Simple Stitched Notebooks

 Believe it or not, Christmas is here again. My Christmas break from college started on the 16th so when I got home there wasn't much time to get gifts together for my friends. I had already bought a few small things earlier in the year but I felt like my gifts still needed a little something, so I went searching through my brain (and Pinterest) for a quick and easy hand-made gift inspiration. I always like to add something handmade to gifts because it is an inexpensive way to add a personal touch and I have a lot more fun making things than I do buying things.
I ended up finding an idea in my brain for some monogrammed notebooks.

It doesn't look very Christmas-y out there. No snow yet.

I've made five notebooks so far and will probably end up making a few more before the season is over. I used regular printer paper for the pages and some letter size craft paper card stock for the cover. I cut everything in half down the short side so that I had 8 1/2" X 5 1/2" rectangles, then folded everything in half, put it all together, and  used a sewing machine to stitch along the fold to bind everything together. Once the notebooks were bound I embellished them by stitching on some fabric scraps and stamping the initial of the recipient on them.

Cute, huh? I'm hoping to still make a bigger, Listography-style one for my little sis' for Christmas (shh! don't tell!). Yes I realize that Christmas is only two days away. I'm on top of this.

Milestones: sewing on a zipper

I have a book called "Last-Minute Fabric Gifts" which has a lot of fun, quick projects in it, most of which I haven't gotten around to trying yet. A few weeks ago I finally made a little make-up/travel bag that I had been admiring in the book for a long time. I made this one as a birthday gift for a friend but I think I am going to make one for me too. I really love the style of it and the fact that it has a lot of room inside.

This project marks a milestone for me because it is the first time I have EVER sewn on a zipper. Until I made this little bag I had always begged my mom to sew all the zippers for anything I made. I really have no clue why I was so averse to putting on a zipper; maybe it was the zipper foot for the machine that freaked me out or maybe I was just being lazy. (I think I was just being lazy).

I'm glad that I have overcome my antipathy for zipper sewing, and I am proud of my little travel pouch. I think it came out pretty.  :)

Napkin rings: take one

Remember way back when I said I had to make napkins rings or I was going to explode? Well, I did...make napkin rings that is. I didn't explode.

I made a set of eight (rather hurriedly) as a gift for the hostess of a new years eve party my family was attending. They were finally finished about five minutes before we headed out the door, which didn't leave much time for taking pictures. The lack of good lighting added to my lack of photography skills did not result in very pretty pictures.

Nevertheless, here they are in all their poorly-photographed glory.

They looked better in person, I promise.

The napkin ring fever has been dispelled for now, but I still plan on making a set (or two) for myself.

Decorated composition book

I'm a little bit of a note book addict. I have an entire milk crate full of them and some loose ones scattered throughout my house.

I have a notebook for craft ideas, a notebook for video game cheats (yes, I'm a nerd), a notebook for drawing in, a notebook of advice to myself (actually I have two of these), a notebook filled with dumb stories I wrote when I was twelve, a notebook filled with tags and receipts from noteworthy purchases- I think you get the idea. I like notebooks.

I recently started another notebook; this one is being filled with lists that have titles such as: A few of my favorite things, Girl names I like, Boy names I like, Things I want to make.

For a notebook with such important contents I didn't want to keep the standard black marble look so I decided to decorate it.

I bought some pretty scrapbooking paper for like 69 cents and covered both the front and the back. I also rummaged through my mother's tin of trim and picked out some lace (lace is on the favorite things list) and a little crocheted trim to add to the front.

Then I took some coordinating paper and covered the insides of the covers with it. I also used my stamps to write my name on the inside of the front cover.

The paper is a little lumpy in some spots because it was glued on over the lace but it doesn't bother me too much.

I really like how this notebook came out. I will probably be doing some more notebook decorating in the near future.

I think they would make great gifts (I say that a lot huh?) because you can personalize them for whomever you are giving them to.

French memo boards

I did finally get to make my napkin rings, which has dispelled the napkin ring fever (for the time being at least) but the pictures of them are still on my sister's camera which is with her in Arizona, so I will have to share those another day.

For now, here is another one of the projects that I made to give as Christmas presents. These are really simple and pretty and a great way to display pictures and many other things.

To make these french memo boards you need:

• a canvas (I got mine for around $3 at Job Lot)
• batting
• fabric
• a staple gun or stapler
• ribbon
• jumbo brads (beads or buttons work too)
• poster board
• sawtooth picture hangers

Cut a rectangle of batting that is the same size as your canvas. I used more than one layer because my batting was very thin. Cut a rectangle out of your fabric that is big enough to cover the front of your canvas and overlap the sides by 1-2 inches.
Lay your batting on top of your canvas and center the fabric on top. Flip the whole pile over and use your staple gun to staple the fabric to the back of the canvas. You want it to be a little tight, so when you are stapling the last three sides tug the fabric taught and then staple.

Now take the ribbon and staple the end of it to the corner of your canvas so that it will go straight across the edge of the corner.

Then stretch it across to the other corner, pulling it so that it will be tight enough to hold the pictures and things it will be displaying. Staple the ribbon on the back of the opposite corner and cut it from the spool leaving just a little extra. Now do the same thing with the other two corners.

Keep adding ribbons in both directions until you are satisfied with the amount of ribbons on the board. Try to keep approximately the same amount of space between each pair of parallel ribbons so that the diamonds formed by the overlapping ribbons will be almost the same size.
When you are stapling on the rest of the ribbons make sure you staple them to the side edge of the canvas and then to the bottom so that they stay in place.

Once you've stapled the ribbons to the side you can fold the excess over to the back of the canvas and staple the ends down so they stay out of the way.
 

 
Use Scissors to poke a hole through one of the x's made by two ribbons overlapping and all the way through the canvas. Put a brad through the hole and fasten it. For some of the other memo boards I made, I covered the brads with fabric to make them match (actually my mom did it for me). On another one I sewed on fake pearl beads in place of the brads. 
Now take your poster board and cut a rectangle of the same dimensions as your canvas. Staple it to the back of the canvas to cover up all the fabric and ribbon ends. Then attach a sawtooth picture hanger in the middle of both a long side and a short side.

 All done!

What keeps me awake at night: napkin rings.

I found this tutorial through stumbleupon a little while ago and I have not been able to get napkin rings out of my head since. (Which is why I am awake at 10:30 at night writing this.)
I am pretty sure if I don't make some napkin rings soon my brain might explode. I want a set to put in my hope chest and I also think that they would make good gifts so I want to make lots of them.
I have been looking on Etsy for some inspiration and have found many very pretty (and simple! Or at least they seem simple.) styles.
Here are some of the ones I liked:

Flower with branch napkin rings
Vintage silver plate spoons napkin rings
Felt poinsettia napkin rings
Turquoise rosette napkin rings
Silverware napkin rings
Crochet napkin rings (whoo! crochet!)
Elegant felt flowers napkin rings
Red felt flower napkin rings

OK I think I have seen enough napkin rings for one night. For myself, I am probably going to go with a similar design to the one in the tutorial. I am hopefully getting some PVC pipe tomorrow so I can try making these. I am going with PVC because it is strong and cheap.
Off to bed now! I need to be well rested for some napkin ring crafting tomorrow.

Penny-pinching pretty: Anthropologie necklace remake

I saw this necklace on a blog that I love reading and thought it was really cute. The Anthro one is super expensive and after seeing some one else do a successful remake of it I thought "Hey, I can do that!"
It really isn't that difficult. Cutting out and painting the little leather triangles took a bit of time but I'm sure I spent less than ten dollars on this necklace, so it was worth it.
Here's how it came out:

 All I did was cut out ten little leather triangles and paint them the same colors (or as close as I could get) as the ones on the original necklace. Then I used my leather hole puncher and put small holes (but big enough to fit my chain through) in two corners of the triangle. I strung all of the triangles onto the chain, used jump rings to attach the charms, and tied on the two lengths of ribbon. That's it! Simple right?
The only thing I would do differently would be to use thinner coats of paint on the triangles so that the leathery texture was more visible.  This one is a Christmas present for a friend but I think I am going to make one for myself too.

Lace flower hair clip tutorial.

I am trying to make as many Christmas presents as I can this year because A) making things is fun and makes the present more meaningful and B) I spent all the money I made over the summer on vet bills and clothing.
So here is one of the things I made this year and instructions on how I did it. I think it came out pretty cute.

Here's what you will need :

• a needle and thread
• scissors
• glue gun
• lace
• ribbon
• a small piece of leather
• felt
• a button or any embellishment you would like for the middle
• a hair clip (I used an alligator clip)
• one of those flat bottom pins (I think they are called pin backs?)

Cut your lace to the desired length. The longer it is the more tightly you will need to gather it and the shorter it is the looser the gathering will be. I used about a foot of lace. I thought my lace was a little too wide so I did some more cutting to make it thinner. (The width of your lace is the radius of your flower.)

Thread your needle and make a knot in the end of your thread. Begin gathering your length of lace about a quarter of an inch up from the bottom edge. (To gather, sew small, even stitches along the edge and gently slide the lace, in folds, toward the knotted end of your thread.) Keep gathering until your lace forms a circle. Slightly overlap the two open ends of the circle and stitch them together to close the circle.

 Cut a small circle out of your leather for the center of your flower. My center was 1 1/4 inches in diameter. I used a looped button as my embellishment in the center so I had to cut a slit in the middle of my leather circle for the loop to go through. If you are using a flat button you can just glue it on or if you are using a bead try stitching it on to the leather circle. Glue your leather circle on to the middle of your flower.
Note: when you glue your leather circle, leave 1/8 - 1/4 of an inch of the edge unglued all the way around. You will see why later. 
 Because I used a looped button I made sure the loop was coming through the small opening in the gathering of the lace so that I could stitch it to the flower.

Cut a length of ribbon (mine was about 6 1/2 inches long). Cut the ends of the ribbon to make little v shapes. Fold the ribbon over in half. You can make one end longer than the other or have both ends be the same length, whatever you prefer. Put a dot of hot glue in the fold of the ribbon to keep it in place. Now glue the folded end of the ribbon to the center-back of the flower.

 Cut a circle of felt about the same size as your circle of leather and glue it to the back of your flower, over the ribbon.

Ok now thread your needle and stitch all the way around near the edge of the felt circle with out going through the leather on the other side. This is why you did not glue the leather circle completely. You need to lift the edges of the leather while you push the needle through so that you are only going through the felt and the lace. Yes, I know that you just hot glued the felt to the flower; I trust thread a lot more than I trust hot glue. Don't roll your eyes at me.

Almost done!
Glue your pin (if you are using one) to the felt. Now cut a rectangle that is about as long as your felt circle's diameter and just a little thinner than the length of your pin. (This is not rocket science; you dont actually have to measure the rectangle.) Put some glue on the inside of your pin and stick the felt to it. (Do not finish gluing the felt down yet.) Now fold back the unglued end of the felt and put some glue where the alligator clip is going to go. Open the aligator clip and press only the bottom into the glue then press the felt down on top of it and close the clip on the felt.

 Finish gluing down the felt, let the glue harden and you're done!

Good job, crafter!