It’s So Fluffy, I’m Gonna DIE!!

I’ve been sitting around fighting these winter blues, creative itch driving me nuts, trying to decide what to do with my time. I thought about mod podging my TV stand, but I promised the hubs that I wouldn’t decoupage any more furniture until we sell our house (so here’s hoping for a quick sell), and I think he’ll be looking at some new LCD TV stands to go with his new TV. So instead I ordered

feathers-

lots of them too. And they are so cool! Purples, teals, browns, stripes. Oh man, I’m obsessed! I will be purchasing more very soon. Like, probably as soon as I’m done writing this. I did buy them with an intention in mind, and it’s this…

fFeather Earringse

Yes please!! And can I tell you that I am so in love with how they turned out! They have a little fun sexy thing going on and they make me feel dressed up and effortless, which is perfect for me and my life right now. Two little rascals, the less work I have to put into me, the better.

So here is a quick little tute if you want to make some yourself.

Supplies Needed:

2 dozen feathers, thread, leather cording, kidney wire earrings, 4 jump rings, 2 thin chains- one 4” the other 4 1/2”, with charms on the ends

To start off take a dozen of your feathers and bunch them together, making sure that the tops are even.

Take the thread and double it so it’s stronger, then tie a tight knot around the tops of the feather bunch.

Grab a length of the leather cording and thread on 2 of the jump rings.

Now take one of the jump rings and make a loop pointing down and hold it onto the end of the feather bunch.

And make another large loop with the other end of the cording, about 1 1/2 to 2 ft, making sure to leave the 2nd jump ring in that loop, but don’t cut the cording!

Then take one end of the large loop (not the end connected to the spool) and start tightly wrapping the cording from about and inch down the bunch, up to the top of the earring.

When you get to the top of the bunch take the cut end of the cord and the end still attached to the spool and pull them as tight as you can and cut off the excess. I took some hot glue and put some on the top and bottom and then smeared it down to keep all of the cording in place.

I didn’t get a picture of this step, but all you need to do is attach the 2 chains to the bottom jump ring and then slide the entire thing onto the kidney wire earring. These seriously took me about 25 minutes and I am seriously so in love! I was so excited to wear them that my special occasion ended up being at my mom’s for dinner after conference. But that’s what I love about these. I can wear them anytime. They’re just

so fun!

So, are you going to give them a try?

I hope you do!

Sammy

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?