Scraps

Bare walls drive me nuts. However, I am not really great with home decor. I tend to find all of our furniture from craigslist, family members, or the side of the road (seriously, drives my husband nuts). Everything hanging on our walls is either art from my kids, my very talented friends, or family photos. My house will never be in Better Homes and Gardens.

So we have a dining room. I love having a dining room, we found an guy through friends that makes tables and benches out of scrap wood leftover from building homes, a china cabinet for almost nothing, and chairs from Goodwill. It is big enough for our whole family even when extended family visits. It is also where my amazing Girl Scout troop meets, the kids do art projects and general mayhem happens. The walls in the dining room are still bare. Like totally neekid.

At first I thought I would put a dry erase board in there, or cork squares to change things up, but I didn't want it to be too classroom like. So a few months ago my friend Dorothy gave me a bunch of really cool vintage embroidery hoops. All sizes. I knew they had to be in my house somewhere.

So today the kids and I went through my fabric scraps and started loading up the hoops. To keep the edges down, we used Elmer's school glue, just in case we wanted to take the fabric out and use it in another project. If you want yours to be permanent, you can use a glue gun or staples.

This project took us about an hour from hooping to hanging!

I think it fits our dining room really well, and the fabrics remind us of past sewing projects! Bonus, it was FREE.

I know a lot of us don't have the hoops hanging around, but they can often be found in thrift stores or grandma's attic!

Free Flower Tutorial

A few years ago I was introduced to Kanzashi, or Japanese fabric flowers. Of course, from there I had to try my hands at every way of making a fabric flower that is out there. After starting to teach sewing to children, I modified what I learned and came up with an easy peasy way of making pretty flowers that was fun for adults but easy enough for children!

I have had a lot of fun making these from my scraps over the years, and these are no different! All of them feature the scraps from Jenean Morrison's Lovelorn collection on FreeSpirit Fabrics. I love how fabrics can look so different depending on the project. The small scale of the flowers paired with vintage buttons give them a totally different vibe than when they are used in purses and quilts!

Miss K modeling her fabulous hairflower!

You can find the Free Flower Tutorial here. On the last page is a pattern piece, which makes it easier for everyone, especially little ones, to cut out. I make these often for teacher gifts, and the girls will often search out vintage buttons just to use in flowers!

Happy Sewing!