Make Your Own Personalized Magic Heating Bag With A Cover

I've had a couple microwaveable magic heating bags now and love the idea but they just weren't quite perfect. For one thing, they were always ugly fabric, and they were just one long tube so all the filler slipped from one end to the other so it was difficult to get the heat exactly where I wanted it. One more thing they were missing was a slip off cover. Once they were dirty they pretty much had to stay that way or be replaced. How do you wash it when it's filled with corn or rice?

I don't know why it took me so long to try making one, it's not like it's a large project or very hard, but wow I love my new one! I made the purple flower one for me and they various others for christmas gifts. It's a great way to use up various bits of fabric you already have.

I did my research before I started - thank God for Pinterest! That makes the job a lot easier. I found out what fillers work best and it turns out flaxseed had the best heat retention and I figured the small size would be a nice feel. I would absolutely fill the next ones I made with flaxseed again. I'm very happy with it. Rice was the filler in my last one and it wasn't nearly as soft and didn't hold the heat nearly as well, even when brand new. I find I don't have to get the flax-filled bag nearly as hot because it holds the heat better.

I looked at a few tutorials and I followed this tutorial from howdoesshe? I absolutely love the patchwork covers she made for her heating pads but that would have been too much work since I was making about a dozen. I used her basic dimensions but changed it up a bit depending on the size of the chunk of fabric I was cutting up.

Filling them was the only part I was slightly nervous about but it was pretty simple. 

First and foremost, use a funnel and secondly, don't over fill the sections. You want it to be flexible and comfortable. I sectioned the bag into quarters and marked with pins, then filled it to about 3/4" below that and pinned across to keep the seeds in place while I sewed above. You could draw a line across in chalk but i just lined up my presser foot where the first pin is and sewed straight across. Depending on the length of the bag, as they varied slightly, I put in 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups flaxseed per section. I zigzagged across the very end a couple times to seal them off.

And there you have it! Time to go give it a try. 

What will you fill yours with?

How To Make Mini Velcro Hairclips - A Tutorial

You will need:

• glue gun
• elastic thread, or regular sewing thread will do if you don't have it.
• 3/8" grosgrain ribbon
• scissors
• lighter or such to melt ribbon ends
• velcro
• cardboard or something to protect your table from the glue gun

To make the little clips, cut a 2 1/4" piece of ribbon (or two for a set), singe the ends to keep them from fraying, and fold it in half. 

Cut your velcro down to fit on the ribbon (about 3/4" long), stick on your self adhesive velcro, or use a hot glue gun to secure it if it's not sticky on one side.

Now to make the bow, loop one side over towards you, 

and then loop it back over top and cut off the end about even with the tip sticking out underneath.

Pinch your bow between your thumb and forefinger, as above, and wrap the elastic thread around it, pulling it tight and tie a knot. 

Then cut a 1" piece of ribbon to go around your bow. Attach with glue on the wrong side of the bow, wrap around and glue again.

Now all that's left is to attach your bow to your little clip! Hot glue and press on gently.

Pretty easy, right?

All I did for presentation for the gift was cut a piece of card stock with two parallel lines 1/2" apart down the middle and clip them on. Gift complete!

Quick, Easy and ever-so-Sweet Baby Shower Dresses!

Petunia and I did some sewing last week for a baby shower. I made one dress and she made the other with just a bit of help. These two dresses were quick and fairly easy to make, and turned out so cute!

The smaller dress is the one that Petunia made pretty much on her own. It's the Summer Breeze Baby Dress by Shwin&Shwin. It's a free PDF pattern and tutorial. There's lots of gorgeous stuff on that blog, so be sure to take a look. The wonderful thing about this dress is that there a onesie sewn into the skirt to keep an infant's tummy warm and out of a draft, and it eliminates any need for a diaper cover. Genius!

The bigger size dress is based off the Shanty Onesie Dress Tutorial by Shanty2Chic. What I did differently is made the skirt a few inches longer because I was making it with a 6 month onesie instead of what I figured was a 3 month size. I used 15" instead of 12", and I made a small hem at the top and bottom instead of doing a rolled hem with my serger ... because I have no idea how! 

I also covered up the line of gathers with a ribbon and added a fabric bow to the top of the onesie because I had to take off a pink decoration that didn't match. Easy, quick, comfortable, but also very cute. We searched our local fabric store for cute fabric and I'm happy with what we came away with, but I was beginning to worry until we found this purple butterfly fabric. Pretty scary selection, sometimes!

Throw in some homemade hair bows and you've got a gift. The ones on the right are these Double Layer Chunky Hair Bows, which I love. I use them all the time in Sweet Pea's hair. 

The little ones on the left are mini velcro hair bows from this tutorial.

What have you been crafting this summer?

Easy DIY tangle free no hassle embroidery floss wrapped headphones!

Ironman is constantly trying to use headphones that look like this ...

... all jumbled under his chin with about six inches of play connecting to his music. If I catch it I fix it for him but it drives   me   nuts! I tried making gift cards into headphone holders but I got sore fingers for nothing. They only work if they are used, and only while the headphones are physically on the holder. 

Then very recently I came across this Pinterest pin by Apartment Therapy. Aha! A solution!

There is a great tutorial for how to do this on wikihow, and you can see a video tutorial on this post I did on making a Simple Knot Friendship Bracelet which is the same technique.

The one thing I did differently from these tutorials is just use one colour at a time, and then knot the next one on when I was ready. It took approximately 40" of floss to do a three inch segment, and that includes room on either end to be wrapped underneath. The whole thing took 3 skeins of floss, which would cost about $2.50 or less if you bought them in singles. Nice cheap project!

How To Make A Loopy Flower Hair Clip - A Tutorial

The first step is to gather your materials. You need a ribbon covered alligator clip. There's a great tutorial on how to do this and make it no slip at Make It Love It.

You'll need 4 pieces of ribbon 4.75" and 4 pieces 5.5" as well as a 6" piece of green and a small piece of white for the center knot.

Take one of your strips and glue the two ends together, forming a circle.

Then twist it to form a figure eight, and glue the center to hold it. Do this with all nine pieces of ribbon.

Now you have this:

Now glue the green piece of ribbon (the leaves) to the alligator clip. Center it over the clip.

Now we'll form the flowers. Layer the four matching figure eights onto each other one at a time. It's best to do this first without glue to figure out the spacing. Do this for the both the top and bottom layers of the flower.

Once you've done this, glue the bottom layer of the flower onto the leaves.

Add the top layer and a knot and you're done!

How to make the center knot

HAPPY CRAFTING!

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Baby Hair Bows

Mini Korker Hair Bows

Rosebud Hair Clips

Double Layer Chunky Hair Bows

Mini Korker Hair Bows

Sweet Pea needed some new hair clips so it was time to experiment again. I like the curly korker ribbon, but I didn't want to end up with huge poofy bows because she's still so little. These worked out exactly as I hoped. 

I followed the tutorial from Hip Girl Boutique. They have quite a few! 

I lined my clips to make them no-slip the same way as last time. Make It and Love It shows how to do this (and it works really well!) in this tutorial. 

I make my own korker (curly) ribbons. I twist the grosgrain ribbon around wooden skewers or doweling, securing the ends with clothes pins. Pop in them in the oven at 250 for 30 minutes. It also works on the sheer ribbon. If you want to see pictures and more detail on how to do it, here's a great tutorial to check out. I wouldn't bother with the spray starch, mine keep their shape just fine without it.

I'll be making some more hair bows soon. It's kind of addicting. :)

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DIY Baby Hair Bows

Rosebud Hair Clips

Make A Double Layer Chunky Hair Bow

Loopy Flower Hair Clip

DIY Rollie Pollie Bean Bag Chairs - 3 years later

I made these Rollie Pollie bean bag chairs for my kids 3 years ago this month and someone asked me recently how they were holding up. They are called Rollie Pollies because I used the pattern by that name by Dana from MADE. It was easy to follow and they whipped up pretty quickly.

Here they are when I first made them:

and here they are today:

Still in great condition despite daily use and, of course, occasional abuse. I'm so glad we have them.

Ironman's blue Rollie Pollie is stuffed with regular bean bag pellets from Walmart and it could use another bag to plump it up again. That's a $15 fix, when I get around to it, and it's still very useable in the meantime. 

Petunia's orange Rollie Pollie is stuffed with pillow fiberfill and is still round - although right from the beginning it's needed an adult to sit on it occasionally to squash it back into shape. Otherwise it gets kinda flat, but still comfortable. It never seems to bother the kids.

I would do these again in a heartbeat. I was fortunate enough to get the material on clearance which was a big help. I didn't have a serger at that time so I reinforced all the seams by sewing over them twice and zigzaging them twice. I'm glad I did because no seams have ever split open yet. 

They have a cover over them so it's a lot of material, but they're washable this way. 

Awesome. Best ever. If you're looking for a pattern to make a bean bag chair, you should use this one. :)