Fall Felt Flower Headband {tutorial}

Here is a simple tutorial for making a fun fall headband!

 You will need: felt or material in graduating colors, scissors, pinking shears, needle and floss, a fun button and a headband of your choosing.

 Using your pinking shears, cut out circles in your graduating colors.

Select a button to be the center of your flower/circle and sew it into place. You will also be sewing all of the felt circles together.

When you're done, leave the thread. Don't cut it, because you will use it later to sew your flower to your headband.

Take your regular scissors and cut little triangles out of your smallest circle. Then go to your next circle and cut triangles out from the same space. Continue until you have cut triangles out of each circle.

Now your flower is done. Select a headband to use. I linked to the headbands we use on my Valentines tutorial. My daughter loves these and thinks they're the most comfortable. They also provide a lot of give when sewing your flowers to the band.

If you like your work to look neat, you can cut out a small piece of complementary fabric and glue it to the back of your flower to hide your stitches. This is just an extra - not necessary.

You can experiment. I didn't cut petals from the blue circles and on the purple/grey headband, I made the circles askew (love this one!).

Ta da! If you like this idea, but don't have time to make one, I'll have a whole new headband selection in my shop tomorrow! xo

A Few Notes:
If you make a really large flower, I would not cut the petals from the outer two circles until after the flower was sewn to the headband. This will just ensure that the petals are cut as evenly as possible in case they pull a little when being sewn to the band.


It would be really fun to mix fabrics and felts - and maybe even some paper. I'm going to try that next.


Try embroidering something on your smallest circle - an initial, peace sign, leaf, snowflake?


To new bloggers, I thought the wrinkled fabric background in my photos here would look kind of vintage/old school/cool. Nope...it just looks wrinkled. Lesson learned. Backgrounds should be plain and simple (and neat).

Wedding Program Fans - tutorial

 

One of the handmade details from my cousin Erin's wedding was the programs. Since the ceremony took place outside, in the desert, we decided to make the programs fans. Here's how we did it:

Step 1: Design the program. (We did this on the computer, but it would also look great handwritten and copied). Our programs measured 6 inches wide by 7.5 inches tall. For easy assembly, we very lightly printed out cut lines (for the program itself) and sewing lines (for the stitching). When you're done with the typesetting, print out your programs on cardstock and cut them out - straight sides only - leaving the corners to be cut later.

Step 2: Choose your paper. These fans could be printed on both sides - in which case you would print on cardstock. We decided to keep the text simple (the ceremony was short) and use art paper for the backs. Erin wanted every fan to feel different, so we bought three different scrapbook paper packs from Michaels and she pulled out her favorite sheets. We could fit two fans to one sheet of paper.

Step 3: Cut art paper into 6 x 7.5 inch rectangles and set aside. For best results, use paper that is heavier than computer paper. Thick card stock is not necessary, but a heavier weight paper will stand up better as a fan. You'll cut the fan corners later. 

 Step 4: Prepare the handles. We found these in the moulding section at Home Depot, and these long strips of wood were perfect. My photo is not clear, but look carefully and you can see how one side of this wood is rounded and one side is squared. This made a perfect handle - it felt great and made the fans look more "custom". Cut the handles to size - we cut ours to 9" a piece. The wood was $4 for an 8-foot-strip, so approximately 36 cents per handle.

Step 5: Gently sand the edges. Again, this just makes the fans feel/look a bit more custom. David took a piece of scrap wood, wrapped it in sandpaper and rubbed the edges. This step took seconds per handle.

Step 6: Sew the front and back of the fans together. The photo above is horrible, but I wanted to show you our "cheat" lines. The dark line was the outline, so we cut those along the straight edge first and left the corners uncut. Now, look closely and you'll see that very very faint line? That was the guide for our sewing. It had about an inch of blank space at the bottom (where you'll eventually insert the handle) and so we started to sew at the bottom right, sewed around the whole program and then stopped when we reached the blank space on the bottom left. (If you look below "Andy" and a bit to the left, you can kind of see how the line ends.)

Step 7: Relax. Our lines weren't perfectly straight. Sometimes we missed the corner altogether and there was a very faint line to be seen. No one noticed this but us, and the detail of the stitching was just gorgeous!

Step 8: Assemble and finish. We put 2" of double-sided tape at the top of the flat side of our wood handles, inserted the handle into the fan flat side facing the text side and pressed firmly into place. Trust me, they won't move. Finally, take a scissors and round your corners so that everything lines up. 

Done.

Additional Details:

Erin chose gold thread and I was totally skeptical (worried it would be slippery, unravel, etc.). It worked beautifully and was the perfect choice!

This project is not a timesaver in anyway, but once you're in the groove of it, progress moves along quickly. 

When all was said and done, these fans cost less than $1 each - totally worth the time investment required.

The handles could be painted or stained.

If you use a "cheat" line for your sewing, choose the lightest shade possible in the same color family as your thread. We used gold thread so our line was a light light brown.

Other ideas to try would be text on both side with simple, gorgeous cardstock and a crazy color of thread - purple or peacock with cream cardstock for instance. The possiblities are endless!

Finally, the fan/program combo could be used for many other events: murder mystery parties, garden parties, any outdoor fundraiser...

Please let me know if you make your own! xo

Love Cocoon Knitting Pattern

I've blogged about love cocoons here and here and here. To recap though, the original pattern is Melissa's Laurel Love Cocoon pattern. Here are my changes - I'll try to post them to ravelry soon also. To those of you who don't knit, I do offer these in my etsy shop. Enjoy! xo

This pattern property of Goodness Recycled. Intended for personal use only. No portion of this pattern may be sold or copied without my permission. Thanks.


You will need:
bulky yarn - 1 skein
size 13 circular needles, 16 inches long
size 13 double pointed needles
tapestry needle for finishing

Cast On 40 stitches and join for knitting in the round, being careful not to twist.
K2P2 - follow this pattern for as many rows as you like to form the "collar". (I'm making my "collars" wide these days - you can see a small collar on the third cocoon link above, but I usually knit for about 10 rows.)
K all stitches until piece measures between 13 and 14 inches.
Place stitch marker.
row 1: K8, K2tog - continue to end of round
row 2: K all stitches
row 3: K7, K2tog - continue to end of round
row 4: K all stitches
row 5: K6, K2tog - continue to end of round
row 6: K5, K2tog - continue to end of round
row 7: K4, K2tog - continue to end of round
row 8: K3, K2tog - continue to end of round
row 9: K all stitches
{switch to dpns}
row 10: K2, K2tog - continue to end of round
row 11: K1, K2 tog
eight stitches should remain
sew through remaining eight stitches with tapestry needles, turn cocoon inside out and weave in end of yarn.

Take tapestry needle and weave in tail of yarn from beginning of cocoon. Blocking is usually not necessary, but if your cocoon needs a little shaping, spray with water and lay flat to dry.

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How to make collaged Valentines

Something I am thinking about a lot these days is scope. I often start these projects for myself and my kids that we just can't (don't) finish. Valentines are a perfect example - it is common in this house for the first-made Valentines to be wayyyyyyyy better (sometimes this just means finished) than the last. This tutorial, while not a time saver per se, is a guaranteed equalizer!

1. Gather. You will need one piece of heavy paper or cardstock for your collage, scissors, magazine pictures (or stickers, colored paper, whatever you have), glue and card-making supplies (cardstock and envelopes if desired).

2. Select. Encourage your child to pick images that s/he loves. For this project, it is a good idea to select three small images for every one big image.

3. Arrange. Ask your child to cut around pictures as desired and put them on the page without gluing them. Now, check for white space - is this ok with you? If not, look through your scraps and fill in (usually scraps of paper in pleasing colors will do the trick).

4. Glue. With glue sticks, adhere your pictures to your page - try to glue as thoroughly as possible. Remind your young artist that there is no wrong way to collage and "straight" and "orderly" won't make today's final product any better.

5. Dry and Cut. Allow your collage to dry completely. Now, pick a shape. Cut a piece of cardstock out that will be the size as your finished card - from that card, draw and cut out your shape. Remember that the smaller your card is, the more shapes you will be able to cut from your collage.

6. Trace. When your collage is dry, turn it over and trace your heart in as many places as possible without looking at your collage.

7. Cut out your shapes.

8. Assemble. Glue your hearts to your cards and write on them as you please. If you want to embellish your envelopes, use the scraps. [Consider postcards if your child just wants to sign his/her name and be done!]

Viola!

Notes:
For younger children, the shape should be larger, so that more pictures show up in each shape.


If your child only wants to make one collage and you have a big class/group to give Valentines to, color photocopy the collage before cutting it. 


This project can "grow up" into other things. Here is this method using art paper in a specific color scheme. These hearts adorned wedding program covers.

xo!

How to make Valentines Day headbands

It's Valentine week here at Goodness Recycled! Thanks for checking in! Here is a very simple tutorial for embellishing your own Valentines Day headbands.

The reason it's simple is because there's no wrong way to make them, and limitless fun combinations.

Step 1. Gather

 Find Valentine-colored supplies in your craft stash: felted sweaters, felt, buttons, pom pons, embroidery thread, needle, scissors, (not shown: needle felting supplies), and of course, headbands.

My daughter loves these headbands and coincidentally they are made of fabric so it is easy to sew your embellishments right to the band. You could also use plastic headbands - this would require glue rather than needle and thread for assembly.

Step 2: Create

Without planning yet for your headband, cut out shapes, sew buttons, assemble different combinations of colors (what other animals could you make from hearts?).

Step 3. Ignore imperfections

Just make some things that are pleasing to you - not too big, not all the same.

Step 4. Assemble

Now, take different components and combine them for your headbands. It wasn't until I made the circle with the big button [above] that I thought about sewing buttons to a heart [top photo]. 

Step 5. Attach to headband.

Sew back and forth through the material part of your headband. Remember that if you have a double layer of felt, or a big button or embellishment, you can sew behind that and the stitch will not be seen when the headband is worn. (If need be, review Step 3.)

Step 6. Deliver

Give headband to your favorite Valentine!

Thanks to my daughter for modeling! xo

zentangling + atcs

I love zentangling (the process and the word itself!). Today I'm working on my kids' party agenda (my business opens in six days...hooray!) and I wondered if zentangling on a full sheet of card stock to then cut into artist trading cards would be a fun idea.

Using regular cardstock and a felt-tip marker, I started with hearts, on purpose because I'm going to paint those (traditional zen tangling wouldn't start with a graphic, but I'm thinking kid-friendly).

Then I divided the page into segments. (See my pen pointing to an imperfection? It never matters...)

Next, I started filling in (doodling)...

And filling in some more...

When my shading was done, I painted in my hearts (next time, I'll use colored pencils for better texture).

I cut the page into artist trading cards (2 1/2 x 3 1/2) for someone else to finish.

Yes this was very fun! But no, I wouldn't include this in a party because it takes a really long time to complete. This would be a great project to send home with someone. It will definitely be on my list when my kids are home for the holidays. The process is indeed meditative.

Are you interested in trying it? The shading takes a bit of time, but many people zentangle with just a ball point pen and do little to no shading - check out these! Usually, when I make a zentangle, I have a much smaller piece of paper (half of a junk mail envelope for instance) where I scribble while something is cooking, or while waiting for soccer practice to end. You can make a 1 inch x 1 inch zentangle!

For artist trading cards, I'd just start with a card and keep the design small - this way it takes fewer than 10 minutes to complete. 

Ahhhhhh....there are plenty of how-to videos about zentangling on youtube. Just be careful - they can be hypnotizing. Happy Tuesday! xo

How to make a jewelry organizer

part 1 of 2 - here's part 2!

Finally, some goodness recycled! ;)

I am not a person who has a lot of jewelry, but what I do have, I love. And for months, I've been thinking that I need a way to see my jewelry, so I take the time to put it on during our busy busy mornings.

For this project, I used two thrifted frames, paint, fabric, glue, cardboard (cork would work too) and extra wood pieces that I had around my art room. I bought the wood pieces years ago to "cheat" a bit on this super fun tutorial.

First, I disassembled my frames and painted them in fun colors (totally optional). I also painted the wooden "feet" to match. (See that flower print? It is so old and it was under the pic of the little girl - love when that happens!)

Next, use the glass or cardboard backing to cut your fabric. It doesn't have to be perfect.

And then use the same glass or cardboard as a template for whatever you'll rest your jewelry on. I re-used the board in one of the frames and cut up this rootbeer case for the other. You also could repurpose your glass, but if you wanted to pin your jewelry in place, you need something that will hold a pin). Cork would work great too.

How to make a jewelry organizer con't.

Part 2 of 2 - here's part 1!

Adhere fabric to backing (I just used packing tape) and reassemble frames.

Glue "feet" to the bottom of the frames - I used a glue gun.

Viola! Done!

And of course, you absolutely could use these to display your jewelry - on a dresser, in a bathroom, but mine are going to be in my drawer!

In hindsight:

1. I should have primed the frames (duh!)

2. I should have put a piece of white paper or plain fabric behind the patterned fabric (some of the print on the cardboard showed through).

3. I don't feel like I need to use pins, but sewing pins could easily be cut short and used to anchor your jewelry for when drawers are opened and closed!

So I spent $1.81 and $1.21 on the frames - everything else was on hand. Total cost of project: $3.02. xo