Fabric Yo-Yos & an Art Box

Last month I participated in an art collection curated by the Columbia Festival of the Arts. The collection was called 'Boxes and Bowls'; as you can imagine, the two types of art pieces featured in the collection were wooden boxes & wooden bowls. Artists living in the city of Columbia, and the surrounding areas, were asked to participate in the collection. All our pieces, were featured at the Columbia Festival of the Arts, and then for the remainder of June the collection traveled around to other arts festivals in the area. 

I chose to art-up one of the wooden boxes for the collection. After a few days of hanging out with the plain wooden box, inspiration stuck and I decided to decorate the box with fabric yo-yos and vintage buttons. Half the fabric I used for the yo-yos was vintage fabric from my stash, and half of the fabric was modern designer fabric. 

From this project I have drawn inspiration for anther product I am thinking of adding to my etsy shop!

Please stay tuned for more exciting items to hit my shelves!  

Blog Hop

Good morning! I've been away from the blog for a few days because I spent this past weekend working at Artscape! Artscape is the largest free arts festival in the US, and it also happens to be held in Baltimore! 

The entire weekend was a success. Everybody I got a chance to chat with was super excited to be attending Artscape, despite the torrential rain storms on Friday and Saturday. Now that the excitement of the festival has passed, I am back to working my day job, and getting lots of exciting things done in my studio.

I have no fun blog post for you today, but I have decided to link with with one of my favorite blogs, 3 Four and Under, in her weekly blog hop.

Please feel free to check out her blog and the rest of the awesome blogs participating in the link up today!

ETSY Seller Feature: Friends Of Socktopus

Happy Friday to all my lovely readers!

I will be the first to say it, I just love all things cute and cuddly. That is why I am so excited to share this etsy shop with you today. 

Friends of Socktopus makes and sells the most adorable soft toys made of socks and other fabrics. The cuteness does not stop there though; they also sell other baby-related items like bonnets for those sunny days, bouncy mobiles, and cozy fabric bunting.

   

Here are some of my favorites from the shop. Please, do not try to contain yourself. The cuteness will overwhelm you, and that is okay. =)

Aren't they all just lovely. 

Please check out this super-cute shop today and support handmade!

~

One last reason to love this shop: While I'm sure the similarity is unintentional, the name Socktopus reminds me of my most favorite awful SyFy movie. And that, my friends, is just awesome.

Summer Sewing Challenge - Sweatshirt Skirt

Good morning everyone!

Today's installment of my Summer Sewing Challenge is one of my favorites. Now, though this skirt was handmade by me, I did not make it this summer. This skirt was one of my very first DIY re-fashions. I believe I made it in either 2002 or 2003. Maybe 2001, who knows; it was a loooooong time ago! But it still remains one of my favorites! 

When I was younger I used to go to the thrift store around once or twice a week. On one of those thrifting adventures I found an XL Girl Scout sweatshirt. I was a life-long girl scout so I knew I had to take that sweatshirt home with me and make it into something awesome.

Since this re-fashion was so long ago, many of the exact steps elude me. Basically, I cut off the sleeves, the elastic bottom hem, and the elastic neck area. I took in the sides a bit, sewed a simple waist casing, and threaded through a neon green XXXL shoelace to use as a drawstring. Since sweatshirt material does not fray, I chose not to hem this gem.

Since the skirt *is* made from a sweatshirt, it may be a little warm for many of the hotter days of summer. However, on not-so-hot summer days, and especially those windy days in the spring time, this skirt is so cute!

I hope you have been inspired to create a sweatshirt skirt of your own for this summer!  

The Facts 

Fabric: Thrifted Girl Scout sweatshirt
Pattern: Self-Drafted (Hack away at the sweatshirt until it looks like a skirt!)

Year: 2012

Notions: Thread, neon green shoelace
Time to complete: ?? I'm sure not very long

First worn: 2002-ish
Wear again? Yes! I love this skirt

Total Cost: Probably about $1.00

Summer Sewing Challenge - Maxi Skirt

Hello, readers! Here is the newest addition to my me-made summer wardrobe. 

A fun & slinky 100% rayon jersey ikat print maxi skirt! I whipped this up in less than three hours. I made a simple casing around the waist and used 1/2 inch elastic. I didn't even hem it because the jersey material won't ravel. Hooray for jersey!  

The Facts 

Fabric: 3/4 yard rayon jersey from Joann's. The skirt ended up being a bit short though (due to only using 3/4 yard of fabric!) so the next time I'm at Joann's I'm going to buy another 1/4 yard to make a ruffle on the bottom hem.

Pattern: Self-Drafted (2 rectangles sewn together. So easy.)
Year: 2012

Notions: Thread, elastic

Time to complete: Less than 3 hours!

First worn: Last week

Wear again? Yes! (After I lengthen it.)
Total Cost: About $8-ish

Sew, Mama, Sew!

My favorite online store to buy fabric from is sponsoring another of their fun activities!

I've created a Pinterest board to collect my favorite fabrics that I would create a beach blanket from. After the contest is over, the fun people at Sew,Mama,Sew! then get to pick their favorite pin board to win. 

Click on the picture to check out the rest of the contest!

Blue Flowers!

Happy 4th of July!

Bottle Cap Mirror - Finished!

After many months of selling fine beer at the restaurant I work at, I have finally collected enough pretty & interesting bottle caps to finish my bottle cap mirror! (Disclaimer: I *did* have a little help from some work friends in collecting some of the bottle caps. Sharing is caring.)

To give you a reminder, this is what it looked like back in March when I began this project. I seriously underestimated the number of caps I needed to cover the entirety of the tiny mirror I picked out for this project. I specifically wanted something small, but it still required 72 caps! That is a lot of delicious beer!  

For this project I only wanted to use the caps from delicious beers (and a couple hard ciders). Sorry, jumbo Miller Lite cap, you no good for me.

And...it is finished!

I loved how it turned out. The hot pink I used for the main part of the mirror added the perfect pop of color. This project was very simple; the most difficult and time consuming part was collecting enough caps! After I spray painted the hot pink color onto the mirror I used my trusty hot glue gun to affix the caps, and that was it. This is the perfect project to use up all those bottle caps you will undoubtedly acquire after that big 4th of July party. I hope you will be inspired to create sometime unique and kind of kitschy for your home.

Thanks for reading!  

Summer Sewing Challenge - Maxi Skirt

Happy Monday to everybody!

This is the first maxi skirt I have ever made, or worn. When maxi skirts came into popularity last season I was not quick to jump on the band wagon. Sometime between last summer and this summer I've decided that I really like the casual, boho vibe that maxi shirts offer. I'd like to make a couple more for this summer because this one was super easy to whip up! The most time consuming part was finishing all the edges of each patchwork piece.

The Facts 

Fabric: Three different vintage '80s/'90s fabrics from my stash. The waistband was made from navy cotton canvas I had in my stash.
Pattern: Self-Drafted (with inspiration from this tutorial)
Year: 2012

Notions: Thread, zipper

Time to complete: About 5 or 6 hours. Finishing all the edges of the patchwork pieces was a pain.

First worn: Sometime in May. I worked on it for two days, and wore it out the day I finished it.

Wear again? Yes!

Total Cost: Less than 2 bucks!