Quick and easy homemade Valentines

I've been trying to decide what to do for Valentine's Day cards.  I didn't want to spend a lot of time, but I kind of wanted to make some homemade cards with the kids.  I tried finding some ideas on Pinterest, but everything I saw was pretty complicated, and I really didn't want to invest a lot of time or money.  So I came up with a simple, fast, and inexpensive (I spent $0) card for us to make.

Step 1: I pulled out my Cricut and found a nice fat heart shape on my Tie the Knot cartridge.  Then I cut out (using the "real size" setting) three 3" hearts and three 2.5" hearts out of each 6"x12" piece of paper (I cut out 48 of each in all).  If you don't have a Cricut, you can just cut out the number of hearts you need by hand.

Step 2: I folded down the very top of the 2.5" hearts, using my bone folder (aka creasing tool) to help make the fold cleaner.

Step 3: I printed out some simple phrases to match the paper ("I'm wild about you" to go with the animal print and "I think you're SUPER" to go with the super hero themed print) with each of the children's names.  Then I used one of the 2.5" hearts as a template and cut these phrases out (if you line them up right, you can cut out a few hearts at once).  Then, I glued the 2.5" phrases hearts centered on top of the 3" heart.

Step 4: Then I glued just the top folded portion of the original 2.5" hearts on top (making sure that it lined up on top of the phrases heart).

Step 5: After the top heart dried, the flap was sticking up, so I got out the heaviest book I own, The Complete Shakespeare anthology, and put it on top of the cards to press down the flap.  I left this over night, but 15 minutes would probably be fine.

Step 6: The final product: 42 homemade Valentine's cards.

The whole project took me about an hour and a half including conception of design (of course not counting the overnight squishing down of the flap), and I made it using all materials I had on hand!

I did leave a few undone, so that the boys can help me put a few together this morning, because I want them to feel like they helped make their classmates' Valentine's cards.

Customized Labels, Part II

I was so excited to check the mail today and find a white envelope from Spoonflower.com because I knew that my customized fabric for making my labels was in there.

As a reminder, I mentioned before that I read a cool tutorial for making your own labels off the Cold Hands Warm Crafts blog spot.  And couldn't wait to make my own.

And here they are!!

They actually came out a little bigger than I'd expected.  But, I think it is because I was so worried about making them too small.  Really, the bigger labels are perfect for putting on the back of a large project, like a tshirt quilt, however, I will probably go back and order some smaller ones for other projects.

Don't they look fabulous?

Valentine's Day Wreath

I don't usually decorate for Valentine's day, but I came across this simple and sweet wreath the other day on and I thought I could easily pull off something similar.

andersonfamilycrew.blogspot.com

I found this wreath for $1 at Goodwill today.  Then I wrapped it with some ribbon I had left over from the boys birthday (grandma tied gigantic bows on their new bikes).  Finally, I cut out the letters and hearts out of white felt and stitched around their edges in red zig zag.

Success!

Tooth Fairy Pillows

As I mentioned before, I was super stoked to get an embroidery sewing machine for Christmas.

One thing that I'm loving doing with it is making in the hoop projects.

In the hoop projects (aka ITH) are little embroidery projects that are completed entirely within the space of your embroidery hoop.  Now, because my hoop is only 4x4, that limits the type of projects I'm going to be making, but there are still lots and lots of options.

One website I found that has a ton of very cool and reasonable priced designs to download is SWAK Embroidery.  They have little "hair pretties", play food, tags, and lots and lots of pockets.  One pocket that immediately struck my eye was a tooth pocket for $7.50.  I could just imagine it being used to make cute tooth fairy pillows for my boys and my friends' kids.  So I downloaded it, and about 20 minutes later, I had a little tooth pillow!  Or as my kids like to call it a "Mr. Happy Pants".  (They think it's a very happy pair of white pants).

Next, I found some cute material and started embroidering names.  Then I grabbed some stuffing and some ribbons, and before I knew it, I had a little pile of tooth fair pillows!

Here are some of the pillows I've made so far.

Front

Back

Front

Back

Front

Back

Aren't these too cute?  I'm excited for my boys to start losing their teeth in the next year, just because I am looking forward to them using theirs!

And how great is the idea to hang them on the door knob?  I'd much rather retrieve the tooth this way than from under their sleeping heads, risking waking them.  But for those who prefer the old fashioned way, you can just use the handle for displaying it when not in use!

New Blog!

About a year ago, I started blogging.  When I first started, I wasn't sure exactly what I was going to blog about, but figured it would revolve around my life as a mother, specifically a mother of twins.  So, I called the blog: Twinfamous (rhymes with infamous).

A year later, I'm realizing that I'm blogging more and more about the crafts I've made, and projects I'm working on. And I've even opened my own Etsy page and Facebook fan page.  At this point, I feel like the right thing to do is to start a new blog for my crafting, using the same name I use on Etsy and Facebook, Do It Myself Crafts, to keep it consistent.

I will be importing in my craft related posts from Twinfamous.  And for now on, all of my craftsy posts will come here, and my personal posts (life, love, motherhood, etc) will go there.

Voila!

So, as I said before (and before), I have been working on a tshirt quilt using my old tshirts.  The oldest one dates back to 1997, my freshman year of college. Most of the shirts are from my undergraduate years, places I worked, clubs I was in, etc.  Then I have a few from graduate school and different universities I've worked at, a few from family reunions, and even scraps from a favorite pair of pajamas. :)  The quilt includes 25 tshirts in all, and the finished size is approximately 60 x 85.

Here are the pictures of the completed tshirt quilt.  I'm so happy with how it turned out!

Completed Quilt

Close up of block

Close up of block

Close up of block

Back of Quilt

Close up of back (you can really see the detail of the free arm quilting

T-shirt Quilt, take 2

It's amazing how quickly I can put a project together when I'm in the right mood!

My college/sorority/grad school/etc tshirt quilt is almost done!  I just have to put on the binding, and then I'm finished!

Quick tip: To save time on cutting/sewing a backing together, I went to Bed, Bath, & Beyond and found a set of red Twin XL Pure Beech® Jersey Knit Sheets on sale for 19.99, and then used my $5 off purchase of $15 or more coupon (so if you do that math, I got the sheet sheet set for $14.99 plus tax!).  And it was already the perfect size for my quilt!  I just had to trim it up a bare minimum after basting the layers together.

I've never bought jersey from JoAnne/Hobby Lobby before, but I'm going to guesstimate that it is about 4.99/yard(?!?).  And I would probably have had to buy 4 yards, because I'm assuming the width wouldn't be long enough on it's own.  Then I would have had to sewn 2 yards to 2 yards to make a bigger block.  So, that would have been 19.96, but if I had a 40% off coupon, it would have ended up around $12.  But, here is why my sheets set is STILL a better deal... I still have a whole fitted sheet and pillow case left over!!  Not to mention I saved time!

I can think of a million things to do with all of that extra (and did I mention how super soft it is?) bright red fabric.  In fact, I have a certain maxi dress tutorial pinned right now, that I think would look great in red.

http://imperfectlypolished.com/