Selvage Earring Tutorial

Ever wonder what you could do with all those selvages or thin tiny fabric scraps?  Ever have an outfit that you could never find earrings to match?  Fret no more! 

I finally got the time to make my selvage earring tutorial!  So here goes.

Materials Needed:
~Low temp hot glue gun
~Bendable wire (I used floral wire)
~Ear wires
~Crimp beads
~Needle nosed pliers and wire cutters
~Scissors
~About 18 inches of selvage or just 18 inches of 1/2 inch thick fabric

Depending on how big you want your earrings, cut your wire into two equal lengths.  Mine were 5 inches.

Place a small strip of glue at an angle at the end of the selvage.  You want to use the smallest amount of glue possible so the ends will go into the crimp bead easily.  Glue the wire down at an angle like so.  Then just start wrapping the wire.  You may need to glue it at points here and there if the wires are much longer than 5 inches.

When you get to the end of your wire, glue down the selvage with a thin bit of hot glue.  Make sure to glue it to the wire and not just other fabric.  You don't want the wrapping to unspin.  When it's glued down, cut the extra selvage off.  This will be used to make the second earring.  Excuse my camera strap at the bottom of the picture.  It has nothing to do with the earrings.

Now bend your wrapped wire into the shape of a horseshoe. 

Pinch the ends of the wire together and apply a crimp bead to the top.  I used a wider set of pliers for this than my needle nose, but needle nose should work just fine.  Then trim off the scraggly ends at the top of the bead. 

Now use your needle nose pliers to open the bottom loop on the earwire enough to thread the crimp bead onto it.  Make sure the pretty side faces front and thread the crimp bead onto the earwire.  Close the earwire back with the needle noses.  If you were a little violent with your project (like me), you may need to reshape your fabric/wire loop at this point.

And there you have it!  Now just do the same thing for the other earring using the rest of the selvage scrap.

If you make some of these I'd love to see a picture!  Upload one to my Flickr group here --> Evan Becky's Fan Pics on Flickr



To-Do List 10-21-11

This post is more for my sanity than anything else.  But on the other hand, I'm thinking about doing a giveaway soon!  Who's with me?

~Alter the peasant dress (which may entail more work than I thought) It's done!  (hehehe!)  And I didn't have to tear it apart!
~Belt and bag to match peasant dress (I have some nice microsuede polyester for this!)<-- This is not done because I realized that my poly suede doesn't match.  I think I'll just buy a belt.  And save the poly suede for a different bag.
~Make the "fur" lined coat--This has been put on the back burner.  It's not all that important that I get it done.  I have all winter to wear it.
~Dollywood bag--I think I'm going through with it.  It shouldn't (shouldn't being the keyword) take long
~A-line skirt with black, white and pink plaid material
~Make a tutorial for the selvage earrings.<--Got the pictures made!  They are super cute! 
~Remake a train engineer hat for an order.  I knew in the back of my mind that this might happen though.  I made the hat a little too small.
~Redesign my jewelry case idea.  I like the new design much better
~Made the executive decision that I'm going to All About Fabrics again tomorrow for some molded plastic zippers and rip-stop nylon--These are for new travel kits Turns out I didn't need molded plastic zippers.  Oh well, they were cheap
~I'd really like to make a "catalog" of stuff that I make.

Now for the new stuff:
~Try printing on ribbons and fabric using some tutorials I found online
~Make my Pretties with the wine satin and white lace.  Got that idea here --> Etcetorize
~Make the Sweater Bangles like I found here --> A Very Sweet November
~Make a Ruffle scarf like Merediths here --> Haute to Sew
~More Travel Kits and Gift Card Holders

And for the Must be Done Monday List:
~Get up early (hmm, this doesn't sound right, get up early on my day off...)
~Finish off my pedicure gift card from my Mother-in-law :)
~Find some bangles to make above said bangles
~Find some brown leg warmers, maybe...
~Find a dress belt if not done before Monday
~The Pretties
~Sweater Bangles
~Dollywood Bag
~Then if I have time, the pre-cut Travel Kits and Gift Card Holders

I should probably get up at about 6 AM.  That oughta do it.

Awkward and Awesome 10-20-11

I'm just gonna bust right on in with it.

Awkward

~All the craziness that seems to be going on everywhere!  I think that since it was cloudy all last week to cover up the full moon, everybody realized this week that they missed it, so they are extra crazy.  Going shopping today started to get on my nerves because people were being rude and had no regard for someone in scrubs who might have to go into work soon.

~Spending most of the past two days with urine all over my hands from working on the urinalysis counter.  Not the job I had in mind when I went to college.

~Almost ending up in a whipped cream fight on my back porch with a bunch of middle school girls.  See this post for a few pics. 

~Having to save my brother's girlfriend by tickling one of the above middle schoolers. 

~This wasn't awkward for me, but for Hubs.  Sam and Megan (my brother and his girlfriend) almost seeing Hubs in only his tidy whities on Sunday afternoon before the kids got to our house.

~Having to wash my dress jeans after only a few hours wear because Ike Beast slurped me up the side of the leg.  Dog slobber isn't exactly a fashion statement I'd like to make.

~Hoping to goodness that Ike Beast didn't get too "excited" (if you know what I mean...) for our Christmas card picture.

I just realized that all but the first two awkwards happened on Sunday.

Awesome

~Getting the Christmas card picture made with Ike looking at the camera and without him being too excited.  This was a Christmas miracle in and of itself.  I'll post the card when it gets closer to Christmas.  We just wanted to make sure we had enough time to print the pics.

~Scoring some great deals at Old Navy for Hubs.  I just hope he likes what I picked out.

~I bought some wine colored satin, white lace and tiny elastic at Hobby Lobby today.  Hubs and I are going on a romanic trip to the mountains next weekend.  Can you guess what's going to be made from the satin and lace?  ;)

~I found out what to do with the left over sweater from my pumpkins.  Look here -->A Very Sweet November

~I figured out how to alter my peasant dress without tearing it apart and starting over.  Sure, it would probably fit better if I started over, but I don't have time for that.  You really don't know how excited this really makes me.  I'm gonna try to do this before Sunday so I can have WIWW pics of it.

~Finding these little babies on sale for $15 at Old Navy today

I almost passed them by, but I couldn't help it.  I had been wanting some leopard print flats.  And my recent check of the website says that they are $20 from there and they don't have my size.  Score!  Now, for the first time in my life, I kind of want some brown leg warmers to wear with my jeggings and these shoes...

~The new Casting Crowns CD came out this week.  I pre-bought mine for practically $5 and picked it up today!

~Only 6.5 more days before I'm no longer an employee at the hospital!  Ok, so I really do like my job and most of the people I work with, I just hate the hours.  Plus, it doesn't matter how good the boss is elsewhere, they don't hold a candle to my Daddy being my boss.  I'm also soooo looking forward to being able to cook dinner for Hubs every night. 

I think that's all I'll leave you with today.  There really have been so many awesome things happend this week.  I think doing Awkward and Awesome is just God's way of telling me that the good really does rule over the bad and that He will always look out for me. 

Eventful Weekend

So much happened this weekend, yet, I feel like I didn't get much done.  And truthfully, I didn't get much done off my to-list, but a lot of stuff that needed to get done, got done.

First of all, I got my sweater punkins made:

I first saw these from Rachel at My Happily Ever After, who found the tutorial over at Small Fry and Co.  They do such a good job with it, I'm not gonna go into the gory details of it, but whether you are a seamstress or not, these were so easy to make.  I tried to find sweaters at the Goodwill that I didn't think anyone would wear, but I still had a hard time hacking up a perfectly good sweater.  But they made great centerpieces for my dining room table.  And I still have lots of sweater left of the gold and white ones because I only used the sleeves for those!

And we did a big cleaning of the house.  Hubs was especially excited about that.  He's a clean freak.  I am not.  But I'm trying my best to keep it clean so we won't have so much work to do at Christmas.  That's really what took up most of my time on Saturday.  Between that and the preschool Fall Festival at church.  We aren't preschool workers, but our youth were helping to run booths, so we were also helping.  I also put on about 12 quarts of vegetable soup for my Mother-in-law's birthday party on Sunday.

So skip ahead to Sunday, after church we finished throwing together the birthday party.  This included making 2 dozen cornbread muffins and decorating a giant pumpkin pie with whipped cream.  The whipped cream melted and made a mess of the pie, but luckily it was store bought and I didn't feel like I had too much invested in it.  Everybody said it tasted good.  But we had a lot of fun and a lot of food!

Hubs's mom (and dad) blowing out candles.  That's her mother on the other side.  Can you believe that Hubs's grandmother will be 90 next month?!  (Don't tell her I told...)

Me and Emma, my middle niece.  She is a girl after my own heart.  She wanted to know what projects I was working on and was thrilled about my sewing room.  She's also the one who always makes sure I can come to her birthday parties.

Then on Sunday night we had our crazy bunch of Middle Schoolers over for Small Groups.  We decided that the snack for that night was going to be pancakes.  Hubs made about 50 pancakes and they were all gone by the end of the night.  Along with some ice cream, about half of the left over pumpkin pie and a few bags of chips.  They will eat you out of house and home!  And did I mention, that we had chocolate and strawberry syrups and whipped cream for the pancakes?  They took over that.

That's our pastor's daughter with her mouth open.

And her mom and dad lead High School Small Groups

They're crazy, but I love them!  

New Facebook Button!

Hey everybody!  I created a new button for my blog tonight.  If you don't notice it to the right, it looks kind of like this:



Just click the one on the right and it will take you to my Facebook fan page.  I promise I'm not one of those people who sends crazy updates out the wazoo and I'm planning on a special offer here in the next few days.  Go check it out please!

Awkward and Awesome 10-13-11

I'm back doing Awkward and Awesome!  I racked up a few awkwards for the week.

Awkward

~This was actually from last week and I forgot about it.  Stuffed peppers take longer than 30 min to cook.  Poor Hubs was eating them cruchy before he had to go to  his fire meeting.  He did nuke one in the microwave and it got a little better. 

~Losing an epic battle to some white velvet.  While wearing dark clothing.  It looks kind of like this:

A word to novice seamstreses like myself.  Velvet is sooo not worth the trouble.  It puckers and buckles when you try to sew it.  And it leaves its dust everywhere.  That pile of velvet is still sitting in the floor mocking me everytime I go in my sewing room.  If you want it, it's free to a good home.  As long as it doesn't eat the mailman on the way there.

~Still having velvet dust on your pants after washing them, but being late-ish for work and having to wear them anyway.

~Having a to-do list that never gets shorter, it only grows.

~Eating half a box of Better Cheddars for lunch yesterday.

Awesome

~Hubs saying that the stuffed peppers were amazing once they were cooked all the way through.

~Seeking revenge on the velvet by buying some really nice white flannel

~Realizing that the lady at the fabric shop didn't charge me full price for said flannel

~Getting some of my zippers sorted out so I know what Travel Kits I can make with which fabrics

~Washing my prized sweaters from Goodwill to make my sweater punkins

~My mother-in-law's birthday party on Sunday (her birthday's saturday, but we can't get the family together until Sunday).  We're having vegetable soup and corn bread for sure.  And some other stuff.

~The birthday card I made for a coworker's niece:

I think I'm gonna start writing my Awkwards down as they happen.  I keep remembering things from weeks past.  Maybe I shouldn't though.  It makes me realize all the awesome stuff that happens to me every week.

What I've Been Doing Lately

This won't be another to-do post.  That's for later this week.  I really haven't done much to knock stuff off my to-do list.  I keep adding stuff, but not striking others off.  However I do feel like I've gotten a good bit accomplished.  I feel like I'm on a good path forward, though my to-do list doesn't look like it. 

So, instead of worrying about my shop and sewing and such while I'm at work, I've been reading.  I love reading.  And I want to tell you about what I've been reading.

For Christmas last year, Hubs gave me a book that was the first in a series that I had had my eye on.  It was The Centurion's Wife by Davis Bunn and Janette Oke.

And on a recent trip to Lifeway, I looked at the Bargain Books and found the next two books in the series for only about $6 each!

I've gotten a little over halfway through The Hidden Flame, and it keeps me wanting to read more.  So far I've really enjoyed these books.  They do take a few liberties with characters in the Bible.  A few background stories are made up (the Centurion in the first book is the Centurion who asks Jesus to heal his servant, Ananias and Saphira are in the second and Saphira's brother is a major character), so if you are someone who would consider this blasphemey, you may not want to read these books.  Although some stories are written for Biblical characters, there is nothing that goes against the Bible.  There is actually a good bit of scripture throughout and the characters who are in the Bible are all well represented when it comes to what we know of their personalities from the Bible (Martha is always busy working, Herod was a character you loved to hate).  And then because they are written for us ladies, there is of course a bit of a love story woven through them, but you don't have to worry about a really smart young'un finding the book and reading any...ahem...love scenes.  I think anyone, whether they have extensive Biblical knowledge or not, would at least enjoy the books. 

What I love most about these books, though, is getting a glimpse of Christianity at its youngest.  They take place right after Jesus has ascended to heaven.  Growing up in the Bible Belt, I've never really felt a sense of persecution or even doubt that what I believe is really true.  Even if they don't believe it, a majority of the people around here have been inside a Christian church, or at least know the story of Jesus and don't really care one way or another if I believe.  I never really thought about what it would be like to talk to someone who actually knew Jesus, but set him aside as just another crazy man who said he was the Messiah but is now dead.  I've also never really thought about the leap of faith that it takes to for someone whose background says they should believe something else, to trust Jesus.  I grew up in a Christian home, I know nothing else.  But for a Roman soldier, or a Pharisee to change his mind would be a totally different story.

So there's what I've been doing lately.  I encourage you, whether you are a Christian or not, to just go and check these books out.  If nothing else, you've come away with a good read. 

No Awkward, Just Awesome!

I was going to link up to Awkward and Awesome again, but I realized there wasn't anything awkward (at least not that I can remember) that happened to me this week.  I got a lot of stuff done this week.  I think this post is going to turn into a done and to-do post with a few bits of awesomeness at the end.  Here's my list from last week with what I got done crossed off:

~3 black wallets for my Mother-in-Law
~Blue, green and brown wallet for my coworker
~5 Year Old sized Clemson Grayson Leigh hat for a custom order~Alter the peasant dress (which may entail more work than I thought)
~Belt and bag to match peasant dress (I have some nice microsuede polyester for this!)
~While I'm talking about the dress, make a scarf from the scraps (Imagining that it will be really cute with a white long sleeve tee and denim skirt) (See my WIWW post for this week for that idea) and earrings from the selvage
~Make the "fur" lined coat--This has been put on the back burner.  It's not all that important that I get it done.  I have all winter to wear it.
~Make up bags
~Curling iron holders Got one prototype done, it's functional, but I've got some tweaking to do.
~Gift card holders/wallets These are cute!  Got to make lots more for the Christmas season though
~Make a scarf out of an old grimey t-shirt as inspired by The Crafty CPA's T-Shirt Recyling Ideas (this link leads to her blog post which links to a tutorial)--I'll probably do this tonight while watching Storage Wars with Hubs Also in my WIWW post for this week
~Dollywood bag?
~A-line skirt with black, white and pink plaid material

So I have all that to do, plus a few other things:
~Make a tutorial for the selvage earrings.  The more I sew, the more selvages I acquire, and I think that these earrings will be a cute addition to any seamstress's accessory wardrobe
~Remake a train engineer hat for an order.  I knew in the back of my mind that this might happen though.  I made the hat a little too small.
~Redesign my jewelry case idea. 
~Made the executive decision that I'm going to All About Fabrics again tomorrow for some molded plastic zippers and rip-stop nylon--These are for new travel kits
~I'd really like to make a "catalog" of stuff that I make.  This comes after a friend who owns a salon said she might want to carry some of my stuff.  I'd like to have a brochure at least of the things that are in my shop and some color options.  It would be easier than saying, "go to my shop at whatever address" or "here's my business card."  I think this might get me more business than a card.

Ooh, I had almost forgot!  I had considered doing a party like Scentsy and 31 parties for my stuff.  This might take more work than I can handle before the Christmas season, but it's still a dream. 

And the bit of awesomeness that excited me the most this afternoon?  Old Navy has released this season's Performance Fleece!  I want these, especially the Houndstooth one, and they're only $8 this weekend!

Saturday Night Special Time!

Hey everybody!  It's Saturday Night Special time again.  That means you can take 25% off your whole order in my shop tonight from 5 PM to 6 AM tomorrow.  Use coupon code SNS25 at checkout.  Click on anything below to go to that listing or click my name at the bottom to go to my shop. 







If you don't like anything in my shop, check out the other sales going on.  With as many people as there are participating tonight, I'm sure there's something you want there!

Click here for all Saturday Night Specials!

Happy Shopping!