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

Light-Up Trick-or-Treat Bag

Happy October!  I've had so much crafty energy lately, it's been really fun :)  My latest project is a light-up Halloween trick-or-treat bag!

I saw the panel for this bag in my local quilt shop about six weeks ago, but I didn't buy it when I first saw it.  I kept thinking about it for weeks, so I finally went back, and bought the very last one!  It's a panel with instructions to make the bag, but there were a few other supplies I needed, like the fabric for the lining and the binding.  The panel also comes with some trick-or-treaters printed on it, which I think I'll save for future projects.  Maybe for Halloween bibs, or an applique on a kid dress?

 

Before I cut into my panel, I traced the pattern onto paper for future use.  I feel like if we have additional children down the line, they're going to want a trick-or-treat bag just like their sister!

The example in the shop was quilted all over in a random walk.  I decided to quilt mine by outlining the house and trees. 

Quilt Shop Trick-or-Treat Bag

The next step after quilting was to make button holes for the lights to poke through.  The ladies at the shop gave me the great advice to lay out the lights first and make sure they would reach from one hole to the next.  I also took into account they would need to go from one side of the bag to the other.  20 button holes later, and I had officially doubled the number of button holes I've ever sewn in my life.  Thankfully my machine has settings to make it easy!

From there I just followed the directions, and it came together quickly!  I think I might be more excited about this than Savannah, but oh well :)  It's cute, but I also like that it adds some safety on Halloween!  Also, the light are easy to remove, so it can go through the washer if it gets grubby.

If you want to make your own, look online for Northcott Fabric's Happy Halloween collection by Julie Dobson Miner.  The bat fabric I used for the lining and the stripe I used for the binding are both from the Here for the Boos line from Wilmington Prints.  All were available on Etsy at the time of the posting.  (By the way, "Here for the Boos" needs to go on a Halloween sign somewhere in my house...too funny!)

Octopus Costume for Toddlers

Following the release of Finding Dory, I got several requests from my Etsy customers for a toddler version of my infant octopus costume - kids wanted to be Hank the Octopus!  Because Savannah is 2 1/2 right now, I thought this would be a perfect time to come out with an updated pattern!

I made this costume as close to Hank's coloring as possible, using an orange knit with red dots and 1/2" red pom pom fringe.  I went with a smaller pom pom size for this costume, but I sort of wish I had used the larger size.  Etsy had a great selection of polka dot knits (I bought from Magic Fabric Designs) as well as pom pom fringe (from Creative Trims), and at reasonable prices!  I was much happier with the selection on Etsy than at JoAnn or Fabric.com.

If you're interested in making an octopus costume for your toddler, the pattern is available in my Etsy shop.  I really want to try one in purple and black one day to look like Ursula from The Little Mermaid!

I also started a Pinterest board to collect up links to fun octopus fabrics.  If you have good ones, please share in the comments!

If you'd rather make the costume for an infant, that pattern is accessible here.  Look how much she's grown in just two years!!!

You might also be interested in these posts:

Baby Octopus Costume
What to Put on a Baby Registry

Bonnie Projects