Blowing in the Wind: Dandelion shirt and tote project

Here is another craft project courtesy of Pinterest. I swear that site is like crack for crafters! Jen and I got together for a long over due craft day on Sunday and this is the project we made.We used this tutorial. I used a shirt I had at already and had paint brushes on hand. So overall This project cost less than $15.

Supply List:
T-shirt ( anything that isn't to stretchy)
Tote bag (we got ours at Hobby Lobby for $3)
White, green and black fabric paint
Glitter fabric paint
small paint brush
Card Board ( You can get the t-shirt inserts at a craft store or use scraps you have around the house i.e. old diaper box)
Loofah
2 paper plates for your paint

First decide where you are going to want the main part of your Dandelion to be. Make sure to leave plenty of room for your seedlings. If you are doing a shirt I would recommend doing it toward the bottom of the shirt to avoid an awkwardly placed dandelion :) We did ours off to the side to give a blowing in the wind effect.

Dip the loofah in white paint, start out with a very small amount of paint until you get the hang of the technique. Then dab up and down in a slow circular motion. This will form the main part of the dandelion. The center should be more white and gradually fade toward the outer part.

Next using a paint brush draw a stem with the green paint. Start the stem a little bit in your dandelion and slant downwards toward the bottom of your project. The slant will make it look like its blowing in the wind.

With another small paintbrush and white paint add the seedlings. I did mine making a smudged v. I would suggest trying it out on scrap paper before you commit to your project. Start nearest your dandelion and work upward on your shirt or tote. We made the ones on the shirts go up on the shoulder.

Next using the black paint draw little black lines in your seedlings. Angle them at the direction you want the wind to be blowing. It looks best if you start the black in the white part of the seedling.

 Crafting with a one year old is always a good time. Tyler wanted to help so I gave him a plate and a paint brush to play with. He later fell asleep in his high chair. We will work on his crafting stamina.

Ok final step to your project is to add a little sparkle.Make sure the white paint had dried a bit before you start this step. With the glitter paint and a clean paint brush paint in a somewhat circular motion on the main part of your dandelion. The circular motion will help to keep the paint from clumping up. Add a little glitter to the seedlings too.

And now you have a fun summery shirt or tote to enjoy!

I can't wait to Dandelion up some other items in our house! Thanks for checking out my blog, hope you enjoyed the project!

Dress for success

Ive been on a mission to start doing more of the craft projects I have pined on Pinterest. Today's project was creating a dress using a tank top and material for under $10. I got the tank for $3.88 at Walmart and the material cost $4.50. I had to buy to different kinds because the first one was to sheer.

 I used this tutorial in the end. I tried this one but couldn't get the elastic thread to make the ruffle. This is not a 30 min project the first time!! After a couple hours of frustration I went back to the first tutorial and finished my dress. I was going to post pics of each step but in the midst of the anger storm it didn't happen.

Here are the things I learned while attempting this dress project:
- strechy fabric is a pain to work with if you are a novice sewer
- the first tutorial is the easiest to follow
- mid length dress is easier to do than the long maxi
- know how to work your sewing machine and make sure to have the manuel in english if thats your primary language ( for some reason all i could find was the spanish version.)
-Practice makes perfect and for how cheap it was to make, I will most definetly be giving this another try.

Thanks for checking out my latest adventure.

Lace Headbands

Pinterest is going to be the death of me. Instead of doing something productive during my son's nap time Im usually checking out the site for fun projects. Im in love with hair flowers and lace so I thought why not make my own. I used this tutorial for making my flowers http://alyashcreations.blogspot.com/2010/05/see-it-again-saturday-little-lace.html.
I just used spare lace I had around the house. I would recommend the lace trim that has a bit of a curved edge. The regular straight edges is a little hard to work with. The lace I used for the white flower was really thick so I cut it in half using my favorite half for the flower and the other have worked perfect to make the head wrap portion.