Cutting Cricut glitter iron-on vinyl with a Silhouette Cameo

My daughter requested a mermaid party for her birthday this year, and I had so much fun making it special for her!  I knew she'd love wearing a special birthday outfit, so I made a glittery mermaid shirt and gathered skirt out of mermaid fabric.

I have a Silhouette Cameo (a fun little machine that cuts custom shapes), but I could only find Cricut glitter heat transfer vinyl at Michael's.  I figured it would be similar enough to be able to use in my Silhouette Cameo.  WARNING!  The pre-set Silhouette settings are wayyyy off!  I immediately ruined my cut board and about half my vinyl.  Lesson learned...do a small test cut first!

To save you the same heartache, here are the settings I used:

Ratchet depth: 3
Cut Speed: 4
Thickness: 10
Double Cut: Yes

It was super easy to weed, didn't cut through the vinyl backing, and definitely didn't ruin another cut board.

To make the mermaid, I Googled for images of mermaids.  I wanted a mermaid that was pretty but not sexy.  I used Silhouette Studio to trace the mermaid and make a cut file.  Then I cut her out of Cricut iron-on glitter using the cut settings above.  I ironed the mermaid onto a plain white shirt, and voila!  Special party shirt!!!

For reference, the shirt is a size 3, and the mermaid is 7" tall.

Mommy and Me skirts for Mother's Day

Hello there!  I wanted to pop in with a quick post about the Mommy & Me skirts I just made for Mother's Day!  This is a great sewing project for someone with beginner-level skills or someone looking for an adorable end product without spending a ton of time!  It's all straight lines!

I used this blog for the pattern, and it was so easy to follow!  The only change I made was to include more fabric in the hem, giving me the option to lengthen the skirt as my daughter grows.  My other suggestion is to only multiply the waist measurement by 1.25x - 1.5x for an adult skirt, as mine came out very full.  For my daughter I used the full 45" fabric width, which was a little more than 2x her waist.

The fabric is Paparounes in Crimson, and I bought it at Bobbie Lou's Fabric Factory.  I love her curated collection of quilting fabrics!!!  I just bought mermaid fabric (Mermaid Magic in Mist Metallic) to make another skirt like this for my daughter's birthday.

Photos are taken at the Capitol Riverfront in Washington, DC.  If you're local or visiting I highly suggest making some time to play and walk around this park.

Bonnie Projects

Extend the life of children's clothing with iron-on patches

We are super fortunate to have a source of adorable and gently-used children's clothing.  Once her girls have outgrown items and toys, they get passed on to us!  Most look like they've been worn only a few times, some have stains (which I've gotten pretty good at removing), but there are a few pieces that were obviously very loved!

When items are stained beyond my capabilities, they join the "spaghetti shirt" stockpile.  Spaghetti shirts function as full-body bibs when we have meals or art projects that I know will stain good clothes.

But sometimes I can rescue a stained or worn item just by adding a little flair.  The floral pants below were in good shape and part of the regular rotation, but got stained while crawling on the ground at Luray Caverns (which is totally worth visiting!).  Around the same time, we were given a pair of pants that were looking worn at the knees.  I wanted to save them both!

I dug around in my fabric stash and found a red and pink striped knit.  I attached fusible web to the striped fabric first.  Then I traced heart shapes onto the paper and cut out the hearts.  I "dry fit" them over the stains/worn places, then ironed them on!  Easy peasy.

I thought my project was complete at this step, but my daughter ripped the hearts off after wearing the pants for less than an hour.  Soooo, I ironed on new patches, then sewed them down by hand with large stitches along the edge.  This took about 5 minutes per patch.

Now these pants have new life, and might even be cuter than the original!  Fancy companies put contrasting patches on their clothing and charge big bucks...I put these on hand-me-downs for free and in less than 30 minutes.  Score!  I did this to extend the life of these pants...but now I'm also thinking this would be a great way to knockoff the fancy children's brands!

The hearts were a cute shape for girls pants, but I think circles, squares, triangles, and hexagons would look great on clothing for both girls and boys. Do you have any clothing items that could be revived with a quick craft?

You might also be interested in these posts:

Baby Octopus Costume
Toddler Octopus Costume
Light-Up Trick-or-Treat Bag

Bonnie Projects

Sports Jersery T-Shirt Quilt

I started this quilt over two years ago, and FINALLY finished it for the recipient.  Now I get to share it with you!

I made this quilt for a young man who played sports throughout high school and college.  He wanted to remember those years, but didn't feel the need to keep wearing shirts and jerseys from high school and college.  He delivered more than 30 shirts to me, and I got to work!

I started by washing and drying all the shirts.  All of my quilts are designed to be machine washable, so I wanted to make sure anything that might happen to the shirts would happen before I started the quilt.  One of the jerseys was ruined in the wash - the lettering fell off!  The rest came out just fine.

Next, I cut the shirts into 12.5" squares (to make 12" finished squares).  Two of the shirts has a somewhat larger design, so I made a double-sized block that combined a larger design with a smaller one.  I layered the thinnest jerseys over t-shirt knit recycled from the plain backs of other shirts.

I laid everything out in my living room, and arranged and rearranged until I liked how the colors were distributed.  Then I got to sewing!  Large 12" blocks generally come together easily, but because all the fabrics were different - some silky, some thick, and all with different amount of stretch - I did a LOT of pinning to make sure they would come together nicely.  I don't know many quilters who work with high-performance athletic materials!

I chose royal purple minkie for the backing, and a thick batting.  This quilt is designed for ultimate comfort!

To quilt the layers together, I sewed a 2" plus sign in each of the corners.  This allows the quilt to be able to stretch, but still keeps everything from moving around during washing.

I bound the quilt with black jersey knit.  This step took me over a year...it might be time to learn machine binding.  Toddlers don't help the process either :)

I really love how this quilt came out.  It's fun, super comfortable and snuggly, and a great way to hold onto fond memories (without wearing your old jerseys in public).

Bonnie Projects

Baby Octopus Costume

Right after I found out I was pregnant last year, I saw the cutest baby dressed up like an octopus on Pinterest.  I did the math and realized I'd have a 5-month-old for Halloween 2014, and decided right then that the baby had to be an octopus!  Plus, at 5 months old, she'd have good head control but not be mobile...perfect for an octopus!

I also have a soft spot in my heart for all things ocean-related.  This was my idea of fun in college.

My Mom was recently in town helping transition me back into work and the baby into daycare.  We came up with an octopus costume design, and she drafted a pattern and made it!  The baby's legs are two of the legs, and a removable belt holds the other six legs.  We used ball fringe as cute suckers.  We also topped off the costume, literally, with a hat featuring giant googly eyes.  SO CUTE!!!

The belt comes off for diaper changes, car seats, or irritated infants.  I plan to move the velcro as she grows so the legs will be useable as a dress-up prop for years to come.

If you want to make your own, the pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop.  It's beginner-level!

As a bonus, it turns out the legs also make great baby toys.  Savannah loved them!

 

You might also be interested in these posts:

Easy boppy cover tutorial
Zoo Quilt
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Bonnie Projects

How to Make a Boring Onesie Girly

My Mom is here today sharing her latest project!  As a background on why we would want a John Deere outfit for a little girl, my family has a cattle farm in Alabama that we frequently visit, complete with all the necessary John Deere equipment!

Ok, ‘grandma to be’ is playing today….

I found a John Deere onesie at Goodwill the other day, very cute for our little granddaughter who is due to arrive any day now, but on the plain side. 

I decided to make it more girly, and found the cutest stretch ruffle ribbon at Hobby Lobby made with tiny gingham checks. I zig zagged the ribbon onto the butt of the onesie so it will all stretch over her diaper. I followed the lines of tractors in the print to make sure it was even. 

I sewed a few yellow flower buttons on the front for pizazz.

 

Then I played around with the ribbon to make a tiny hair band. I used the 14” length everyone online was talking about for infants. 

Super cute, took about 10 minutes, and all under $10 with lace left over for other projects!

Thanks, Mom!  Now she's ready for her first trip to The Farm!

How to Make an Infinity Scarf {Easy Tutorial}

Our house ate my scarves.  We boxed most of them up last spring, and now I can't find them anywhere!  I'd really been counting on cute scarves to make my maternity outfits fashionable, so it was time to get creative!

It turns out that infinity scarves are SO EASY!  (sew easy?  har har)

All you need is half a yard of fabric.  I used 60" wide knit for both of mine.  I also made sure to use a stretch needle in my sewing machine.

If you're working with stripes, cut any jaggedy edges off, and make sure the same color stripe is on each side (assuming you have wide stripes).

For any other solids or non-stripe prints, just make sure the edges are relatively straight.

I also cut off the selvage on each end because it was wide and ugly on my fabrics.

Fold your fabric, right sides together, so that it's really long and only 1/4 yard wide.  Pin the long sides together to make sure one doesn't get ahead of the other one when you sew.

Sew along the long edge with a deep 3/4" seam.  I don't trust knits not to ravel, which is why I take a deep seam.

Next, turn the tube right side out.

Here comes the tricky part...

Wrap your tube around your neck (or a hanger, or your dog) twice, and pin the ends together at that seam you just sewed.  When you remove it, it'll be a big loop with a twist in it.  This twist magically disappears when you loop the scarf twice around your neck, and makes the whole thing lay pretty.  This is optional, but I prefer the look.

Put the ends of the tube right side together, lining up the long seam.  Yes, this looks weird.  Put a pin in it.  A few inches away, continue to match right sides together, and pin some more.  Do this as much as you can, but there will probably be about 1/4 of the tube you won't be able to pin.  It's OK.

Sew a deep 3/4" seam along where you put all those pins, making sure to back stitch at the ends.

When you take it all out of the machine, you should see that most of your tube is sewed up pretty, with the raw edges on the inside of the scarf.

To close up the hole, fold the edges under, match them up, and stitch really close to the edge.  This finishes the scarf!  You could also hand-sew those final few inches.

Ta da, you're done!

My scarves cost about $3 each, since I only used half a yard of inexpensive fabric, and took less than 15 minutes each to make.  Fast, cheap, and easy - can't beat that.  Oh yeah, and cute!!!



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Make a cover for your dress form
Failed t-shirt scarf

Bonnie Projects