Headbands

I've owned these cheap headbands from Walmart since my senior year of high school which was about three years ago... and never wore them since I bought the whole pack just so I could have one of the colors for school dance I was going to. Anyways, I never wear them, and all my headbands break on me since I probably have a big head, so I decided to re-do some of these headbands so I could have more options to wear.

First off, I want to state that I am no where near perfect, and a lot of the time, my projects turn out pretty crappy, so the second headband you'll be seeing is one of those. 

Items needed: 

Headband

Trim or ribbon

hot glue (not E6000 like I first tried out)

First, I decided which headband and trim I wanted to use, and I thought these two made a good combo.

 I laid it out against the headband to see where I wanted the design, and to also make sure that I would have enough to do it. Once I got it aligned, I started hot gluing the sides down. I wish I would have hot glued the top, but I didn't in fear of the glue seeping through.

I burned my fingers...a lot... so if you're going to use a trim or ribbon like this that has holes throughout, please wear gloves or something to protect yourself from getting those nasty burns. Here's what it looked like half way through. I really should have taken a photo of my fingers as well. ;)

 And she's done! I just cut off the extra fraying parts, and she was done. I love the pattern on this one and the blue peeking through.

 Now, on this one, I thought I was being super clever by using ribbon that was just a tad bit wider than the headband, and I would just glue the tiny edges down as well. That's where this all went wrong...

 I was smart though and glue the top down! It made it a lot easier to handle, and it made the headband smooth as well.

 This is what she looked like before I glued those tiny sides down....yeah... don't do that. I definitely got burned more than I did with the last one, and I will not be wearing this headband. Sometimes things just don't work out, and that's okay. :) Later on I did try this method out again, but instead of just covering the outside in ribbon, I did the inside as well and glue those side pieces together. This worked out SO much better, and it actually looks pretty professional if I do say so myself. I'll have to post a picture later.

Repurposed Crate Box

Katie here! It's been over a year since one of us posted any projects...life gets really busy, so sorry about that.

There are many pluses to working at Hobby Lobby; one being that we have a clearance section once a year that some items get discounted to a ridiculously low price, and then getting my employee discount on top of that. So therefore, I bought this ugly crate because it had great bones (Sorry the quality isn't that great). I believe I spent about $5.00 on it, not including the materials I used to fix it up.

 I decided that the blue was too much and that I wanted to add a little bit of the color from the piece of paper that I bought to cover the design on the back, so I painted the corners white. This was really tedious... I had to use a tiny paint brush because the lines needed to be straight, and I didn't want it to look sloppy. See?! look at those beautiful bones! The white really made it pop, in my opinion.

 Next, I initially was going to try to mod podge the paper into the inside, and decided that the paper I chose wasn't going to work with mod podge really well because it was very thin; almost like wrapper paper. So I used Elmer's tacky spray, and it worked amazingly!

 And she's done! I decided to hang it up in the bathroom that my sister and I share, to put toilet paper in to. It works wonderfully and adds some creativity into our bathroom!

T-Shirt Quilt

Hello again everyone, this is Katie!

During Christmas break this past December, I was really contemplating what I was going to do with all of my shirts that I had left over from high school. I didn't want to throw them a way, but I also was tired of wearing them as sleeping shirts. So, of course, me being the crafty girl that I like to think I am, I went surfing on Pinterest to see if there was anything I could do with my old shirts so I could still use them in a different way; that's when I found a post about making a T-Shirt quilt!

I loved the pattern of hers, but the directions weren't all that great, sooooo.... I winged it. And I TOTALLY do not recommend doing so; it caused me a lot of unnecessary stress! I love the way that everything turned out, but I probably will never make a quilt again; at least not the way that I did this one.

Here's some supplies that might come in handy to make your own:

• Sewing machine
• Matching sewing thread
• Scissors
• T-Shirts
• Bed Sheet
• Batting
• Straight Pins
• Yarn 
• Ruler
• Pen

 So first off, you need to decide what shirts you would like to use, and cut them into the desired shapes of your choice. I did 4x4 squares, 4x8 rectangles, and then my main pieces were the designs on my shirts which varied. I laid out the pattern and how I wanted it to look, and then took separate sections and sewed them all together one section at a time.

 Next I bought a twin size black sheet, and measured where I should cut it to fit with the front of my quilt. I then cut the batting to fit the front, and left my black sheet a little bit wider than the front so I could wrap the batting inside of it, and sew them together.

 Here are pictures of how it looked pinned to the batting while I was sewing it, and after.

Next, I pinned the front of my quilt to the back, with the padding that was showing in the middle. I left a black edge around the front to give it more of a classier, and quilt-like feeling.

 I decided to sew the front on with a zig-zag stitch because I felt like it would hold on better to the rest of the fabric. This picture is just to kind of show you that I am NOT the best seamstress, and you don't have to be either. Your project doesn't have to be perfect for you to be happy about what you have accomplished.  

Yay! One last step! And this one I guess could also be optional, but I did it for extra reinforcement. I bought a needle that would fit yarn through the end, and tied knots on random corners throughout my quilt. 

 Voila! I am so happy with the way that it tuned out, and am proud of all the little imperfections that it does have; no one else has the same one as me.(: