DIY - DIA DE LOS MUERTOS CHERRY PIT PILLOW

In the spirit of Halloween I made this little 'Dia de los Muertos' - themed cherry pit pillow out of fabric scraps left over from

one of my sisters projects. We kept the cherry pits after making cherry jam this past summer.

Passend zu Halloween habe ich dieses 'Dia de los Muertos' - Kirschkernkissen genäht. Der Stoff ist ein Überbleibsel von einem vergangenen Projekt meiner Schwester. Die Kirschkerne sind noh vom Sommer als wir Marmelade gemacht haben.

Aber damit zum Creadienstag und zum Upcycling Tuesday.

IS IT HALLOWEEN YET?

This is one of my first post in a while, we used the summer months to visit Russells parents in California, travel, and plan our wedding. Now that we are back in Germany I want to share my latest project: A Halloween Wreath.

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and I love to get an early start... This year I made a wreath out of straw, fabric scraps from past projects, and a bat out of jeans cut offs.

Wir sind diesen Sommer zurück nach Kalifornien geflogen um Russell's Eltern zu besuchen, zu reisen und unsere Hochzeit zu planen, daher ist dies einer meiner ersten Posts seit ein paar Monaten. Da wir aber jetzt wieder da sind, möchte ich mein neustes DIY Projekt mit euch teilen: Ein Halloween Türkranz.  Halloween ist einer meiner liebsten Feiertage und sobald es Herbst wird fang ich an zu schmücken, so auch dieses Jahr... Den Kranz hab ich aus einem Stroh Kranz, Stoffresten und einer Fledermaus aus Jeansresten gebastelt.

Und ab damit zum Creadienstag und zum upcycle tuesday.

DIY - HEARTS OF FABRIC SCRAPS

Don't you have a bunch of fabric scraps from other projects just sitting around? I do and I decided to give them a new purpose today: Little Hearts.

I just grabbed two somewhat matching fabrics, leftover christmas ribbon, my scissors, tracing paper, a pencil, yarn, filling, and my sewing machine and I got to work.

I traced two hearts and added a .5 inch seam allowance. Then I cut out a total of 12 hearts, 6 of each fabric, 3 of each size, sewed them together, right sides together, added the ribbon, turned them around, filled them and closed the turning hole. And taaada: 6 beautiful hearts.

Habt ihr auch so viele Stoffreste von anderen Näh-Projekten? Ich habe heute entschieden, ein paar von den Stoffresten zu nutzen und etwas neues aus ihnen zu machen, und zwar kleine Herzen.

Dafür habe ich mir zwei Stoffe geschnappt, die einigermaßen zusammen passten, Weihnachtsband, meine Schere, Pauspapier, einen Bleistift, Garn, Füllwatte und meine Nähmaschine und hab losgelegt.

Zuerst habe ich zwei unterschiedlich große Herzen abgepaust und mit 1cm Nahtzugabe ausgeschnitten. Dann habe ich insgesamt 12 Herzen, 6 von jedem Stoff, 3 von jeder Größe, ausgeschnitten. Dann habe ich sie rechts auf rechts zusammengenäht und das Band eingenäht, sie rumgedreht, gefüllt und das kleine Loch zum Wenden zugenäht.

Und taaadaaa: schon hat man 6 wunderschöne Herzen.

Und ab damit zum Creadientag, Upcycling Tuesday und Herzenssachen.

DIY - PAINT SWATCH COLLAGE

For the wedding we got a bunch of paint swatches to find the perfect color scheme. After we made our picks I was stuck with all these paint swatches that I won't use so I decided to use them for an art project. And here is what I decided on: A Heart-Collage!

Als es darum ging Farben für die Hochzeit zu finden haben wir im Baumarkt diese Farbstreifen mitgenommen. Jetzt, da wir unsere Farben haben, hab ich all die übergebliebenen Streifen und keinen Nutzen dafür. Daher dachte ich, dass ich eine Herz Collage aus den Resten mache...

Here some of the designs that I tried before the heart.

Hier ein paar andere Designs die ich ausprobiert habe.

And here is the final result :) 

Und hier dann das Resultat! Ab damit zum Creadienstag und zum Upcycle Tuesday!

UPDATE: Jutta sammelt auf ihrem Blog Glückskiste 'Herzenssachen' und hat mich gefragt, ob ich nicht mitmachen will. Mach ich natürlich gerne! Danke Jutta.

SEWING A BATHROBE

I am currently starting a gift pile for our nephew. He is just too cute to not spoil with huge amounts of gifts ;)

Since I love sewing and I refashion I decided to sew this Bathrobe out of this months Burda magazine. Here is their version of it:

You can find the pattern here.

Mine is going to be made out of this old towel:

And this cute whale fabric:

It is still in progress. I still have to sew on the pockets and finish all the seams... But here is what i have so far:

And off to this weeks Creadienstag :)

I DID IT!

I finally went out, bought some fabric and made use of the sewing machine my mum gave to me. It took me longer than I thought it would, but I never gave up on the thought of starting sewing back up once I moved back to Germany. So when I found a cute pattern and amazing fabrics I finally sat down and did it. And I'm pleased with the outcome.

Hope on over to creadienstag for more creativity!

DIY - T-SHIRT PRINT

I am obsessed with stripes. Naturally my closet is filled with striped tee's, skirts, dresses and sweaters. 99% of them are store bought. When I saw the cute tutorial Liz of C&C posted I went ahead and bought some fabric paint. Here is what I did:

1. I took a grey shirt that I bought a while ago, but never wore, some black and metallic fabric paint, a paint brush and some painters tape. 

2. Then I outlined the stripes with the tape.

3. Staying within the outlines I started painting the stripes onto the shirt.

4. To give it a special feel I made one of the stripes metallic instead of black.

5. I let the paint dry.

6. Took of the tape and ironed over the shirt to fix the paint.

Check out Creadienstag for more cute and fun DIY projects.

DIY - STATEMENT NECKLACE

I found the inspiration for this Statement Necklace on one of my favorite blogs A Beautiful Mess. I love the idea of using Parachute Rope, but I wanted mine to be a little more nautical. So I went to Michael's and bought the following:

2 Packages of Hemp Rope
1 Package of thin Hemp Rope
1 Clasp
1 Necklace

You will also need:

Fabric or Electrical Tape
Scissors
Handheld Wire Cutters

Start with cutting the rope into 8 inch pieces and aligning an even number of ropes on the table.

Then braid the rope pieces. Be careful and keep the braid flat, like this: 

Close both sides of the necklace with electrical tape.

I added a little charm for the looks.

Then you add your clasp onto the necklace and connect the necklace to the rope. After that you have  a cute nautical rope necklace.

Re-fashion: Inspiration for this weekend

What a crazy busy week. It has all been leading up to the big event, Russell's birthday tomorrow. So I haven't gotten around to my refashion yet. But I will definetely do something this weekend. My fingers are itching and there are so many cute refashion projects out there.

I wanted to share some of my inspiration for my next projects with you guys. I usually hang out on  pinterest and two of my favorite refashion blogs Merricks Art and Cotton & Curls to find inspiration for my next project. These two projects are currently on my to-do list:

Making a plain white t-shirt into a cute polka dot shirt.

Or making a man's polo shirt into a sailor striped shirt.

For more inspiration check out my DIY pinterest board, it has a bunch of re-fashion, easy sewing, and other DIY's.

Happy Friday!

Re-Fashion: Starting Easy

When sorting through my closet I had some items that I was not ready to get rid of but I also couldn't wear anymore, so they went on the re-fashion pile. One of those items was my favorite sweater, that unfortunately landed in the dryer, so it went from huge, cozy, and soft to tiny, hard, and un-comfy. I can't throw it away yet, so I decided to take off its arms and make gloves out of them.

The tiny sweater...

Take off the arms...

Measure the size

Sew it right sides together

turnaround...taaadaaaa.