Today’s tutorial was created when I had to come up with a crafty freebie to include with the swag bags for the upcoming Off White Indie Wedding Show. The challenge wasn’t making something cool, it was the fact that I had to make 100 items! For someone who mostly makes one of something, that number seemed overwhelming. So I puttered around my studio brainstorming what in the world I could make one hundred of. Naturally, I turned to my button and fabric collections, as I have many of these supplies on hand. So then, what to do? Well, brides don’t want a huge bag of cardboard and paper postcards (well, at least I didnt when I went to bridal shows, seemed kind of boring). My light bulb came on in my head, “oooh, something to wear!” I can say that I could have used a tiny little something in my swag bag that I could put on rather than a sticky nametag that says, “bride”. Sorry but stickers don’t make me feel special. But a pretty hairpin does!
So, I came up with Something Blue hairpins! Simple, can be dressed up or down, and adds just a little something (blue) to make a bride or any gal feel special. They are quite simple to make, so if you are looking for something new for your ‘do or need to make someone a little gift, here’s a simple and fast project!
Supplies:
Buttons (I used mostly vintage)
1 3/4 inch hair pins Clover yo-yo maker (30mm)
White fabric, can have pattern or plain
White thread
Needle
Scissors
E-6000 glue
*Hedgehog optional for crafty support
To begin, separate the yo-yo maker.
Next, cut out a 3 inch square of fabric. (hedgehog not to scale)
Place the fabric pattern side down into the outer circle of the yo-yo maker. Center the fabric. Press the inner circle into the outer circle, taking care to line up the ‘holes’ of the maker- sometimes it helps me if I hold it up to a light. The circles should easily click into place.
Trim around the fabric leaving about a 1/2 inch border to sew on.
Thread your needle with twelve inches of thread. Double knot the end. Begin sewing by starting at the fabric border and going through the plastic (this is why its important to line up the holes- if the needle doesnt go through easy, adjust your plastic circles). Bring the next stitch back up to the border- there is a stitch guide to follow on the yo-yo maker.
Continue stitching all the way around the circle until you return back to the knot.
Push the inner circle out with the hole on the backside of the yo-yo maker. It should pop out easily.
Remove the inner circle from the fabric.
Pull the thread to gather the yo-yo. I find it easiest to insert my thumb in the middle while pulling the thread. While pulling, you can adjust the fabric until it looks even. Double knot your stitches on one of the inside folds when the yo-yo looks how you would like.
At this point, add your button. Sew through the shank or holes two to three times. Double knot your stitches on the back and in the middle of the yo-yo. Then add a small dot of glue on the flat plate of the hairpin. Place the glue on top of the stitches/knot you made on the back of the yo-yo. Lay flat to dry at least an hour before wearing.
See how easy that was? You could even try out bigger yo-yos, they come in different shapes too! Check out Clover’s website. Happy Crafting!
Flint City Handmade Spring Market is this weekend!
I will be vending, along with all of these lovelies:
beautiful JUNK
Made With Luv
Stick Nymph
Gizmodgery
Amanda’s Creations
Rug Wear
Always the Forest
Lunch Lady Land
Sandra Fielder
International Robot
Jewelry Storm/Radically Random
Aisle 3
Wei’s Open Secret
The Yarntoad Collective
ZAKARANAS
Becklesbobbles
The Living Thread
Ms.Christa’s Accessories
SEEDS Studio
Barrel of Monkeys
Creative Alliance
UGHB
Motown Bound
Whimsical Works by Jen Sikora
art by amandaNsimons.com
Art by Gary Sierdarski
It’s A Scream Productions
FIRED UP!
Cradle of Critters
relishdress
Alexandria’s Soap Garden
Crochet Science
Stone Sheep
fourchamberforge, LLC
CLKcreative
Empress Wears…
Wistful Fancy
Otra Vez
Tilt Creations
Chicaloo Photography & More
Runaway Fashion House
Kenny Corbin
TheHeatherMonsterCreations
Also, there is an awesome raffle table with items donated from all the vendors.
Just in time for Valentines Day, I created a new paper toy you can print, assemble, and give to your friends! His name’s Tiny, and he’s a very loving turtle.
You can download the printable pattern here. You can print him any size you want with your printer’s program, but he will print on a standard piece of paper or cardstock.
Tiny is very easy to make. All you need is a printer, scissors, craft knife, and a glue stick. Cut around on the solid lines. Fold along the dotted lines. He forms into a simple box shape. There are tabs on each side which fold in and glue to the front of the body and side of the head. His legs will stick out away from the body and require the use of a craft knife to cut them. The bottom will be light green.
I’m holding a special contest for you! Print Tiny, fold him up, and take a creative photo of him and email it to me at enamor_etsy@yahoo.com. The top three photos will win these prizes:
1st place: A limited edition print of my Love Tree artwork and a 15% off coupon to use in my Etsy shop
2nd place: A Hankie Lady greeting card and a 10% off coupon
3rd place: A set of Norm the Gnome gift tags
Deadline to email me photos is March 5th. Good luck!
Check this out people! If you don’t want to get in your car, use gas, travel lots of miles (especially in a snow storm), then Cafe Handmade’s Virtual Craft Show is the way to go!
Currently there are 47 booths to shop at, including myself. The booths change every two weeks, so you can get a wide variety of items to choose from. Each image represented in a “booth” has a direct link back to that person’s website or Etsy Shop. Its pretty neato!
I know there are some of you who still have Christmas shopping to do, you have no excuse not to shop in your PJs!
This is not my video, but you can get an idea what it was like!
As you all may know, Sarah Minshall and I were sharing a booth at Renegade Chicago this past weekend. Please read the culmination of events which classified our weekend as, “Murphy’s Weekend”.
Besides the weather report, Saturday morning was a sign of more bad things to come. I lost power in the middle of the night, so my alarm clock did not go off at 4am when I needed to get up. Instead I woke up to my apartment phone ringing (Sarah) at 6:00am when we were supposed to be on the road. So we ended up leaving an hour late. Driving went fine all through Michigan, and we had some great conversations and shared a few laughs.
Once we reached Indiana, traffic was at a stand still. We were sitting at mile marker 61 and found a radio station talking about traffic. The lady stated, ” West bound 1-94 around mile marker 61, the right 2 lanes are closed due to standing water.” So, instead of re-routing traffic, 4 lanes merged into one. We were behind a large semi truck (with a giant tomato on it) and we started moving again. All of a sudden water started rushing around the truck tires and started getting deeper and deeper. I watched the water slosh against the cement barrier and I could do NOTHING but drive though the 3 feet of water in my BRAND NEW vibe. I was freaking out, praying to God, water would not come rushing into my car as we drove through it. We eventually made it through and kept on driving.
Our load in time at Renegade was from 9am to 9:30. Which meant we had a half hour to park our car on Division Street and unload. Currently driving on the Indiana Toll Road, it was 9:45am. The rain continued to pour down. We finally arrived downtown at around 10:30am. We ended up parking on a side street and pushing a cart of our stuff 3 blocks to where out spot was. We set up the canopy first so we could have some relief from the rain. I managed to fit my car inside the gated off street to unload the rest. We unloaded everything around 11:00am. We began to try and set up with very little room to prevent things from getting wet. I had to move the car at noon, when the fair started. I had to park about 5 blocks away and walk back.
Sarah and I were both soaking wet. We were both hesitant to put anything out for fear of it getting damaged by the rain. I think we finally managed to get set up around 1pm. The rain was what seemed like a monsoon at this point. Our stuff was getting wet and our canopy was leaking. We had no side walls, and 1 tarp. We had a couple of ladies stop into our booth that were local and told us about a K-Mart that was not too far away. I decided to go to K-Mart to get some extra tarps and at least an umbrella for Sarah.
We had no breakfast or was able to stop for any bathroom breaks getting to and during the fair. So, my first thought upon entering K-mart was to find a bathroom. Of course, I get there and it says, “Closed for remodeling”. There was not another one in the store. So, I thought, okay, I’ll get the provisions we need and go to a bathroom some place else. I quickly came to the realization that the K-Mart I was at was worthless! They didn’t have umbrellas or ponchos, I was lucky (for once) to find some tarps. I got a shower curtain, some dry towels for us, and a hideous pair of pink croc shoes to wear, as my shoes and socks were completely soaked. I asked the cashier if she knew of anyplace that might sell umbrellas and ponchos as they didnt have any. She looked surprised, and said you could try Jewel-Osco which was right next door, and there was a Wal-Greens down the street. I walked next door to Jewel, and quickly found a bathroom. They didnt have ponchos either, but I did manage to buy Sarah a lovely, wild, leopard print umbrella for 15 bucks! (groan).
I found the Wal-Greens and they had some rain coats. I had everything we needed to survive the rest of the day, except for maybe some sunshine. I could find no parking on the side streets surrounding the fair. I kept driving around and found a small parking lot outside of a pawn shop. The sign said 1 hour parking, however, the pawn shop was closed and I saw no reason why I couldnt park there, as other cars were. So I walked back 5 blocks to our booth with our provisions.
Once I returned to our booth, we quickly put the tarps up and instantly it was warmer and provided some relief from the rain. We both became quickly attached to our dry towels! It down-poured a couple more times, but strangely it let up for about an hour. We had some sales and managed to make our booth fee back. We both had many items that were either wet or water damaged. It started getting dark around 6pm, so we got out our paper and fabric lanterns to light up our booth. It looked like a party tent when we were finished- we just needed some beer!
We decided to tear down early around 8:30 as there were others doing the same and not many shoppers. So we packed up our things as much as we could and I went to go get the car probably close to 9pm. First, I walked 3 blocks the wrong way and then remembered I parked the opposite way. So I walked back to the tent and started over. I finally found the street I parked down. I got to the parking lot where I parked and MY CAR WAS GONE along with my purse and our dry clothing. I was freaking out and had a minor panic attack. I called Sarah and didn’t know what to do- I didn’t know if it had been towed or stolen. I found a sign for a towing company and a phone number. I called the number and they had my car. They told me their location and that it would be $170.00 to get my car out. I called Sarah back and her husband got me directions to the towing company. Unfortunately, this meant I had to walk 3 miles to get my car, while Sarah stayed with our stuff so it didn’t get stolen. I was told I would walk under the highway and over a river twice before I got to the towing place. By this time, I had blisters on my feet from my crocs. I passed by many drunk men, homeless people, and sketchy places. I finally reached the highway and just kept telling myself, “keep going”. I got to the first bridge and crossed over the river. The bridge looked like something out of Huck Finn, where holes were patched over, and there was two-by-fours to walk over weak spots. I walked faster…
I reached the second bridge and passed by a clinic. I could see a major intersection ahead, which had to be where the tow company was. I passed by a large gated lot with razor wire around the top and I spotted my car. I reached the window and some lady was sitting at a desk with her feet up playing a PSP. I tried tapping on the window with my cell phone, but the bars on the window prevented me from doing so. She must have lost a level playing her game or something and finally looked up and saw me standing there. She said, “I need your license.” I said pointing, “its in the car.” She said, “Jimmy will let you in the big gate.” I went and got my purse and came back to a line of 10 people. I paid for my car and got the hell out of there.
I got back to our booth around 10:30. We started packed up and decided we weren’t going back on Sunday. We got everything packed up around 11:30. We started driving to our hotel, which was in Hazel Crest. Our directions were not very good and we ended up driving 45 minutes in the wrong directions. We stopped at a gas station and asked how to get where we were going. Two guys saw our Michigan plate and asked if we were from the Red Cross. We said no, and they gave us great directions and more bad news we had about 1.5 hour drive ahead of us. We got to the hotel around 2am. We got up to our room and our electricity didnt work- by this point, it wasn’t surprising we were still having problems. We waited for the manager to come up with us. He said to us that we must have had reservations because they have been sold out for weeks. He came into our room and said, “Oh the electrician didnt put the outlets back into the wall and half of the bulbs are gone.” He managed to get some lamps working. Even if he didnt fix the power, they didnt have another room to give us! He said, “Good night my little darlings” and was on his way.
We decided on not staying another night in the hotel either, so we packed up and went to breakfast at Cracker Barrel.
Our drive back wasnt much better. We spent 2 hours in backed up traffic. We found another good radio station where people were calling in about flooding, road closures, and alternate routes. i-94/80/90 East was completely closed due to flooding, where the water had gone over the cement barrier in the middle. We ended up having to go way south into Indiana in order to go east. There were reports on the radio that the National Guard was called in to help the stranded motorists that have been stuck for hours on the road we were supposed to take home. Another said that the river would crest at 18ft on Monday morning, and that the clinic I had walked by getting my car was now being evacuated due to flooding. The rainfall total in Chicago was the highest it has been in two decades.
We ended up driving across Indiana on a small back road. We drove through many small towns where people’s yards, driveways, garages and houses were completely surrounded by water. One town had a river running next to it that was over flowing into businesses and people were frantically trying to fill sandbags. IT WAS CRAZY!
After driving for 9 hours, we screamed for joy seeing the Welcome to Michigan sign. Murphy’s Law was no longer a part of our equation to get home.
Next time Sarah and I do a show together, you will see us indoors!
