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1000s of free craft projects, home decor ideas and DIY tips

How to Sew a Simple, Padded Laptop Tote (for new TSA Regulations)

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A few days ago, I read an article at Girlawhirl, regarding the new TSA regulations for laptop bags. Since August, you do not have to take your laptop out of the bag as long as the laptop is in a compartment all by itself, without hardware such as zippers or pockets to obstruct the X-ray view. Like everyone, I hate being rushed to whip my laptop out of a bag and clunk it into one of those trays. It looks so cold and vulnerable!  When you get through security, you have to stagger somewhere away from the madness juggling shoes, belt, laptop, bag, purse, etc. etc. I might be exaggerating, but really, it’s inconvenient and thus so exciting to hear TSA is willing to compromise.

Crafters can create a great solution for these new regulations and not have to remove their laptops from a nice, padded case. With simple sewing skills, you can breeze right through security.

A simple, padded tote bag should do the trick, and you might even catch a few admiring glimpses of your cute, personalized carrier.

Here’s all that you need:

  • Fabric- You can use one or two colors if you like (one for the lining and one for the outside.) Use a more sturdy fabric for the outside of the tote bag.
  • Quilt Batting
  • Interfacing Materials
  • Thread in complimentary color
  • Sewing Machine

For the complete, step-by-step instructions for this padded, laptop tote bag, see here. Happy Traveling Everyone!

Melted Crayon Heart Valentines

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Melting crayon pieces might be an old trick but a twist makes this project perfect for the kids on Valentine’s Day. Instead of store-bought valentines, they can affix the crayon hearts to pieces of paper and give to friends and schoolmates.

Materials:

* Crayon pieces- Some metallic crayons give a wonderful, glittery look
* Heart-shaped muffin tin, silicone mold OR regular baking dish and heart-shaped cookie cutters
* Scissors
* Markers, Colored Pencils or Crayons
* Heavy, Colored Card Stock
* Double-sided foam mounting tape

Steps:

1. Heat the oven to 250 degrees F.
2. Collect any broken crayon bits or break up a few packs. Kids love this!
3. Remove any paper wrappings from the crayons. To do this easily, soak the crayons in hot water and watch the wrappings float off.
4. Spray your heart-shaped muffin tin or mold with a bit of cooking spray. If you are using a regular baking dish, simply line the dish with parchment paper. Silicone     molds are ready to go!
5. Fill the tins with the crayon pieces or sprinkle over the bottom of the baking dish. Use larger chunks for a more colorful result.
6. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until melted.
7. If using silicone, pop out of the mold. Otherwise, carefully remove and smooth any rough edges by drawing with the crayon heart on some scrap paper.
8. Use the tape to affix the crayon heart to a small square of cardstock. Cut the card-stock into a heart shape for an added touch. You can trace out the hearts and have the kids cut them out.
9. Let the kids decorate the card and add any messages they like!

Easy to Make Valentine for Kids

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Laced Valentines for Kids

These simple and easy hearts are great for preschool Valentine’s Day crafts.

Materials:

  • Yarn or ribbon in red, pink or white lace
  • Cardstock or cardboard in pink, red, or mauve
  • Single hole punch
  • Scissors
  • Pencil
  • Markers and Glitter (Optional)

Steps:

  1. Trace a heart shape on the cardstock or cardboard.
  2. Have your child practice cutting the heart shape out of the card stock or cardboard. Make sure to use safety scissors and monitor your child’s work. Or cut the heart shapes out ahead of time for your child.
  3. Once cut out, flip the card on the back and space out dots along the heart’s boarder where you will put the holes for weaving. Continue the whole way around the heart.
  4. Using the single hold punch, cut out holes on the designated spots along the heart’s boarder.
  5. Practice tying knots with the yarn or ribbon with your child. Tie a knot or a bow in one end of the ribbon.
  6. Lace through the first hole at the pointed bottom of the heart and pull through until you hit the knot. Show your child how to pull the ribbon through the hole and back up through the next hole in a weaving pattern.
  7. Continue all the way around the heart. When you get back to where you began, tie off the ribbon or yarn again with a knot or a bow.
  8. Let your child decorate the Valentine as they see fit with crayons, markers and glitter.

How to Replace a Zipper

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We all have that favorite pair of jeans. And we’ve all experienced the devastation of having the zipper break. Instead of tossing them into the trash or rushing them over to Goodwill, try these step-by-step instructions to repair your zipper in no time.

jeanszipper

1. Use a seam ripper to remove the zipper.

2. It may be difficult to find a replacement zipper of the exact length, so be sure to get one that is a little bit longer than the old zipper. Line the broken zipper up against the new zipper and mark where the teeth of the old one end to ensure they will be the same length.

3. At the end of the zipper, make a bar tack. This can be done with the zig zag function on a sewing machine or by hand. Cut the zipper just below the bar tack.

4. Put the zipper in the jeans and baste into place.

5. Use the zipper foot to sew the zipper into place. Stitch as close to the zipper as possible.

6. Turn the pants inside out. Pin the zipper in place and sew it into position. Be careful to only stitch through one layer of fabric so that you will not be able to see the stitches on the outside.

7. Make a bar tack at the end of the zipper to hold it securely into place.

How to Sew a Fabric Yo Yo Heart for Valentine’s Day

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I’ll stick with the theme today and post another fun sewing tutorial. Yo-yos are cute little decorative embellishments perfect for using up fabric scraps, which so many sewers find themselves swimming in after a few projects. Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, I thought I’d post a tutorial on how to sew a heart shaped yo-yo. They are really quite easy and you can use them to embellish a Valentine’s Day gift bag, card or make them into a garland. Here’s how:

  1. Cut a large heart out from scrap fabric. It does not have to be perfect; that’s the beauty of yo-yos!
  2. Turn 3/8 inch of the fabric under on the left side of the heart.
  3. Beginning at the top V-shaped indent of the heart, sew a long basting stitch counter-clockwise. Stop at the point of the heart, leaving a several inch tail of thread for later.
  4. With a second strand of thread, begin again at the V indent, but sew clockwise this time and end at the point of the heart. Leave a several inch tail again.
  5. Pull both threads until you create a gathered heart shape (it won’t be perfect yet) and tie the strands together to secure. A gap in the center of the heart is ok. You can use this side as the back of your yo-yo or cover with a button later.
  6. Take your threaded needle and stick it inside the heart and up through where the indent of the heart should be. Make a very small stitch where you want the point of the V-indent and pull back towards the center of the gathered heart.
  7. Secure this stitch to one of the gathers.
  8. You can now sew on a button to cover the gap in the center if you wish, securing to the gathers.

Enjoy!

How to turn old jeans into potholders

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Turn the seat of an old pair of jeans into potholders. The jean pockets, already ready for slipping in your hands, make this sewing project a breeze.

  1. Find a pair of old jeans. Perhaps you have an unsightly hole that is beyond mending like me?
  2. Cut two 10 inch squares around each pocket, with the pocket as close to the center of the square as possible.
  3. Cut out two 10 inch squares in fabric to match the denim squares.
  4. For the insulation layer, use two layers of thick wool batting cut to equal squares, or use several layers of denim squares cut from the jean legs.
  5. For each potholder, assemble the three square layers of denim, insulation, fabric. Align the insulation squares with the fabric square, with the wrong side of the fabric touching the insulation. Pin in place. Align this pinned piece with the denim square, with the right side of the denim touching the fabric piece. Pin in place.
  6. With a ½ inch seam allowance, stitch three sides of each pot holder.
  7. Turn inside out and press. Topstitch the remaining side closed. Repeat for other potholder.

Happy baking with your homemade potholders!

How to Finger Knit

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Finger knitting is done without needles and is a great way to introduce children to knitting. With their new skill, kids can make scarves, headbands, and toys. The basic concept of knitting is grasped before kids every pick up a knitting needle!

Materials:

  • Ball or Skein of Yarn (Any yarn will do, but I recommend chunky, colorful yarn for children.)
  • Both Hands
  • Plastic Large-Eye Sewing Needle- To finish up headbands, scarves and other projects, this not-sharp needle is perfect for kids.

Steps:

1. If you are right-handed, use your left hand to hold the yarn. Lay the yarn across your upturned palm with the tail of the yarn (the end) held between your thumb and forefinger.

2. With the yarn end attached to the ball or skein, weave the yarn through your fingers. Wrap the yarn under your pinky finger, over your ring finger, under your middle finger and over the forefinger.

3. Weave in the opposite direction. Wrap the yarn under your forefinger, over your middle finger, under your ring finger, and over your pinky.

4. Wrap the yarn under all the fingers towards your thumb and over the top back towards the pinky. This should be the top yarn.

5. Starting with the pinky finger, take the bottom woven yarn and pull it over the top (wrapped) yarn.

6. Repeat with remaining three fingers.

7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 until you have the desired length.

8. Pull on the tail of the yarn to tighten the knitting periodically.

9. To finish, cut the yarn, leaving several inches of extra yarn. Take the loops of your fingers. Pull the remaining yarn through the loops and make a knot.

Voila!

How to Make Your Own Rubber Stamps

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stampphoto

If you like to embellish your scrapbook pages with stamps, try making your own stamps for a completely personal design. Though many methods exist for transferring an image onto a carving block, tracing is probably the easiest. Creative Kismet shows you just how beautiful homemade stamps can be, with some tips on how to care for them. And if all else fails, hit the craft store and stock up on 3-D stickers, it always makes me feel better.

You Will Need:

  • Clip Art of your preferred image
  • Rubber Carving Block- Speedball sells large carving blocks, affectionately called “the pink stuff” by crafters, including a SpeedyStamp Kit with carving tools.  Mastercarve is another maker.
  • Carving tool- Craft or X-acto knifes will work for the initial cuts, but you may have trouble scrapping out the relief parts of your design. Detailed carving requires special tool(s) with a sharp, V-shaped end.
  • Sharpened No. 2 Pencil
  • Stamp Pad
  • Tracing Paper

Steps:

1. Print out an image from the web or find an image you would like to make into a stamp. For beginners, use a less-detailed image with thick, heavy lines. This will be easier to carve.

2. Place the tracing paper over your image and trace over the solid parts of the image with your sharp pencil. Don’t just outline; fill in the entire image.

3. Flip your tracing paper over and place your image face-down on the carving block (the pink stuff). For words, you want the mirror image of the word on the stamp so that the actual print comes out correctly. You can check this by holding your stamp up to a mirror. If you’ve traced a word or words, you should already accomplish this by flipping over the image onto the carving block.

4. Hold the image steady on the block with one hand as you rub the back of the tracing paper with a blunt object, such as a spoon. This will transfer the graphite onto the carving block.

5. Once transferred, you are ready to carve! For a better-looking “positive image,” you want to carve away the light areas from around your pencil image.

6. Cut off the block with your image from the rest of the carving block. Start with the most intricate areas of the design first. For carving between lines (the middle or insides of circles for example), carve around the lines of the image first, and then carve out the area between.

7. Carve away from the lines of the image using shallow, horizontal cuts. When working around curves, keep the carving tool in your one hand steady and guide the block with your other hand.

8. The cut out parts of the stamp should slope away from the raised surface, rather than straight down or undercutting the raised surface. This will make the stamp surface steadier.

9. Once your image has been carved out, remove all the excess rubber material from around the image. You want to remove everything that you do not want stamped. You can use a larger tool from the Speedy Stamp kits or X-acto knife to carve away larger areas.

10.  When you think you’re done, test out your stamp with a stamp pad or even a highlighter. With stamping, you will likely find additional areas that require carving. Don’t worry; homemade stamps are charming in their slight imperfections.

11. You can mount your stamp onto a piece of wood at this point, with or without a piece of foam separating the stamp from the mount, but it’s not a necessity. If you do mount the stamp to a slightly-larger piece of wood, remember to stamp the top of the wood with your stamp before gluing it on for easy reference.

How to Hem a Pair of Pants

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For the first installement of Tutorial Thursday, I’d like to share a little skill that’s easy but incredibly useful. Personally, I’m 5’8″ and generally have problems with paints being too short rather than the other way around, but hey, I might buy a pair of longs on sale someday and need to hem them. This guide will help you to hem a pair of pants but keep the original hem showing for a finished look.

  1. If you don’t know your preferred pant length, measure yourself or a well-fitting pair of pants. For dress pants worn with heels, hem the length to about an inch above the floor. Otherwise, pants should hit at the bottom of the ankle.
  2. With this measurement, decide how much length to take off the pair of pants.  Divide this number in half.
  3. Cuff your pants and measure this distance from the original hem. For example, if you want to take off two inches from the pant length, measure one inch from the hem. (Do not measure from the end of the pant, but rather from the thread of the original hem. The “abrasion area” is not included in your calculation. You will basically be measuring from the hem down towards the fold you made in cuffing the pant.)
  4. Using your small ruler or tape measure, pin around the cuff making sure the length is the same all the way around the cuff. (Pins should be parallel to the direction of the cuff, going up and down, and not perpendicular across the cuff.) Keep an eye on the seam of the pants, making sure the folded seam line ups when pining.
  5. Place the foot of your sewing machine right next to the original hem, at the opposite side from the end of the jeans of course, and slowly stitch all the way around the cuff. As you sew, do not lay the front and back sides of the cuff flush together and end up sewing your pant leg closed!
  6. Flip the cuff back out and push any extra fabric inwards. For a larger hem, you can trim off this excess fabric leaving ¾ inch for fraying in the wash.
  7. Press any excess material inside the pant leg upwards with your iron.
  8. Close the pant leg and push the new seam flat with your fingers.

If you had any trouble following these instructions, check out this wonderful video from LaycieDo.

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