Ok I said ‘easy’ in the title didn’t I? Well It is fairly easy, especially if you are accustomed to using patterns. I have gotten out of the habit of using patterns, I just sew, which makes it hard to pass on the instructions but my mind is so cluttered with ideas that I just start in. Well for this clutch I decided to use a pattern, which I didn’t follow and I had to use my seam ripper, and go back and follow the instructions.

I found the Free Clutch Sewing Pattern at Ali Foster Patterns. Click here for the tutorial.

I used these two coordinating fabrics that I found at the thrift store.

Added a linen flower, I cute from a skirt, to make it a bit more fun.

I used velcro instead of a snap because I tend to use what I have on hand.

The other day I shared about a lady who made jewelry out of old bicycle tubes and I told you I would be trying it with the recycled leather I got from SCRAP. Well I gave it a try, was hoping to have a cute bracelet for my daughters birthday with a C cut out in the middle. But I found out quickly that you cant really do large cut outs or it flaps open. I also found out it is hard to cut the leather, making the cut out C look very scrappy. So I scraped that one and started another one and the second one turned out pretty good.

I started with a pink piece of leather. I measured my daughters arm and cut it to that length.

I used a razor blade to cut the C out after I traced it onto the leather. Make sure and have a cutting board under the leather.

I also used the hole punch from my sisters handy dandy crop-A-Dile. But then I scraped this one.

And made this one!

I used two small eyelets on each side, along with two strips of leather for the closure.

I noticed this lady was wearing this bracelet that looked like leather with unique leaf like cut outs all over it. I decided to ask her about it and I am so glad I did. She told me her husband is a bike commuter and goes through bicycle tubes like a wild man. She wasn’t quite sure what to do with them as they were piling up so she decided she would somehow find a way to get use out of them. She started playing around with them and found that they made some unique jewelry. And the best part, she used eyelets to connect the two sides. She said they stretch enough so that you can just slip it on. She also made a necklace and earrings from bicycle tubes. I love finding crafty people! I am so excited to try this. But since I don’t have any bicycle tubes laying around, I figured I would give it a try with my leather scraps.

Now these aren’t exactly like the one she made but the middle one is similar, just with eyelets instead of a snap closure. So many possibilities!

Photo courtesy of The Matchbook.

I have this black sweater that was so blah and needed a little extra something to make it stand out. I was looking through my J Crew catalog like I do from time to time every night and saw the Rumpled Ribbon Cardigan. It didn’t look like it would be too hard to reproduce. Just a bit of ribbon rumpled along the side of the sweater and around the neck.

J Crew's Rumpled Ribbon Cardigan

My version!

This was super easy to make, just took some ribbon, fray checked the edges and pinned it rumpled up to the sweater and sewed on. I didn’t have enough ribbon to go all around to the other side but figured one side was good enough.

Try it on one of your sweaters!

Its almost that time, time to get your sun-denied little feet out of their socks and toe-warmin shoes and into those flip flops.  Today I went to the shoe store with my daughter and we saw these cute flip flops with ribbon flowers on top of them. I looked at my daughter and said ‘I can do that!’. So I came home and I did just that!

Items Needed: Ribbon, Glue Gun, Sewing Machine, Flip Flops and Felt

1. Take ribbon and sew the basting stitch across the top. Pull the loose string and make the ribbon ruffle.

2. Roll them into a ribbon flower and glue a piece of felt to the bottom of the flower.

3. Do step 1 and 2 to both of your pieces of ribbon.

4. Hot glue your ribbon flower to your flip flop.

5. Get out and enjoy your flip flops!

Anyone can do this, it takes no skill (unless you think using scissors is a skill) and besides knowing how to cut, all you really need is a sewing machine. Now don’t tell me you don’t know how to use a sewing machine because anyone can do this. Do you have a foot and two hands? Than your set, just need to do a basic stitch and back stitch and you can make this shirt or a shirt like it.

Isn’t it cute? I wasn’t prepared for this to turn out so cute so I didn’t take before pictures. I am going to make another one of these so I will do a detailed post on how to make your own in the next couple days.

Check back!

I have had this gold ruffly dust ruffle for a long time, probably a year or longer and today I decided to turn it into a skirt.

I do not like attaching zippers, so I do anything I can to avoid using them. I came up with the idea of using snap ups and button ups from shirts for my fasteners.

What do you think?

I found myself back at SCRAP(that awesome store in Portland, Or) yesterday and decided to buy some leather.  Ideas were popping in and out of my head all night long when I finally decided that I needed to make some napkin rings for those pretty napkins I made a bit ago. My poor dh must of thought I was crazy when I exclaimed(out of the blue) that I was going to make some napkin rings out of the leather. Most good ideas come at the oddest times, sorry hon!

I started with 4 cut strips of leather, the length you cut them is up to you. Mine measured 6 inches in length by 1 1/2 inches wide.

1. You will need a tool for this, because I don’t think a hole punch will go through the leather. Punch holes on one side of the leather, fold over in a circle and make marks with a pen where you want the holes on the other side to go and punch those holes.

2. Line up the holes and put the eyelet in the hole and using the tool, crimp together really tight. Make sure there are no rough edges on the inside so that your napkins don’t get snagged.

And your done!

Super easy and super fast and don’t worry if they aren’t perfect, that just adds to the look.

I was inspired by some pieces of jewelry I saw on Anthropologie and started pulling out all my lace, silk, and vintage crocheted thrift finds and just started playing around with how they would look with different things on them and I came up with this necklace. I quite like it!

I almost sewed this rose on without the black material behind it, I am so glad I put the black, it adds such depth.

I hope you are inspired by things you see. Most of the time its much easier than it looks, so give it a try!

I have this dress that has been sitting in my fabric pile because I couldn’t add a zipper to it unless I made it smaller and if I made it smaller, it would no longer fit me. I was sad because I loved this dress. But laying in bed (where I come up with most of my great ideas) I figured I could add eyelets and a ribbon and then I wouldn’t have to make the dress smaller. So thankfully for me, my sister already had the tool, all I needed was eyelets and it ended up being 50 eyelets, which I concluded later really only needed to be 30, but now its done and I love how it turned out.

I made marks with a pen before I started, I would recommend not using an ink pen, but something less permanent, so you can change where you put the eyelets as you go.

This is time consuming but really rather easy with the tool. All I did was punch a hole through the fabric with the tool and then stick the eyelet pieces on the top and bottom and crimp down with the tool and it was done. I know that you can do this also with the little tool that comes with the eyelets, you don’t have to buy the expensive tool. And to punch the holes a paper hole punch should work.

After your eyelets are in you can start threading your ribbon. This was hard. I used 10 yards of ribbon to start. I have to cut some off, but wanted to make sure I had the length I needed before I cut and with so many eyelets I wasn’t sure. Also you need to be able to open up the dress to get it off, in which you need a lot of extra ribbon.

This dress is not completely finished, the hem and back need to be sewed. I love the green against the pink dress.

I love this dress on but its very time consuming, this will definitely only be for special occasions and ones in which I wont need to get out of it quickly. It took my daughter about 5 minutes time to get the ribbons laced up and about the same for me to get them undone, that may not seem long, but if you think about how fast you can unzip something, well 5 minutes becomes really long.