decoration | Folk Haven

Fairy Mushroom Ornament

December 18, 2012 at 9:07 am (Christmas, Sewing, Show 'N' Tell)
Tags: Christmas, Christmas tree, decoration, Fairies, Fairy, handmade, Holiday, Mushroom, ornament, sewing, Toadstool

Fairy Mushroom Ornament

The end is almost in sight for this year’s ornament making. This latest creation is for my mother-in-law who has a small Christmas tree in her kitchen dedicated to fairies.

Mushroom Fairy (Photo credit: amboo who?)

In my limited knowledge of the world of fairies, it seems to me that they often seem to be congregating around or living in mushrooms (or are they toadstools?).

Fairy’s toadstool (Photo credit: katmary)

I decided to make a little mushroom fairy house ornament for her tree. I had seen the idea here on Etsy.

English: Fairy tale toadstool Fly agaric (Amanita muscaria) on roadside in Bedham Copse. Don’t eat these unless you particularly enjoy vomiting, diarhoea and wishing you were dead. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I didn’t realize before making this that there is an actual fairy tale toadstool that has a red cap. Hopefully my erroneous choice of color isn’t too large of a faux paus.

I attached an assortment of beads to the top in a random manner to make it look spotted and speckled.

Now it is all boxed up and ready to be wrapped for giving on Christmas Day. (Hopefully my assumption that she doesn’t avidly follow this blog isn’t too far off the mark… If I’m wrong, sorry to ruin the surprise, Susan!)

Here’s where I’m linking up:

Fall Into The Holidays

Sunday:

I {heart} Naptime, Flamingo Toes, jembellish clothes upcycling page,

Blissful and Domestic,

Monday:

Get Outta My Head Please, Skip to My Lou, The Gunny Sack, Sew Can Do,

A Round Tuit, C.R.A.F.T., diy home sweet home,

Craft-O Maniac, Sew Chatty, Sarahndipities , The Cure for the Common Monday

Tuesday:

Not Just a Housewife, Hope Studios, Funky Polkadot Giraffe, Kammy’s Korner,

Home Stories A to Z, Crafty Confessions, Homemade Tuesday, Today’s Assignment,

Antiprocrastination Tuesday, Take-a-Look Tuesday, Nifty Thrifty Tuesday,

The Creative Itch Boutique, Schwin and Schwin, Heart and Soul Blog Hop

Wednesday:

Sew Much Ado, Frugally Sustainable, Lil’ Luna, Someday Crafts, Whimsy

Wednesday, Whatcha Work Up Wednesday

Thursday:

Mom On Timeout, Thrifty Decorating, Bear Rabbit Bear, Thriving on Thursdays

The Crafty Blogstalker, The Shabby Creek Cottage, House of Hepworths,

Sorta Crunchy, Delightful Order, Anything Goes Linky Party,

Friday:

Simply Designing, Whipperberry, Happy Hour Projects,

Joyful Stamper, Making Lemonade Blog, Thirty Handmade Days,

Naptime Crafters, Romantic Home, Finding Fabulous,

Shabby Nest, French Country Cottage, The Charm of Home, The Grant Life,

At the Picket Fence, Fingerprints on the Fridge, One Artsy Mama,

Saturday:

The Gingerbread Blog, Too Much Time On My Hands, Hello Weekend,

Six Sisters Stuff, Serenity You, Be Different Act Normal

16 Comments

No Sew Stash Buster: Lighted Fabric Garland Tutorial

November 28, 2012 at 6:53 pm (Christmas, tutorial)
Tags: Christmas, decoration, garland, Holidays, mantle, repurposing, string of lights, upcycle

I saw a lighted garland here at ADD Housewife a few weeks ago and thought it would be a perfect way to further decrease my overwhelming stack of fabric for repurposing. After Eli left for preschool I quickly gathered my supplies.

Materials:

An old sheet – There are a few pieces of shirting fabric left over from long ago quilt projects and as I worked I included a couple of contrasting fabrics as well.

A strand of lights – I later added a second alongside to make it extra bright and colorful. My stands were 100 light strands as I wanted to hang this around the patio doors If you are making this for a mantle go with a 50 light strand or fold your 100 light strand in half.

A method for cutting– I wanted to use pinking shears but couldn’t find them (grrr!) but was so glad later when I saw how much cutting was actually involved to be using a matt and rotary cutter)

Step 1

Cut strips of cloth. Since I didn’t have the pinking shears and didn’t want tons of shedding I cut my cloth on the bias. Actually I was too lazy to find the actual bias, I cut it in a generally diagonal fashion. It worked. I cut most of the strips 2″ wide and of varying lengths from 5-10″ long. I didn’t measure the lengths… just eyeballed and hacked. I later cut other fabric 1″ in width to fill in bits of wire along the length with the thinner pieces as needed. I also chose to add some other fabrics of contrast as I got going. The darker of these I also cut to 1″ width.

Step 2

Fold a strip of cloth in half, bring it around the wire and pull the tails through the loop. I worked along the length of wire by putting the fabric on, jumping ahead a few inches before adding more and then doing the same thing back and forth again down the wire. This way I could better gauge where I wanted to put thicker verses thinner strips and longer verses shorter. I was also able to work in my accent fabrics a little more regularly than if I had just started at one end and worked all the way to the other.

Step 3

Excuse the off center photo. Our tree’s lights at the very top decided not to light this year and we are only midway through rectifying the situation. I didn’t really want to showcase our tree in it’s current state on the blog.

When the garland is as full as you want it to be hang ‘er up. Yeah, three steps. It really is that easy.

I may go back in later and further cover up the bits of wire that still show. Once you step back it’s not so noticeable though and I was out of fabric from that particular sheet. The jury is still out as to whether the strips of darker fabric will remain or not.

Now you can really vary your look for these garlands through fabric choice, light color choice, using uniform length strips verses untidy multi length strips. ADD Housewife mentions on her blog that she has made many of these corresponding to different holidays… because of course, garlands aren’t just for Christmas anymore!

I was featured!

Here’s where I’m linking up:

Fall Into The Holidays

Sunday:

I {heart} Naptime, Flamingo Toes, jembellish clothes upcycling page,

Blissful and Domestic,

Monday:

Get Outta My Head Please, Skip to My Lou, The Gunny Sack, Sew Can Do,

A Round Tuit, C.R.A.F.T., diy home sweet home,

Craft-O Maniac, Sew Chatty, Sarahndipities , The Cure for the Common Monday

Tuesday:

Not Just a Housewife, Hope Studios, Funky Polkadot Giraffe, Kammy’s Korner,

Home Stories A to Z, Crafty Confessions, Homemade Tuesday, Today’s Assignment,

Antiprocrastination Tuesday, Take-a-Look Tuesday, Nifty Thrifty Tuesday,

The Creative Itch Boutique, Schwin and Schwin, Heart and Soul Blog Hop

Wednesday:

Sew Much Ado, Frugally Sustainable, Lil’ Luna, Someday Crafts, Whimsy

Wednesday, Whatcha Work Up Wednesday

Thursday:

Mom On Timeout, Thrifty Decorating, Bear Rabbit Bear, Thriving on Thursdays

The Crafty Blogstalker, The Shabby Creek Cottage, House of Hepworths,

Sorta Crunchy, Delightful Order, Anything Goes Linky Party,

Friday:

Simply Designing, Whipperberry, Happy Hour Projects,

Joyful Stamper, Making Lemonade Blog, Thirty Handmade Days,

Naptime Crafters, Romantic Home, Finding Fabulous,

Shabby Nest, French Country Cottage, The Charm of Home, The Grant Life,

At the Picket Fence, Fingerprints on the Fridge, One Artsy Mama,

Saturday:

The Gingerbread Blog, Too Much Time On My Hands, Hello Weekend,

Six Sisters Stuff, Serenity You, Be Different Act Normal

12 Comments

Felted Wool Christmas Stocking

December 5, 2011 at 3:41 pm (tutorial)
Tags: Christmas, decoration, recycled, repurposed, sewing, stocking, upcycled, wool

I accidentally shrank a wool blanket in the wash this week. Although I’m sad not to have the blanket anymore it proved to be excellent material for a Christmas stocking!

First I drew a stocking shape on a paper grocery bag, cut it out and pinned it to a double layer of the blanket.

I then cut out the pieces.

Then I sewed around the sides and toe of the stocking and turned it right side out. The toe seemed too long to me, so I turned it back inside out, marked a new line with a sliver of soap. Once that line was sewn, I trimmed away the excess material.

I wanted the stocking to have a cuff without the raw edges of the seam showing so I cut off the top of the stocking.

With the stocking turned inside out, I flipped the top around so the finished edge from the top of the blanket was now facing down and pinned it. After sewing it to the top of the stocking, and turning the stocking back right side out, I now had a cuff that could be folded down with finished seams facing outwards.

To embellish the stocking I decided to add a snowflake design. I used three strips cut from an old t-shirt. After pinning them in place I stitched them on with embroidery floss. Then I added a few flat shell beads from a broken necklace to finish the design.

Lastly, I opened up the cuff seam to insert a length of ribbon for a hanging loop. After resewing the seam closed the stocking was complete!

This stocking is in my Etsy shop Folk Haven Creations.

Thanks for reading!

Karen

Here’s where I’m linking up.

Christmas Craft Linky Party 2012

Monday:

{aka}/ design, Get Outta My Head Please, Mad in Crafts, Skip to My Lou,

The Gunny Sack, Sew Can Do, Singing Three Little Birds, Etcetorize, Dittle Dattle,

C.R.A.F.T., diy home sweet home, Craft-O Maniac, Sew Chatty, Artful Rising,

Sarahndipities

Tuesday:

At Home With K, Not Just a Housewife, Hope Studios, Funky Polkadot Giraffe,

Kammy’s Korner, The Kurtz Corner, I’m Topsy Turvy, Tip Junkie,

Raising 4 Princesses, The Creative Itch Boutique

Wednesday:

Sew Much Ado, Frugally Sustainable, The Shady Porch, Tea Rose Home, Lil’ Luna,

Sweet Peas & Bumble Bees, Mom On Timeout, Someday Crafts, Passionately Artistic,

Keeping the Christmas Spirit Alive 365

Thursday:

Mom On Timeout, Somewhat Simple, Thrifty Decorating, Bear Rabbit Bear,

The Crafty Blogstalker, The Shabby Creek Cottage, Fun to Craft, House of Hepworths,

Sorta Crunchy, Delightful Order, Saved by Love Creations, A Glimpse Inside,

Between U & Me

Friday:

Simply Designing, Whipperberry, 733 Blog, Happy Hour Projects, kojodesigns,

Joyful Stamper, Making Lemonade Blog, Thirty Handmade Days,

Release Me Creations, Naptime Crafters, Romantic Home, Finding Fabulous,

Shabby Nest, Chic on a Shoestring Decorating, French Country Cottage,

The Charm of Home, The Grant Life, At the Picket Fence, Fingerprints on the Fridge,

Stuff and Nonsense

Saturday:

The Gingerbread Blog, Too Much Time On My Hands, Six Sisters Stuff, Serenity You,

Be Different Act Normal

Sunday:

LambAround, I {heart} Naptime, Flamingo Toes, Petite Hermine,

My 1929 Charmer Blog

32 Comments

Falling Leaves Bunting Tutorial

October 28, 2011 at 8:41 pm (tutorial)
Tags: Autumn, Bias tape, bunting, decoration, Etsy, Fall, pennant banner, sewing, Textile, tutorial

It’s been time to decorate for Fall for a few weeks now. I’ve enjoyed seeing so many Autumn-themed bunting projects in my jaunts around blogland. I decided to ride the wave of inspiration and create my own. Here is a tutorial showing how I made my Falling Leaves Bunting.

Draw leaves of various shapes on a piece of freezer paper. better yet go on a nature walk and collect leaves to trace on your freezer paper. Think about how large you are going to make each triangle in your bunting and how much you want your leaf to fill up that space.

Choose your colors of knit fabric and iron the freezer paper leaves to the cloth. I used the t-shirt sleeves to leave the rest of the fabric for other projects.

Iron Wonder Under or a similiar product to the opposite side of the fabric. Cut out your shapes.

Cut a template for your bunting triangles. I used a piece of stationary and traced from each corner at the top to the middle of the bottom edge. I then traced this shape onto a cereal box and cut it out.

Figure out how long you want your bunting to be and how many triangles you will need. I made mine 3 yards long, the length of one package of bias tape. If you prefer you can make your own bias tape following this tutorial by Dana of MADE. For my bunting I needed to cut 8 triangles.

Trace your stencil on your fabric. I cut out a few layers at a time so after I traced on the top layer I pinned the layers of fabric together and cut it out with scissors. A rotary cutter would work better for regular fabric, but I was using old pants and a shirt that I didn’t want to bother cutting carefully all apart beforehand. My third fabric was an antique linen napkin.

Peel the paper off the Wonder Under, place your leaves as you wish and press with a hot iron. Sew leaf vein details onto the leaves. I sewed up from the stem through the center of the leaf to the tip, turned the leaf and as I traced my way back down the center vein I stopped to stitch out and back for the side veins wherever I wanted to put one. Once I arrived back down at the stem I began stitching around the outer edge of the leaf. I used a variegated thread that changed from beige to dark green and back again. I like how the effect is similar to the variations of color on real Autumn leaves.

Next sew a single line down each side of the triangle to add a bit more color and to stop any fraying from the raw edge of the fabric.

Tie off and snipped the ends of the thread on the back side of the triangles. Put the triangles through a wash and dry cycle to give the edges a soft frayed look. After the dryer, iron them well.

Lay out the bias tape and positioned the triangles evenly spaced along its length. Sandwiching the top edge of the triangle within the double fold bias tape, pin each triangle in place.

Almost done! Finish the ends of the bias tape by opening the tape flat and folding it back in on itself leaving the raw edge inside when you refold it. Pin in place. (Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of this step.) Lastly stitch down the length of the bias tape, reversing back and forth a couple of times over the ends.