No Sew Gnomeo and Juliet shirt Tutorial

(image from here)

Have you taken your kids to see this yet? I definitely recommend it! I've been looking forward to it coming out for months. We didn't go opening weekend because I hadn't made our outfits yet. So yesterday I finally finished them up and the kids and I had a date night. I love how they turned out. :)

I don't know what's going on with his face in these pictures but these are the best I could get so there ya go!

Lucas is Gnomeo.

Reagan's dress is by far the favorite thing I've ever made. I have a thing for gnomes and when I saw this Michael Miller fabric I knew that I wanted to make Reagan a dress out of it.

I thought maybe you guys would like to make your own Gnomeo and Juliet shirts. This is my first time doing a pdf so it's not the best. Plus it's hand drawn. Enough said. Ok on to the tutorial....

First gather your supplies:

Freezer Paper

Heat n Bond

blue and white felt for Gnomeo

red and brown felt for Juliet

shirts

scissors

iron

pen/pencil

First you are going to print out the pdf of the pattern. It's down there at the bottom of the post. Cut out a piece of the freezer paper and get your pencil ready.

Now trace the gnome hat, hair and beard onto the non shiny side of the freezer paper. You will want to trace 2 hats if you are making both Gnomeo and Juliet.

Cut out your patterns and iron them shiny side down onto the right side of your felt.

Flip your felt over and apply the heat n bond according to the package directions.

Cut out along the lines on your freezer paper pattern and remove both the freezer paper and the paper of the heat n bond. For Gnomeo arrange the blue hat and the white beard onto your garment until it's just how you like it. Make sure your iron is nice and hot and iron over your pieces. I find that with felt it's better to press, lift and repeat. So I'm not rubbing my iron around, just lift it up and lay it back down and press firmly.

Make sure your felt is all stuck on there. Keep pressing until it is.

Since the felt is thicker I like to flip the shirt inside out after I've pressed it right side out and then press the inside also to help keep it secure.

You can also stitch around your felt with your sewing machine to give it extra stability but I didn't here.

Here is the final Gnomeo shirt!

Do the same thing for the Juliet shirt but when you get to the point of arranging it on your garment make sure to overlap the hat over the hair just a bit. You can kinda see in this picture what I mean.

Here is the Juliet shirt finished. I couldn't get a good picture of this one, sorry.

Here are the kids and I ready to go on our date. I had a neighbor lady take our picture because I couldn't find the tripod. I felt bad for stopping her on the street so we weren't worried about lighting or trying to get a good picture. We had her snap one and let her go home. :)

Everyone loved our outfits and it was so nice to go out with my littles on a date.

Here is the pdf. Again, not the best...hand drawing is something I'm not good at, at all. If you love it please let me know and if you make a shirt of your own I would love to see it. :)

If you hate it I can live without hearing about it. ;)

Oh and did you see over there on my sidebar I added buttons for my facebook page and twitter. I would love it if you guys "liked" me and followed me!!

gnomeoandjuliet

Pottery Barn Knock Off

This weeks theme on The CSI Project is Pottery Barn. I have been wanting to make this since I first saw it in the catalog but couldn't get my butt in gear.

That's what I love most about the CSI blog...it makes me get moving.

Here is my version. Pottery Barn calls them their Style Tiles. Each tile costs $35...crazy to me. So For my own board I went out and got a few things that I didn't have laying around and made the same thing just much less expensive.

Foam Board...I picked this up at my local Dollar Tree. I used $5.00 worth.

Cork...pack of 4 for $5.00

2 Dry Erase boards...$7.00 each

I used this Spray Adhesive to stick the fabric on the boards.

I already had this laying around.

My dry erase boards were thicker than the cork so I cut down the foam board to size and stuck them together.

I left 2 of the corks as is and then covered the other 2 with fabric.

Just cut it a few inches bigger than your cork tile and wrap it around back..the spray adhesive worked great for this.

I decided on 2 cork tiles, 2 dry erase tiles, 2 chalkboard tiles and 3 fabric tiles. For the chalkboard ones I used chalk cloth I picked up at Joann's a while ago...worked perfectly!

Lay out your tiles until you find an arrangement that you like.

If you want to waste a lot of time add stickies to the backs of all tiles and stick them up one at a time on the wall...then hate it and tear them down. :)

The smart thing to do is go get a piece of thin sheet board and hot glue your tiles onto that. The one I got was on sale for $10.00. It was a 4x8 I think so was able to get 2 full boards and some extra pieces. My cousin will be using the other board to make herself one. So less than $5.00 for backing.

I forgot to take a picture of me cutting the frame and making it but all I did was get some door framing, cut it to size and used some flat corner supports to put it all together.

I then hot glued the frame onto the edge of the tiles and it's done!

What do you think?

I really love it.

I still need to add some wall hanger things on the back and get it put up in the dining room.

We will be using ours for school things. I figure we can hang tests, pictures, schedules all over it and have an organized school year finally.

So for around $30.00 and stuff I had on hand I made something that if had gotten it made just how you like it at Pottery Barn would have cost you an arm and a leg. Seriously! (I watched a ton of Grey's Anatomy while my family was away)

10 minute Skirt tutorial

Want to make a quick and easy skirt for your little girl or you?

This skirt seriously took me no more than 10 minutes to make. I'll show you how I did mine.

I found a window valance at a yard sale and bought it for only .25 cents. Get out! I was so excited. I had no idea where I was going to hang it but I loved the red stitch detail so had to have it.

I decided that hanging it in a random room with not another matching valance wasn't something I wanted to do so it has been sitting here for a few months.

The other day I finally decided what I wanted to do with it. I figured it would make the perfect skirt for Reagan and it would be so easy to make because I wouldn't have to even make a waistband for the elastic. I just used the opening for the curtain rod.

So first I cut my elastic the length I needed for my daughter's waist.

Then with a safety pin I pulled the elastic through the curtain rod opening until just a tiny bit was hanging out.

I pinned the elastic in place.

And sewed that opening shut.

Here is the first side I did sewn shut.

Now continue pulling the elastic through the curtain rod opening until you have it just poking out the other side and pin in place.

Sew this side shut now.

With right sides together pin the open end of the skirt and sew.

If you have a serger serge your seam, if not just do a zig zag stitch.

Now you are all done! Flip the skirt right side out and throw it on your little one!

The valance was long enough that I could have made this skirt for me but it would have been a mini skirt and I'm not sure the world wants to see me in a mini. :)

It's a pretty full skirt so it is good for twirling and dancing!

I am planning on doing some thrift shopping this week to try to find some more cute valances and maybe I'll make myself one just to see what it would look like as an adult version.

I just love the stitched detail.

I need to head out now to find a matching red tank top to match...the white just isn't the same shade and is driving me crazy.

I hope you guys like the tutorial and if you make one please email me a picture. I would love to see them.