Friday, January 25, 2013

A Change from the Norm- A Super Simple DIY

Happy Friday night, everyone! I know it's practically Saturday morning, but we hope you all have had a fantabulous week and have plans to enjoy the weekend. Today was the perfect end to a pretty dreary week here- 50 degrees and sun! That's like spring back home!! Oh, so much better than bone chilling temperatures and snow. There's room on the couch for anyone who wants to visit! Today's project is a little different from most of our posts, but it can be used in either warm weather or cold, or just to wear around the house.
Since most of the schools around here had half-days (silly, I know), I was 'fortunate' to start my weekend a bit early. When I woke up this morning, I had big ideas on how to spend my day. The biggest one was cleaning. It needed to be done. But no one really likes to clean, me included, so my brain decided it wanted to do something else more fun. I could have done a paper project (and probably should have), but I really wanted to make something out of fabric. One of the accessories I like to add to an outfit is a little scarf, sometimes to add a pop of color, others because some of the classrooms get uncomfortably cold. We have a huge bin in the closet full of scrap fabric and so I decided to make a scarf with some of the scraps. This is what I came up with:
(It was either the lamp or the vacuum cleaner...my model has gone to bed and I haven't quite mastered the art of taking good self-portraits.)
Now, it was super easy to make this scarf. The project (if done correctly the first time) could be done in under an hour and with only a little bit of fabric. After spending more than enough time trying to figure out what kind of scarf would look good in white flannel (there are quite a few differnet types- scarves, fringed, frayed), I decided to make a 'curly' scarf. There are a whole bunch of tutorials on how to make these, but the idea is super simple. You take your fabric (old t-shirts work well, too) and double layer it. Trace a circle, about 10" in diameter, onto the fabric and cut it out (for an 'adult' length. The bigger the circle, the longer the scarf.) The next step is to cut both layers into a spiral. They don't have to be perfect and you can most likely cut more than one at a time. My scarf has 10 strips, but you can add more to fluff it up. I wouldn't go smaller than this. Find the half-way point of each strip and then put it on. It's that simple. You can add a few stitches to the back to keep the layers in place, but they've stayed pretty well all day, even after taking it off a few times. Onto the flower:

This is where I spent most of my time- trying to figure out what kind of flower I wanted to add to the scarf. I tried the rolled ones, but it was just not working for me. It was a hot mess- figuratively and literally, with all the glue from the hot glue gun. After three failed attempts, I decided on this one. There are also tutorials out there on how to make these, but again, they're super easy. This is the tutorial that I followed. I cut out a 3.5" flower from some black and pink fabric and tulle. She said to use 9 flowers, but I added a few more to make it a bit fuller (OK, I also misread one of the directions and glued my black layer down by accident.) I folded the matching tulle into the flower, to give it a little pizzazz. I sandwiched a cheap black elastic between two pieces of felt, so my flower can be interchangeable. This flower just happened to match the rest of my outfit (socks included) quite nicely! I guess tomorrow's project is to make some more flowers. Or to continue cleaning....such a hard decision.
Thanks so much for stopping by! Join us tomorrow for another Cupcake Saturday!

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