Conversation Heart Frames

This was a fun little project that I whipped up last night. It's not actually what I was planning on doing (I'll get that one up later) but this idea popped into my head and I just had to get them done! Welcome to the

Conversation Heart Frames

{for V-Day}

So to start out, cut a heart pattern out of some card stock (easy-peasy)

Next take 3 different fabrics and cut squares large enough to fit your heart. Apply some Heat-n-Bond to the wrong side of all pieces.

Now flip those babies over and trace your heart pattern onto the back

and cut the suckers out.

Next I cut off a long strip of a canvas drop cloth and ironed the hearts onto it in a row, leaving enough space in between each heart that I can cut them apart and fit them into an 8x8 frame.

Then cut in between each one and sew the hearts down. I did a zig-zag stitch at less than a 1 length and at a 5 width and went all the way around each one.

Then I took my 8x8 frames, taped the canvases down around the cardboard on the inside and placed them inside.

When that was done, I cut out the words SWAK, LOVE, and KISS ME out of vinyl and applied them to the glass on the outside of the frame and that is it!

Super easy, and a really cute, fun, Valentines decoration that you can vary to fit any scheme you want!

Prairie Princess Headpiece

This was my last little finishing touch for the outfit. This was a pretty simple little project and took about a minute to whip up. I started with a rectangle of left-over fabric from the skirt. Mine was about 6X20", feel free to adjust the size for however large you would like the flower. Fold the rectangle over hamburger way and sew the ends together to form a loop.

Then fold the loop in half hotdog way.

No take a needle and thread and sew a large basting stitch around the open end of the loop.

When you've sewn all the way around pull the thread tight to bunch it into a flower shape.

And sew through the bunched area to secure.

And attach a bling button to the center of the flower.

Now take some Russian netting and cut a piece that is 2" longer and 2" wider than the flower. Find the middle point on the netting and tie a knot on the end of the row.

Then weave back and forth throught the row of netting

and pull the thread taut to bunch the netting.

And sew it down to the bottom middle of the flower.

From there, sew the loose edges down across the flower.

I found this cute little fray of feathers at Michaels for a couple of bucks.

Just hot glue it onto the headpiece, in-between the flower and netting. I also hot glued the button down to secure it.

To finish it off, I just hot glued the entire thing onto a thick headband, and there you go!

**Disclaimer** This headpiece is rather large and would be great for like, a wedding or a special occassion, or a photo prop, but I would probably not wear it to like, Walmart. But I suppose that is the great thing about Walmart, if you felt like wearing it there then I suppose you can, but again, I, personally, wouldn't :)

Prairie Chunk Necklace

So we find out today if we made it into Crafting with the Stars! My fingers and all of my toes are crossed, we really want to make it in! So we'll let you know what we find out!

Until then, here is the tutorial for the Prairie Chunky Necklace.

Here is a pic of all of the different fabulous stuff that I used for this necklace. Every item here was purchased at Michaels, but feel free to mix it up, use what you like, find a length that works for you, and what fits your style.

I've got four different styles of chains, 2 different types of beads, some fabric strips, a flower embellishment bead, eyepins, split rings, and some jewelry pliers.

I started with the base of the necklace. I took about 7 inches of a plain chain and attached a split ring onto one end.

I attached the flower to the split ring and then added another split ring to the bottom of the flower. The fabric strip is then threaded through the bottom split ring.

I then tied the fabric strip in a bow and then looped another split ring through the bottom of the bow.

To this split ring, I attached the entire big chain and then connected it back to the small chain at the beginning.

Next I started on the bead chain. The first step is to use the eyepins in all of the beads.

Slide each bead onto the eyepin and then clip with the wire cutters and curl the end with the round pliers.

When they are all done they will look something like this:

(I realize that I am showing the incorrect amount of beads in this picture, so just squint you eyes and pretend that there are 6 round beads and 3 square beads.)

Now start attaching the beads together with the split rings like so

I used my smallest chain on this one. My pattern was chain-circle-circle-square-chain-circle-square-circle-chain-square-circle-circle-chain. HA! Does that make any kind of sense at all? No? Well here's a picture...

Then attach split rings on the ends and attach it to the flower chain at the top of the flower on one side and at the top of the big chain on the other side.

Next I took my medium size chain and measured it so it would fall in-between the two finished chains, and attached it again with split rings.

(That's Ruth trying to get out of the picture in the background. haha!)

And to finish it off I measured one more piece of medium chain to go at the top so it fell the same distance as the middle two and attached it. (Are you confused yet? Don't worry, lots of pictures!)

And that's it! I love it. I love me some bold chunky jewelry that just screams, "LOOK AT ME!". I like to dress simply and embellish with jewels and accessories, and this one is just soooo fun, right?

Prairie Princess Skirt Tutorial

Hello hello!! I am so excited to be showing you all my Prairie Princess Skirt today. I'm pretty sure that it is my all-time favorite thing that I've ever made. It is so versitile and light and extremely frou-frou, which is awesome! Lets get this started.

You'll need:

3 yard of cotton gauze (I found mine at Joanns)

2 inch elastic(enough to fit around your waist, plus an inch)

32 6-in pieces of ribbon or some other kind of tie

freezer paper

First step is to cut out a triangle shape from your freezer paper with a flat top and rounded bottom. My length from top to bottom was roughly 42 inches and the width at the bottom was the width of the freezer paper and the top was approximately 5 inches.

Now lay out the gauze on a flat surface and iron the freezer paper onto the fabric. Make sure that the fabric is turned so that the lines on the gauze will be vertical.

Now cut out around the pattern. Repeat these steps for a total of 8 panels.

Next step is to begin sewing the panels together from top to bottom. I serged mine, but feel free to use a regular sewing machine if that's all you have.

Sew all all of the panels together but do not close the skirt. It should look like this:

Now take a tape measurer and measure from the top of the skirt down 41 inches and pin that length all the way around.

Now attach the last two panels to get the skirts shape and then I used my serger to go around and finish the bottom of the skirt and cut off the excess fabric in one step. If you don't have a serger, simply cut off the excess fabric and do a rolled hem on the bottom.

Now we'll prepare the elastic. I used Dana of MADE's method of sewing and attaching the elastic for her circle skirt and you can find it here.

Then if you have a serger go ahead and finish the top of the skirt.

And attach the elastic to the skirt. It should look like this:

Ok now this is the fun part. Turn your skirt inside out and we'll start pinning where we want the ribbon. Place a tape measurer at the seam on the elastic and starting on the front middle seam place a pin at 8in, 15in, 17in, and 24in.

Move to the next seam and this time you will move the tape measurer up 4 inches and then again pin at 8, 15, 17, and 24.



Alternate the 4 inches up and down the rest of the seams, so every other seam is going to have the ribbons 4 inches higher. Sew the ribbons or ties at each pin with a sewing machine.

It will look like this with all of the ties sewn on:

Now start tying the ribbons together.



By tying each set of ribbons on each seam you get the "All Tied Up" look:

By tying the the highest top set of ribbons and the lowest bottom set of ribons to get "Highs and Lows":



Undo all ties for the look "Let It All Out":

And tie the lowest top set and the highest bottom set for "Caught in the Middle":



So what do you think? And what other looks can you come up with?