Make It Easy - boot gnomes

Today's tutorial is brought to you by Lori from Beneath the Rowan Tree and is the penultimate in our series. Please go on over to Lori's blog to see how to make her cute, clutter-busting gnomes. She tells me that her boot gnomes are guaranteed to live to keep boots (and mittens) in pairs and they promise never to steal underwear. (It is in the Boot Gnome Pledge).

Lori Campbell sports the dye stained hands behind Beneath the Rowan Tree. Lori works full time as a minister and mom, striving to live creatively and with wonder in her small northern Ontario community. Daughter Rowan (age 5) is a big inspiration! Lori works with silk, wool and wood to create natural toys for kids inthe Waldorf tradition. Being addicted to colour and fiber, she also sews pretty things when she gets the chance. Her blog is a mix of craft, business, parenting and life.

Chalkboard oilcloth

I guess you could say I've hopped on the chalkboard oil cloth band wagon....

Check these links for tutorials and inspirations :

Place mat and tags

Chalk cloth menu board

Oilcloth chalk mat

Organizer

I liked making things with the oilcloth so much I really went to town and made extra, so I have put some gift tags in my shop. The cool thing about these is that they can be used, wiped clean and reused, over and over again. And that makes me happy.

Make It Easy - mini recipe album

We have 3 tutorial left to go in our series! Today Stacey shows you how to make a mini recipe album in which to keep recipes you've made and loved. Her simple 4x6 album holds your favorite recipes and photographs of the desserts you've baked. Be sure to hop on over to Stacey's blog for the tutorial.

Stacey is a photographer, artist and creator of fanciful things. When she’s not taking photographs she can be found baking, snuggling with the cutest dog in the world, watching a movie, playing a game with her family, composting, taking a walk, eating a Sprinkles cupcake, blogging, volunteering, running or sleeping.

Peg People

Last weekend we made some little peg people using these wooden clothes pins and some 'heads' we found at the craft store. The heads have holes in the bottom so they can be glued onto the clothes pins.

It turned out to be a good opportunity to get out my box of scrap fabrics. I always like using up as much of that as I can.

Then we got out the paints and painted faces onto the heads.

And some of us even painted hair. White hair to be exact.

And then we used pipe cleaners for arms and cut out some skinny little clothes.

And dressed our little dolls.

I'm usually more of an overseer or facilitator when my kids craft because they end up trying to copy what I do and then get frustrated when it's not the same or they don't think it is as good as mine. But I couldn't resist making myself a little doll too. I had some alpaca wool I had bought in a craft fair which I used to give her her slightly crazed look.

It was lucky I made one too because she turned out to be a nice little companion for the boy doll. He even gave her a hand getting onto the bus. Let's face it, she needed one.

Make It Easy - fold-a-notes

Wendy has our 8th tutorial in our series for you over on her blog today. She will be upcycling a grocery bag into a nifty fold-a-note. She has me completely intrigued so be sure to head on over to her tutorial and check it out.

Wendy has been making things since preschool, and has only just found her niche in the handmade world, combining wirework with ephemera to make funky, green jewelry. She loves having the chance to use reclaimed and recycled materials in her work---it gives her Inner Cheapskate and her Inner packrat a chance to hang out with her Inner Tree-Hugger. She’s always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants kind of crafter, and she finds it appealing to make up her own rules as she goes along. She has six kids (!!!), so she does most of her crafting in bits and pieces, squeezing in whatever she can do whenever she can get it done.

Maxi dress

I downloaded the pattern for the Maxi dress #117 by Burda Style magazine from Burdastyle. You make the purchase online and then you are able to download the pattern and print it from home. I have downloaded several patterns before now and you have to piece the papers together with tape before you cut it out. They give you a diagram of how the pieces fit together so it's pretty straightforward, if a little time-consuming. They do have a reasonable selection of free patterns as well as ones to buy, and members are able to submit their own so it is worth doing if you find something nice you want to sew and especially when it is free! The pattern for this dress I think was about $5 and although I love the dress the instructions for putting the dress, particularly the bodice, are really horribly written. And I mean HORRIBLY. This would make an ideal project for a novice sewer or someone with just a little experience who wants to make something to wear, but I think they would be immediately put off by the instructions which appear to be written by someone whose first language is not English. And nor is it their second.

So, whilst I was making my dress, I took some photos so that I could show you what to do.

Firstly, you need pieces 21, 22, and 23. My download came with piece 24 which appears to be part of a jacket and so it confused me for a while, as I tried to work out where it fitted in. You do not need piece 24!

Seam allowances are not included in Burdastyle magazine patterns so I went around the edges of my paper pieces with my ruler and measured 5/8 of an inch with dots and matched it all up (a bit like a dot-to-dot). It felt a bit like a maths lesson. And I never liked maths. It is however, a necessary evil when sewing.

Once I had cut my pieces I then needed to work out which bits joined where, and obviously the instructions were of little help. After a trial run on a piece of scrap fabric, I realized that the pins in the photo below need to join to each other.

Since you are sewing on a curve, you are creating a shape to the bodice and it will stick out. If you have done it right, it will look like this photo below.

You then need to clip the edges of the seam allowance and press.

You then need to join the back pieces onto the sides. This is fairly straightforward, just make sure that the curve of the pattern piece, curves downwards.

And this is what the bodice shape should be like. I made 2 like this and used one for the lining. I didn't use the lace the keep talking about in the instructions. Instead I used some piping I made for another project and used that around the back and the neckline.

I found the part about attaching the skirt layers pretty straightforward after that, and used my common sense and read between the lines. If you have any questions about it, I can try and answer them for you.

My fabric is a Kona cotton in raisin.

Make It Easy - embroidery

Welcome to our 7th tutorial in our blog series. I am excited to tell you that Amanda from Flex Family Arts is offering a basic embroidery tutorial that will discuss fabric choices and supplies and will show you how to complete a pattern using a basic embroidery stitch. She is also including resources for learning more stitch techniques. Thanks so much Amanda!

Amanda is one half of the Flex Family Arts team. FFA started when Amanda and The Mister decided to start making and selling embroidery based on original patterns The Mister drew up for her. The Mister already had a recently-opened photography shop on esty and they decided to try opening another for embroidery. They began with classic circus performers and gaffs in their Pilous Percilla shop and branched out into pop-culture images including musicians, tv and film characters and more in their All Night Diner shop. Amanda has been working off and on in various forms of needles arts for about 11-12 years and is self-taught. Their blog, Flex Family Arts grew out of their three etsy shops and has become a wonderful outlet for them to meet other artists and keep folks updated on the goings on in their little family.

Tomorrow (Monday) we move into our second week of Make It Easy tutorials. 11 crafty bloggers from across the globe have grouped together to share with your their skills and artistry to offer you a wonderfully creative series of tutorials. To read more about our last week's contributors please read this blog post.

{Are you wondering who made our lovely graphics for this project? Jeanne from EarlyBirdGraphics created our banner and badge in no time flat. She was friendly, fast and did an amazing job. Please consider visiting her store if you are in need of someone to create something wonderful for you}.

This week we will feature :
Mon June 27
Amanda has been working off and on in various forms of needles arts for about 11-12 years and is self-taught. Her blog, Flex Family Arts grew out of their three etsy shops and has become a wonderful outlet for them to meet other artists and keep folks updated on the goings on in their little family.

Tues June 28

Wendy has been making things since preschool, and have only just found her niche in the handmade world, combining wirework with ephemera to make funky, green jewelry. She loves having the chance to use reclaimed and recycled materials in her work---it gives her Inner Cheapskate and her Inner packrat a chance to hang out with her Inner Tree-Hugger.

Wed June 29
Stacey is a photographer, artist and creator of fanciful things. When she’s not taking photographssheI can be found baking, snuggling with the cutest dog in the world, watching a movie, playing a game with her family, composting, taking a walk, eating a Sprinkles cupcake, blogging, volunteering, running or sleeping.






Thurs June 30

Lori sports the dye stained hands behind Beneath the Rowan Tree. Lori works full time as a minister and mom, striving to live creatively and with wonder in her small northern Ontario community. Daughter Rowan (age 5) is a big inspiration! Lori works with silk, wool and wood to create natural toys for kids in the Waldorf tradition.

Fri July 1

Emma (that's me!) likes making things and she loves to share this passion with her children. Whether they are busy in the kitchen baking cakes or at the table with the glue and the scissors, it's always better when the children are around. She loves sewing and looks for inspiration from other creative people around her and loves to share her ideas and her work on her blog. She currently works for Fiskars as a member of their Design Team and really enjoys using her creativity to come up with inspiring content for their website.

Make It Easy - summer jewelry

Today you will find the 6th tutorial in our Make It Easy (Etsy Educationals) Series over on Noemi's blog. She will show you how to make a necklace or bracelet perfect for the warm summer months and she promises that it is super easy and does not require any special tools!

Noemi lives in Salamanca, Spain with her husband and two daughters. She has always been involved in art one way or another and has a degree in Interior Design. Recently, enameling and metalsmithing have become her main focus and she also practices beadworking to embellish her work. Noemi will inspire you to create a beautiful necklace or bracelet ready to show off over the summer months.

Make It Easy - recycled envelopes

We all have a stack of magazines laying around. Why not put them to use? Sara Nicole's tutorial will teach you how to make stylish envelopes that are eco friendly as well. This tutorial is the 5th tutorial in our Make It Easy series. To find out more about this collaborative project please see this blog post.

Before you go and check out Sara Nicole's lovely tutorial, read a bit about her here.

My name is Sara Nicole and I am 24 years old and married almost 2 years now. I graduated in December of '09 from Columbia College Chicago with a B.A. in Art History with a focus on Architecture & Design. Just before moving to Michigan in March of 2010 I started selling my mini scrapbooks on Etsy. I have since added party supplies to the store as well! In October 2010 I had my thyroid removed and have been working full time on my craft ever since. Art and creativity has always been a part of my life and I love being able to share my work with the entire world!

Concertina Matchbooks

I have several matchboxes kicking around from my Great Matchbox Challenge, and I needed a way to use them up so I came up with this concertina idea. I started on the project not really sure where it would take us, but my kids immediately knew what they were going to do with them. The 4 yr old made a pattern book with princesses, wheat and grass and drew them in a pattern string. The 7 yr old naturally made a comic book with a funny little story about someone falling over (as far as I can tell).

This is a super simple idea requiring very few supplies but for the half hour that we worked on these together, I was cherishing every second. Their sweet little books are so innocent and I know that my kids are not going to want to make things like this with me forever. Even if these books don't last more than a few days before they are tossed aside I will keep the memories I have of making them forever.

(By the way, that craft knife I am using in the photo to score the folds on the paper, was given to me by the nice people at Fiskars).