"My Peeps" Shirt with Free Printables

The herald of spring and Easter has arrived in stores, the marshmallow peep! Now that it's arrived I thought I would make a shirt for my son featuring the peeps. I decided to paint on a separate piece of fabric because I liked how it looked and as a bonus, after Easter I have the option to remove it from the shirt and save it for next year! But you could always paint it directly onto a shirt.

The materials I used: one Garanimals shirt from Wal-Mart ($3.50 for a new shirt, awesome!), paint brush and Tulip soft matte paint in glacier white and sunshine yellow, a 5" x 3.5" piece of knit fabric, thread and sewing machine, cutting board and x-acto knife, my free peeps printables/stencils PDF.

In the PDF I included 4 pages to give you a few different options and you can choose your favorite peep, the chick or the bunny. The pages include what you see below in the color versions and in a black version that's easier to use for a stencil.

To make the shirt just print out the page including the image you want from my PDF. Cut out the letters/image with an x-acto knife. Then line up the stencil on the fabric and paint in the letters and images. I just freehanded the inside of the "e" and "a" and the lines inside of the chicks. You could also cut the eyes, the lines in the chicks, and the insides of the letters out of tape and paint over them then peel off the tape with tweezers while the paint is still wet. After the first coat of paint I let everthing dry then removed the stencil and did a second coat to clean up the edges and fill in the colors more uniformly.

Next, position the fabric on the shirt, pin it down and stitch it. I used yellow thread to contrast with the gray knit fabric. And I used a knit fabric so I could leave the raw edges and not have to worry about any fraying or hemming.

And that's it! A fast and cute shirt ready to go.

OMWTI: Week 2 voting!

Thanks to the judges and votes I made it through week 1 of the One Month to Win It contest with my ABCs and 123s wall hanging! The projects just went up for this week's theme, Mod Podge. Head on over to vote and see what everyone came up with for their entry! You have until Wednesday night to vote.

PS. And if you like bias tape but hate making it, check out my other blog Craft Buds to enter for a chance to win custom bias tape made by me!

ABCs and 123s Wall Hanging

This was my entry for the first week of the One Month to Win It competition where I am currently a contestant! The contest started with 12 contestants and each week 3 are voted off. Luckily, I made it through the first round so below is the tutorial for my project. In other exciting news, I've started a shop for my patterns! I'll still be including free patterns on most posts but the ones that have a more detailed design and need printable pages will be in the shop.

Materials list:
The following supplies are exactly what I used. You could easily modify this design to use a different frame or no frame and just wrap the fabric around a piece of cardboard backing.

• One 14" tall x 25" long frame with cardboard backing (glass not necessary) with an opening of
  21 1/2" x 9 3/4"
• One piece of brown fabric 4" larger than the cardboard backing from the frame (I used 25 1/2" x 13 3/4")
• 1/4" batting the same size as your brown background fabric
• Six strips of red 1/2" grosgrain ribbon cut to 26" with optional black wooden beads threaded onto the bottom of each (a total of 13 feet of ribbon)
• One package Wrights^® scarlet double fold quilt binding bias tape
• One package Wrights^® orange jumbo rick rack
• One roll of 1/4" fusible web for the border
• Alphabet blocks printed onto cardstock and cut out (pages 6, 7, 8). If printing correctly they should be 2 3/8" square.
• Number stencils
• Nine fabric scraps for the numbers
• Fusible web for the numbers
• Iron, glue gun, sewing machine (optional), rubber cement (optional)

If you would like to purchase the number blocks that I designed and the alphabet stencils, you can buy them at my new shop here! Your purchase will be delivered instantly as a PDF and will also include printable pages of the instructions provided in this post.

Step 1: Make the applique numbers. First cut out the number stencils and line up your fabrics in order on your background to make sure you like the color choices.

Then cut out rectangles slightly larger than your numbers. Iron your fusible web to the rectangles. I like to first use the tip of my iron to iron down just the center of the rectangles. Then, cut off all the excess fusible web, then iron it down completely. This helps you avoid getting the sticky backing on your iron. If that happens, just wipe it off on a paper towel. Then trace all your number stencils backwards on each rectangle and cut out the numbers.

Step 2: Prepare the background and border. First, cut out your background fabric 4" larger than the piece of cardboard backing from your frame. Next, center that piece of cardboard on the front of your fabric and trace around it. Cut your bias tape so you have two strips the length of the background and two strips the width of the background.

Then iron open your bias tape strips and pin them down so that the center matches up with the line you drew. Either sew along the centers or use fusible web to iron the strips in place. I did it this way because I initially thought I would only be using a piece of cardboard backing and no frame and I wanted the red border to go behind the backing when I wrapped it around. If you choose to use a frame, you don't necessarily need to open up the bias tape because it'll all be hidden behind the frame anyway.

Measure the length and width of the red border from the center of the bias tape. Using that measurement cut two strips of rick rack for the length and two for the width. Using fusible web strips under the rick rack, iron it down just inside the bias tape border so it looks like a scalloped edge. Then place a second strip of fusible web on top of the rick rack and iron the bias tape down.

Step 3: Putting it all together. Now that your border is complete, arrange and iron down your numbers.

Then stack together the front piece, the layer of batting, and the cardboard backing piece from the frame.

Press your project gently into the frame. Flip it around and make sure everything is lined up correctly. Next, fold down the fabric you have sticking up on the back. Cover it by either cutting a second layer of cardboard, or I just used the mat that came with my frame. If you need a hanging device, hammer in an alligator clip.

And this is how the framed part should look.

Step 4: Adding the ribbons and letters. Use a hot glue gun and apply strips of glue to each letter and press it into your strips of ribbon. Keep a ruler nearby to measure the same amount of space between each letter block. In the example the amount of space is 1 3/8" from the frame to the first letter block and between each set of blocks on the ribbon. When the strips of ribbon are finished, apply strips of glue to the frame and attach the ribbons.

Step 5: Finishing the back. To make the back of the frame a little more professional looking I cut a piece of paper to the size of the frame and used rubber cement to glue it to the frame. I chose rubber cement so I could eventually peel off the backing paper if necessary.

And the project is complete! Here's a couple final shots for inspiration.

Easter Eggs and Bunny Cookies

My tutorials are usually more sewing based, but today's Easter themed post includes tips on fun Easter eggs plus a recipe for these no-bake bunny cookies (or buppins as my son calls them)! And if you need even more Easter inspiration such as a printable Easter mobile, Easter mazes, egg wraps and more, check out this post from We Love to Illustrate.

The Bunnies

These no-bake bunnies are much easier to make than cut-outs but still give you that cute Easter bunny look! If you're wanting to make these easier for kids to decorate, scroll to the bottom for some alternate decorating tips.

I used my standard no-bake cookie recipe for these with just a little extra oats. In a saucepan combine: 1 cup white sugar, 2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder, 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup milk and 1/4 tsp. salt. Bring to a rolling boil (when it's boiling hard enough that when you stir it keeps boiling). When the rolling boil starts, start up your timer for one minute. When the minute is up, remove from heat and quickly stir in 1 3/4 cup quick cooking oats, 1/4 cup peanut butter and 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract. Use a spoon to quickly drop by teaspoonfulls onto wax paper.

You can double the recipe but it's hard to get them all done before they dry unless you've got some helpers! As soon as the cookies are on the wax paper, press two white chocolate chips into them for eyes with the flat side facing out. Press two slivered almonds into the tops for the ears. If they look like blank-eyed zombies then you're doing a great job.

Next, melt one block of almond bark white chocolate coating (that's the block in the lower right of the photo below) and mix in two drops of red food coloring. (You can also melt some of your white chocolate chips but I've never had good luck with them in the microwave, only on the stovetop on low heat.) Then spoon it into a ziploc bag. Twist the top so the chocolate is all firmly in the bottom corner. Then snip 1/8" off the corner. In the photo below I haven't twisted the bag yet. Make sure to twist it around several times so the chocolate doesn't go squishing everyone when you squeeze on the bag.

Start piping on the pink for the noses and ears.

Next, squeeze out the remaining pink chocolate back into the bowl and add food coloring to make it dark brown. I added 2 drops blue and 1 drop green but you may need more or less depending on your food colorings and chocolate. Spoon it into the unused corner of your ziploc bag, snip that corner and pipe on the eyes.

And now you have a cute little field of bunnies (ready to be eaten!).

Alternate decorating tips: Piping the melted chocolate will be too difficult for younger and some older kids. You can use jelly beans for the features by using black for the eyes and red or pink for the nose. Leave the ears just the plain almonds or cut a pink or red jellybean in half lengthwise and put it in front of the almond. Another option is to look for confetti sprinkles or something similar in the cake decorating aisle in your grocery store. After a few minutes, the white chocolate chips will melt and you can press the blue or purple sprinkles into the chips to make the eyes and add the pink ones for the noses. You can also use mini chocolate chips for the dark part of the eyes.

 

The Eggs

I've always enjoyed the tradition of dying eggs. Now that I'm doing it with my own son it's fun to think about combining different colors and learning how they all work together so you can make this project a bit educational too!

Start out by hard boiling the eggs. I prepared my dyes using a standard Paas egg dying kit and following the instructions to add together 1 tablet, 3 Tbsp. vinegar and 1/2 cup water. You can also make your own egg dye from food coloring using 1 tsp. vinegar, 20 drops coloring and 1/2 cup boiling water. You can find more information on the McCormick website.

Next, drizzle rubber cement over the eggs. On some I used the brush that comes in the bottle and on others I used a toothpick. Then I waited about 20 seconds and put each egg into a cup of dye. The rubber cement wasn't dry yet but I was impatient and figured most kids would be the same way! I let each egg sit a few minutes, pulled them all out and re drizzled with rubber cement. Back into the dyes a second time, then one more round of rubber cement and dying. Below you can see stages one, two and three.

Next, gently dry the eggs with a paper towel and rub off the rubber cement. The dyes weren't completely dry yet when I did it so they rubbed off a little with the rubber cement but I like the effect it gave the eggs. I don't recommend eating these eggs. The rubber cement is not non-toxic and the shell of an egg is porous so it's possible you could be ingesting some of it if you eat the egg. But they make a great decoration! Rather than hardboiling, you can also poke a hole about 1/8" in the top and bottom of the raw egg and blow the insides out then rinse. They're more fragile that way but you can also leave them out of the fridge for an unlimited amount of time!

And as a side note...the eggs below were the inspiration for the rubber cement eggs. I know, hard to tell! But, these are made in a similar way of covering over different colors and re-dying the eggs. I made these back in high school and college. They're a Ukranian art form called pysanky. Each egg is made using a tiny funnel filled with melted wax that you carefully draw onto the egg. Then, starting with the lightest color dye, you dye the egg, add more wax decorations, dye again and keep repeating untill you get to the darkest dye color, usually black. A little too involved for kids but it's so fun combining the different layers of colors! If you're interested in learning more or trying it yourself, I bought all of my supplies and how-to books from The Ukrainian Gift Shop.

OMWTI Week 1: It's time to vote!!

The theme for this week's challenge was Wall Art. I am so excited about my project and wish that I could tell you all about it right now, but it's got to stay anonymous until after the voting is over. In the meantime you can head over to One Month to Win It and check out all the entries. Then vote for your favorite, which is hopefully the one I did! Either way, you'll pick up some fun ideas on ways to decorate your walls.

Buttercup Bag + Wallet and Flower

Our church is having a silent auction soon so I made this purse, wallet and optional flower for my contribution. The purse is the "Buttercup Bag" sewing pattern that you can get (free!) at the Made by Rae site. If you haven't found Rae's site yet, it's amazing and you should go take a look around! The bag has a magnetic closure and a pocket inside and little pleats around the outside. I'd recommend either using a heavier weight fabric or some fusible fleece between the layers to give it a little weight.

The wallet and flower were both things I made up as I went along. For the flower, I used fusible web and ironed together some of the blue and brown fabrics. Then I cut out five 1" squares. Then (like origami) I folded the sides in so they met in the middle. I did that to all five squares and ironed them flat. Then I cut out a 1" circle, stacked everything up and hand stitched it all together with a button in the center. I put a safety pin on the back so the user could put it on the strap, the purse, or choose not to use it at all.

For the wallet, I measured out two strips of fabric 5 1/2" wide by 9 1/2" long. Then on one side, I cut the last 2" of the length into a triangle. Next I put right sides together and stitched all around the wallet, leaving an opening at the bottom and using a 1/4" seam allowance.

Then snip the corners and turn it right side out and iron it flat.

Stich along the open edge to close it up. Then fold over the bottom to make a pocket and stitch down the sides.

To finish it off I stitched a decorative button to the flap and put a snap underneath which you can see in the second photo from the top of the post.



I'm a contestant!

Hello readers, I have exciting news to share today! I'm going to be one of the contestants on the website 1 Month 2 Win It! The pics and profiles of the contestants went up today and you can see them all here. I'm the second to last one in the list.

So for the month of April I'll be doing a project a week for the contest. Each week the projects are voted on to see who gets to move on to the next round. The projects are top secret so you'll have to wait until after the voting is finished each week before you get to find out what project was mine and get the how-to.

There are 11 other incredibly talented ladies participating. You should definitely check out their profiles (linked above) and their websites. I'm a little nervous but excited to be doing this!