Erica would love for you to meet Keni...

...that's short for Kenmore Ultra-Stitch 10.  My beautiful and wonderful sewing machine. She's an oldie but a goodie, handed down from my mother and used regularly to live out my dreams. That sounds super cheesy but its true; I LOVE this thing.

As you probably know, I started an Etsy shop about a month ago. I've already gotten 3 sales. If you didn't know, check it out www.etsy.com/shop/RagsRebornGifts

                                     

My first sales!! Thank you, thank you Vietfil and Michelle (I also got a sale from a lovely lady out-of-state who bought a pillow for her daughter but I don't know her well enough ask for a photograph)!! : )

I just realized that I don't have any blogs that showcase Keni's magic. Well, its time to change that! Here's a simple sewing tutorial for a homemade scarf.

                                       Made one for my mom's boyfriend and one for Wes.

DIY Scarf Tutorial --
    Materials needed: sewing machine, one yard of cloth, scissors, ruler

1. I chose a pattern that is already lined so measuring was a cinch. Call it cheating, call it genius, call it what you will but it made this project a lot easier.The length of the scarf will be one yard. The width can be however wide you want. I made mine 8 inches. Fold your cloth in half lengthwise (hot dog style). Cut along the fold so you end up with 2 long strips of equal size. Cut off any excess, if necessary.

2. Sew the two pieces together along the sides of the length.
           Leave the first and last 6 inches of the two pieces unsewn. We will use this part for the tassels at the end.
           Face the pattern to the inside (so its essentially inside out).
           Sew about a centimeter in so the seam isn't too close to the edge of the cloth. That will help with it coming apart or fraying.
3. After sewing, turn your scarf inside out (so now the pattern should be facing the outside like its ready to wear). It should look like a tube.
4. Sew the two loose ends together so now it should be one whole piece of cloth (a very long rectangle). The only things that aren't sewn are the 6 inches you left free for tassels.

5. Time for tassels!! Cut the excess 6 inches into little strips. Mine were about 1 centimeter (maybe a bit thinner). Cut the same amount on the 'front' and 'back' 6 inches. After cutting them, tie two at a time into a knot at the top.

And that's it. Bundle up and enjoy the winter. Almost time for 2015. Another year for new adventures! : )

Merry, jolly, white Christmas from Erica and Sadie!

Last week, my work had an ornament exchange. Everyone brings an ornament; its put in a gift sack and the participant gets to draw a number in return. Later in the day, the participants get to take home the ornament that matches the number they drew in the morning. Some had secondary numbers that corresponded to matching gift cards but I didn't get one of those. I got a nice glittery ornament shaped as a sleigh filled with presents.

For this event, I wanted to make my own ornament (its so close to Christmas, I bet there aren't any good ones left at the stores anyway). I was born in Michigan so I'm pretty sure the love of snow and winter weather is in my blood. Here's a quick run down on how my sparkly snowflake ornaments came to be. They turned out a bit more elementary than I would have preferred but that makes this a great project to do with children.

Materials needed:

dowels, craft glue, wire cutters, paint, glitter, paper plate, ribbon, ruler, paint brush

1. Measure and cut the dowels into pieces to form geometric patterns. I played around with a few shapes and designs. Arrange the pieces on the paper plate into any pattern of your choosing.

2. Glue the pieces together and paint both sides of your snowflake. I waited about an hour to let my glue fully dry before painting. It probably took forever because I used an excessive amount of glue (as you can see in the picture above). Then after painting, I let 'em dry overnight (it was getting late anyway).
3. Using the paintbrush, spread glue all over the snowflake. Then sprinkle generously with glitter. Make sure the whole thing is coated!!

4. Tie ribbon on top to use as the loop to hang on the tree.

I made three so each of my coworkers could either keep one or use it to participate in the ornament exchange. Only a few more days until Christmas. Is all your crafting done? I'm done with my DIY gifts : ) Now all I have left to do is baking...chocolate peppermint bark and white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. Yum!

Captain America and Iron Man are Erica's favorite super heroes...

... but Wes' favorite is Spider-Man. I've learned to be a Spider-Man fan over the years of dating Wes. When we went to Sydney, we saw Amazing Spider-Man 2: The Rise of Electro at the world's largest IMAX. It was the one in Darling Harbour. P.S. Darling Harbor is my favorite place in Sydney; I highly recommend it if you ever visit the land down under.

Wes's friends got him a hideous Spider-Man shirt from a garage sale. (It was one of those oversized faux silk ones.) He mentioned that he needed a lunch bag for work. I was wandering around Target and saw a canvas lunch bag on sale and snagged it. Then DIY inspiration happened!! I took the two and made this.

Recycled shirt lunch bag tutorial-
   Materials needed: lunch bag (mine was canvas), shirt, hot glue gun, scissors, needle & thread

                                                      The original bag and shirt

1. Cut the shirt into pieces that are a little bigger than the sides of your bag. One piece for each side of the bag (mine was 5 pieces).
2. Glue the pieces onto their respective sides.
3. Since we cut the shirt into pieces that were a little bigger than the sides of the lunch bag, we can trim to the exact perfect size. After trimming, sew the edges of the shirt onto the lunch bag. This probably isn't absolutely necessary but it will prevent damage from wear and tear.

Its almost Christmas!! A little over a week before I get to shower my loved ones with hand crafted gifts : )

A little off topic... but... I just wanted to thank everyone for the birthday wishes, engagement congratulations and condolences regarding Kensington. All the Facebook messages, texts and phone calls were greatly appreciated and reminded me of all the wonderful friends and family I am surrounded by.

Erica proudly works at Delta Dental of Oklahoma

This time last year, I was a Client Relations Representative and I worked with a lovely group of ladies. It was a good position and I did well. Now, I am a Marketplace Account Representative and I work with two even more wonderful ladies. I plan to make their Christmas presents but more on that later. This post is to showcase the gifts I made my coworkers last year.

I often buy too much material when I start crafts and projects. This idea came from having too much ribbon and too many beads. I looked around on Pinterest and other DIY blogs and saw these bracelets. While I was in bracelet mode, I also made travel bracelets for Wes and myself for when we went to Sydney. Two bracelet tutorials in one post. OMG! so exciting : )

1) Pearl and ribbon bracelet tutorial:

I suggest googling this and finding step-by-step pictures to accompany my instructions. It'll make it a lot easier.
Materials needed - wire, ribbon, pearls, scissors

1. Use as many pearls as about 3/4 the size of your wrist. Cut ribbon about 2.5 times the length you want the bracelet to be. Cut the wire about 1.5 times the length you want the bracelet to be. (I always use large numbers for measurements to stay on the safe side)
2. Poke the wire about 3 inches into your ribbon (the loose 3 inches will be what you use to tie it to your wrist). Work the wire into a knot where you initially poked it through.
3. String one pearl though the wire. Fold the ribbon into a small upside down "U" and poke the wire through the other end of the pearl.
4. String a pearl onto the wire and wrap the ribbon under the pearl.
5. Fold the ribbon into another small upside down "U" shape and poke the wire though the other side of the pearl.
6. Continue stringing pearls though, wrapping the  ribbon under and making upside down "U"s and poking the wire through the other end of the pearl until you're out of pearls.
7. Leave about 3 inches of ribbon and work the wire into another knot. Cut off excess wire.

2) Cord and hexagonal nut bracelet tutorial:

I suggest googling this and finding step-by-step pictures to accompany my instructions. It'll make it a lot easier.
Materials needed - cord or some type of tough string, hexagonal nuts (hardware stores call them hex nuts - lets call them beads) , tape & scissors

1. Use 16-20 beads plus one for the clasp. Actually, however many you want is fine as long as it's an even number. Grab the extra one to use for the next step. Cut three equal pieces of cord. I would use about 3 times the length you want your bracelet to be.
2. Tie the cord though one bead. Tape this bead down on a flat surface, I would recommend a table.
3. Braid about 1/4 of your string.
4. This next step will probably either sound very intuitive or confusing depending on how well you know how to braid. After you have a quarter of your string braided, start weaving the beads into the braid.  I've been braiding since I was very small and I probably couldn't give instructions on how to but I can give tips - string the beads tightly into the braid, string one bead after each cross over of string, braid very slowly. I don't know if its clear in the photo, but there's one full braid in between each bead.
5. After all your beads are weaved in, continue braiding the rest of your string. The beads should have taken up half your string so you'll have 1/4 remaining so, in theory, the first and last section of bracelet should be the same length. Mine didn't quite turn out that way.
6. Leave enough string to tie a loop knot at the end. The loop should be big enough to put the initial bead from step 2 though but not too big to where it'll fall through.

I apologize for the lack of pictures. They would have made the instructions a lot clearer. When I made these, I only had pictures but no instructions. Maybe if you find the DIY pictures online, you can use my instructions as a companion guide.

Next to crafting, baking is Erica's favorite hobby.

I love desserts. I've baked almost everything: cookies, cupcakes, muffins, a pie or two, cheesecake, and even vegan cookies. Some have turned out amazing (^.^) and other recipes have been duds (;_;) It could be because I cannot follow a recipe. I either 1. think I can do it better or 2. I am too cheap to buy everything I need so I substitute ingredients.  I made wheat pumpkin bread with pumpkin spice whipped cream for Thanksgiving and plan on doing a chocolate peppermint bark for Christmas. And probably also a cookie for Christmas but not sure what type, yet.

I was looking though the little drawer that's built in underneath the oven --what is that thing called?--and saw that I had way too many cookie trays. What to do? DIY them into gifts, of course!

This is the one that's currently hanging in my cubicle at work.

Cookie tray magnetic board tutorial-

don't really need all of those things, duh, but the essentials are - cookie tray, paint, and string. I would recommend a drill for the holes for the string but I couldn't find one so I used a hammer and a screw driver. It takes quite some time to hammer a hole through a cookie tray. LOL

This won't be much of a tutorial. Think of it more like "here's an idea for you to re-purpose old cookie trays." Three steps:

1. Hammer or drill two holes at the top of the tray.
2. Paint the tray or, as in the first picture, glue a background to the tray.
3.Loop string through the holes on top.

I made some silly magnets to adorn mine.  I also glued pictures along the bottom. Other ideas: pen and Post-It notes, magnetic poetry, charms or to-do lists.