decided to finally get into the spirit of things since 1) I'm no longer working retail which kinda sucks the fun out of holidays, and 2) Last year I was UBER pregnant and just wanted little man to make an appearance.

So I got on Pinterest.....Btw, I'm a major Pinterest junkie. I check it everyday. More than once. More than twice....  okay I'm a total addict. I can't help it - there is so much to make, cook, exercise (though I rarely do this one) and just yeah - I love it. Plus I think it helps me continue to be creative and exposes me to some seriously talented people out in blogger world that I wouldn't know of and having found them, I feel like I'm a better person because of them. Deep, I know. :)

Anyhow, I found this awesome pin for a holiday wreath (HERE) and decided that I could do that my way for our door. So I went out to Michael's and got all the stuff I'd need - foam wreath, yarn, and stars. I already have a glue gun and sticks, and ribbon to hang it with. Now, I learned some good and bad things with this craft; one is that it takes a surprisingly longer time to do than I thought. I figured I could do it while little man was taking his two hour nap and be done - nope. It takes longer for reasons I'll go into.

Here's my crafting loot - 

Now don't go crazy with the yarn - one bundle is PLENTY. I got a 12" foam wreath, some simple wooden stars, and yarn in a deep red, a dark blue and a sort of creamy white - to match the wooden stars better since stark white looked odd with everything else. 

The foam wreath was a blessing and a curse. The yarn loves to stick to it, so wrapping the wreath in the yarn was a serious pain - and the main reason why this took so long to do, but the one major advantage to having the foam was that since the yarn loved to be connected to it so well, it meant that i didn't have to glue down my yarn all the time - just when I was starting or stopping a color - so that part rocked. But the foam did get everywhere and I had to sweep up a bit so little man wouldn't crawl along and eat the foam snow that ended up all around me. I've seen it done with straw before, so I'll leave it up to you. Pros and cons to both methods. 

After having done this, I would definitely recommend you mark where you want your yarn to start and stop to give you a better chance of making the wreath look uniform. I didn't do this til the very end and as a result my wreath is a bit off, but it's not bad.

See my super tiny marks?

Alright, one quarter of the wreath is straight blue, and I wanted red to be the color next to the blue on both sides, so after marking it all out, get wrapping. This takes a while. I just glued down a little bit of yarn and put on a movie and went at it. Now since there is no way to get it to line up evenly since the inner circle will always be smaller than the outside, you will overlap. Try your best to make it look uniform and still keep the yarn straight. I did pull my yarn super taunt on this one, so it could have gone by quicker if I hadn't, but I liked the more polished look it gave to the project. 

 Keep at it for a while, sweeping up and letting your hands take a break every so often till you get 3/4 of the way done with your stripes then do the blue quarter.

Now I bought five big stars, since the little ones ended up looking so much darker than my cream/white yarn, but only ended up using two on the wreath itself. But you could do buttons, smaller stars if available or whatever you happen to think of. The button version of this is pretty cute.

Then just position the stars however you think best and hot glue those suckers on. And Bam! Fourth of July wreath!

You can hang it however you want with ribbon or dangling down. I just glued a strip of ribbon across the back that my hanger can slide into so that a ribbon wouldn't get in the way of the yarn or detract from it in any way.

To also help me get into the Fourth of July spirit I found this adorable printable (HERE) and put it in a white frame I have out for the seasons. Then I made some cute sugar cookies and called it good. The sugar cookies were inspired by this blog (HERE) and I made them using this cookie genius - Sweet Sugar Belle. Her cookie blog is awesome.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!! GO AMERICA!!