Fabric Flowers {Tutorial}

Hello Blog World,

Got the rest of my house cleaning done so after a lovely lunch with hubby, I dove into my craft room wanting to make something.  After pottering for a while and tidying I came across some magnet backs and thought hmm I know what I can do.

So I delved into my extensive fabric stash that I scored from my sister in law a while back, picked out some little scraps.



Looked it over and was originally going to make a flower like I did for my teacup, but realised none of the scraps were long enough, so I remember seeing a flower done with circles, so I went about cutting out a few circles about 2” wide out of these beauties, oh and some felt.



You then just grab one circle fold it in half wrong sides together and then fold it in half again.


And then just sew it down to your felt ( you could also use hot glue, but I prefer to sew it, I think it gives it a much nicer look and without the mess)



Then sew the other 4 circles on in the same fashion and then a button, bead or brad through the centre and hot glue a magnet on the back. Wah Lah



A bit of advice though, originally I cut the felt the same size as my fabric circles but it was a bit big and you could see it underneath the pretty fabric, so cut it a bit smaller than your fabric circles. 1/2” around should do it.

I was really happy with the result so I wanted to make another one but in a different colour.  So I went digging through my stash again and got out some blacks, but then found one that was long enough for my ruffled flower, so this is my second magnet of the day.



It’s scraps from the quilt I am making at the moment.  I love black and whites, very classy. This time I sewed a plain white button in the centre.  If anyone is interested on how to do this flower let me know and I will post a  how to, and if anyone has any questions about the circle flower just ask I am more than happy to help.

I will leave you today with a picture of both my pretty magnets that are proudly holding up my daughters soccer tournament info on my fridge.



Until then Happy Crafting

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I Party Here

Sleeping Eye Mask Pattern

Hello Blog World, 

I think I must be getting precious in my old age, I am finding it hard to sleep in with any light coming through, and as we live in Sunny QLD with no daylight savings (something about the cows not knowing when to come and get milked GO FIGURE?) the light comes shining through our glass doors about 4AM in summer, and we really can’t afford block out blinds.

So I searched high and low on boxing day for a sleeping eye mask and couldn’t find one so I came home and thought well I will just make one.  I am on holidays at the moment and I want to sleep in!!!!

^{Check out my beautiful model my daughter Tiana}

So I grabbed some dark fabrics out that I thought would be good for blocking out the sun.

Some black satin fabric for the inside of the eye mask and some dotty black cotton fabric for the outside of the eye mask.  I also added some batting in the middle for a bit of cushion.

Then I roughly drew the shape that I wanted.

Don’t worry that’s not the finished pattern, you can get that the end of this post.

Once I had the shape I was happy with I cut it out and placed on the fold of the material like so.

Here you can either pin the pattern piece on and snip around it like I did, or if you are more comfortable you can trace around the pattern with a fabric fade away pen then cut.

Make sure you put this pattern piece on the fold of the material that way when it opens up you will have you shape.

You will cut out one for the front material, one for the back and one out of batting.

They may seem a bit big at the moment but the pattern does include a 1/4” seam allowance.

At this point pop your three pieces of fabric aside and concentrate on the back. 

( I forgot to take photo’s of this bit sorry) But basically measure some elastic around your head, I cut mine about 13” but I have a big head and didn’t want it too tight. Once your happy with your measurements cut.  If you are using a nice elastic you can leave it at this point, or I only had white elastic on hand so with the dotty fabric I cut a 2” wide strip about 16” long, made a tube by sewing up one side of the fabric, quickly stiched the elastic to either end and turned the tube the right way. The longer you make your tube the more ruffly it is.  I will leave this up to your discretion.

Once all your pieces are cut out and your back tie is done, please iron your material, I cannot stress this enough, I hate ironing but when I sew I always iron, it just gives a much better finish.

Now we start piecing our bits together.

Start with your batting, back piece right side up, slip your back tie in one side then front material right side down, tucking in the back tie into the middle of your stack, make sure you pin the back tie on the opposite side and that it’s tucked in nice and neat so you don’t accidentally sew it where it shouldn’t be sewn.

Then basically go around your stack, make sure you leave a hole I left a hole just down the bottom this is so you can turn it out once sewn.

Once it’s turned out you have a hole left, at this point you can either slip stitch the hole shut or give it another good iron, tucking in the material at the hole as you go, then top stitch all the way around.  I chose to top stitch as I like the finished look.  Once that’s done your new sleeping eye mask is complete.  WAH LAH!!!

Front Outside

Back Inside

There you go, one sleeping eye mask.  I am really proud of myself I must admit as I am fairly newish to sewing and this is the first thing I have ever made without a pre-bought or downloaded pattern.  I know you experts out there are thinking well that’s easy but to me it wasn’t.  So I decided to share the pattern with all you lovely people, you can get it in PDF from HERE.  If you do make it let me know, I would love to know what you all think and if the experts out there have any suggestions on how to make it better again let me know!!!  Also being my first ever be kind and forgive me if I have made any mistakes.

So to download your pattern click HERE, now I think I might get around to doing some drawing today.  Until then Happy Crafting.

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I often link up at these parties

Gift Card Box Tutorial

Hello Blog World,

What a busy Saturday, haven’t done any more Christmas shopping that will have to be tomorrow.  Today I have been a busy little beaver making gift boxes and gift tags (that will be later)



The two boxes are for gift cards, I wanted something different  to an envelope and then I found this perfect box tutorial from Heather Bailey



Unfortunately the PDF instructions wouldn’t work (error not found) and I couldn’t find anything else like it so I winged it and made it up as a I went along so I thought I would share how to do it with everyone else.

Please forgive me as this is my first how to so if I mess it up or forget anything please let me know, oh also I did this in inches for my American friends but as I am not good with that system I am just saying what I saw on my ruler, but I did take a few pictures so hopefully that helps. If you need anything clarified please do not hesitate to contact me.

So based on the photo above from Heather Bailey I did some measuring around my gift card, which also happened to be an iTunes card.




You will need for the bottom tray
A 4” x 5” piece of cardstock

Score cardstock at 11/16’s of an inch on all 4 sides and fold on all folds.
Cut vertical score lines to create flaps like below




Put double sided adhesive on what would be the top of cardstock on the flap you’ve just made.



Flip up score lines and glue on the inside of the tray.  That is you tray complete.


Pretty easy hey?

For the outside sleeve take a piece of cardstock 7 7/16” x 3 3/4” on landscape score at the following intervals

3/4”
3 1/2”
4 3/16”
6 7/8”

Fold on all score lines.
Once you have done this you will see it forming together.  Use double sided adhesive on what would be the top of your cardstock in the first score space at 3/4”, fold the cardstock around and form your sleeve and glue the flap to the inside.

^{ignore the second score line from the tape (that was when I was measuring and testing)}

Now slip the tray into the sleeve and embellish as you like!





Wah Lah little gift card boxes completed!!

So you could use this for jewellery, gift cards, any other little thing really. You could use patterned paper and really pretty it up but as mine if for a boy, I left it pretty simple.  Or you could go even plainer and wrap it if you want.

I did find my first one a bit loose so when I was embellishing I decided to make a belly band to stop the tray from sliding out and then I added a monogram gift tag that I made using the same card stock and tied it on to the belly band with some twine. 

I also have another nephew who we are giving a gift card to so I made another one in different colours, just to test my measurements out.




His name also starts with B, believe it or not, and because I used a dark cardstock I added a square of white cardstock on the inside of the gift tag so we could write in it.

Here they are together




All in all I am very proud of myself so I even went and made a box for my friend’s gift.   That’s for tomorrow (hehe evil grin)

I hope this all made sense, if anyone has suggestions on how to do it better let me know.  Also if anyone out there does use these instructions let me know I would love to see it!!!

Well now I need to go finish some more gift tags and make a start on some hand made gifts. Until then Happy Crafting.

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I often link up at these parties