OK, before I get to the meat of this post, here are some linky loves that I must pass along.  Tasha, of A Little Sweetness is giving away some of her personally designed fabric.  It is SO CUTE, and if you don’t win, you can always pick some up in her shop!  I think the Little Red Riding Hood on white is my favorite!

Also, if any of you are a Flea Market Fancy fans like myself (I still have a few pieces I’m hoarding!), go sign this petition to get Free Spirit to reprint the line (oh to dream!), and while you are there enter to win this selection of 29 FMF fat quarters and some great books.  If you win, will you share a  FQ with me?

Yesterday my daughter was invited to a birthday party of a girl from her preschool class.  I always have a hard time buying gifts for families/girls I don’t know very well.  Not everyone appreciates the homemade, and I don’t want to waste my efforts if they won’t be appreciated.  Soooo, off to the big box store we went for some plastic Princess crap.

After getting it all wrapped up I felt guilty for A. Shopping at Target & B. Not making something…then I remembered all of the great felt I bought from the HB booth at Blissfest (you can also buy it online) and whipped up a little flower.  Not only does it look great as part of the wrapping, but it’s a barrette for the little girls hair!

First, I strongly recommend that you use wool, or wool blend felt for this project.  The cheap craft felt you can get at most craft stores will pill and stretch and not give you the lasting look you are going to want.  Here is what you’ll need:

2 colors of felt
1 piece of green felt
1 metal snap barrette (or a pony tail holder)
1 coordinating button
thread/needle/scissors
any other trims that appeal to you

Here is the pdf with the pattern pieces I free handed for the above barrette.  Cut all your pieces out, for the front circle, I folded it in half and cut little triangles out of it to give it the fringed look.

Layer the pieces as you’d like them to be, place the button on the top and stitch through all the layers.  For the back, take the circle and cut 2 small slits in the back about an inch apart in the center, thread the pony tail holder through.

Attach the circle to the entire flower, stitching through all but the top layer.  It should look like this when you’re done.

To do a barrette back, you can do it 2 ways.

You can measure your clip and cut out a piece of felt the length of your barrette, be sure to cut a small slit in it for the metal arm to go through.  Then sew this to the back of your flower, sewing through all but the top layer.

Using the circle pattern provided for the back, you can cut a small slit for the barrette arm and then stitch the whole circle to the flower.  The barrette side goes against the flower, the metal arm is what you should see when your barrette is finished.

I made this one to match one of my daughters shirts!  Be creative, try different shapes, add embroidery, seed beads, ribbon anything that appeals to you!

AND, because you made it through this whole LONG post, I made a holiday poinsettia barrette to give away.  Just leave me a comment telling me you’d like to win, I’ll pick a winner on Monday Nov 29th.

A few weeks ago I was browsing Goodwill for a pair of pants, instead I found this diamond in the rough for $2.

It was a good size and didn’t have too many tacky “things” on it that would need to be removed, so I bought it.  I used my scissors and wire cutters to remove the ghastly bow and “crystallized fruit”, I did save the little birds nest that were on it though.  After everything was off I fluffed up the branches a bit, making it appear more full.

I ventured out at about 8pm on Black Friday to grab these little things from Micheal’s.  They had a huge selection of do-dads for making your own wreath.

I only used one of each bunch of berries, and about half of each spool of ribbon.  I started by ripping the silver berries off the large stem, and then using their wire to wrap it around different wreath branches.  Then I filled it in more with the aqua berries.  I wanted the birds/nests to be a bit symmetrical at the top of the wreath, I spaced them out enough that I could put a large ribbon in the center and hang it.  After everything else was on I tied a bunch of small ribbons and adhered them to the wreath using some 24 gauge wire I had (I would recommend something a bit heavier).

I wanted something simple but pretty and was very happy with the results!  It now hangs on our front gate, welcoming all who visit!

All together it took me about an hour to create and cost me approx. $9.  I could maybe be talked into making a smaller one…if anyone is interested.  Go forth and create!  Happy Holiday decorating!

This weekend Amy of Nana Company posted pics on flickr of some really cute mailing labels that she had made in MS Word.  I loved them and decided it was time I had some cute labels too.  I fiddled and fiddled with Word and could not make anything near as cute as Amy did, so I gave up and opened Photoshop and created this:

I think they turned out pretty cute, and if I have time this week I’d like to create more.  In the meantime though, I thought I would share a tutorial on how I made these.  Think of the cute labels you can make to go our with your holiday cards?!

I have Photoshop CS and here is what I did:

Open a new project in Photoshop, I set mine for 4″x2″ (because that is the size of Avery lables I have).  Set your background to white and make sure you have your color set to RGB and a DPI of at least 300.

Click the “new layer” button in the layers palette.  Use the marquee tool (dashed line square box) to create a column.  Select a foreground color and then use the paint bucket tool to color your column.  Use the marquee tool to create a few more columns (I used 4 colors so I created 4 columns).

Once you’ve got your 4 columns of color in layer one, you are going to right click the layer 1 in the layers palette and select duplicate layer.  Use the “move tool” to move your layer on your image to where ever you want it.  I kept duplicating and moving until I filled the whole image with columns, it should look like this.

Next, we’re going to add a white rounded box to the center of the image.

select the “custom shape” tool from the tool bar, scroll though your presets until you see the square with the rounded edges.  Make sure you have your foreground color set to white (mine is still set to blue in the image above).  Draw your rounded square into your image, make sure you leave a good border so you can still see the stripes (leave maybe .5″).  Use the “move tool” to center your square if you need to.

Here’s where it starts to get tricky…  Once you’ve got your square right, select it from the layers palette.  Once it is highlighted select the “paths” tab.

select the vector path and then click on the little arrow things in the upper right corner, select “save path”.  You can call it whatever you want.  Go back to the layers palette and select the “layers” tab.  Create a new layer (see image one), again name the new layer whatever you want.

Make sure the new layer is highlighted in the layers palette, then select the “paths” tab again, you should see something like this.

Select the brush tool from the tool bar and then you want to click on the “brushes tab” at the top of the screen.  If yours isn’t showing select windows>brushes. Make sure you set the foreground color to whatever color you want your dots to be.

Select the “brush tip shape”,  and select the brush point of 5. Then near the bottom you’ll see a slider for spacing, bump that up to 150%, this will give you a dotted line.  Go back to the layers palette where you have the paths tab open.  Click on the “stroke layer with brush” or the outlined circle button.  This should add the dotted line around your rounded square (if you can’t see it, make sure you have layer 2 above the rounded square layer in the layers palette).

Next I created ANOTHER white rounded square, larger than the one before (see step 3), make sure that your dotted line layer is still above your new rounded square so you can see it.  It should look something like the above.

Use the text tool to create the return address.  I used the font “Pupcat” for the name and “georgia” for the address.  I played with the color of the name too, using the same colors as the columns.  Voila- you’re done!

Then follow the instructions for setting up the Avrey labels in Word and insert this image once you have everything formatted.  I did play with the margins in word a bit to get edge to edge printing.

If you post flickr/blog images of the labels your create, send me a link, I’d love to see them!!!  Feel free to email (heather at heatherhalesdesignsDOTcom) me if you have more questions about this, I never know if I give enough detail.

By popular demand here is how to make your own skirt using vintage sheets (or pillow cases if your girl is little enough).

Here is What You’ll Need:
1 vintage sheet/pillow case
1.5-2yards of coordinating pom pom trim
1/2″ or 3/4″ wide braided elastic
safety pin
measuring tape
everything is sewn with a 1/4″ seam allowance

First- go get your tape measure, you’ll need a waist measurement and a length measurement (how long you want the skirt to be).

You’ll need to wash, iron (enjoy the smell of 30 years of different fabric softeners) and square up your sheet.  Then cut 2 rectangles, each rectangle should be Waist Measurement Wide by (Length Measurement)+ 2inches long.  So, if your waist measurement was 20 inches and your length measurement was 15 inches then you would need 2 rectangles each one being 20inches wide by 17inches long.

With right sides together sew the side seams up, don’t forget to finsh them (serge or zig zag).  Iron the seams flat.

To create your waist casing fold over a 1/4″ and press at the top of the skirt.  Fold over again a whole inch and press (see below).

Your going to stitch you casing closed- stitching as close to the bottom edge as possible.  I always like to leave my opening in the center back, so when I close it I can stitch the tag in at the same time.

When inserting the elastic I like to use a safety pin, I find it easier to guide the elastic around, I pin the tail end with a straight pin at the opening.  After you’ve threaded the elastic be sure to stitch it securely closed, I always sew over the elastic a few times, be sure to close the casing when you are done.

With right side up pin pom trim 1/2″ from the edge of skirt- the poms should be facing the waist band.  I used a zipper foot for this part, you want to stitch as close as you can to the pom edge of the trim (see pic).

When you get the pom trim sewn on, your skirt should look like this.

Next your going to flip the skirt inside out and iron the poms back, as close as you can to your seam.

(i should have clipped my threads before taking this pic)

Your going to create a  hem  here by ironing the raw edge over into the trim, like this:

See how the bottom edge of the pic has the hem folded into the trim edge?  Once you’ve pressed it all under your going to stitch as close to the top of the pom trim as possible.

Now, be sure to send me pics of your cute daughters, neighbors, nieces etc wearing the skirt!

Ok, here we go, how to complete a simple embroidery project!

First you need to find a pattern, pattern bee, flickr Hoop Love group, and Needlecrafter are all great places to find patterns. However, today’s pattern is a vintage Vogart provided by Jessie (thank you!). The first thing I did was download the pattern and open it up in Adobe Photoshop, I looked at the size and decided I didn’t want to change it, sometimes I shrink or enlarge patterns this way. It doesn’t matter if the pattern you print has slightly blurry lines, you are going to ink it crisp and clear.

2. Print Pattern
I use plain old white printer paper, does anyone have any other suggestions?

3. Use a Sulky Pen or a Heat Transfer Pencil (if you don’t have either- here is a great resource for other transfer methods) and trace your pattern, make sure you mark in clean crisp strokes.

4. Use your iron to stamp the pattern onto your fabric. I’m using an organic cotton flour sack towel that I grabbed at Target. The weave is very loose and I do not recommend it, Target does sell a fantastic white flour sack towel with a very tight weave!

5. Once your fabric is stamped pull out your embroidery threads and select color! I find that if I select colors ahead of time then I can make sure all the colors look good together.

I’ve chosen white for the bunny (however if you are stitching on a white fabric I would recommend a brown bunny), pink for the nose, blue for the eyes, black for the lashes (grey for the whiskers) and green for the tie.

6. Place fabric in an embroidery hoop, choose one large enough that you can stitch your whole design without having to move the hoop.

7. Whatever color of thread I will use the most is the color I start with, so I started with the white for the bunny. Embroidery floss consists of 6 tiny threads wrapped together. When I stitch designs I use 3 strands, so you’ll want to split your thread after you cut a length. When I do lettering I use 2 strands.

8. The outside of the bunny I stitched using a stem stitch, although I think a chain stitch would look nice here too. (I tried to take pictures of me doing the stitches for you, but they turned out just awful! So please follow the links to better illustrations.) Next I did the pink nose in a satin stitch , I also did the blue eyes that way too. The black lashes I did in a back stitch, I like the way it makes the lines of the eyes look crisp. The Whiskers are done in the same stem stitch as the bunny outline. For the green tie I demonstrated how the chain stitch looks, it is great for outlining things that you want to stand out a bit- think of it as the bold feature of stitching. For the dots of the tie I used french knots, this is a tricky knot. As your needle is coming up from the fabric wrap the tail of the thread around the needle 3 times and then pull the needle all the way up tightening the thread as you go. There is a great YouTube video showing how to do a french knot.

Ta Da! You are done! This little bunny took me about 45 min if you subtract all the photographing that I did! Please leave me a comment or shoot me an email (heather -at-heatherhalesdesigns-dot-com) if I lost you anywhere or you have questions about this project.

SURPRISE- One lucky reader can win this perfect easter towel! Just leave me a comment and let me know that you want him, I’ll pick a winner on Monday 3/10.

Also, Average Jane Crafter is giving away the yet-to-be-released new Sublime Stitching book of embroidery patterns, quick the contest is only open until Friday 3/7.

Last night I made a little zippered pouch as part of a birthday gift for my Grandma.

I used some fabric that I bought a couple of months ago, it seems so feminine and pretty (i heart pastels). I thought the pouch turned out really cute with the contrasting red zipper. Personally I have a little zippered pouch like this that I carry with me everywhere- I store my lipstick, compact, lotion and extra bobby pins in. When ever I switch purses/diaper bags all I have to do is grab my phone, pouch and wallet thus ensuring I always have everything I need. I’m hoping Grandma finds it practical too!

Tonight I made another one, and this is my step by step guide so you too can make one! I used some vintage sheeting that Jessie sent me a few months back. **DISCLAIMER: You can use this tutorial to make pouches to sell in your own shop if you want. Also, I am not an expert- there may be an even better way to do this, but this is what works for me. I did this project at night so I apologize that the images aren’t very pretty**

Step 1: You’ll need a piece of fabric at least 16″x 12″, a 7″ zipper, self healing mat, rotary cutter and quilters ruler. Everything is sewn at a 1/4″ seam allowance.

Step:2 Cut out 4 rectangles of fabric, each one should be 7.5″x5.5″

Step 3: Fold top (the 7.5″ side) of each rectangles over 1/4″-1/2″ and press. (heaven’s to betsy I need a new ironing board cover! anyone want to post a tutorial on how to make one of those?)

Step 4: If you are using different prints be sure you decide which pieces you want on the outside and which ones you want to be the lining. Pair each outside piece with a lining piece and place with wrong sides together. With wrong sides together you are going to place the zipper between the ironed over folds on the rectangles. I’m hoping I haven’t lost you- it gets easier really quick!

Step 5/6: Now, there are probably easier ways to do this zipper, but this is the only way I can think of that will allow you to have no visible raw edge. Once you have the zipper pinned to all the pieces you’ll stitch it using a zipper foot. Make sure you pivot at the head of the zipper. May I suggest 2 things, 1. Don’t sew too close to the teeth or you’ll end up with a beautiful pouch and a stuck zipper (been there, done that). 2. Check your bobbin thread, because if you are like me you won’t and you’ll run out half way through and be irritated!

Step 7: Remove pins and zip the zipper half way.

Step 8: Ok, follow me closely here. The two top pieces that you see are your outside print, the underneath fabric will be your lining. So place right sides of tops together and right sides of lining together. This should give you a big square that looks like this:

Step 9: Now you’ll need to pin it together. Be sure you have the zipper lay the same way on each side as you pin it. The zipper should lay as if you have folded it in half- see image.

Step 10: Be sure you leave an opening on the LINING fabric for turning.

Step 11: (we are getting close to the end, hang in there) Now stitch it all up- except for the opening. Be sure you trim the corners and the excess zipper ends. Then turn out, use your scissors to poke the corners out if you need to. You should now have something that looks like this- your lining should be sticking out.

Step 12: Fold the raw edge in where the opening is. If you want a really clean look you can whip stitch it closed by hand, or you can sew it with your machine as close to the edge as you can.

Step 13: Stuff the lining back into the pouch and viola! you are done! Here is another variation that I made as a Christmas gift. Be creative and send me pictures of what you create!!

I thought I should share with you my secrets for embroidery and patterns- in-case any of you are looking for a new summer craft. I highly recommend this book, anyone who sews in any capacity should have it in their home libraries. I did not know that there were so many different stitches, the step-by-step illustrations are very helpful, I’ve learned so much from this book.

You can get blank flour sack towels at Target for about $5 a pack, they aren’t available online though. Amazon has some on-line but they cost more. My favorite places to get patterns are on flickr, blogs, a few different pattern shops, and ebay. Another thing I will do is scan images or edit images I find on-line in Photoshop and print them out. Once you have a printed out image (as opposed to an iron-on transfer) there are many ways to transfer it to your fabric, by far the easiest is with a special pencil iron on pen. I love using my pencil, just make sure you trace hard on your image so that you get good strong lines on your fabric.

Now, go forth and create (and send me pictures)!  Feel free to share any of your favorite craft sites, I am always looking for more!

Felt food seems to be all the rage these days in children’s play accessories. After seeing some felt that looked good enough to eat I decided to try my hand at it. I made each of my kids a sugar cookie with frosting and sprinkles. My daughter was disappointed when she put it in her mouth and realized that it was not really a cookie.

The cookies were so easy to make, that I put together this tutorial for you. (kate, let me know if you want to adapt and use this over here).

Step 1: Cut out 2 felt circles, I used an old canning lid as my guide.

Step 2: Cut out your frosting. I used the inner circle of my canning lid and free handed a scalloped look.

Step 3: Using a small running stitch sew the frosting to the top cookie layer.

Step 4: After you have attached the frosting you can use seed beads, french knots or sequins to create your “sprinkles”.

Step 5: Attach the Cookie top to the cookie bottom using a blanket stitch or a running stitch (I think I’m going to try this next time as the blanket stitch tends to give it a crimped look). Before you completely seal the edges be sure to stuff it with a little bit of poly fil.

I found this tutorial for a felt cake if anyone else is interested.