Hand Print Pot Holders

For Mother's Day, Madie and I made these pot holders for my mother-in-law. The idea is definitely NOT a new one, although I haven't seen one before with a ruffle added. This could also be used for Father's Day (maybe without the ruffle, though).

Baby socks

Back in April, my older sister had a baby. It is her third girl, so she didn't really need anything but I wanted to get something for the baby anyway. I saw these cute socks at Target and couldn't resist.

                                      

They were plenty cute as it was, but I knew they could be cuter. So I got out some ribbon, jewels, thread and hot glue and here is what I came up with.

The ribbons were both stitched and glued. I just used hot glue but if you were concerned about it the jewels coming off in the wash you could use E-6000 or get some sew on jewels. I've used hot glue before and never had a problem with the wash.

And for fun, a little close up. Please excuse Blogger for rotating my picture.

Double Layer Tutu - a semi tutorial

I got an email recently from a friend of my husband's family. She sent me a picture of a tutu that she wants to recreate for her friend's daughters but wasn't sure how to get the double layer look without having to sew and wanted to see if I could figure it out. Here is the picture she sent me:

Is this not the cutest tutu?! It makes me wish that my daughter would wear one so that I had a good excuse to make it! Anyway, I did a quick google search and found several places that I could buy the instructions, but I'm cheap and decided that I could figure it out on my own. Sure enough, I did. And can I just say that this is SUPER EASY!!! Don't be fooled by the cuteness of it, it isn't any harder than your standard tie-the-tulle-onto-elastic-tutu.
Ready to learn how to make one yourself?
Start by cutting the tulle for the bottom layer into strips 6 inches wide (the width is entirely up to you, anywhere from 2 to 6 inches wide will work just fine) by twice as long as you want the finished length to be (so for a 10 inch long tutu cut 20 inch long strips). Now for the top layer, cut the strips equally as wide and about half as long. Then you are going to want to stack one top layer strip onto one bottom layer strip so that the middles line up, like so.

I realize that this isn't tulle, but cotton photographs better and quite frankly when I started this I couldn't find my stash of tulle.
Now that you've got your tulle strips stacked together we are ready to tie them onto the elastic (either use plain elastic measured to the size needed and stitched into a circle or depending on what size you need you might be able to get away with a narrow elastic headband like this).
I start by draping them over my finger like so,

then slip the strips under your elastic (which I like to put around my thigh while doing this). I don't have a picture for this next part but you are going to pull the bottom "tails" of tulle through the circle where your finger is.

It should look similar to this (sorry for the blurry pic). Now pull it tight!

Just keep adding your strips of tulle until you just can't fit any more onto the elastic, or until you are satisfied with the fullness of the tutu. If needed you can pull the top layer up to more fully separate it from the bottom (I found my tulle! Light pink is still light pink, what was orange in the pics previously is now hot pink) and trim the ends to make the even if needed.

You should now have two very distinct layers! I didn't finish because I didn't have enough tulle and like I said before, my daughter won't wear it anyway, but this should give you an idea of the finished look.

To get the red and white stripes on the bottom layer, I would do three red then three white and just go back and forth with the blue on top every time.
I hope that made sense and if any of you make a double layered tutu I'd love to see it!