DIY Boutique Ruffle Trim Pants

Good Morning!
Fall is getting closer, and I found myself going threw Austin and Hannah's closets. Hannah has grown so much over the summer, it's almost unbelievable. All of her pants are "floods", so I went on a tutorial search for adding ruffles to the hem of pants. This adds more length to the pants, and extends their wear. I really couldn't find much of anything, at least nothing with pictures, so that is what led me to this tutorial. Please keep in mind, I'm a super duper beginner sewer. To be honest, if I can do it, anyone can, seriously - you should see me on a sewing machine, I can't even keep the speed of the presser foot even. Anyway, I'm guessing this little project will save me lots of money down the road, so it's definitely worth the time and effort.

1) Get the jeans you'd like to alter, and the fabric you'd like to use for the ruffle. To figure out how much you need, measure the diameter of the hem of the pants and then multiply that by at least 2, or up to 2.5. This will be your length. Hannah's pants were 12 inches in diameter at the hem, so I chose to cut the fabric piece to 24 inches. I could have gone a bit longer for fluffier ruffles. For the height of your rectangle fabric piece, determine how much length you need to add to your pants. I wanted to add 1.5 inches, so I cut the rectangle to 4 inches in height, and trimmed off an inch from the material of the pants.

• My finished fabric rectangles measured out to be 4" x 24" - cut two of these at the size needed.
  
  

2). Iron, fold and pin down the bottom of each rectangle piece to make the hem.

3) Sew the hem, and then on the top of the fabric, stitch across two rows, the entire length of your fabric (this is for gathering and creating the ruffle). Make sure not to reverse stitch at either end of these rows so that you will be able to manipulate the fabric.

4). Take the top thread from each row in your hand, and slowly slide the fabric down. This will force the fabric strip to ruffle. Be careful not to break the thread, and use short quick pulling motions to gather it. This step takes a bit of time.

5) Once the fabric is gathered down to the length of the original pant hem diameter (Hannah's were 12"), sew the ends together to form circles.

6) Pin the fabric, wrong side facing you, to the bottom of the pants. The right sides of the fabric should be facing each other.

7) Sew along the bottom gathering line to ensure that the gathers won't peak threw once folded over.

8) Flip the ruffle down, and top stitch along the edge of the top of the ruffle to secure it down, otherwise the ruffles will have a tendency to flip up.

There it is! It's really pretty easy, and a forgiving project as well. I made a handful of mistakes along the way, I still think they turned out pretty good.

DIY Cupcake Tower

Good Morning!

I'm excited to share this tutorial with all of you today! My little girl just loves her "berry cake", so for her birthday, I'm trying to stay with a strawberry theme. After searching for a homemade cupcake tower, I finally decided to go my own route, and this is what I came up with. It's pretty easy, but takes about 45 minutes. I think it's worth the time and effort for a custom cupcake tower.

What you need:
Thin cardboard, and pieces large enough to accommodate each circle
Decorative paper (Scrapbook, wrapping, etc...)
Styrofoam block or cylinder
Satin Ribbon
Gorgosian Ribbon
Exacto Knife
Hot Glue Gun
Quick Drying Craft Glue
Plates
Pen

1) Either trace or draw your different sized circles on the cardboard and then also on the paper. We are having a small get together so for us, two tiers will work perfectly. I used a large dinner plate, and then a smaller saucer plate to trace my circles. You could go out and purchase cake boards in the sizes you need, or ask your local pizza place if they have pizza rounds you could buy (the later would probably be cheaper). I chose to make my own rounds by cutting them out with an exacto knife. It helps to go over the pen lines once with medium pressure (also called "scoring", and then going over those lines again to cut threw the piece. Use the exacto knife for the paper as well. If you use cake boards, or pizza rounds, use those to trace onto the paper before cutting.

2) Glue the paper to the cardboard. I used a quick drying craft glue, and started in the center and worked my way around the edges to make sure it stayed smooth.

3) Get your Styrofoam and cut it to the desired shape and size. We only had square pieces, so I cut them down, and glued two together to form the base between the two tiers. If the Styrofoam is a little uneven on the ends, fill the gaps in with glue from your hot glue gun and let harden.

Here's a picture of the two pieces glued together

4) Measure out how much gorgosain ribbon you'll need by wrapping it around the edge of each cardboard piece. Using your hot glue gun, gradually glue the ribbon along the edges. I also used a lighter to burn the end pieces of the ribbon to seal them off.

You should end up with something like this.

5) Take your satin ribbon and glue it down so that the edges line up with the Styrofoam piece, and wrap around until it covers all of the Styrofoam. Glue down the end pieces so that it stays secure. I used the hot glue gun for this as well.

This is an example of my almost finished riser.

6) Finally, hot glue gun the satin wrapped Styrofoam in the center of your base cardboard circle, and then hot glue gun the smaller cardboard circle on top. To make this larger, just continue in the same fashion for smaller or larger circles.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I can't wait to use it this weekend! I'll be sure to share pictures with actual cupcakes on it :)

Take care,

~Lisa

Little Smocked Dress

You are looking at little Miss Hannah Rose's birthday dress, made by, believe it or not, me! To be honest, I can't believe it turned out as well as it did. I followed an online tutorial over at Kojodesigns. I really suggest checking that site out, it's filled with great ideas and easy tutorials (and no, I'm not being reimbursed for saying that, they have no idea who I am).

This is super easy, trust me. It had to be because I really have never sewed much of anything prior to this. You do need to know how to do shirring (mock smocking) with elastic thread - again this is super easy. I followed this tutorial to get me started. I "practiced" on a pillowcase, and that turned into a dress for Hannah, lol. I plan on making more of those and sharing my own tutorial with all of you.

Now I just need to sew some ribbon on a pair of her socks and make a bow hair clip and her outfit will be set. I'll share the steps to making those later this week.

Take care everyone!
~Lisa :)

Homemade Pasta

I love pasta! I could probably eat it everyday. A few months back, we started making our own from scratch and rolling it out by hand. It's laborious, but well worth the effort. Once we decided that this pasta making wouldn't be just an occasional treat, we bought the attachment pieces to the mixer we have to speed up the process a bit.

Here's some pictures of how it's done with the machine, and the family's favorite noodle recipe. Enjoy!

The machine, covered in flour. The recipe we use is stickier than normal, so I have to coat the dough in flour each time I put it in the machine so pieces won't get stuck.

This is the size of the dough ball before it gets flattened out. It's surprising to me still, just how many noodles you get from such a small ball of dough.

Cutting the pasta, after it's been flattened. The flattening process activates the wheat gluten in the flour, which is what creates the smooth texture of the noodle.

Our pasta hanging to dry. I did another batch with basil from our garden in it. I want to use it for our next pasta salad - yum! Here's our recipe, adapted from one I found at allrecipes.com

Noodles:

2.5 Cups flour (we use whole wheat)
1 pinch salt
2 eggs beaten
1/2 Cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter

Stir flour and salt together. Add the liquid ingredients and mix well, then knead dough for 5-10 minutes if not using a pasta roller. Let the dough sit for 10 minutes before rolling out. Cut noodles to desired width and that's it!

Because of the egg and milk in the recipe, you can't dry these out for storage. You can freeze them though. Frozen noodles take about 7-10 minutes to cook in boiling water, and fresh noodles take about 5 minutes to cook in boiling water.

Styrofoam Jet Airplane on a Stick

I thought I would share some pictures of our jet airplane adventure... This was an Austin led craft - and he loved it! Notice how simple it is? Sometimes simplicity is the key (actually, it typically always is...) Anyway, here he is, painting the Styrofoam that we hot glue gunned together to look like a jet (again, his idea) After the paint dried, we stuck a small dowel rod in the bottom and off it went! Hannah of course needed her own shortly after that.

I have to say, though, I was pretty excited how it all started. Chris had just emptied out a box containing a mirror for Hannah's room. As soon as the white squeaky Styrofoam boxes appeared, he instantly declared that he needed them. We asked why and he informed us that "it will be for a craft Momma, a jet airplane, didn't you know?" And so we set them aside, and now he has his plane.

Right Now

I've decided to add a "Right Now" section to this blog. Pretty much just to share what we have going on in our lives right now. This is also a way I'll be able to look back in the future to reminisce.

I can't say that I'm very happy with the overall look and feel of this blog, so I'm still trying to get all of that in order. If every time you visit, it looks a little different, please bear with me, hopefully I'll decide on a decent layout soon.

Life has been busy, when is it not? So sometimes I manage to sit down and write, and sometimes I don't. I'm hoping once the school year starts, things will settle down a bit and I'll fall back into a routine with this. That being said, I'm still crafting away and thinking up new projects for myself and the kids. Below are a few pictures of what we've been up to...

My knitting bag - usually filled with at least two projects at a time.

The hat Austin begged me to make for him. We bought the book Pretty in Punk (you can do the same here), just got the yarn, and hopefully it'll turn out okay. He chose black and green, minus the design.

Recent fabric purchases for my fist attempt at little girl dress making, ruffle additions, and skirt transformations.... I'll keep you posted on that...


Pasta salad with homemade dressing and garden grown veggies, pair this with roasted ranch potato wedges and I have one happy family.

Miss Rose finally taking a nap - poor girl has been sick all week.

Hannah's new smocked dress (a.k.a. - the old pillowcase)

I thought for a split second that maybe I could turn that pillowcase into a cute new top for me. Like I said, a split second.

My little girl just adores shoes, so of course she needed some fancy house slippers. I may be making myself a pair soon.... maybe in a different color though



We'll be back soon I hope. Now it's time to go construct a jet plane out of old packing material, wish us luck!

Natural Hair Build-Up Remover

Commercial haircare products are loaded with synthetic and a lot of times, dangerous ingredients. These, along with styling products build up on the hair shaft. Though it's probably not harmful build-up, it definitely does a number on your hair's shine and manageability.

Apple cider vinegar (ACV) is a known disinfectant and conditioner and can be used on hair. It's too concentrated to use undiluted - so it's suggested to do a 50/50 mix of ACV and water.I decided to give this a try, even though I don't use styling products. I've noticed my hair gets a little life-less for lack of a better term.

It worked wonderfully! I put the mixture in a spray bottle, and sprayed it on my scalp after washing and then all over my hair and let it sit for a minute before rinsing it out and then conditioning (I have very long thick hair and need the extra conditioning - those of you with shorter hair might be able to skip it all together!). The end result was fantastic! I could tell just by touching it that it was super clean, and softer. When my hair dried (I always let it air dry), all of the body came back and it was super shiny. Without saying a word about what I did, some women at work noticed how much better it looked.

I'm sold - and for less than $0.50!

Cleaning up Indoor Air

I have been focusing on indoor air quality over the last few weeks. Studies reveal that the quality of the air in our homes can be up to 3 times as harmful and pollutant filled than the outdoors (and yes, this includes the inner-city). Think about it for a minute, all of the exhaust fumes, pesticides and allergens that are outside - multiply that by three and then shove it into a small contained space and take a deep breath. Yuck. Not to mention the average American spends about 90% of their time indoors.

Some causes of indoor air pollution include (but are not limited to):
- synthetic flooring
- VOC emitting paint (unless it says "Low VOC", you can assume you're getting a pretty hardy dose)
- Air "fresheners" (sprays, plug-ins, candles, etc...)
- Synthetic cleaning products
- Gas stoves and heating
- Furniture glue
- Pet messes
- Personal toiletries (perfumes, hairsprays, nail polish, polish removers, etc...)

The list goes on and on....

Aside from avoidance from some of these (obviously you can not avoid them all), you can add houseplants to each room in your house. Ferns and Orchids are especially good at "greening" up your air. If you have small children and/or animals, be sure to check the safety of the plant before you bring it into your home.

Still want a fragrance?
What better way to add an enticing aroma to your home than to bake fresh bread or cookies. You can also simmer sliced oranges, cinnamon sticks and lemons, or better yet, bake them on a tray at a low temp of about 150-170 degrees in your oven until they are dried out and then use them as potpourri.

Most importantly, open your windows as often as you can, especially in the evening. Outdoor air quality tends to be better late at night while less people are operating vehicles and machinery, and most buildings are shut down.

Exfoliating on the Cheap

Welcome Back!
A few weeks ago, I posted about my face cleaning routine (which is super simple!). In addition to washing with castile soap, I also exfoliate almost everyday during the summer. Part of the reason my skin used to break out so much was because it does not shed the dead layers off like it's supposed to. This is a pretty common problem I found out. So, my quick and practically free solution - Baking Soda! Seriously.

I always have baking soda around the house, we cook with it, clean with it, and now shower with it. It's mildly abrasive, but has been gentle enough on my face, and let me tell you, my skin has started looking amazing!

I just shake a small amount into the palm of my hand, mix with a bit of water, and then massage onto my face after cleaning it. It rinses right off, and you'll feel a difference immediately. This really only costs pennies, and you don't have to worry about chemicals, additives, or anything of that nature because you're just using that one ingredient.

I hope someone finds this helpful. Please let me know by leaving a comment.

Take care everyone!
~Lisa

Colorful Sand Art

Welcome Back!
Today I'm sharing a much over-due kid's craft project. We had a lot of fun with this one, and ended up using it as a center piece on our kitchen table. I hope you enjoy it!

What you need:
Sand (we stole some from our sandbox - I don't think the kids will mind)
Zip closure bags
Food coloring
Funnel or small cups, or both
Toothpick (optional)

1) Put 1-2 cups of sand in a baggie. We did four different colors, so therefor filled up four different bags.

2) Put 4-8 drops of food coloring into each bag and close. Make sure the bag's are completely closed, or you'll have quite the mess on your hands. Shake each bag vigorously until the color is well blended and you don't see any food coloring clumps. The should look like the photo below.

3) Pour the sand in alternating colors, layering them on top of each other, in any way your child wants. If they're old enough, have them do the layering - as well as the shaking above.

4) Here's a shot of our halfway threw. My son asked me to give it teeth, so the only thing I could think of was to stick the toothpick in along the side of the glass to push some of the color down. He seemed pretty happy with that solution. You can see it in the next photo.

5) We then filled it almost to the top with more layers.

6) We found some fake flowers laying around and pushed them in the middle, and now we have a cute little center piece for our table.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and please leave a comment and let me know what you think about the site. Is there something you'd like to see more of? Or less of?

Take care everyone!

~Lisa :)

DIY leather and bead necklace

Hi Everyone!
I'm really excited to share this post with you! One of my favorite things to do when flipping threw magazines is to ask myself if I could make whatever I'm looking at. A lot of times the answer is yes, but for the price tag, it's not worth the time and effort. The last one I came across however completely was. I found this necklace in the August edition of Rachel Ray Magazine, in the Everyday Faves Style section. The necklace they feature is $128! Really?? For a strand of leather and three beads??? It's super cute and will pair well with a white T-Shirt (ignore my outfit in the finished photo - because it really doesn't go with that!) I went out and bought all of my supplies for this, which came to less than $4 dollars - and I could make at least 4 more without spending another dime! So here goes....

What you need:
`Leather string (found in the jewelry section of craft stores)
`Beads of your choice (1 large & 2 small) - make sure the holes in the beads are large enough to fit the leather string
`Scissors

1) Collect your supplies.

2). Cut the sting to the length you'll desire. You will have to fold the string in half and then measure. Be sure to add about and extra inch or two for trimming at the end. String your large bead, and let fall to the bottom center.

3) Tie a knot (looping both ends around your finger and then inside each other) at the top of the large bead, making sure that your end pieces are similar in length. Try and get the knot as close to the bead as possible.

4) Measure where you would like the necklace to fall on you, and then keep your finger in that spot when you remove it. This is where you will make your next knot (again, looping them both around and then threw).

5). Lay the bead down and line up the knots. Place a finger where you want to tie the next knot. Make sure there will be enough room to slide the large bead threw the gap. Then tie your second knot in the same fashion as before.

5) Here is an example of what it should look like:

6) String each small bead onto the ends of the necklace and decide how far down you want them to dangle. Then tie a knot under each bead to secure it in place. Make sure to pull the knots as tight as you can to make sure they won't come undone.

7) Trim your ends and you're done!

That's it! I love it! It only took about 10 minutes start to finish, and saved me $124 dollars (not that I would ever spend that amount on fashion jewelry, but still). Again, I think this will look great with a white tank or Tee - not what I'm wearing in this photo :)