Wet Bag - A Tutorial!

Because the hubs and I are cloth diapering the new baby, we will need to have a couple wet bags on hand at all times, especially during traveling.  I had all of the necessary supplies hanging around so I got to work... hope you enjoy!

To start with, you'll need the following things :

Materials

• Waterproof fabric (PUL, vinyl, shower curtain, waterproof vinyl tablecloth, whatever you have on hand!)
• Cotton fabric
• Zipper
• Sewing Machine
• Scissors
• Seam ripper (optional)

To start with, cut your waterproof fabric to the size bag you'll want.  I wanted to use a cheap waterproof tablecloth I had gotten during the spring for $1.  I thought about my bag dimensions and  ended up settling on a 12" x 12" bag, which means I cut a 12.5 inch wide by 24.5 inch long piece from my tablecloth.  The backing of this one is flannel, so I was able to just lay the whole thing over my chosen cotton fabric without pinning - it sticks!  So to be final, you'll need two rectangles of fabric, one 12.5 inch wide by 24.5 inch long piece of your waterproof material and one 12.5 inch wide by 24.5 inch long piece of your cotton fabric.  You'll also need to make sure your zipper will fit in the opening.  For this project, you'll want a zipper length of approximately 11.5 inches.  If your zipper is a little long, zip it up to the point you want it to end.  Put it in your sewing machine unzipped with the spot marked that it should end.  Now use the zig-zag stitch on the widest setting but the closest length together to sew the two halves together firmly.  Your new ending should be pretty short, but functional.  I sacrificed an old zip-up sweater to my heathen craft gods for this craft project, so I had to use this method.  (Sorry, forgot to take progress shots for the zipper bit...)

Once your fabric is all cut, you will probably want to do your 1/4 inch fold over on each shorter end, it makes for pretty seams... c:  Your stitches should be fairly close together and in a straight line, no more zig-zag-ing for you.

Next, close your zipper up and pin to the short end of your fabric rectangle.  You'll want to have the vinyl side facing out on the bottom side, the right side of the cotton facing up for the outside.  Sew on your zipper now, and be sure to back-tack your beginning and ending!  The next bit is to open your zipper up and sew the other side - this part is key.  If you try to do this with the zipper closed, you will have troubles...  Once your zipper is on, you'll need to flip the bag inside out so that the vinyl is on the outside on both sides of your tube of fabric.

Pin up your sides and sew your 1/4 seam down each side, making sure to back-tack again.  To ensure nice clean corners, snip the corners off at the bottom of your bag, but only up to your seam.  Once this is done, open up your zipper and flip your bag right-side (cotton) out.  Use something like a pen (with the cap on) or a crochet hook to push out your corners.

Ta-da!  Sit back and enjoy your new wet bag!  Throw your bathing suit in there after the pool, or use it for soiled diapers and whatnot like we are.  When cleaning this bag, I recommend just wiping out the inside with a Clorox wipe or equivalent.  If you need to wash it because the outside got dirty, I would machine or hand wash it only - don't dry it in your dryer.  Don't worry, it should air dry fairly quickly.  The best part of this project is that it didn't cost me a penny!  I already had the fabric and tablecloth in my craft zone for other projects.  The zipper was from an old (and not particularly awesome) sweater.

 

Belly Sash - A Tutorial!

Isn't that adorable?  Seriously, so much squee-ing over here.  I made this sash for my upcoming maternity photos with CNicholl Photography (here is her Facebook fan page).  I wanted to do something to show off the belly, since it still looks pretty decent, besides all of my new-found belly hair...

To make your own cute belly sash like this one, you'll need the following:

Materials

• Fabric scraps [I used purple knit from a failed dress and some cottony muslin]
• Lacey trim/ribbon or equivilant [Seriously, use anything you want!]
• 2 inch ribbon for the actual sash
• Yarn
• Hot glue gun and a couple hot glue sticks
• Scissors
• Beads
• Felt Sheet
• Button(s)
• Lighter

To get started, decide the basic shapes of your flowers and how many you'd like.  I chose to do one large focal flower, one lacey flower, two pom flowers, and two crochet rose flowers.  This project is infinitely personalizable, so have fun deciding what you'd like to do and the colors you are using!  For my sash, I used a printed ribbon that wasn't overly girly, since we aren't finding out the gender.  You could absolutely use a soft satin ribbon for this and it would look a little less busy, plus you could incorporate patterned fabric/ribbon into your flowers without clashing.

To start, make your big focal flower. I used a great tutorial over at The House of Smiths to make my focal flower.  I didn't follow her tutorial exactly, but pretty darn close.  You can find it here.  I used my purple knit on six 5 inch circles to make the base and five 3 inch circles in the cotton muslin to make the top petals.  I ended up hot gluing a star button in there, but you could use just about anything with a flat-ish bottom.

Next, I did my little pom flowers in the same purple knit.  I used another tutorial for these, found at Sew Chatty.  These were craaaaazy easy and I want to put them on everything!  I used ten 3 inch circles of the knit per flower and a 2 inch circle of the felt.  Once I was done, I went to town fluffing them up, they are friggin' precious!

Next I did the "crochet" roses.  I use the term crochet loosely because you are actually braiding them!  If I had the time, I probably would have whipped out my crochet hooks and just done a chain stitch instead.  For these, I took 3 pieces of yarn in chartreuse that were roughly 18 inches long.  I did an overhand knot at one end and stuck that under my clipboard.  Then you just braid braid braid.  Get it however long you want and overhand knot the opposite end.  Clip off the extra yarn on either side and set your felt circle ready.  Mine was about 2 inches in diameter, you want it as big as your rose.  Put a nice dab of hot glue in the center and put your knot on it.  Then just wind it around in a spiral - I twisted mine from time to time.  Hot glue regularly so it doesn't come undone.  At the end, you should have the knot and a little bit of braid left, this is the time to trim your felt circle if it was too big.  You'll want to tuck the knot on the underside of the felt circle and hot glue in place.  Repeat this process if you are doing more than one of these flowers!

Finally, I made my lacey 5 petal flower.  This was by far the easiest one.  I took some buy-the-spool lace trim and cut out a petal shape that I liked.  Then I just did 4 more.  Cut a small circle out of your felt, like 1/2 inch or so, and hot glue your petals on.  I decided that they needed something so I hot glued 3 vintage glass pearls into the center.  

At this point, decide how long your sash ribbon should be.  If you are making this for yourself, wrap the ribbon at the point you want it on your belly and add 10 - 12 inches.  If you are making this for a friend, I would say a 40 inch length of ribbon would be fine.  Once your ribbon is cut, don't forget to singe the edges with a lighter so you don't get fraying strings.

I then laid my ribbon on the floor and put out all of my flowers.  I took a few tries to find a design that I liked best but once you do, simply hot glue each piece directly on the ribbon.  Let it dry for 5 - 10 minutes and you have an adorable belly sash for maternity pictures!  This could also be used as a hairband, just cut your base ribbon shorter.  OR you could do this as a bridal sash, I'd love to see ivory and white flowers with pearls and little blue accents!

Sorry about the lack of progress shots but I hope you have fun with this tutorial!  Now go forth and make cute things, you deserve it!

DIY Laundry Soap!

So some friends of mine make their own laundry soap and just love it.  I've been wanting to try it for some time but finding the time to grate soap is not the easiest... But I figured that with Baby J on the way, I'd probably want something better for their sensitive skin besides Dreft.  Dreft isn't bad or anything, but I'm not a huge fan of the smell of it NOR I am a fan of buying laundry detergent for me and the hub's clothes and a separate one for baby.

So I found this tutorial on Pinterest, it is FABULOUS. The Bobbi over at How Does She has an awesome idea with adding the Purex crystals, which makes the whole thing smell like heaven.  So here is my break-down of the tutorial and my results.

I did not use the Oxyclean or baking soda because I totally spaced it when I was at the store, but I did have 1 box of Borax, 1 box of Arm & Hammer Washing Powder, 1 container of Lavender scented Purex Crystals, and 2 bars of Fel Naptha laundry soap.  I could have used my food processor to grate the soap, but I like to use that for food and didn't want to wash it 18 times to get all the soap residue off of it.  Instead I bought a super cheap metal cheese grater and went to town.  It took me around 30 minutes to get it all grated and I lost some finger skin in the process.  If I were doing this again, I would wear gloves during the grating.  That being said, the rest of the process was totally easy.

I didn't have a 5 gallon bucket to mix in (DANG!) so I had to use 2 large Tupperware containers instead.  I just dumped half of my soap shavings into one bowl, the other half in the other bowl.  Then each bowl got 1/2 of the Purex, Borax, and Washing Powder.  I mixed each with a spoon fairly thoroughly until the mix looked pretty homogenous.  Then I dug around in my craft zone until I found some really perfect and awesome glass containers from last Christmas... they were supposed to be etched glass sugar/flour holders, but I didn't end up making them.  Sorry Mom!  That being said, I used the two containers, which I would estimate at 28 - 30 ounces each (maybe more), the Purex container, 28 ounces, AND a gallon sized Ziploc bag.  The Ziploc didn't get full, but about half way for sure.  If you wanted to do this process a little more organic or fragrance free, I would recommend using essential oils in the mixing process instead of the Purex crystals.  Also, use the white Zote soap instead of the pink version or the Fel Naptha, as those two are scented.  The essential oils will leave your clothes very lightly scented, but they are anti-viral and what not so you are still getting a super awesome cleaning.

I think the most awesome thing about this detergent is that for around $15.00 I made enough to last us a loooooong time, as we'll only need 1 to 2 tablespoons per load.  That is so awesome, because the cost of liquid detergent and fabric softener is the same, if not more, and this will last me at least as long as two bottles of each did, probably longer.  And I did try it today, it smells AMAZING!!  Goodbye Tide, hello DIYSoap!

So get out there and make yourself some laundry detergent!  The price is right and you get to pick the scents and everything!

Go ahead and check out the tutorial, linked HERE.

Multi-Layered Freezer Paper Stenciling

My first tutorial and it's a doozy.  Please be aware that this method is not for the faint of heart, but the rewards are well worth it!

I decided that my husband deserved something from me and the baby for Father's Day (which is Sunday, YIKES!).  From me, he is getting new fish for our fish tank, so what better gift that a sweet Finding Nemo onesie from our little guppy.  After flexing my google-fu skills, I found a great image for the actual screen printing.

Tools Required

•  Exacto Knife or sharp box cutter
• Cardboard or a self-healing cutting mat
• Freezer Paper (NOT wax paper or parchment paper!)
• Inkjet Printer 
• Acrylic Paint (I used FolkArt paint.)
• Fabric Medium (I used Martha Stewart crafts.)
• Onesies, T-shirts, Totes, etc.  (Whatever you want to stencil on!)
• Iron
• Blow Dryer (optional)
• Sponge brushes and a paint palette (Or a paper plate. c:)
•  Computer photo editing program (I used Adobe CS5, but you could use another free program like Picasa.)
• PATIENCE!

So to start with, you need to figure out two important things - what you are going to stencil and what you are going to stencil on.  I chose a onesie, but this would work for any other kind of fabric, canvas, whatever.  After you've picked what you want to do, find an image of what you'd like and save it to your computer.  Open this up with your editing program - I used Photoshop CS5 - and turn your image from a color image into a black and white image.  Now you can either print it as is or use your mouse/graphics tablet to make the basic shapes of your design.  I suggest if you print the image, you print as many copies as you want colors for your image.  If you are doing it all digitally, make each color layer a different layer on the image.

Yep, I forgot to take a picture immediately...

Now you trace until you have the design you are looking for.  For my Nemo and Marlin design, I used two layers - one for the orange and one for the black.  I didn't need to do a white layer as the fabric was white to start with.  If you are interested, you can print your designs directly on your freezer paper by cutting it into a 8.5 x 11 inch rectangle and printing on the DULL SIDE.  Printing on the shiny side will surely result in a big mess...  If you want to go the other route, go ahead and print your designs on regular paper.  Don't worry, the freezer paper is fairly transparent, you can trace your design on OR just tape your freezer paper to the design and cut directly on it.

Now you'll need your exacto knife or equivalent.  I have done stenciling with knifes, razor blades, box cutters, and more.  You basically just need something sharp with a pointed blade.  Anyway, you should cut out your design now!  Be sure to hold on to those small pieces for eyes, centers of letters, etc.  You'll want those for the ironing and stenciling steps.

After you get your design cut out, get your iron hot and prepare your fabric surface for stenciling.  At this point, I'd recommend putting a layer of cardboard (which is what I did) or something else between your layers of fabric.  Not all paints will bleed through, but some heavily pigmented colors might. 

Once you get your iron ready, go ahead and press your design!  Be sure that the shiny wax side is DOWN on the fabric!  Also don't forget the little pieces you set aside earlier.  I pressed my design for about 1-2 minutes because I had so many small nooks and crannies.  You just want to get the paper nice and hot so the wax adheres to the fabric and creates a good seal on the edges.

Now the fun part!  Mix your paint and fabric medium according to the directions on the bottle and get your sponge brush ready.  Once you are ready, get a little paint on your brush and dab it on your design, paying attention to the edges on the interior and exterior.  You may want to do more than one pass depending on the thickness of your paint.  

Now you can blow dry your design.  I let the hair dryer get it nice and dry, it makes it easier to peel off once it's dry.  

 

 

Give it a minute or two to cool and GENTLY peel off your design!  Make sure your paint is totally dry and give it another pass with your hot iron to set the paint permanently.  Some fabric mediums say to let it set for 24 hours, but I have one very nosy cat who would love to ruin it as soon as I walked away...

Next, you should prepare your second layer of your design.  For me, this was the little black stripes and whatnot for the clown fish coloring.  I should have cut them both out at the same time, but I was lazy and preferred spending that time eating Pizza Rolls.  You basically repeat the same steps as the first layer, which I think go much easier the second time.

Position your second layer on your fabric.  It helps to have a guide or reference picture near by so that you get the positioning right... or you should free-ball it like me and just peek through the slits in the design to figure out where I wanted it. 

Get your paint and medium ready and get to work!  Once it is painted to your satisfaction, blow it dry and peel back the design.  At this time, I used a tiny detail paintbrush to paint a few details here and there, but you may not need (or want) to do this.  Once the design is done, set it with your hot iron.  Sit back and enjoy the awesome thing you just created!  I know my design doesn't look exactly like Nemo and Marlin from Finding Nemo, but they are close enough for me!

I would recommend letting your finished piece sit overnight to let the paint and everything dry completely BEFORE washing it.  When washing, follow the directions on your fabric medium bottle, which will probably say to wash inside out with cold water and tumble dry low.

I hope you liked my first tutorial and that I didn't miss some major step!

If you like this tutorial, free feel to comment or put it on Pinterest!

*Finding Nemo is copyright of Disney.*

hello world.

Well here I go.  Started up my new blog today, here is hoping that it doesn't suck too badly or that I forget about it all the time, like my old blog...

In these pages you'll find crafting tutorials, ramblings, shameless advertising for my etsy shop, uniqueOLIVE, and disgusting personal details about my life.  I'll try and make it informative and funny, but it will probably just be that last bit.

Coming soon is a super awesome tutorial on the already over-done freezer paper stenciling.  Mine is different though... it's a multi-layered approach that I may or may not have learned from graffiti stenciling.

OH and let me tell you a bit about myself, before I space off and eat my second lunch.

My name is Nicole (hi, how are ya?) and I live in Iowa near our capital city of Des Moines.  It is a pretty quiet life around here, for now.  My husband, whom I will refer to as Bean, and I have two awesome dogs, Roxie and Mel.  They are both rescue dogs and we couldn't love them more.  Also, we have a terrible awesome cat named Hobbes, who is mostly a douche but can also be classified as a fat orange tabby cat.  The fella and I are also pregnant (and by we I mean ONLY ME) with our first kidlet.

Some thoughts on pregnancy - only believe half of the horrible stories people tell you and none of the good ones.  So far, I've gotten pretty lucky as far as the crappy parts of pregnancy are concerned.  I have some stretch marks on my thighs (BOO) but they are minimal.  None on the belly area yet, thanks to Bean's constant cocoa buttering.  Boobs are massively huge now, Bean loves it, I hate it.  I started at an already pretty awesome 34 D and am now sitting uncomfortably at a 36 DD.  I have very little in the way of varicose or spider veins, which is cool.  I'm at about 30 weeks right now and have gained a massive 20 pounds to my not-so-huge frame.  People tell me I look beautiful and that I don't look close to 7 months pregnant, but what the hell do they know.  I started at my highest ever weight, roughly 140 pounds and am now ringing the 160 bell.  It probably is going to piss someone off that I'm complaining about it, but to each their own.  I hated being at 140, my ideal weight is more in the 115 range... and now I'm at 160 and still climbing.

The baby is cool and healthy and whatnot, but being pregnant was not something that I was fully and completely mentally prepared for.  More to come on this.

If you are reading this, you probably stumbled here by accident, but thanks.

- Nicole