Quick and Easy to Sew Tie Closure Bib Tutorial.

Sewing thick, absorbent bibs for your baby is actually a lot simpler than you may think.  I have made bibs several different ways, but this is the quick and easy way.

 

 

Here's what you'll need:

Fusible fleece

Fabric of your choice for the front

Fabric of your choice for the back

Double Fold Bias Tape in coordinating color (about a 24 inch length)

 

And of course a sewing machine, thread, pins, an iron...basic sewing tools.

 

A note on the fabric, the size you need will vary based on what size bib you use as a template, but a 10x10 square should pretty much cover all of your needs.

 

 

Here's what you do:

 

Pick out a bib that you already have in the house (or just draw a circle and cut a notch out) and trace it onto the rough side of your fusible fleece.  Then cut it out.

 

 

Set your iron to a setting that does not steam.  This is important for the fusible fleece sticking correctly.

 

Lay your fleece cutout rough side up, line your front of the bib fabric up on top of it right side up and iron according to fleece directions. 

 

This is what the back looks like.  Basically you just fused the bib to the wrong side of your fabric so that it will act as a lining for your bib.

 

Cut around the fleece template leaving a 1/4" allowance around all edges for sewing.

 

Sew the right side of your front fabric to the right side of your back of the bib fabric square, leaving the neck notch open for turning.  We'll close it up later.

 

It will now look like this.

Cut off the excess fabric all the way around to make the fabric ends even.  Also, make little notches all the way around about every inch to make the curves pretty when you turn it out.

 

Turn it right sides out.

 

Pin your bias tape to the bib neck.  You can do this the right way or you can do this the cheater way.

 

 

Sew the bias tape in place, making sure to fold your ends under as shown.

Trim your strings and you have an adorable bib for your little one!  If you used two different fabrics, it is also reversible.

 

 

Great job!  I hope you enjoyed this project as much as I did.  Post pics if you make some for your little one.

 

 

 

Indian Corn September Classroom Snack

My oldest daughter's classroom is doing a snack rotation this year.  We haven't done that since kindergarten, and I am excited.  Classroom snack gives me a chance to get creative for every month of the year.  Late September doesn't exactly offer a wealth of inspiration, but I finally settled on Indian Corn.

As I was preparing the snacks, she came in and said, "Mommy, all of the other moms in my class just buy junk for us and don't even care if we like it or  not. I'm glad you make things cute for us."  That, to me, makes any amount of effort that went into these totally worth it.

I knew I wanted to use popcorn for this project, but had trouble deciding how to prepare it.  I looked at several popcorn mix and caramel corn recipes. In the end, I decided that if I were a teacher I wouldn't want all that sticky everywhere.  I grabbed some Reese's pieces instead.  They ended up making the perfect fall colors for this.

What you'll need:
clear cellophane treat bags (or snack size bags if you feel brave)
green crepe paper streamer
rubber bands (or raffia)
popcorn (you can get 4-5 out of a bag of popcorn)
Reese's pieces (a family size bag worked perfect for 24)

Pop all of your popcorn and put it all in a gigantic bowl (I hate the butter on the back of the hand dilemma).  Open the rest of your supplies up to get them all ready.

You will also want to measure out lengths of streamer based on how big your bags are.  I cut two 24" pieces for each treat bag.  I also cut some additional pieces, cutting those into four long skinny pieces to tie off the tops.

Place two to three heaping handfuls of popcorn into a treat bag, then add a handful of Reese's pieces and shake.  Twist tie the bag shut with the tie provided.  Pinch the bottom corners together, roll up with the streamers, and secure with rubber band or raffia.  I had rubber bands on hand, so I skipped buying raffia.  I think it would be super cute though.  Bring the streamer ends up together in the top center so that it looks like corn husks. Then secure them with the smaller pieces of streamer you cut. (or raffia if you have it)

 

I will admit...the first two of these I made, I was ready to just roll down to the store and buy some junk and not care if they liked it or not.  After that I got a better grip on it. 

 

24 of these babies later, I felt super accomplished and had an adorable September snack for my daughter's class.  I also brought some apple juice boxes to go along with these.

She thanked me not once, but three times when she got home for how awesome these were.  I can't wait to plan and deliver next month's snack.

Monster Party Part 4: The Favors

Party favors are always my favorite part of a party to put together.  I guess I love that other kids are going to get little surprises the day of the party as well as mine.  I try to give a variety of different things as favors so that there is something for everyone.  Here is what we settled on this year.

The first thing I did was pick up a handful of these small gift bags for 33 cents a piece.  I punched out 1" circles from cardstock using my 1" punch.  I can't tell you how many ways that punch has saved my life.  After that, I just added a few details with a Sharpie to some and touches of black and red construction paper to others to make these little faces on the bags.

 

 

Now that I had my gift bags read to go, I started work on what would go inside.  The first item I added was super simple.  I found, on the aisle with the crayons and coloring books, bottles of scented bubbles with awesome little monster like silly faces already on them.  They rang in at 97 cents a bottle, so I splurged a little.

 

 

 

The next item to head into the favor bags was a teeny little pot of play-doh.  You can actually pick up party packs of fifteen mini tubs for around 5 dollars in the toy section of your local store.

 

 





Of course, I couldn't just toss in a plain old tub on play-doh....so I went right to work cutting strips of neon paper to fit around the sides of the tubs.

 

I used a glue stick to attach the strips of paper to the tubs.

 

 

 

Then I used a Sharpie marker and some googley eyes to make monster faces on the tubs before tossing them into the bag.

 

 

I always try to include some sort of edible element to the favor bags.  You know...a little sugar shot to take home...so that all of the moms roll their eyes and the kids all love me.  ;) 

 

This year, I incorporated my food item and my monster theme in these little cuties.

 

 

The clear little containers came in packs of four with different all different colored lids.  The containers were four for $1.  I filled them full of M&Ms and used googley eyes to make them into little monsters.

 

 

As I was looking for ideas for monster parties, I found a ton of different posts where Ugly Dolls (yes, that is actually a thing) were given out as monster favors.  I loved them, but was NOT about to spend the kind of money it would take to get each child their own plushy.  After about ten minutes of pouting, I went up to the bonus room to see what extra supplies I had in storage that could be used to possibly make these little fellas.  Just to prove to you how much of an insane crafter I am...I already had yards upon yards of fleece fabric and a large bag of stuffing in my sewing/crafting supplies.  My husband gave me a huge eye roll when I marched back into the living room with everything I needed.

 

 

Keep scrolling for the full tutorial on these plushy little guys.

 

I have no idea how much these would have cost me had I purchased the fabric and stuffing when I started the project....but for me...these were free....my favorite price.  If you are doing these at home, here is what you need:

 

Brightly colored fleece fabric

White fusible fleece (scrap or smallest amount you can get)

White thread

Black Thread

an Iron

a Sewing Machine

Needle

Thread (I used a rainbow multi, but I recommend getting the colors of the fleece)

Stuffing

Scissors

 

If you are not really handy with a sewing machine...THAT IS OK!  These are VERY crudely made on purpose.  The whole point is for them to be MONSTERS!  Sew crooked, mess up, that is the fun in them.

 

Start by making your monster templates.  I just freehanded some little guys out.  If you are not comfortable with that, there are books with monster templates in them.  Cut out your templates from cardstock.

 

 

My templates ended up being around 7" tall.

 

The next step is to cut out squares from your fleece.  You want to cut double the amount of plushies you want to end up with (fronts and backs).  I cut my squares 10" so that I had plenty of wiggle room, but cut whatever amount you feel comfortable with. 

 

 

Once you have cut all of your squares, you will want to trace and cut out your fronts.  DO NOT cut out the backs.  You will see why soon.  This means, you want to trace shapes onto half of the fleece squares.  I used a Sharpie (sheepish grin), but I would recommend using a fabric marker.

 

 

 

Then cut out all of your fronts with sharp sewing scissors.

 

 

Next, you want to cut out 1" circles for eyes and any accent pieces, such as teeth from your white fusible fleece.  I used a 1" punch from cardstock as a template.  Make sure you trace onto the stiff, fusible side, not the fabric face.

 

 

 

On these I REALLY recommend using a fabric marker rather than a Sharpie.  You can see how it rubs off on skin.  If you do use a Sharpie, make sure you cut all of the black part off completely.  Otherwise it will show through when you iron this on and sew.

 

Place your eyes and teeth onto your faces where you want them and iron then on per the fusible fleece instructions.

 

 

 

Using your sewing machine with white thread, stitch around these pieces to secure them.  It took me a few times to decide how I wanted to stitch these.  I started out blanket stitching, but ended up using a short and wide zig zag to basically embroider them on.

 

 

Once you have sewn on all of your white pieces, you want to switch to black thread to add the pupils and mouths.  Once again, I just used a short and wide zig zag to create an embroidery style stitch.  Make the faces different in whatever ways you like.  On some of my little fellas I even used one eye and made an "x" for the other.

 

Now you want to pin the faces face-down onto the squares you saved for the backs.  When you stitch around fabric, it has a tendency to stretch or shift.  If we had cut both back and front out, it would have been very difficult to keep the sides lined up perfectly.  This way, you can move quickly and easily and just trim the extra when we are ready.

 

 

 

Stitch all the way around the edges, leaving an opening to turn these right side out.  A normal straight stitch will do, but you can do these however you like.  Once you have sewn all of these, you will trim the extra fabric off, turn them inside out, and stuff them.

 

 

You can see the little puckers here where I left the holes to turn them.  Once you get all of your monsters stuffed, you will use needle and thread to hand stitch the holes up.

 

Then just toss them into a basket for a monster adoption station.

I also printed out little monster adoption certificates for the kids to name their monsters.  I think My favorite monster name of the day was Hiffy.

The favors really ended up being super fun and cute.  A huge hit for sure.

I hope you enjoy making these for the little monsters in your life!

 

 



Monster Party Part 3: The Invitations and Decorations

The invitations for this monster party were the first place I started.  I only did a Facebook event, but it was still important to me for the invitations to be cute.  I used publisher to whip up these invites in a matter of no time.  The "monster" font I used was AR Darling, which came standard with the newest version of office.  The other font was Candara.  The monsters were free clipart from Google searching.  A few clicks of the mouse later, there ya have it.

I was really happy with the way these turned out....especially considering I whipped them up in under an hour for free.

I'm sure that if you have been following along, you caught a glimpse of my food cards on Monday.  These were thrown together from a template in Publisher and more of that fantastic free Google search clip art.  Just used the AR Darling font to type in the themed food names, and I had precious little food cards to use.  Simple as that.

The first bit of decorating I did was completely on a whim.  I used some neon paper that I had originally picked up for another project to convert my china hutch into MONSTERS!  Just added some touches of other paper to make faces, and taped these up inside the glass panes.  These are so adorable, I have seriously considered leaving them up permanently.

 

Of course, I couldn't leave those little dears to fend for themselves.  I grabbed a kettle bell and a picture that already sat on top of the hutch, converted them using some paper, and tossed them back on top.


Once that was complete, I threw some plain paper in frames with paper eyeballs and drew on some smiles for a few added monster touches.

On a recent shopping trip some vinyl monsters caught my eye.  I scored a pack of around 15 of these adorable little guys in the section with the crib bedding sets of all places.   I stuck these little guys up on several of our doors.  One even made his way into my kitchen window.

Other than those few touches, our decorating was pretty plain and simple.  Brightly colored table cloths, some confetti made from leftover neon paper, and a table runner of brightly colored scrapbook paper.  Cute, but extremely easy to throw together.

I hope you have been enjoying the Monster party so far.  Stay tuned for the favors and the party recap!  You won't be sorry!