Showing posts with label Crafts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Crafts. Show all posts

Friday, July 27, 2012

Wedding/Prom Garter Tutorial

As many of you know my little sister got married a couple months ago! As part of the preparations I had the fun of making her garters for her. She requested Chicago Blackhawks garters to surprise her groom with (a fantastic idea in my book). In the end they looked a little like this.


I recently had the privilege of making another set (this time Chicago Cubs) for a friend. This time around I decided to share the process :) Hope you enjoy!

Wedding Garter Tutorial

Supplies Needed:
Ribbon (1 1/2" for the widest portion; 1" for the middle portion)
Thread
Elastic
Emellishments
Straight Pins
Safety Pin
Scissors
Sewing Machine

(I have a hot glue gun in my picture but I ended up not using it.)

1. The first thing you're going to want to do is measure the leg the garter will be on. I didn't have this capability so I cut my elastic to be 14". If you are able to measure the leg, you will want to cut your elastic to be a little shorter than what you measure so it "holds" onto the leg and doesn't slide down.


2. The next thing to do is to cut your ribbon to be 1 1/2 x as long as your elastic. (In my case the ribbon was 21".)

3. Next pin your 2 types of ribbon together . You will want to center the more narrow ribbon on the wider ribbon.

(I added ruffles to the bottom of the keepsake garter shown)

4. Now you can sew your ribbon together. To do this you want to sew as close to the edge as possible down both sides of the narrow ribbon. By doing this you are creating a casing for your elastic to be fed through.

5. Now attach your safety pin to one end of your elastic and feed it through the casing you just made. Use a straight pin to attach the end of the elastic to each end of the casing. The casing should bunch up since it is longer than the elastic.



6. Now fold the garter in 1/2 so that the right sides are facing each other and sew through all layers. At this point I also burn the ends of my ribbon so they won't fray.



6. And this is what you get.


7. The last thing to do is attach any embellishments you want. To make the sports themed garters I used charms from dangle earrings I purchased online and some extra ribbon for the bow. I sewed them on but you could also hot glue them (hence the hot glue gun in the first picture). And Voila!

(Please excuse the pasty white leg :P)


Monday, May 14, 2012

Wedding Card Box

This week is WEDDING WEEK! My little sister is getting married Saturday! It's just crazy to think that just the other day we were little kiddos playing together and now we have families of our own! I'm so happy for my sister and her fiance and have been doing what I can to help with their big day!

A few weeks ago I was asked to handle the card box for the reception. Figure out what to do and get it there basically. So I went to work on Pinterest (have I mentioned before how much I LOVE Pinterest) doing some research on some card boxes b/c I couldn't just do something boring :) I found the idea of using a mailbox as a card box. Now I know this isn't any new idea but I figured I would give it my own twist. I didn't use any of the decorating ideas I came across so I figured I would share what I did :)

I started with a black steel mailbox that I found on craigslist for $5 (score!).
Not this exact one but one pretty similar :)
I took this sucker and sanded it down 'till I was breathing steel dust (ok maybe not that much but I did sand it all down :) ). Once I was done sanding I spray painted. It obviously took a few coats since I started with black and spray painted it white and of course didn't take the advice of my husband and spend $$ on primer . . .

I painted the flag silver since my embellishments were going to be silver.


I got my spray paint from Hobby Lobby. I used the Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Gloss paint and it worked fine for what I needed.

Once the mailbox was finally dry I brought it inside and got busy decorating. I had borrowed my friend's Cricut for a different project I was working on and decided I'd attempt to use it to decorate this mailbox. So I went out and found some silver self-adhesive vinyl and got to work :) I used 2 cartridges to do my designs. One for the grass and one for the letters. I used the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge for the grass and the George & Basic Shapes cartridge for the lettering
.


At this point it was just a matter of cutting the decorations out and sticking them on the mailbox. I was very happy with the way it turned out!